← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
10/16/25: Mearsheimer Warns On Gaza Ceasefire, Newsom Short Circuits On AIPAC, China Says Trump Will Fold
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- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
This is an I Heart podcast.
- [00:04]
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Krystal Ball
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- [01:04]
Jacob Goldstein
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- [01:37]
Krystal Ball
Guys, Sagar and Crystal here.
- [01:38]
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.
- [01:45]
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.
- [01:51]
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 every morning in your inbox.
- [02:02]
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 Thursday. Have an amazing show for Buddy today. What do we have, Crystal?
- [02:14]
Saagar Enjeti
Indeed we do. Jam packed show. John Mearsheimer weighing in on whether or not the ceasefire is going to hold. We've got some terrible answers from Cory Booker and Gavin Newsom. When they are questioned on apac. Both of their brains just appeared to completely melt. Those will be fun to react to. Major updates in terms of our trade war with China. Big moves being made by the Trump administration. Also big moves being made in terms of regime change in Venezuela. The CIA apparently being greenlit for covert regime change activities. So that's, that's great. DHS caught lying about several incidents in Chicago. And David Siroto is going to join us on a couple of incredibly consequential upcoming Supreme Court decisions that could completely remake the electoral map and the political contribution, the money in politics map, I guess we'll say as well. So a lot of big stories breaking this morning.
- [03:02]
Krystal Ball
Yes, that's right. Thank you to everybody who has been signing up. Breaking Points if you're able to support the show and become a premium member. If you can't afford it, no worries. Just please go ahead and hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you're listening to this on a podcast, rate us five stars or send your favorite episode to a friend. It really helps us grow. So with that, let's go ahead and get to Israel. As you said, Professor John Mearsheimer weighing in on the ceasefire. We always look to him for his Trent analysis. Here was his immediate reaction.
- [03:29]
Jacob Goldstein
I think you greatly underestimate peers and how deeply committed the Israelis are to ethnically cleansing both Gaza and the West Bank. The Israelis now have a situation where there are roughly as many Palestinians as there are Israeli Jews inside of Greater Israel. And this is an unacceptable situation for most Israelis. And they're completely committed to ethnically cleansing Gaza and then the West Bank. I think the evidence is overwhelming on this. Now you say President Trump sees this as a great opportunity to prove that he's a statesman and he can bring peace to the Middle East. I think in principle that he'd love to do that. But I've written a book with Steve Walt on the Israel lobby, and there's absolutely no question in my mind that if President Trump gets rough with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Netanyahu will turn to the lobby and the lobby will force Trump to back off. There's no way Trump is going to get tough with Netanyahu if he violates the ceasefire.
- [04:35]
Krystal Ball
Some good words from the professor. And look, already we're seeing a few indications. Nobody really knows right now. Trump's laser focused, at least for him, on the Israel ceasefire. He doesn't want it to break. What about a week from now? What about a month from now? What about two months from now? Because Zelenskyy's gonna be here on Friday, and next thing you know, that's gonna be the biggest story in the world. His attention is gonna start going this way. Steve Witkoff is running that negotiation too. So all of the groundwork by is let's go and put this up here on the screen. For example, there's currently some major conflict between Hamas and Israel over the question of the dead hostages, Israeli hostages, bodies. President Trump at the White House yesterday said, quote, this is a very difficult process. They are digging, there are areas where they are digging and finding a lot of bodies. Some of the bodies have been there for a long time. Some of the bodies are under soil, some are in tunnels. This comes though at the very same time that all of the groundwork on the Israeli side is being laid for both trying to negate the ceasefire over this conflict over bodies being returned. But also Israeli ministers just saying the quiet part out loud. Let's put this up here. For example. You have Finance Minister Smotrick who vowed, quote, there will be Jewish settlements in Gaza, direct contravention both of the ceasefire agreement. The phase two, phase three, eventual coalitional provisional authority plan. From everything that Donald Trump has said about, I will not allow Israel or, you know, to annex the west bank or Gaza. But here's what he says. And I mean, this is part of the difficulty is that for those of us, Crystal, who know how to read the Israeli press or hit Google Translate, it's all a very different story. If you listen to Mark Levin or any of these other folks, he says, literally, so we have patience, we have determination and faith, with God's help, we will continue the series of victories and the big miracles, he says, in relation specifically to Jewish settlement of Gaza directly from his mouth. And, yeah, I mean, I don't think it gets much more clear than that. And you fit that with John Mearsheimer's pronunciation. Now, listen, maybe Smotrich is just a fringe part of the government. He has gotten a hell of a lot of what he wanted throughout the prosecution of this war. He's one of the most powerful parts of that coalition. What would some sort of future coalition look like that would even replace Baby? By the way, Baby's corruption trial delayed. If anybody's wondering, can we just. Do we have that?
- [07:00]
Saagar Enjeti
We do.
- [07:01]
Krystal Ball
I think it is a eight, please. If you're wondering, for his own political survival, he delayed his corruption trial. He has bronchitis. You know, he didn't. He wanted to make sure that he didn't pass his, his bronchitis to others.
- [07:17]
Saagar Enjeti
And so isn't he.
- [07:19]
Krystal Ball
He's such a thoughtful guy. Having bronchitis and just thinking of everybody else.
- [07:23]
Saagar Enjeti
This is better, though, than the alternative. Usually when his corruption trial is upcoming, then he'll decide to bomb some other country.
- [07:29]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that's right.
- [07:30]
Saagar Enjeti
Literally that's happened multiple times. To be, oh, well, we can't do the trial now. We're in a war with Iran. What are we going to do? So him having bronchitis is, I guess, a better alternative to the way he's gotten out of the trial in the past.
- [07:41]
Krystal Ball
Yes, that is a good point. But in general, that seems to be the direction where things are going. And already things are starting to fall apart in Gaza that show some of the folly of the Trump administration's plan here.
- [07:57]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, well, and Israel already slow walking some of the things they agreed to in the initial ceasefire deal. So they're supposed to be opening up the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian side. They say, hey, we're ready to go. Israel has not yet done that. So they're slow walking that. Obviously they immediately tried to say, oh, Hamas is violating the deal because we were supposed to get all of the bodies of hostages back. Well, in reality, everyone understood that this would be very, very difficult. You have the Gaza Strip buried in rubble, 85% of it turned into rubble. Hamas has also been banned. Like Israel has banned all of the heavy earth moving equipment from going in. So how exactly do you think that they can achieve what you want them to in getting the bodies out from under the rubble? In the ceasefire deal, it contemplated all of this. It was understood in the deal that this would be difficult, that time would need to be taken, that they would need equipment to be able to do this. This was all supposed to be overseen. There was collaboration with international bodies to make sure this was going and proceeding apace. So far, the Trump administration has said, we don't think that Hamas is in violation of the deal, even as the Israelis are pushing that idea. And, you know, which obviously gives them an excuse to go back to murder and killing. Not that they ever stopped. Okay, let's keep in mind that Israel has already multiple times violated the ceasefire agreement and killed Palestinians, even post hostage release. So you can see the direction they're trying to push in. And this is why Mearsheimer's comments are really important. Because, yeah, at the moment, it seems that Trump wants the deal to hold for the moment, but, you know, Netanyahu will be relentless. They will never stop. The Israel lobby will never stop. They will keep pushing. They will Keep looking for vulnerabilities. They will keep trying to do everything they can to go back to the killing, to go back to the death. And so it will take a lot of focus and a lot of determination from this president to avoid that outcome.
- [09:52]
Krystal Ball
Did you, were you the one who said that it makes you nervous how much the Israel lobby. Yeah.
- [09:58]
Saagar Enjeti
How much like Miriam Adelson is there? Like, hey, I love this deal, you.
- [10:02]
Krystal Ball
Know, anything that they're super pleased. The best I could hope for from them would just be silence. Cause it means they're mad, but they don't wanna say anything. But the fact that they're all out there cheering, I'm like, I don't know, there's something a little sketchy, I think that's going on here. And by the way, I wanna just highlight something that we spent a lot of time on with Ryan yesterday, which is the post administration, post war administration of Gaza. So for example, we played everybody this amazing clip, honestly, from Trump who was like, yeah, Hamas executed some guys. Frankly, I don't have a problem with that. That's what he said. He said, I don't have a. But apparently his government does have a problem with that. Let's put it up here on the screen. This is from centcom. They say, quote, we strongly urge Hamas to immediately suspend violence shooting at innocent Palestinians in Gaza. In both Hamas held parts of Gaza and those secured by the IDF behind the yellow line. This is a historic opportunity for peace. Hamas should seize it fully by standing down, strictly adhering to President Trump's 20 point peace plan, disarming without delay. We have conveyed our concerns to the mediators who worked with us to enforce the peace and protectness and Gaza civilians. We remain highly optimistic for the future of peace in the region. Now, in terms of what's actually going on, it's extremely chaotic and it is a reminder of what a place with some 1.8, 1.7 million people. Whoever's left alive, which has no civilian law enforcement authority, it's just like Afghanistan, it's just like Iraq. When you take out the central administration and you leave it to rubble, what's gonna arise in its place? Warlords. That's literally what's happening. Let's put this next one up here. This is from the Wall Street Journal, which actually has some reporters and sources inside of Gaza. What they're talking about, quote, is that after Israeli withdrawal, Hamas has launched a violent crackdown on rivals in Gaza. Effectively, apparently what has happened is that there are these non Hamas parties, powerful Palestinian families who have certain networks in particular cities. And you also have these Israeli backed kind of gangs inside of Gaza who are seen as collabor by Hamas and by some of the local population, although some of those local population also do certainly support them. And so almost immediately within the vacuum of no more bombing is there has been a violent outbreak for literal law and order. And we read yesterday, Ryan, an interview with a Palestinian community leader who lives in Gaza and he was like, no, I support Hamas because some of these guys were stealing flour from little children and then selling it on the black market, right? And so in some cases they're like, no, kill them. They're like, please go and get them. But it gets to the point of if you lay down your arms, which technically they agreed to in their 20 point peace plan, they're also kind of de facto accepting some sort of law enforcement authority. But it gets to this point about political legitimacy in the post war state because the only way to ensure that stuff like this doesn't happen and we don't have in Afghanistan where we have warlords in the north who hate the warlords in the south, and everybody's always beefing and, and basically warring over opium, drug routes and getting the US military to back them. Well, the only alternative is occupation. But who is going to occupy? I mean the Israelis certainly aren't going to do it, or at least the Palestinian people wouldn't want to live with that. The uae, Saudi Arabia, they just simply don't have enough troops. They don't even have weapons expertise. And counterinsurgency like this is a nightmare just waiting to happen. You can see exactly how the collapse and the eventual descent into civil war is so easy to see on the horizon. And Trump is gonna all of that because he's the chairman of this peace board, right, which he put into place. So I would actually say that this is the perfect example of what is to come. For years and years and years, if they don't have their own ability to have any faith or democratic legitimacy, something in their input into who governs the state and what that's going to look like.
- [14:01]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, no, that's true. And I mean, listen, Israel backed some of these groups and armed some of these groups. They were accused and alleged to have, based on reporting to have commandeered some of the aid trucks. And so listen, I'm not condoning. Is anyone surprised that Hamas is taking out and executing not just there were people who were actively collaborating with Israelis? This is. The Israelis admit some of this. And part of what the Israelis did In backing these groups internally is help to set up the conditions for potential civil strife, civil war, societal breakdown. So, yeah, of course, it's very volatile. Hamas is trying to reassert control. They're trying to reassert some sort of, you know, in a certain sense, like a vigilante justice, but some sort of brutal law and order here in the absence of, you know, every civil society institution has been destroyed. Like, there's no courts, the police, the, you know, the government, police, security services were targeted by Israel because they were, quote, unquote, Hamas. Well, yeah, of course the government is Hamas. Every government worker is technically Hamas. And those were some of the people who were targeted early on, which, again, creates more of an atmosphere of lawlessness and chaos. So obviously, very, very volatile and dangerous situation.
- [15:17]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, exactly. And then that's really what we want to stick with is because we just don't know really what's happening. Let's put a six, for example, up on the screen and we can just show you. You have some of these anti Hamas Gazan militias. Now they're claiming we control numerous parts of northern Gaza. Do not approach our areas of control. I just, you know, for those of us who lived through the war in Iraq, this is what it was like. Every single day. You had different parts of Baghdad where you would have some Shia militia put out videos, I mean, basically just lesser quality, shot on a Handycam that looked exactly like that, which would get released on the early Internet. And you'd be like, okay, this neighborhood is controlled by these dudes. Syria was very similar, covering that civil war. You had not even just province, like areas within provinces, areas within Aleppo where it's like, oh, they control this, they control that. And these guys would be at war all the time. Qatar and Saudi would back one person, the Turks would back another. The Syrian government was involved. That's what causes the death, the chaos really to come. And that's what I worry about really the most. And then you have, in a similar way to the Syrians or, you know, Americans or whatever, in Iraq, you have this kind of overarching nemesis as well, where you also have the Israelis, which are involved here. So, for example, let's put this up here on the screen. You had Al Jazeera reporting yesterday that Israeli tanks were firing at Palestinians in some towns, which I'm still not exactly clear. They claim for most of these firings they had crossed the yellow line, like into their line of control.
- [16:51]
Saagar Enjeti
They claimed that they were approaching the yellow line approaching.
- [16:56]
Krystal Ball
So it's like, well, then you Also are still in the imprisonment effectively of these people are at the total mercy. And that's the same circumstance which led to October 7, which led to Hamas, which led to a lot of the support. Right. For some of these parties, if we think to. I forget the exact name of it, but what was it in 2021? There was that nonviolent march.
- [17:19]
Saagar Enjeti
Great March of Return.
- [17:20]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, the Great March of Return to the fence where you had snipers and other people who were killed. So it's like if this is gonna be the status quo of some sort of militarized buffer zone where you get shot for even approaching, and then you also have literal lawlessness in the streets. Yes, you have aid trucks and all of that, but there's gonna be wars and things that break out over that. So some of the worst parts of the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the war in Syria, any lawless place, Somalia, Sudan, you're going to see replicate. And that, that is when things can actually get even more insane, possibly than where we are right now. Because that leads to a widespread cult of violence, a political vacuum, and you have no idea what can possibly come out of that. Nobody predicted, or very few predicted in 03 that we would give rise to Al Qaeda's greatest dream and eventually ISIS. The retaking of Mosul in a 20 year US occupation or US experiment in Iraq. Same with Afghanistan. I'm just watching the ingredients all here and, you know, unfortunately, it does take a genius to figure any of this stuff out. He said it from day one. But that's just not what the Israelis were ever interested in doing. And I can't fall away from this. The whole point was to destroy Hamas. And now the war is over, according to the Americans, and Hamas is retaking control of Gaza. So what does that tell you about the prospect of the war? Yeah, the point of the war.
- [18:42]
Saagar Enjeti
And do you think that Bibi is just gonna allow that to occur?
- [18:45]
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No.
- [18:45]
Saagar Enjeti
And be okay with Hamas reasserting control over the Gaza str. I mean, because the only parts of this deal, you know, Trump likes to frame it as a peace plan and likes to talk up all the 20 points or 22 points or whatever the heck it is. The only pieces that were actually agreed to was this very initial phase of the hostage return, the withdrawal from a portion of the Gaza Strip, the reopening of the Rafah crossing, the increase in the. In the aid that is surged into the Strip. Beyond that, none of the underlying issues that led to October 7th, that have led to endless conflict. You know, none of that has been resolved and very hard to see how they're going to be able to come to terms on these later stages. It would again basically just require Trump forcing the Israelis into it and you know, being willing to withhold arms and withhold aid and like actually going to the mat to force some terms on them that they are not going to particularly like that is what it would take. But none of those underlying issues have been resolved at this point. I wanted to re referring to the yellow line and what is Israel doing with regard to this? So Israel's president, Israel Katz said the IDF operates in accordance with directives and enforces a clear policy of preparedness along the yellow line, which includes over 50% of Gaza's territory, which important reminder that IDF still occupies 50% of the Gaza Strip. The enforcement policy is unequivocal for every violation and immediate response. Yesterday, terrorists who attempted to approach and cross were thwarted. And so it will be in the future as well. So that is his explanation for why they're continuing to fire on and kill Palestinians is because they were approaching the yellow line and that they're in a state of constant quote unquote preparedness. So, and Ryan tweeted this and said Israel's redefinition of the word ceasefire to allow for them to fire at war people they claim to believe might have been approaching a yellow line as one of their more sordid contributions to the world. Well said as always from Ryan there.
- [20:51]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I think it is an important point. So there's a couple of views of the future. There's mass civil war, there's coalitional authority, some sort of nightmarish attempt to try to govern this. There's also that status quo itself was a nightmare for the Gazan people that we have to remember the so called mowing the lawn strategy. So there's that on top of a collapse of their entire civil society. So I have just no idea where things are gonna go for them and for their own ability to find some sort of political solution to whatever it is, like the ability to live in peace. And you can't do that under bombardment. You can't do it in a civil war either. And in the interim it just seems like all of that is incredibly likely. And the international community, they just want to hit the pressure release valve and say the hostage and all that is over. And they've just never understood it's like for them there has been a perpetual state of conflict since occupation itself, in particular since 2005. And you know, the blockade and all of that beginning and what, 50% of their population is very young. So think about the formative years for them, about their even frankly, like, how can you have faith in a democratic process at all when the only time you had an election, the election was deemed illegitimate by the authorities and the powers that be from Israel and from the United States? So I don't know. I don't know where things go. I just don't think it's going to be good. And Professor Mearsheimer's words are very, very precious.
- [22:17]
Saagar Enjeti
He's been right about a lot. So he's been right about everything. Yeah, that's why we.
- [22:21]
Krystal Ball
It's time to just say he's always right about everything. For all of his critics and everything, they just, you know, they try to point to one or two things. But like, listen, the guy who wrote Israel like he predicted and called all of this, he called Ukraine, called Russia all of it.
- [22:35]
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- [25:08]
Krystal Ball
All right, why don't we get to APAC?
- [25:09]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. So some extraordinary political moments on the Democratic side of the aisle where two big potential 2028 contenders were out. Asked specifically about AIPAC in particular and with Cory Booker support for Israel in general and just completely crashed into the rocks for both of them. So let's start with Gavin Newsom here. He went on the podcast of a guy named Van Latham and gets asked about AIPAC and his answer is pretty unbelievable. Let's take a look.
- [25:38]
Krystal Ball
I will not vote for a candidate that takes $1 from AIPAC.
- [25:41]
Jacob Goldstein
It's interesting. I mean interesting. I haven't thought about APAC and it's interesting. You're like the first to bring up APAC in years, which is interesting.
- [25:50]
Krystal Ball
Why did I say that?
- [25:52]
Jacob Goldstein
Not relevant to the my day to day life.
- [25:55]
Krystal Ball
Okay.
- [25:55]
Jacob Goldstein
Which is just interesting. Listen, it's interesting you say that JPAC perhaps more, but APAC less and less. Okay, fair enough. Which is just interesting.
- [26:03]
Krystal Ball
What's interesting about it?
- [26:05]
Jacob Goldstein
That it's just interesting. As you bring up APAC that it hasn't been part of. I'm just reflecting quite openly and honestly hasn't been part of the day to day.
- [26:14]
Saagar Enjeti
If you're just listening to that, it's extraordinary. But if you watch it, it's even more because he's like wiggling and squirming in his seat like a little Kid keeps just repeating the word interesting wish Sagar, I think his initial, I think when he said it's interesting, his first instinct was to insinuate like this is low key, anti Semitic that you're asking me about APAC when I'm the governor of California, like what do I care about? I haven't even thought about aipac. It was also giving a little bit. Remember when David Pakman was like, is it pronounced? Is it aipac? Is it aipac? I've never heard of this. It's like, dude, you are clearly setting yourself up for a run for president in 2020. You've wanted to be president your entire life. AIPAC is one of the biggest spenders in elections and you want me to believe I haven't even thought about that? I haven't thought about them in years. I have no idea. And you can bring yourself to just say, hey, you know what a group that's in favor of a genocide maybe I don't really want their support. He is such a donor creation that he just cannot say anything other than this is interesting, it's interesting. Haven't thought about them. I don't know. Talk about brain melt in real time. It was wild to see.
- [27:21]
Krystal Ball
I am extremely disappointed in Gavin and I take it personally. I trusted his political judgment much more than to be honest. I mean I thought he's done quite well in general with the social media campaign in general, you know, like standing up for Trump. I'm talking about purely in a lens of Democratic politics. He's a smooth talker. He seemed to me like a coalitional manager. That just is a sheer sell in terms of political talent. Cuz it's like, dude, you're either pretending and you're not doing a very good job of it, or you're actually unaware of AIPAC and the controversy that's online. Both of those are frankly disqualifying in terms of just sheer political talent. I could give you a better answer from a Democratic perspective right now, which is kind of what Cory Booker tried to do, which we'll get to in a little bit, which is I don't take corporate PAC money and I don't want anybody's money who's trying to push a particular agenda. Next question. Right? And that's it, that's all it takes. But instead getting stuck.
- [28:16]
Saagar Enjeti
Money, I mean that's the problem.
- [28:18]
Krystal Ball
I know, but I mean there's as you know, know when Slotkin was here and she's like, well, I don't take money. It's like, well you took money from their bundler. So you did kind of take money. But there's a way to rhetorically figure your way out of it. And look, no disrespect to Van, by the way, I did talk to him. I am a huge fan of the Rewatchables and the Ringer guys over there. And so it's great to have his support. He apparently watches the show quite a bit, which is very cool. But my point just more broadly is that for him, Van, for example, coming in, this being like I want to take money from someone with apac, I don't think it's that hard. I don't think it's that hard to square. Like it's just one of those where you're right, I don't want special interest support if you're any of it. And I would say that about anybody. And then I would go into a tangent about some big business area which he's comfortable with. Right. And then just go in that direction.
- [29:00]
Saagar Enjeti
You know, what would be a good pivot to try to pull off? And if you have a dogged interviewer, there's no good answer for him.
- [29:07]
Krystal Ball
Right?
- [29:07]
Saagar Enjeti
But you know, if you wanted to try to pull off a pivot, you would say something like, you know, I'm really concerned about money in politics in general. Perfect influence of all sorts of whether it's AIPAC or JPAC or the corporate lobby or big Pharma. I am so concerned about the way our democracy has been taken over by big money. Supreme Court decision coming up. Trump is bad. Next question. Right, and like I said, if you have a dog at interviewer, they're obviously gonna press you. Okay, but what about AIPAC specifically? Like, have you taken money from them? Will you take money from them in the future? And then he just has to make a choice like are you going to say no and be aligned with where the base is at this point and where not just the face, by the way, this has become a very mainstream concern with AIPAC as a catch all for the incredible influence of Israel on our politics. So are you gonna align yourself with them or are you going to keep on the table the possibility of getting AIPAC's millions of dollars and you just are going to have to make that decision.
- [30:10]
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- [32:43]
Saagar Enjeti
When you look really terrible is when you're trying, very obviously trying to have it both ways. With Gavin so much of his political career and his success owes not just to. Look, he does have political skill and talent. There's no denying that. But also his ability to raise vast amounts of money from, in particular, the California big Democratic donor class. That's primarily Silicon Valley. It's also Hollywood. Even putting AIPAC aside, there are many people in both of those donor worlds who are very interested in, who are committed Zionists who are gonna wanna hear you say the right things on that issue from their perspective. So he's not just thinking about, okay, am I gonna lose APAC support and have them back some other candidate who's in the race? But am I also going to piss off a bunch of people that I'm friends with, that I've relied on for support, who've given me millions and millions of dollars over the course of my career? And that's why his brain just sort of melts and he can't say anything now. I am shocked. I am a little surprised that his answer was this bad.
- [33:42]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, right, exactly.
- [33:43]
Saagar Enjeti
Because he went on with this gamer streamer. I'm sorry, I forget his name. But in any case, I watched it, and he got asked some questions about Israel and generally state. One state. What do you think? And he did fine. Like, he clearly anticipated those questions would be there. He said things that were not gonna kill him politically. It was fine. And so it, to me, is such a sign of how incredibly out of touch these guys are with their own voters, with the base of their own party. They still think, because they look at the polling and it'll, you know, people will say this isn't their number one issue. They do not get the way that it is serving as a litmus test for character.
- [34:22]
Jacob Goldstein
Right.
- [34:23]
Saagar Enjeti
As a proxy, basic morality and character.
- [34:26]
Krystal Ball
Also control. I think it's actually about control.
- [34:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Absolutely.
- [34:29]
Krystal Ball
Independence. Right? So I think absolutely, for me, that's really what it's about. It's like, bro, if you can't say that he's not independent, like, it's like, you're not. You are not a original thing. I guess I should never have thought that from Gavin, and that's more my mistake. But I always thought that he had the ability, the political ability, to chart a different direction. Another easy way to thread the needle is say, nobody controls me, no matter what. Right. You could just go off on that talk about all the independent times you've bucked big money interests in California, which, I mean, probably can't find a ton of examples, but I'm sure it's.
- [34:59]
Saagar Enjeti
Sure he could come up with five.
- [35:01]
Krystal Ball
Or six or whatever. Off the top of his head, I did look up jpac. It's like the Jewish Political Action Committee of California. So that's what he was referencing. But it's like, look, you know what AIPAC is. You also a really talented political person. If I think back to Bill Clinton, one of his best moments in the 1992 presidential debates. You can go watch this on YouTube if you're interested. Is a woman asks him about the national debt. But Clinton is smart. He's like, this lady doesn't care about the national debt. She's asking about the economy in general. She's just a voter. I'm not blaming her. So he takes it and he goes, you're concerned about the national debt. He starts talking about, he starts ranting about trickle down economics and people who lose their jobs, tough factories and everything. It was one of his best moments. Cuz you took the question, but you answered it in a way that got to the heart of what she was trying to say. And what Van I think is trying to say is I'm not taking money. I don't to want. Want to. He's like, I will not vote for a person who to me appears controlled by the Israel lobby because that to me is about independence. I'm outraged about what's happening in Gaza. I don't know why. That is a very difficult needle to thread. And so the fact that Gavin is not either online aware or whatever enough, or that the lobby is so powerful he thinks that they're necessary for his election, it's honestly mystifying to me for any prevailing politician. I think even Buttigieg has given better answers about that. I'm not saying he's given a good answer.
- [36:21]
Saagar Enjeti
He gave some really bad answers too.
- [36:23]
Krystal Ball
Okay. But his first interview with POD was a disaster. But did you notice with Andrew Callahan, there wasn't a single viral clip that came out of that one? Like, I mean, look, maybe that's. Andrew didn't. By his own admission, he didn't press him that hard or whatever on the Israel question, but he tightened it up enough to where it didn't go viral for a moment like this. And I mean, look, Gavin is a talented guy, so I'm not gonna count him out just yet. You know that it eats his soul that something like this does go viral. You never want to go viral for a bad answer. So maybe he'll come up with a better answer and he might be able to thread the needle. But the fact is, is that if you're most talented people in the party. You're, you're stars. And this is where they're at. Man, we got a lot of work to do. Yeah. Like if you're, if you're in the, if you're in the echelon, like, you got a lot of work to do.
- [37:06]
Saagar Enjeti
Let me go ahead and play the Cory Booker with my, with my girls, the ladies over at the iPad. It podcast. Because part of the problem for these, like, you know, slimy career politicians is they want to like word salad, like rhetoric their way out of it, when people really just want a very simple yes or no, like, am I going to take money? Are you going to take money from abac, yes or no? Like, there's no rhetorical flourishing your way out of it. At the end of the day, you either are or you aren't. And so she asked Cory Booker, because you'll recall he did that photo op with Benjamin Netanyahu where he was like trying to hide behind people. Remember that picture that came out of it? And so she asked him just flat, okay, is he a war criminal or not? Not. Let's take a listen to how Corey responds.
- [37:49]
Cory Booker
One of the things I dislike about the Democratic Party is that we do a circular firing squad all the time. Their party, they disagree. There's wild disagreements in the Republican tent, and yet they don't shoot at each other. And we have a really good way of holding up these purity tests that if I agree with you on 90%.
- [38:04]
Interviewer/Host
That's such bullshit. That is bullshit. They fire. They fire at each other all the time. Trump has sent so many people out to pasture, so many people that he calls rhinos. Liz Cheney can tell you that they have the firing squad as well. It's not a test. It's, are we in this fight and are we being beholden to corporations and corporate interests? We really the party of the working class.
- [38:27]
Cory Booker
I'm one of a handful of people that don't take corporate PAC money. I don't understand my Democratic.
- [38:31]
Interviewer/Host
What about APAC money? You take APAC money, don't you?
- [38:34]
Cory Booker
A minuscule percentage of my resources come from.
- [38:36]
Interviewer/Host
I raised like 800,000.
- [38:38]
Cory Booker
Yeah, but that's a lifetime number of raising tens of millions.
- [38:41]
Interviewer/Host
The Democratic base feels like there is a disconnect. We hear you. Like when you did your 25 hour speech, I was like, go, Corey. I love this. That is amazing. And then there's a photo shoot with you with Benjamin Netanyahu. And I was just like, what in the actual, like, how can he do that? It was heartbreaking. I felt betrayed.
- [39:02]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [39:02]
Interviewer/Host
And that is.
- [39:03]
Ad Read Announcer 2
And that.
- [39:03]
Interviewer/Host
Hang on. And that doesn't just happen in an echo chamber. Democrats, like you wear the base. We should make each other better. It's not a purity table. We want credible messengers, because when we are down the middle, beholden to corporate interests, we leave this vacuum. And that's how fascism has flourished. For myself and a lot of our listeners. When I saw the picture with Benjamin Netanyahu, I felt like it diminished your 25 hours. That's how it felt to me. Do you think he's a war criminal? Benjamin Netanyahu, do you think he's a war criminal?
- [39:37]
Cory Booker
Again, these are questions that a lot of people think are the important litmus tests that are loaded and hot. My urgency is to be an effective leader in bringing an end to this crisis. And I get these questions all the time that, to me, undermine my urgency.
- [39:56]
Interviewer/Host
I think the thing that Democrats get so frustrated with where we are right now, where you see, like, the Zoran Mamdanis and the Grand Platners rise up because they can go on podcast and you can say, do you think Benjamin Netanyahu's a war criminal? And they just say, yes, and that's the end of it. It's not all of the rhetoric answering. It's like, what happens to Democratic politicians? They go through this, like, prism, and then we can't ever get, like, the answer to yes or no conversations like you do with Bernie and others. That's the frustration for the Democrats.
- [40:30]
Cory Booker
Worse than Trump. Yes. Do I think that we right now in America should be doing everything possible to bring peace, not just to that crisis, but to the ones that shock me that no one talks about. And I hope, and I don't know if you guys have or not.
- [40:44]
Saagar Enjeti
And I think what Jennifer hits on there with, like, listen, our frustration. Why can't you just say yes or no?
- [40:49]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [40:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Like all of this. Oh, it's, you know, trying to talk your way out of it or talk your way around it. Like, it's a yes or no question. Is he a war criminal? And frankly, I'm actually a little surprised that he couldn't even say that, because what a lot of liberals do is they will try to say, do like, oh, Israel's great and amazing. There's no problems. It's just Netanyahu. He's the problem. And try to. Because at this point, it's undeniable. Like, the war crimes, the horror, the genocide, all of that is, like, undeniable. So the best bet for a Lot of liberal Zionists is now to say, yeah, but I really hate Netanyahu. And, yeah, he's the real problem. So it is actually a little bit surprising that Cory Booker can't even do that.
- [41:29]
Krystal Ball
I agree.
- [41:30]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. I mean, I found that extraordinary. The whole thing is shocking. I was actually surprised by it too.
- [41:33]
Krystal Ball
The whole thing is shocking. By the way, Cory Booker in 2022 sponsored a war crimes charges being bought against Putin. In case anybody's wondering, he knows what a war crime is. He also, look, if that's the liberal framework that you believe in, this is always what's screwed the pro Israel liberals is because they're happy to call for regime change in Putin and Russia, war crimes. But with Israel, they're like, oh, it's complicated. The ICJ is so biased. Right. That's what he's like. They single out.
- [42:01]
Saagar Enjeti
He said the ICC single out. And then he also tried to do the whole like, well, why don't you care about these other conflicts? Why don't you care about these other things? So he used all of the dodges.
- [42:10]
Krystal Ball
We're not funding all of them. Dude, that's an insurance. This is just bullshit.
- [42:14]
Saagar Enjeti
People just see right through it.
- [42:16]
Krystal Ball
I'm not surprised.
- [42:16]
Saagar Enjeti
I'm so sick of. You know, one of Tucker's best moments was when he called out Ted Cruz for insinuating he was an anti. Like, I am so sick of all of these, like, little passive aggressive ways of insinuating someone's an anti Semite, fucking come out and say it. You know what? If you think it's anti Semitic that she cares about Israel, just fucking say it. Don't be such a weasel, such a worm. I'm so sick of that shit.
- [42:38]
Krystal Ball
I agree. I couldn't, I couldn't agree with you more. I think, look, with Corey, Corey's not actually talented. That's my thing. And so I expect this from him. It's still. Gavin. I'm stuck on where I'm like, dude, like, look, Corey is a discount Obama from the day he came to office. He's always been trying to do the affect. He's always trying to go viral for his veganism or whatever. You know, it's just. It's cringe. He's been cringe for from day one. He's obviously controlled by the big money guys in New Jersey. So this isn't all that shocking. I guess what's more shocking is why he agreed to go on the podcast and why he was so shocked that he was getting pressed on Israel. How about you pay Attention. But that's one thing that a lot of people underestimate, is that these politicians, you don't get to this position from nothing. You are a egomaniacal narcissist to a degree that the average person has never interacted with. Like this type of, of political, this type of personality profile is extremely rare and they gravitate to Washington for a reason. So, yeah, he has supreme confidence in his ability to school her or any of that. But I think what he is not able to deal with is it would almost respect him more if he'd be like, look, I'm pro Israel for this and this reason, and if he could articulate a case, it would be respectable. But for me, it's all of the split the difference, which is just mealy mouth, it's weasely. It just seems like you're trying to have it both ways. You see that with Gavin, you see it with Corey. It's just a sheer lack of political talent. And I think what these guys underestimate. To your point about the polls, no one says it's the number one issue, but it's a proxy for, are you independent controlled? Are you gonna say what you actually think? And if you can't say it, then get outta here. It reminds me, you know, at the Time, Time TRUMP 2016, Radical Islamic Terrorism, you remember this? And Hillary just wouldn't say it. It's like, why won't you say it? She just, she just was like, I prefer radical jihadism. And everyone was like, yeah, you just, it's like for everybody else, for people who were concerned about it or anything, they're like, you seem more concerned with political correctness than you do about keeping us safe. That's why it was an issue, right? You can object to the term or whatever that intellectual, but politically, that's what it was about. This is like that on steroids, because this is an active hot war where you actively are taking money and you're actually participating and sending bombs to fund it. That is just, look beyond even just morality. Again, for most people, especially a lot of young people who are out there. I presume that's what Newsom wants. That's why he's in his jeans and his shirt and all that on the higher learning podcast is he's trying to reach these younger audiences. This is hot. Like, you just can't get away from it. Look, by the way, this is a right left phenomenon. There's this TPUSA thing going on right now where Glenn Beck and Megyn Kelly and all these people are out there, Glenn Beck is torturing himself over Israel because every single event they're like, okay, you know, give Charlie his due. He was actually not much better at it. And part of the reason why he had the focus groups and he had, he had much more workshop dancers. You can see all the text messages and things that have come out. What's he working through? He's like, I don't know how to deal with all of this stuff that's bubbling up on campuses. So you're seeing this happen at every level and if you can't just say the truth, you're done, in my opinion. So, you know, left liberals, you guys, you deserve everything that's coming to you. You deserve your Tea Party moment because you, again, not Corey, but Gavin Pete, you were talented enough, you had the ability, but you tried to split the difference. And somebody's gonna beat your ass who believes in a whole other type of stuff simply because they're just gonna seem like they're real.
- [46:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Tory Booker is particularly offensive to me, as you guys know, if you watch my monologue about him, because he postures like he's the civil rights hero, moral crusader.
- [46:27]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [46:27]
Saagar Enjeti
And he wants to have basically the positions of John Fetterman on Israel and still wear the mask of some progressive humanitarian icon. And this is very binary. Like the rubber has met the road. And you are either going to be a humanitarian who cares about innocent women and children getting murdered with our tax dollars, or you're not. And you are a complete fraud and a phony. And I think we all know what is really going on there. I mean, this is a guy who bragged about being text message besties with the head of abac. This is who he is. He was super, super close with Rabbi Shmuley for years and years and years. They did ultimately have a fallout over apparently like they were, I don't know, Shmuley ended up being too self promotional even for Cory Booger, which is an extraordinary thing. You go back and look at all the details of how that all went down, but this is who he is. And a part of that is this is going back. I don't know if you guys remember in the Obama 2012, Cory Booker came out and he was a spokesperson, like a major spokesperson for Obama's campaign and was so upset about Obama going after private equity and said that publicly. And it was a whole thing. I mean, that's where his bread is buttered. Like he represents New Jersey. He gets all his money from a bunch of finance guys, Wall street, those types. There are a number of those donors who also very interested in this issue. And he wants the AIPAC money, whatever. And. And so that's who he is. So I think this is going to. This trend of liberals trying to posture like their progressives, trying to posture like they're humanitarians, I think. And getting exposed is going to continue because in a certain sense, again, with a dogged enough interviewer, there is no good answer here. Now, he could have said on the war criminal thing, he could have said something like, well, he's indicted by the icc and I believe in international law, and so I'm gonna watch the playlist.
- [48:23]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, but they don't.
- [48:24]
Saagar Enjeti
They don't believe it. But, like, that's. You would. To do something like that. But I don't think that's gonna be totally really satisfying to people at this point either. They just. It's refreshing when you hear a Graham Platner or Zoran Mamdani just be able to say, yes, he's a war criminal. Yes, he should be indicted. Yes, he should be in the Hague. Like, that is what people actually want to hear. And if you aren't prepared to say that, then just. Just do the Fetterman. Just be John Fetterman.
- [48:48]
Krystal Ball
I agree.
- [48:48]
Saagar Enjeti
You know, there's like, you are not gonna make anyone happy with this attempted middle ground bullshit.
- [48:53]
Krystal Ball
And you can actually split the difference because then you get the accusation of like, why are you obsessed with Israel? Actually, Zoron is the best of this. He did his interview yesterday with Fox News and she kept.
- [49:03]
Saagar Enjeti
He's so good.
- [49:04]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. She kept pressing him, being like, should Hamas disarm? And he's like, I think New York City should have less cost. And it was like, I don't have.
- [49:10]
Saagar Enjeti
An opinion on affordable. Yeah.
- [49:11]
Krystal Ball
He's like, I don't.
- [49:12]
Saagar Enjeti
I do have an opinion on affordability.
- [49:13]
Krystal Ball
Exactly. I was like, wow, again, look, I mean, I got a lot of beef with Zoran, Mr. Zoran, but I'm like, I respect talent where I see it, man. And like, for that. Why. Why is it so. Why is that even a refreshing answer to be able to see something like that from Corey, from Gavin, all these guys? I don't know. I just get the feeling, again, to the proxy of control. It's like, dude, if you're gonna say that, that means you're never even gonna wink in my direction to anything that I particularly care about. And this is for anybody. It's about being controlled. And that's part of the probably. You know, if you look at some of the gen Z and some of the Gen Z like disillusionment with Trump in particular with men.
- [49:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Israel's a huge problem. Yeah, you're right.
- [49:54]
Krystal Ball
I mean I don't think people are grappling with that like from TikTok to the general feeling of like I feel betrayed. Cuz one of the reason that a lot of Gen Z guys even supported Trump is like, he tells it like it is. Right? I'm sick of these liberal. They seem like they're controlled by these big groups and all they care about is some woke bullshit. And Trump is offensive. But that's good because it means he's authentic. But then when you start pulling the chair out for BB and rolling out the red carpet and giving them everything they want, that's the rubber meet the road issue. And they're like, yeah man, I'm sick of this. Right. And so that's why I think this is such a potent thing. It's not number one. I never would claim that it is number one, but it's a gateway drug, if you will, to this person is independent. And yeah, I mean right now they're just giving it away to the Platners and the Zorons and to everybody else and, and I don't know, in a way I don't feel bad for them at all. I'm like, you deserve everything that's coming to you. You deserve to get beat out in the election or lose a primary or look foolish on the Internet. Because this is a political talent question and these people are purely cynical. They don't care about anything. So it's just obvious that they don't have what it takes. At least right now, from my perspective.
- [51:04]
Saagar Enjeti
Indeed.
- [51:04]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. All right. Do we have anything else on the Israel thing?
- [51:07]
Saagar Enjeti
We can, we can get a couple. That's okay.
- [51:09]
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- [52:39]
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- [53:40]
Saagar Enjeti
Let'S move on to China.
- [53:41]
Krystal Ball
Okay, let's go to China. Yeah, I mean huge story, really huge story come out of China. There's been all of these swings in the trade war. So for example, you guys covered with Emily. Trump announces a 100% tariff on China in retaliation for rare earth minerals being cut off. The Chinese are holding incredibly firm and the administration is now taking a very different tone saying actually we are in a sustained trade war now with China. Let's take a listen to Trump yesterday in the Oval office. You're meeting with President Xi in a few weeks. If you can't come to an agreement or a deal at that meeting, are.
- [54:19]
Interviewer/Host
We in for a sustained trade war with China?
- [54:22]
Jacob Goldstein
Well, you're in one now. Look, we have 100% tariff. If we didn't have tariffs, we would be exposed as being a nothing. We would have no defense.
- [54:35]
Krystal Ball
We're in one now. So he's declaring the trade war. This actually needs to pair with these comments from Secretary Scott Besant who is ripping the Chinese negotiators taking a very, very hard line despite some of the things going on behind the scenes. We'll tell you about in a bit, but let's take a listen to that first.
- [54:49]
Saagar Enjeti
What happened from your point of view? Because I thought talks were going well, lines of communication were open and then we learned about this rare earth mineral restriction from China and now it's back and forth and things are heating up again.
- [55:02]
Cory Booker
Again they are. And the Chinese are trying to backfill the narrative saying, well, the US did A, B and C, therefore we had to do D. And that's not true. There was a lower level trade person who was slightly unhinged here in August, I think his name is Lee Kwong Gong, and threatening, saying that China would unleash chaos on the global system if the US Went ahead with our docking fees for Chinese ships. And this is clearly something that they were planning all along. I think that things can de escalate that we don't want to have to escalate. We have things that are more powerful than the rare earth export controls that the Chinese want to put on. And sir, to be clear, this is China versus the world. It's not a US China problem. Good news is that this is IMF week. A lot of my counterpart or all my counterparts are here. We're going to be speaking with our European allies, with Australia, with Canada, with India and the Asian democracies. And we're going to have a fulsome group response to this because bureaucrats in China cannot manage the supply chain or the manufacturing process for the rest of the world.
- [56:36]
Krystal Ball
So he frames it as China against the world. However, big news actually just out this morning from New Delhi. The finance minister of India is actually skipping this year's annual meeting of the World bank and of the IMF over unresolved differences on trade and the Indian purchases of Russian oil. By the way, Trump did say yesterday Modi told him he would stop buying Russian oil has yet to be confirmed by New Delhi. So I'll let you know, decide whether that one's true or not. All right. And I did check the overnights coming out from there. But the point remains. China's holding firm, they're like, no, do it, then. Do it. And the reason why, it's kind of amazing. I've been reading into their strategy. Let's put this up here on the screen from the Wall Street Journal, who obviously got this from the CCP itself. It's from their Beijing bureau. They say China, betting it can win a trade war, is playing hardball with Trump. I just want to read this to all of you just to show the incredibly weak position that we are in. Xi Jinping is betting the US Economy cannot absorb a prolonged trade conflict with the world's second largest economy. China is holding a firm line because of its conviction that an escalating trade war will tank markets, as it did in April after Trump announced Liberation Day, prompting Beijing to hit back. China expects the prospect of another market meltdown will ultimately force Trump to negotiate at an expected summit with Xi later this month. Beijing continues to play hardball this month, escalating the trade fight by Monday, sanctioning U.S. units of South Korean shipping. The move whipsawed U.S. markets on Tuesday, triggering a sharp early sell off as hopes for easing tensions had failed before. Markets partially rebounded and steadied in the afternoon as it looked again as if negotiations were going to happen. Beijing is imposing restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals, which is vital to the consumer electronics and tech industry. Now, if you want to know how America is going to hit back at China for rare earth minerals, literally one of the most critical things that we have. Let's go ahead and put C5 on the screen just to see what the cards that we're holding. This is from Trump. I believe China purposefully not buying our soybeans and causing difficulty for our soybean farmers is an economically hostile act. We are considering terminating business with China having to do with cooking oil and other elements of trade as retribution.
- [58:54]
Saagar Enjeti
I'm sure there's substitutes for that, right?
- [58:56]
Krystal Ball
As an example, we can easily produce cooking oil ourselves. We don't need to purchase it from China. Oh, okay.
- [59:03]
Saagar Enjeti
So, devastating blow.
- [59:04]
Krystal Ball
China's got us on rare earth minerals, which we need to power consumer electronics, iPhones, everything. Rare earth minerals, EV batteries, whatever. You know, so many different things. We're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we won't buy your cooking oil. Not great. It's not great. Okay. So, yeah, it's not good. Okay. I'll just put it that way.
- [59:26]
Saagar Enjeti
In terms of like, so much smarter than we have. I mean, they plan. When Emily and I covered this, we were talking about Arnaud's thread where he's talking about, like, one of the vulnerabilities China actually had was on helium, which is like something you wouldn't necessarily think of, but they're very dependent on us for helium. And so over years they were like, we're going to make sure we're not dependent on them for helium, so that if push comes to shove, we can take some actions, like, you know, we're not going to send you rare earth minerals anymore. And they will have limited ways that they can retaliate. So they did all that planning in advance. Meanwhile, Besson's comments about like, oh, it's the world versus China. You all picked a fight with the entire fricking world. I mean, this is something you and I have been saying since Liberation Day. If you actually wanna isolate China, then you have to isolate China. You have to have friendly relations with the rest of the world. You have to give them reasons that we wanna be on your side and not looking for a reason to actually side with China. And so you see the fallout with India. We've been extraordinarily provocative and irritating towards them and really screwed up that relationship. So, yeah, we're not in a great position here. And I think the smart money is on Trump Taco, because the Chinese are absolutely right. Our entire economy is just a bet on AI and China can screw that up. Like they can pop the bubble. So, you know, I think they're intelligent enough to realize that Trump lives and dies by what the stock market is doing. So, you know, when they're able to genuinely threaten the performance of the market in a way that really stings. Yeah, he's gonna back down. I think that's a good bet.
- [61:00]
Krystal Ball
The S and P is near an all time high. If you see even a 10% correction recession, it's going to be big problems for Trump because that is floating the whole economy. And if you start to see stops in our credit markets, which is fueling all of this AI stuff, good luck. Because then when we, you know, what do we talk about here all the time? When we talk about AI, it's literally covering up an actual recession. Without them, we're dead. We have a recession in almost every other industry. We have problems with employment, we have problems with consumer demand. We have the bifurcated economy of the the rich and the poor. If you see the contraction of again, even 10%, that's gonna cause fear in the top 10% of consumers, they will cut back, which means that's 50% of all consumer spending, which will take a hit. By the way, it's October. We're going into November and December, which is when the vast majority of retail sales happen in a very short period of time during the Christmas season. That also factors into travel, everything. It can go on forever. And so the point just broadly with the Chinese, China tariffs and with the war of where we are right now is they know exactly who we are. They know who we are. And the problem is that we created the situation in like multiple different ways. So for example, we blew our wad entirely in sanctioning Russia. And we showed that even with the full force of United States sanctions against you, that as long as you have enough material, enough weapons and a war and some sovereignty and some few allies like China and India, India, not only can you survive, your GDP can grow. China has what orders of magnitude, 20, 50, 100 times more powerful than Russia. So for them, they're like, yeah, it'll hurt for sure. But as I told everybody in the original parts of the trade deal, they have functioning government. So when they knew that Chinese producers were going to have a hit to their sales as a result, result of tariffs, what did they do? They created an immediate slush fund. They don't need Congress or Kyrsten Sinema or whatever. They created an immediate slush fund and they gave it to producers and said, here is a way for you to tide over. Then they forced the Amazons of China to say, you guys are all going to massively discount made in China products to make sure that production doesn't die on the Chinese side. And of course they start survive by the way. Meantime they have thousands of bureaucrats intimately studying. And these aren't just our bureaucrats, these are people who are actually highly educated to the technocratic engineering state which studies all of their critical industries and is looking with a 1, a 5, a 10 year plan and intimately making sure that they have no disruption, that not all of this is in there. And it's not as if they haven't been planning for this for the last five years because they knew Trump was going to, to come into office. So just compare that level of seriousness to where we are. Of course it's not gonna work. I mean, yeah, if we had a requisite similar program, we could do it. I have no doubt that we don't have the human capital or the money. Of course we have the money, we have the political capital. There's so much that we could, but not under this. Not under this. Like, yeah, not only in terms of blinking, but it does look like they're gonna get everything that they want because it's not just gonna be rare earth minerals. Trump has caved on of top. Trump has caved on. I mean, on Nvidia, on the chips. Like, the most hawkish members China hawks of his former first term are freaking out about this. They're writing open letters in the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. They're like, this is a disaster. It's basically capitulation. That's what Trump has chosen. The path of independence is gone, in my opinion, especially after the tax bill. We had a chance there, but that's it. It's over. Yeah, like, I mean, I didn't I say that in our. Maybe I said in our last show, you only open up the tax code every five years. Five years from now, where's China going to be? You know, it's done.
- [64:41]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, yeah. And our sequencing is all wrong. Like, they're talking now about, oh, we're going to take more stakes in companies and designate certain things as like, national security risk. We're going to put price wars in place. It's like you do all of that preparation before you launch the trade war. That's the way that that works. I did look it up. According to Grok, US imports of Chinese cooking oil account for approximately 0.007% of China's GDP. So we're really hitting them where it hurts. Critical part of their economy. That 0.007%.
- [65:15]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, exactly. That is so crazy. 0.007%. I can't even get over it. I can't even get over it. By the way, do we even want that stuff they cook with vegetable oil? I thought this was mine. Right. What happened to Maha?
- [65:27]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, this.
- [65:28]
Krystal Ball
Seed oils galore over there.
- [65:30]
Saagar Enjeti
Again, this is again, according to Grok. And I have in fact checked it outside of Grok, but apparently most of their exports are consist of used cooking oil, a byproduct collected from food services, processed for export as a biofuel feedstock. So it's not, it's not like the stuff you're buying in the grocery store. It's like going to livestock or whatever.
- [65:50]
Krystal Ball
It's just going into the fuel or into the livestock. Livestock, which we also eat. Right, Got it. Again. What happened to Maha? What happened to that?
- [65:58]
Jacob Goldstein
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- [66:28]
Krystal Ball
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- [67:27]
Krystal Ball
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