10/16/25: Trump Greenlights CIA In Venezuela, Debate On Totalitarianism, Dems Screwed By SCOTUS In 2026

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode: 10/16/25: Trump Greenlights CIA In Venezuela, Debate On Totalitarianism, Dems Screwed By SCOTUS In 2026
Release Date: October 16, 2025
Hosts: Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti
Guest: David Sirota

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Overview

This episode tackles three major political developments:

1. The Trump administration's public approval for covert CIA operations and military buildup in Venezuela.
2. The escalation of federal immigration enforcement and debates about totalitarianism and American governance.
3. The implications of recent and pending Supreme Court decisions for the Democratic Party and anti-corruption efforts, featuring investigative journalist David Sirota.

The hosts engage in a spirited, sometimes heated debate reflecting their left (Krystal) and right (Saagar) perspectives, approaching topics with critical skepticism and an eye towards governmental overreach and public accountability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump Greenlights CIA Operations in Venezuela

[02:01–15:02]

• Backdrop & Military Escalation:
  Krystal breaks news that the Trump administration is openly considering land strikes inside Venezuela, following maritime operations targeting alleged drug traffickers ([02:01]).
  Saagar underscores the administration’s rhetoric and posture as reminiscent of regime change operations:

  "I don't wanna hear jack shit about migration from any fool who is supporting any of this. Like, you know, creating a failed state... How did it work out with Syria? How did that go for Europe?" ([07:07])

• Legacy of U.S. Policy:
  Both hosts express deep skepticism about the justification, suggesting the publicized CIA authorization is meant as a psychological pressure campaign against Maduro.
  Krystal worries this move gives Maduro ammunition to blame U.S. interference for domestic turmoil:

  "This is a great gift to Maduro... He can blame all of Venezuela's problems on the United States, which he's been doing for the last decade." ([04:03])

• Data Manipulation & Transparency:
  The administration ties the escalation to drug trafficking and the fentanyl crisis, but according to Krystal, "there's not a scrap of evidence of that... 0% fentanyl comes from Venezuela according [to] DEA." ([05:19])
  Saagar highlights the lack of congressional or public buy-in for this action, warning of the potential for a destabilizing power vacuum similar to the aftermath in Libya and Syria.

• Regional & Humanitarian Ramifications:
  Large U.S. troop and naval build-up are reported in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean ([08:28]).
  Krystal raises concerns about the broader collapse:

  "Imagine a complete political collapse in Venezuela. It could destroy so much of what of Latin America, which we have responsibility for." ([11:16])

• Accountability & Oversight Failures:
  Skepticism is voiced regarding the government’s claims about the nature of targeted boats, civilian casualties, and the use of drone strikes—comparing it to unchecked executive power established during the War on Terror ([13:12]).

2. Debate: Crime, Immigration Raids, and American Totalitarianism

[17:36–55:44]

• Federal Agents’ "Surge" and ICE Raids:
  Trump signals intent to expand the deployment of federal officers to “straighten out” more cities plagued by crime, with Stephen Miller playing a visible role ([17:52]).

• LA Declares State of Emergency:
  Coverage of the LA Board of Supervisors declaring a state of emergency in response to ICE raids—raising civil liberties, economic, and governance concerns ([19:37]).
  Krystal is incredulous about taxpayer resources going to undocumented relief, while Saagar stresses the broad chilling effect on immigrant and mixed-status communities:

  "So it's not just undocumented immigrants who would be impacted... you have a lot of mixed-status families." ([21:33])

• Underlying Economic & Social Contradictions:
  The city’s reliance on undocumented labor is scrutinized. Krystal argues:

  "Should we really have a city of effective slave labor so that you can have your villa where you get a DoorDash $25 burrito delivered to you by an illegal immigrant?" ([23:12])

• Rights, Enforcement, & Due Process:
  Saagar emphasizes the impacts of aggressive ICE enforcement on civil liberties, due process, and the overreach into legal immigrant and citizen populations:

  "If you don't have due process, you don't even get, if you're a citizen getting caught up in this to prove you're a citizen. And that's where we are." ([40:56])

• Backdrop of Supreme Court Legitimizing Aggressive Enforcement:
  The hosts discuss a Supreme Court ruling (Kavanaugh stops) allowing law enforcement to detain people without probable cause, intensifying fear among immigrant communities and heightening the debate on racial profiling and mass raids.

• Political Polarization & The "Binary" Dilemma:
  The conversation frequently returns to the lack of a moderate path, with Krystal arguing:

  "If the binary is literal. Amnesty for all of them, 20, 25 million or deportation. Many of us are gonna choose deportation." ([38:26])
  Saagar pushes for more humane, balanced enforcement, decrying the present escalation as a means of consolidating power:
  "They are going for the whole thing. They're trying to consolidate control and part of that is the militarized response both with the National Guard but also with these federal agents in the streets." ([35:14])

• Link to Broader Authoritarian Project:
  Saagar advances the argument that these moves are part of a broader "project of consolidating control," aiming at a de facto one-party state through weaponizing law enforcement, IRS, and regulatory agencies against dissent.

3. David Sirota Interview: Corruption, SCOTUS, and the 2026 Midterms

[68:01–86:47]

• Supreme Court and Legal Corruption:
  Sirota introduces his new book, Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America, revealing newly uncovered documents on how American anti-bribery and campaign finance laws have been systematically weakened ([68:11]).

• Landmark Cases and Ongoing Threats:

  • Supreme Court is set to consider the J.D. Vance case that could erase limits on parties’ spending with candidates, further eroding anti-corruption safeguards ([68:54]).
  • Another case may make anti-bribery laws nearly unenforceable; Sirota quotes the Roberts court as seeing "overzealous enforcement by federal prosecutors" as the problem.

• State-Level Solutions:
  Sirota reports on Montana’s proposed ballot measure to strip corporations of the right to spend money on elections—a workaround leveraging state incorporation laws to potentially sidestep Citizens United ([73:09]).

  "Corporations under the law are artificial entities created by state laws... so we can change our state laws to grant corporations certain powers, but not grant them other powers." ([73:09])

• Link to Upcoming Midterms & Democratic Crisis:
  Polls reflect that Republicans now lead on the issue of corruption, as Democrats’ anti-corruption messaging is mired in anti-Trump rhetoric without addressing systemic reforms ([75:51]).

  "I think the Democrats have a big problem in the midterm elections on the corruption issue... the Republicans have a similar lead on the issue of corruption as they did in 2016." ([75:51])

• Supreme Court, Voting Rights, and Democratic Hopes:
  Harry Enten’s analysis suggests the Supreme Court’s likely gutting of the Voting Rights Act could cost Democrats control of the House unless they win the popular vote by a significant margin ([78:33]).

• Sirota’s Big Picture:
  He connects the attack on campaign finance, gerrymandering, and unions to the corporate/oligarchic project outlined in the infamous Lewis Powell memo:

  "Change the process the way we elect people. You've seen it in the attack on unions... three pillars that we have to stop the public from getting what it wants." ([79:48])

• Reform Models & Possibilities:
  Sirota points to public financing of elections (NYC, Montana) as possible, practical ways to diminish the role of big money and restore fairness ([83:09]).

  "If you want candidates who can come from outside of the system of private financing... we should be looking at those [public financing] systems." ([83:09])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Venezuela and Regime Change:
  Krystal (regarding the public leak about CIA in Venezuela):

  "It seems to me, or on the immediate term that it was leaked intentionally to try to ramp up the pressure... this is a great gift to Maduro in my opinion, because now... Maduro can blame all of Venezuela's problems on the United States, which he's been doing for the last decade." ([04:03])

• On U.S. Justification and Manipulation:
  Krystal:

  "Rubio has somehow convinced Trump that this Venezuela thing is connected to drugs. There's not a scrap of evidence of that... 0% fentanyl comes from Venezuela again according DEA." ([05:19])

• On ICE Raids and Civil Liberties:
  Saagar:

  "If you don't have due process, you don't even get, if you're a citizen getting caught up in this to prove you're a citizen. And that's where we are." ([40:56])

• On the American Binary:
  Krystal:

  "If the binary is literal. Amnesty for all of them, 20, 25 million or deportation. Many of us are gonna choose deportation." ([38:26])

• On the Trump Administration’s Broader Agenda:
  Saagar:

  "They are going for the whole thing. They're trying to consolidate control and part of that is the militarized response both with the National Guard but also with these federal agents in the streets." ([35:14])

• On the Supreme Court’s Drift:
  Sirota:

  "The court has been issuing these rulings making it harder and harder to prosecute bribery while certain members of the court are accepting lavish gifts from billionaires with business before the court." ([72:40])

• On State-Level Resistance:
  Sirota:

  "States... can change their situation... Montana is a template... the Supreme Court... rules that how corporations are treated flows from state law." ([73:09])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Trump’s Venezuela Escalations & CIA Authorization — [02:01–15:02]
• Debate: ICE Raids, Immigration, & "Totalitarian" Governance — [17:36–55:44]
• Saagar & Krystal on the limits of dissent, definitions of state overreach, and the difference between policy and politics — [35:14–65:03]
• David Sirota Interview: SCOTUS, Money in Politics, and the Midterms — [68:01–86:47]

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Tone & Style

Throughout, Krystal and Saagar apply their signature adversarial but respectful dialogue. The conversation is impassioned, with sharp differences but a mutual commitment to honesty, skepticism, and factual grounding. David Sirota provides a detailed, investigative perspective with concern for systemic reform but some cautious optimism about state- and local-level innovation.

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Summary Conclusion

This episode provides a robust analysis of U.S. foreign interventionism, domestic authoritarian tendencies, and the ongoing judicial and legislative battles shaping the American political landscape. The hosts’ frank confrontation over the implications of state policy—on democracy, accountability, and national character—offers listeners both up-to-the-minute news and a deeper understanding of the forces reshaping American life and governance.

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Further Resources

• David Sirota’s Book: “Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America,” available at levernews.com/book
• Breaking Points Membership: BreakingPoints.com

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For those who want to deepen their understanding of the American political crossroads, this episode is both alarm bell and field guide.

Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see [e-mail] all right, shall we get to Venezuela? Sticking in terms of international affairs, huge news yesterday. I mean, I don't know. I have a lot of thoughts about this. Right now, the Trump administration is basically publicly telegraphing what we did to Saddam. We're like, hey, Maduro, you Gotta go. And we are building up a military campaign. We're striking drug traffickers right off the coast of Venezuela. We have a $50 million bounty on Mad Trump now bragging in the Oval Office. We are looking at land strikes directly inside of Venezuela. Let's take a listen. The next step in this war on cartels. And are you considering options? Are you considering strikes on land?

[Stephen Miller]

Well, I don't want to tell you exactly, but we are certainly looking at land now because we've got the sea very well under control. We've had a couple of days where there isn't a boat to be found and that I view that as a good thing, not a bad thing. But we had tremendous amounts coming in by boats, by very expensive boats. You know, they have a lot of money, very fast, very expensive boats that were pretty big. And the way you look at it is every boat that we knock out, we save 25,000American lives. So every time you see a boat and you feel badly, you say, wow, that's rough. It is rough. But if you lose three people and save 25,000 people, these are people that are killing our population.

[Krystal Ball]

So he says there we're looking at, he won't rule out any of the land strikes, but the reason why it pairs very importantly is with this story. Let's put it up here on the screen from this, from the New York Times. Quote, the Trump administration has authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela. It says they have secretly authorized the CIA to conduct action against Nicolas Maduro specifically. So keep that in mind. Not against so called drug trafficking, they're saying against the Maduro government specifically. They say that he has acknowledged, in fact that we are, quote, looking at land now because we've got the sea very well under control. Considering strikes on Venezuelan territory. This new authority allows the CIA to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela and conduct a range of operations in the Caribbean. The agency would be able to take covert action against Maduro or his government, either unilaterally or in conjunction with a larger military operation. It is not yet known whether the CIA is planning any specific operations, but the development comes as the US Military is planning its own possible explanation. So one of the immediate analyses I saw of this is that if you look at the way this all works is this could be some sort of limited hangout thing to get in the New York Times specifically to make cuz it's the front page story now. Maybe they did just get it as a leak. I'm a little bit suspicious. I tend to think all of this is about a public pressure campaign to try to get him to step down voluntarily. Cuz it's one of those where, look, you know, the CIA is scary, especially Latin America, right? We have a long legacy of trying to do stuff down there. You have the military campaign, you have the boats, you have the President not ruling it out. It seems to me that this was supposed to be. I'm not excusing it by the way, cuz I still think it's completely insane. And of course you could still follow through with it. It seems to me, or on the immediate term that it was leaked intentionally to try to ramp up the pressure. Regardless though, this is a great gift to Maduro in my opinion, because now what can he do every time that there's an opposition leader, CIA, if somebody tries to attack you, CIA, just kill him, right? And the people will say, look at these people, they're meddling in our government. Of course they're trying to kill me, they're trying to overthrow me. This is like the Latin American strongman argument for the last 50 years down there. It's like, oh, it's always CIA or sometimes it is, but in this case what he's doing is actually making it so that Maduro can blame all of Venezuela's problems on the United States, which he's been doing for the last decade. But even more importantly, I think here is the Syria, like from day one I was like, I'm very scared. This looks regime change. And even Juan David Rojas who we had on, he was like, oh, I don't know, it's like could be just be like stupidity, right? In terms of it's striking the drug boats and now I don't think it's deniable. From the military operations to the bounty to this authorizing CIA action against Venezuela, the fact that Marco Rubio and Miller are running the White House and the Pentagon, right? So keep in mind Rubio again, Rubio has somehow convinced Trump that this Venezuela thing is connected to drugs. There's not a scrap of evidence of that. It's complete bullshit, literally bullshit according to DEA statistics, Cuz especially in all the interviews they mentioned fentanyl. There's 0% fentanyl comes from Venezuela again according DEA. Now if you look at what's really going on here, it could be about oil, it could be about a particular South Florida constituency which has backed Rubio his entire life and political career. The fact that Rubio has posted photos of Maduro next to Gaddafi, I mean this is scary because this could create a chaotic political vacuum even if he did step down voluntarily, who the fuck is gonna come next, right? What's gonna happen then? And then we're gonna march down in there and we're gonna back some government. Like, the situation was humiliating. It was a disaster.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And I don't wanna hear jack shit about migration from any fool who is supporting any of this. Like, you know, creating a failed state, like going in and creating a failed state, like, what do you think that is gonna happen there? How is that gonna work? How did it work out with Syria? How did that go for Europe? How did that go for the Syrian people? So, yeah, I mean, I have been trying to wrap my head like you around why Marco Rubio. That makes sense. I think it's both ideological and it's in his political interest. These are his. He's trying to deliver for them. He has long been in love with the idea of regime change in Venezuela. But for Trump, was he really convinced of this bullshit drug trafficking thing? Is it about oil? I genuinely. It's so insane to me. And then the other part that is crazy to me is like, they don't really, it doesn't seem like they really feel the need to message this to the American people. I know they talk about fentanyl and they talk about the drugs, but there hasn't been a major propaganda campaign to really get people on board with the idea of some sort of large scale, you know, covert. And they're talking about direct military options, regime change in Venezuela. So the whole thing is wild. And I think it's part of why people have struggled to take it seriously. Like the media doesn't cover it nearly as much.

[Krystal Ball]

No, they don't. They really don't.

[Saagar Enjeti]

As it should because it just seems like such an insane, bizarre thing to do. And yet here we continue week by week to track how they're. Okay, now they're, you know, now they're blowing up these boats. Now they put a bounty on his head. Now they're claiming that he runs this drug trafficking network. Now they're saying that drug traffickers are, you know, are terrorists and you can just take military action against them willy nilly. Now here we are greenlining the CIA. Now here we are developing military options. Now we've masked, they say in the New York Times, they say that's. The scale of the military buildup in the region is substantial. Currently 10,000 troops there, most of them at bases in Puerto Rico, but also contingent of Marines on amphibious assault ships. In all, the navy has eight surface warships and a submarine in the Caribbean. So all of the pieces are there. And you have an administration with characters like Marco Rubio, who is one of the most powerful people in the government at this point, who's been handed all sorts of responsibility, who are dyed in the wool like neocons have wanted this regime changed forever. So, I don't know, at a certain point, you got to take them really seriously that they actually intend it.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I agree. Have taken it seriously from the beginning. It's genuinely terrifying and it actually does fit exactly with what you're saying. I mean, actually, I'll skip ahead here in some of our elements because they're important, just to show you how it fits. Put the last one up here, please. D5 up on the screen. This was a very recent visit from the top U.S. admiral to the Caribbean, actually, amid all these Venezuela tensions, like, when you start to see the high level, you know, generals, the admirals and others start to make little trips down there. For what purpose? I mean, they tried to describe it as routine, but you have this huge naval buildup. Also keep in mind what Trump even said in that statement. Remember, he was like, we have the sea under control now, we need the land. So he's basically describing it as taking like a. Like, you know, setting it up for some sort of naval blockade or nobody really even knows. Like here we had the Navy admiral, he met with Antigua, with Barbado, Barbuda, Granada and others at the US Embassy, apparently in Barbados. Some of the Caribbean nations, which I'm assuming are near the naval flotilla that we have out there. But the point remains, like, you have two visits apparently just already to southcom, like where Latin America, US Forces, you have the military buildup, you have the strikes which are happening, and then you have the CIA. I mean, this is. You have to put it all together. I agree with you on the media stuff. I mean, if I go to. I mean, we'll give the New York Times credit because they broke the story. It was their front page and it's a great story, but I mean, if I turn on MSNBC or something like that, what's the lead story going to be? Like, this is huge. This is huge. Like, this is regime change for real. Whether it comes violently or coerced, it's still scary. And then you own it 100%, who the hell even knows? And then the bleed effect into Colombia, the entire Caribbean, they're already there. Are all these Venezuelans coming here, fleeing from Maduro. Can you even imagine, you know, if you have a failed state, which, you know, it's already Kind of there. But imagine a complete political collapse in Venezuela. It could destroy so much of what of Latin America, which we have responsibility for. We have close allies there in the region. So I'm very, very worried about it, especially, you know, you fit it with this Colombian news. Put D4 up here on the screen. Colombia's president actually says that one of the boats struck by the United States was actually carrying Colombian citizens. The White House has called the claim, quote, baseless. I mean, I don't know, but.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But they give us no evidence, you would assume.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, right. It's absolutely.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, the White House says they've never given us any evidence for any of these boats, that they actually are what they say they are. We know it is very unlikely because of the nature of drug trafficking. Like, it's. It's unlike now, maybe, but again, they give us no evidence. And one of the boats reporters were able to get in touch with the widow of one of the guys who was murdered by our military. And she was like, he's literally a fisherman. I mean, they joke about it. They joke, oh, I wouldn't go fishing in that area. I mean, it's just like that piece too, I can't put to the side. And I also want to say part of how we get to a point where they can just blow up random boats with no accountability and providing us no evidence that these are actually drug traffickers. Not that I would find it acceptable, even if they are. You're supposed to interdict them or whatever. But the reason that this groundwork has been laid is all because of the war on terror too, where you had the massive. The drone strike campaign, where no evidence was offered there and Obama expands it, and these things become baked in to the executive power. And now you can just blow up random boats with random fishermen and be like, yeah, we got the bad guys. You should congratulate us.

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Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, this stuff happens, what, every day in the war on terror? Whenever. We covered it, like, literally all the time, it would be. I covered the war on isis. We. Everything was just on the Pentagon's word. They're like, oh, ISIS operating oil refinery. This is a hotel where ISIS is staying. They didn't really provide you anything. It's like a grainy footage, basically, like what they did in their latest strike. We can show you D3, please, on the screen. This is all they. I mean, this could be anything, right? Yeah, this quite literally could be anything. In one of them, you could kind of see packages of something which to the eye looked like it could Be wrapped up kilos of cocaine. This one is. There's nothing. That's all you get. Unclassified. You got a boat in the ocean and then you have a missile hitting it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's all you got in the very first one. There were 11 people on board the boat. And people who know a lot about the drug trafficking trade said this is very unlikely to have been drug trafficking boat because you want to have that thing loaded up with drugs, not with people. And the more people you have on board, the fewer drugs you can have on board. And so your profit is way, way less. So having 11 people on board and just the fact that it's coming from Venezuela and this is not the, you know, the Venezuelan, like drug boat trafficking thing is not significant. So we don't know that any of these boats were actually drug traffickers. They'll just say anything and, you know, we'll show you in the next block the way that they'll just lie about random stuff too.

[David Sirota]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And completely, shamelessly. You cannot trust anything that they say. And listen, you shouldn't trust anything that any government says. Like, you should always have skepticism. You should always verify. But they've been completely brazen about inventing the opposite of the truth and just lying about it day in and day out and then bragging about how, yeah, you shouldn't go fishing in the region because maybe we're gonna blow up your fishing boat. That's where we are with that.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

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[Krystal Ball]

Okay, why don't we get to ice?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Things seem to be escalating in la, in Chicago and Portland as well. I've got some updates for you on some of those cities. And Trump is saying that he is now going to go into other cities in addition to the ones that he has already surged federal agents into. Let's take a listen to that.

[Stephen Miller]

We're just at the start, we're going to go into other cities that we're not talking about purposely. We're getting ready to go in and when they go in like Cash as an example, told me that people didn't even know 5 months ago they went into Chicago and they started doing a lot of work in Chicago and we brought the numbers down a little bit and but that really was just preparatory work for what we're going to do with the surge. We're going to have a surge of Strong, good people, patriots. And they're going to go in, they straighten it all out. Didn't get elected. I did get elected for crime, but I didn't get elected for what we're doing. This is many, many steps above. And I want to thank Stephen Miller who's right back, the audience right there. I'd love to have him, I love watching him on television. I'd love to have him come up and explain his true feelings, maybe not his truest feelings, that might be going a little bit too far. But Stephen, thank you for doing an unbelievable job. And the people of this country love you, I'll tell you. And they love what you say about crime and stopping crime.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So some interesting comments there about Stephen Miller. You know, previously, you know, Trump had said something about like, oh, you would just want everybody to look like you in this country. So he, he maybe doesn't want those trues feelings from Stephen Miller being expressed.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't think we should all want to look like Stephen Miller. And no offense, but.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, just saying, just saying, can say it with offense. But the noteworthy part there, obviously the biggest news is that he's planning more of these searches of federal agents into other cities. And we've got an update this significant out of la. So that city has just voted to declare a state of emergency as a result of the, you know, the ICE raids and everything that's going on there. Let's take a listen to that.

[David Sirota]

Lake county has declared a state of emergency over the immigration raids. The Board of Supervisors voted today. Board members say the raids are preventing people from going to work and forcing some businesses to close. The emergency allows the board to look at enacting an eviction moratorium and other protections for people impacted by the raids.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So this is a city where roughly a third of the population is immigrants, the largest undocumented population in the country. This sort of designation is typically used for like natural disasters. But they feel like the economic and societal tumult is enough to justify it here. I think there was only one dissenter on the board who voted against this.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I don't know. I looked into this and I honestly find it a bit crazy. So the state of emergency as I understand it, allows the city to provide an eviction moratorium specifically cuz they don't want to release immigration status in a court. And in fact some of the times LA county is funneling. They said this is not exactly confirmed because the reporting out of Los Angeles is very sketchy. But some of it includes rent, like rent specifically, not just Eviction, moratorium, but rent relief for people, which I think would go to people who are here illegally, which I honestly find a bit insane. So that seems to be part of the city. I mean, I cannot imagine living in the city of Los Angeles, probably one of the most expensive cities in the world, probably in the United States, at least, where your effective tax rate is going to be some 50% if you're making over 100, $200,000 a year, and then a significant port of your tax dollars are going to illegal relief. I mean, look, it's your money. I guess you guys can do what you want. And that seems to be politically the ways that you want to go. But I don't know. I don't think it's particularly like a winning message for Democratic cities and counties, like, in terms of their prioritization. That's immediately like, what I was able to see. It's also kind of gives the game away. It's like you're so reliant on illegal labor that you literally are state of emergency if you take away all your labor.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So I think there's a few things that I would. That I would say to that. I mean, I have no idea what the polling is. I suspect that there's probably widespread support since you had, you know, you had support on the council. And I suspect there's widespread support. There's widespread rejection in the city of the escalation in ICE raids and ICE tactics. And so a few things I would say about that. I mean, number one, undocumented immigrants do, by and large pay taxes into the city. So it is some of their money as well. Number two, a third of the population are immigrants. And it's not just undocumented immigrants that are being impacted here. As we've discussed here. You know, you've got Kavanaugh stops. So basically anyone who's Latino can be harassed. You've had some instances of people being fined for not having their papers, even though they were citizens being fined for not having their papers to prove their citizenship. And then the other thing, I would say, so it's not just undocumented immigrants who would be impacted and, you know, eligible potential for relief. You also have a, you know, a mass sort of societal tumult in LA that has been likely very impactful in terms of their economy. And you have a lot of mixed status families. So if you have US Citizen, this is very common US Citizen kids, undocumented parents, they're unable to go to work because they're afraid of getting picked up by ice. Now you've got a situation where the whole family's going to be evicted. And what happens if they're evicted? Well, then you have more of a burden on social services, you have more of a burden on shelters. So I think there's a sense that, well, if we can keep them in their apartments, that actually could save money for the city long term, because then we're not having this increased burden on our social problems.

[Krystal Ball]

This is kind of like reducing it, though, a little bit, where, like, at the end of the day, I think this is kind of how you get here, where you have a system that's architected literally for illegal labor, and you have an entire city of Los Angeles where, I mean, look, let's be honest, like, if we have to declare a state of emergency because illegals can't come to work, what does that tell you about the economy of one of the richest places in the United States? And this is the part where a lot of these leftists and liberals, they just never grapple with this. Like, should we really have a city of effective slave labor so that you can have your villa where you get a DoorDash $25 burrito delivered to you by an illegal immigrant? I mean, remember, we argued about this on a farm. They were like, oh, children have been swept up in farms. Why are children on farms? Why are these illegal children on a farm? You people never cared about that. When you're smoking your toque from your cannabis retail store, which gives you your little re and your high potency thc.

[Saagar Enjeti]

When you're ordering to bring it back to weed. It was at a weed farm, Crystal.

[Krystal Ball]

It was at a weed farm. I didn't just shoehorn it in there.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So let me just say that, you know, this is. We've had these debates many times. That's why I believe that people should be brought out of the shadows so they cannot be exploited. I think your concerns about, you know, the exploitation of undocumented labor are entirely justified. I just come down in very different place in terms of what the solution is. But I would also say soccer, that. That it has like. And we'll show some more clips here. But it is not just undocumented immigrants who are fearful right now. In fact, there are a lot of people, even with legal status or who are going through the asylum process or who are green card holders. No one is exempt from this. And so the fear and the disruption in their life and the potential inability to go to work, all of those things are not just with the undocumented community. It's far more widespread. And yes, LA is a city of immigrants. I mean, like I said, it was roughly a third of the population who are immigrants or potentially impacted by this. And that Supreme Court decision that says you don't need any excuse to stop people other than them, just like basically being brown makes it so that the fear and the impact is much more widespread than it would otherwise be.

[Krystal Ball]

I'll grant you that that's the cleanest hit that the left has got right now. And they're not wrong. But part of the reason I wanted to focus on that LA stuff is because I'm like, that's how you got here, okay? You created a political system where for a lot of us, it feels like you have an entire. Like the entire liberal city focus is on criminals making sure that they can get away with as much crime as possible, and on making sure illegals apparently treated as everyday citizens. I'll give you a perfect example. Here in Washington, D.C. you remember the whole big balls mugging which justify the National Guard. Guess what happened to those two teens who mugged them? Probation, nothing. No jail time, nothing going after him. The DC people just let him right out of there. That's how you get to the National Guard deployment. It's like you have to grapple with failed governance and with prosecution. You live in the richest city, literally one of the richest cities in the history of the world, where you have 10% of the people there who are there illegally. You have to tacitly admit that your skyrocketing price and everything is not capable without your slave labor from Guatemala. And then the only possible solution you come to is pathway to citizenship. That is why people freak out. People like me. I'll give you example of who's the founder of Reddit. I think his name is Alexis something, I forget. He made a long post about ICE and everything. He's like, my family were undocumented. And he goes, instead of these ICE raids. That's why we need a pathway to citizenship. And it just strikes me again, it's like, if your only option for many of us is amnesty or this shit, a lot of people are gonna choose this shit. Because even in a pathway to citizenship, for example, there will come a time where many of the people who don't qualify, what happens to them? Are they gonna leave willingly? They have to be deported somehow? Sometimes we're gonna have to go and find them. Are you ever gonna support that? No, we know the answer. They don't support law enforcement removing illegals from the country.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You're Making it such a binary choice.

[Krystal Ball]

It actually was in the armor.

[David Sirota]

It really was.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I don't think so, Zagar, because, I mean, listen to me. It was right to me, it was when I saw mass deportation. Now, I'm not gonna say I knew it would be Blackhawk helicopters raiding an apartment building in the middle of night and zip, tying naked children. Okay? I'm not gonna say I knew that. That I knew it would be something approaching. I mean, Trump talked about the insurrection, like, invoking the Interaction Act. But there is a balance that could be struck between, like, ice, absolute terror reign in a variety of cities, and targeting blue cities in particular in blue states, because you don't like the politicians who are there.

[Krystal Ball]

That is where the vast majority of the illegals are, too, because they created.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Sanction and total impunity for these guys who are assaulting, again, American citizens. Right. Who are assaulting legal immigrants, who are racially profiling anyone who looks brown, running around in masks and terrorizing entire cities. Like, there is a way of doing some immigration enforcement that doesn't look like that.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, but we did.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But hold on. This is what I find frustrating about your analysis. I know how you feel about immigration, okay? But. But I feel that there is such a heightened level of, like, scrutiny and expectation on one side and then a total lack of accountability. Like the upset over the way that the Trump administration has conducted themselves. You just wanna blame, like, well, it's the liberal's fault, it's Biden's fault, it's Newsom's fault, it's Karen Bass fault. Like, these are grown human beings who control all of the government. They have responsibility for their own decisions. You can't just always blame liberals for what the fuck they're doing.

[Krystal Ball]

I think that is entirely fair, but I would comp. Are you capable of talking about illegal immigrant crime without contextualizing it in the broader picture? Not really.

[Saagar Enjeti]

What do you mean?

[Krystal Ball]

Well, okay, so if I was like, oh, if we talk about, let's say, the Lake and Riley case or any of that, every time we do, it always has to come back to, oh, but actually, statistically, it's a bigger picture. And it's America's fault that they're coming from Guatemala anyway. And actually they commit less crimes than whites, and that's why, actually, they're better citizens here.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Are you ready?

[Krystal Ball]

No, no, no.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Criminal, illegal immigrants should be deported. Are you happy?

[Krystal Ball]

It's not a bad.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's not hard to say. Sagar, I. I can say very directly that is not what these people are doing. They are doing the opposite of that. In fact, we have an element here later in the show. You know the apartment building raid.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

One they are claiming one trender Aragua member. The vast majority of the people that are picking up have no criminal records. The amount of drug trafficking, human trafficking convictions are down. They are doing the opposite of going after undocumented criminal, illegal criminals. Okay, so like, if the goal is let's get out the bad people, they are completely failing at that.

[Krystal Ball]

I grant you that. I grant you that entirely. What I'm saying is about a political dynamic of which we were entered in. Now, you talked about that there's a middle way. We had four years of the so called middle way where 8 to 10 million people entered the country illegally that was just as insane and lawless. It absolutely. No, it only wasn't. Cause you don't. Because you agree with the policy and you want to give them citizenship. For many of us, we reject that. Actually. That's a violation of immigration law. That is a violation of the border, violation of our sovereignty as a country itself. And yes, many people saw that as ridiculous, as lawless, as out of control. And they gave us the option we had to choose between that and this. And the majority of the people did choose at least some version of this, are rejecting this. Okay, but we don't live in. We don't live in government by poll immediately. So then Biden should have just been thrown out of office.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I live in very privileged life, right?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, so do I. Let's put that on the table, too.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I have owned my own home. I'm doing fine. Right. So let's think about the people who are directly, were both directly impacted by undocumented immigrants coming in and who are now directly impacted by what the Trump administration is doing. Okay. The people in that apartment building in Chicago. Okay. There were definitely undocumented immigrants there. All right?

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And they, if you talk to the residents, they have been far more traumatized by what was done to them by this government than by any of the undocumented immigrants who were there in that apartment building. So if you're just talking really directly, but you're talking about the people who have been directly affected both by undocumented immigration and by a fascist crackdown in their city. Helicopter raid, like all of this insanity, there is no doubt that they would much rather have the undocumented immigrants in their building than their whole life turned upside down, their children dragged out of their beds and traumatized in the middle of the world.

[Krystal Ball]

It seems very reductive because you're pointing to that one apartment building. I could probably find 10 apartment buildings where people have said that illegals have come in with crime. I mean, actually, literally where I live, there's very nearby, there's public housing projects where they're having problems with MS.13. And I actually even asked one of them, I said, what's the issue? Said, oh, we got all these Venezuelan migrants who've been coming in and breaking.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Into the United States. Yeah. So then ask them if they would like in response to that, to have their apartment raided in the middle of the night and their children pulled out, street and zip tied and throw U hauls on the street all the time.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm giving you the prospect of they're also upset about the former, which is how we got to the latter. Now, I'm not justifying what the Trump administration is doing, but similarly, in the way that we talk about illegal crime, or at least any liberal has talked about illegal crime, we have to look at it in the context of how we got here. Like, there's no way. I know this for a fact. Having debated immigration with liberals now for over a decade, they can't. Are literally constitutionally incapable of talking about illegal immigration without oh, but America messages messed up Guatemala or whatever in the 1980s. And that's why it's our fault that all these people came over here. It's not possible. Of course we can look at stuff.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But it's a bit of a point. I mean, we're just talking about Venezuela. Right. We're just talking about Venezuela where we might do a regime change, where we have massive sanctions that have. It's not the only reason, but it's a big part of immiserating the population.

[Krystal Ball]

Sure.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, it seems to me like that's actually a very important part of the conversation because people don't want to have to leave their home, they want to be able to stay in their homes.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't agree with that.

[David Sirota]

So I.

[Saagar Enjeti]

No, it's absolutely, it's absolutely the case.

[Krystal Ball]

Over a billion people around the world would come to America.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Even in a place like Venezuela, that is where things are not good and haven't been good for a while. It's not like everyone is leaving. People prefer generally to stay where they're from. The migrants pushed down to Syria, they don't wanna have to go to these European countries. We interviewed that Palestinian, now Australian doctor, Dr. Mo, who grew up in the UK and kids would be like, go back to where you're coming from. He's Like, I literally can't. I would love to go back to Palestine, I would love to not be a refugee, but I literally can't. So I don't think that there's any problem with discussing those root causes.

[Krystal Ball]

But that's why I don't think there's a problem in talking about the incentive structure and the fault, the border.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I hear you.

[Krystal Ball]

Lawlessness.

[Saagar Enjeti]

What I get frustrated with is it's every time, it's always trying to deflect blame from the Trump administration onto something that some liberal did that you didn't, like whenever or wherever. And it's like, at a certain point, can we just say, you know what, this is really unacceptable and I don't care what came before, this is inexcusable, this is unacceptable. And we should be outraged at the way their rights are being violated, at the rate our rights are being violated, at the denial of due process, at the fact that we can just have mass racial profile, at the fact that these communities are being terrorized. Like, why can't we just have a direct condemnation without all this? Like, well, actually. But it's the liberals fault because I.

[Krystal Ball]

Just don't really think that exists. Whenever again, when we talk about illegal crime or when we talk about any of these other problems that illegals cause, it's like nobody's.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So because you don't like the way liberals talk about immigration, you can't.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, don't you think it's the Trump.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Administration for what they're doing?

[Krystal Ball]

Don't you think it's kind of emotional blackmail in a way? Like, did we for the last four years just cover every single illegal rape in the country completely for what it was like? No, because I think honestly that would be ridiculous. I think this is basically the inverse of that where it's like, we have to condemn this one specific thing. We can't talk about the broader context. The broader context matters. The body politic actually did vote in a very specific way on this. Now maybe they're feeling differently now. We don't live in government by poll fiat, where immediately, like, if that were the case, then we should have said, fuck Biden, let's get him out of here. Nine months into the election.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I think your point would be reasonable if we're talking about one offs, but we're talking about a whole government policy which is also not really about immigrant. It's partly about immigration, but it's not really about immigration. This is about trying to create a one party state. This is about trying to understand the case. I mean, if you look at, we just said we didn't get this into this show cuz it just broke yesterday. They're now trying to turn the IRS into investigation of any of their political opponents. They wanna go after George Soros Open Societies Foundation. They wanna try to criminalize basically donating to any sort of left causes. You have NSPM 7 which is meant to target anyone who is critical of like the right or Trump, et cetera. You have them denying visas to people. Cuz they said the wrong thing about Charlie Kirk. They are, we're going to talk to David Sirota about these Supreme Court cases. They're trying to consolidate. They are going for the whole thing. They're trying to consolidate control and part of that is the militarized response both with the National Guard but also with these federal agents in the streets of these cities which they are only expanding. So yes, it's important to talk about what that actually looks like on the ground. And it's also really important when the government lies to you about what's happening to be able to expose the truth. They're trying to provoke these direct confrontations cuz they want to use and again we know this from reporting to invoke the Insurrection act which will give them an even freer hand. And this is not just about immigrants, this is about all of our rights. And I think that is abundantly clear.

[Krystal Ball]

I said that's the cleanest hit that they've got and that obviously is where they're out of control. I'm not really disputing a lot of your critique of the way that the Trump administration has carried this out. I really am not. What I am trying to get to is, look, I mean I think you're off base with a one party state thing. I think quite a lot of this is either theater or in many cases it's like designed to placate like specific political constituencies. I mean we can't cover the way that we've halfhandedly done the world's worst trade war and then also say that this is the most, you know, that this is some like hyper efficient party state which is capable of takeover.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But also whether they're able to be successful or not is a different question of what they're trying to do.

[Krystal Ball]

Let me just take it back. Yeah, hyper specific to your critique is baked in like a liberal acceptance let's say of the Voting Rights Act. I read a lot about that. We're talking about that with Sirota. It's like should race really qualify as part of gerrymandering? Because of some interpretation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In my opinion, based on everything I've read, specifically agreement and critiques of the Civil Rights Act, I would say no. I actually think it's a violation of the way that we were originally supposed to apportionment. It's just only baked in to the post liberal cause that race itself should be an identity issue. Now will it be bad for Democrats? Yeah, I don't really care about that. I wouldn't really care because it's a principal issue for me. You disagree? That's fine. I'm trying to take it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'll save that more of that country for a moment. But what we're talking about is taking an area that is majority black and then dividing it like a pinwheel to make sure that they have no representation. And yes, I think that's wrong. And I think that means that those.

[Krystal Ball]

But then just lumping them all in.

[Saagar Enjeti]

One place, those people are being denied political representation. And so I think, yeah, I think that's.

[Krystal Ball]

It's a racial carve out for political representation. I'm only getting to. Implicit in all of this is a literal liberal bias where you see one as more lawless than another. You have to accept that, you know, if we all wanna live together. Many of us saw what happened to the Biden administration as actually lawless insanity and as a literal last chance, which is why many people voted for Trump. And that theory pervades the current United States government in their view of immigration specifically. Now I'm not gonna say for National Guard or for any of that, cuz I actually do think that's kind of a separate issue. Even though I know that you think it is the same in general on this issue. If the fact is, if we are so far apart, that again for the binary is literal. Amnesty for all of them, 20, 25 million or deportation. Many of us are gonna choose deportation. We just simply are. Because that does seem to me the binary. When the liberal elite and others are all saying that this is the only other acceptable solution for many people that is a genuine threat. And I just, I don't think that the liberals grasp that it's an actual red line in the same way that maybe this is a red line for you. And I don't begrudge anybody, if you're liberal and you wanna go out and make this your number one issue, you have absolute right as an American, you should try and convince people. In my opinion, you're probably winning right now because most people see lawlessness and chaos in the same way they saw under Biden. And I think the cleanest hit that you guys have is that this is a violation of our rights as Americans, which to me is kind of nice, cuz it's like we finally get to talk about us being as Americans. But one of the things that drives me crazy is the conflation of the two and specifically saying there might as well be citizens. That's why, honestly, I'll say it, I still have a really hard time with always trying to have a look at like violation of this, this and that. And it's like, it's so crazy to me that you can literally cross our border illegally, take money, take a job, go live in our housing, expect like the full, you know, rights of the US Constitution, of the government and all that, other people to protect you. I understand after talking with Glenn why it has to be that way. So I accept. But intellectually I struggle with it. It doesn't seem right to me that you can break our laws, that you can enter here illegally, that in my opinion you can take and actually not do so much benefit to our country and that we have to roll the red carpet out for you just to send you back from where you came from. It's nuts, in my opinion.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, even if you feel that way.

[Krystal Ball]

No, I've said I accept that the law has to be the way that it is. And I really do.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Even if you feel that way, the reality of like due process, you know, is the perfect example here. If you don't have due process, you don't even get, if you're a citizen getting caught up in this to prove you're a citizen. And that's where we are.

[Krystal Ball]

I think it's fair.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's where we are now. You know, I mean, we have a number of instances of American citizens. I don't, I think it was the day I was with, maybe it was the day I would cover with Emily. But the, you know, the guy who was going to work, American army veteran, and they busted open the windshield in his car, sprayed him with pepper spray, took him, held him for days, wasn't allowed a phone call, wasn't allowed to call his lawyers, was put on suicide watch, Was not allowed. He was covered in pepper spray, was, you know, being like burned by this pepper spray, not allowed to clean himself off. Those are the things that are happening. And so, you know, I understand that you have a hard line position on immigration and it's important to you and I understand that. I don't agree with it, but I Understand that's the case.

[Advertisement Voice]

Case.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But I think especially at this point, you can't really claim the mantle of a popular mandate when you've seen such a backlash against what all of this looks like.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay, but sit with that conceptually. So then when Biden is unpopular, I should be able to demand that he stop. He's not going to stop. That's not how government by poll fiat works.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, again, here's the thing though, is like, then we would just have.

[Krystal Ball]

Three month policy cycles. It doesn't work that way. The system is literally designed so that you can get elected and then you can do something about it in four years. People will get to vote and they can choose what world that they want.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The something is, does kind of matter. You know, if you're going to like, okay, we're going to, we're going to beef up the FBI and we're going to do investigations into, you know, criminal undocumented networks and we're going to have these cases and we're going to take them down. In fact, what we see the opposite is him like making deals with Bukele to let down a bunch of gang leaders. Like, that's the reality of what's going on here. And we're going to go after the, you know, the person who actually was going to their court hearing and is following the process and we're just gonna snatch them up or we're gonna, you know, we're gonna take you because we don't like what you said about Charlie Kirk or what you said about Palestine or just because you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, they truly are, you know, wreaking havoc in these communities. So when you talk about.

[Krystal Ball]

So I'll give you the Charlie Kirk thing is a perfect example. I know you guys are gonna cover on the Friday show, but for me, one of those guys, so conceptually I have to be like, okay, this is a free speech problem. One of those guys though, he talked about, about white trash people. One of the people who posted that. And I go, you know what, man? You, why are you in our country and you're insulting our own citizens. That's, I mean, I, and that's where I, I guess liberals just don't have that in them. It's like you come here and you're going to insult the people who live here. Go. Difference between.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You get the out of here. There's a difference between your emotional reaction and your intellectual understanding of the way that is an infringement on people's first Amendment rights. And yes, immigrants do have free speech rights as well. But we've also seen the way that this government does not keep these infringements just with the immigrant community.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm giving you the example because that, I mean, let's take a poll, shall we? Since we're so interested in polling. Should people who think that white people who live in our country are white trash be allowed to live here? Most people say no.

[Saagar Enjeti]

There's no here in this country already who think that white like that there's, you know, poor people are white trash. And guess what? I really object. But you know, in other instances, like you're offensive speech, whatever, like stop pearl clutching, you know, the point of pearl clutching, the point of First Amendment speech is like it protects you when things are offensive.

[Krystal Ball]

You say that. I'm not gonna say you should be.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Kicked out of the.

[Krystal Ball]

It's a choice to let somebody in.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Have those rights is because there are going to be instances where the majority is opposed. Right, but we don't wanna deny people their rights just based on like a mob mentality in the moment of what we emotionally feel. So, you know, that's why these fights can be difficult but are important. But you know, if you don't mind, I would like to show some of the, you know, some of what's going on in Chicago because I think like this is potentially there is more and more backlash. Chicago seems to be the hottest at this point. There's more and more backlash just from the community to what's going on in Chicago. And so let me show you this one instance that really turned into quite a hot situation. Let's show E3, please. So here you can see a white vehicle, that's the ICE vehicle ramming this red vehicle in a community in a random neighborhood in Chicago. And then they get out and they make chase. And allegedly these three people that they make chase of are undocumented. And then you have people from the community and we can put E4 up on the screen. Hundreds of people come out of their houses because this accident has just happened because, you know, ICE rammed this vehicle. Hundreds of people come out and it turns into, you know, it turns into a chaotic situation. So this is from the Chicago Sun Times. New York Times covered it as well. Other outlets too. They said feds ram SUV after chase down residential street in Chicago. Then Tier Garden, gas the crowd. And we can show some of what this looks like. This is E5. We can put this up on the screen. So this is again similar to the one we covered before. I think what's important, E5 guys, go ahead and put up the VO. I think what's important here to realize is this was not like an organized protest. These are just random community people. And maybe there were some activists who, after this all starts to unfold, come to the scene. You've got elderly people. There were, you know, was at least one, like, baby in the crowd. And then what they say is that people start throwing stuff and they started tear gassing. They've been using tear gas quite indiscriminately around schools. We saw the pastor who was tear gassed and Chicago PD who had shown up to try to de escalate here and separate the crowd from the federal agents. They actually got tear gassed in this as well. You had one person with like a baby and a carrier has to run away. And tear gas is very particularly dangerous. Dangerous for children in particular. And there's a couple key things that I want to point out here. Just again, on the theme of like, you cannot trust what this government is telling you. They initially said that the immigrants had rammed the ICE agents. You can see from the video, they are the ones who intentionally caused this accident. This is apparently a law enforcement tactic. I wasn't familiar with this, but a law enforcement tactic to stop vehicles. And it's banned by most police departments because it's extremely dangerous and has caused a lot of fatal accidents. Accidents. So they're executing this extremely dangerous maneuver. Then they lie about it. And then even they picked up, they arrested a few of the people that had gathered there, and they said that they had assaulted the officer and throwing at them, throwing things at them, et cetera. But then they also released them without charges. So we've had other instances where they claimed this woman that they shot, they said, oh, she had a semiautomatic weapon and she was trying to threaten us, et cetera. And that turned out to not be accurate as well. So they also have just been caught in a number of instances where they will just lie about the scene and the way things ultimately unfold.

[Krystal Ball]

Again, I'm really not denying any of this. I'm not saying they haven't lied. Have you noticed me defending the government since Seekot? Okay, all right. Since we saw that most of the people who, as you said, were gang members. I'm not sitting here saying that the apartment building was full of Trende Aragua. I don't believe them either. Okay. Trisha McLachlan, most of the time she doesn't say telephone. The truth, from what I can tell, she's the lady who's the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson. A number of her stories have collapsed. I am not denying it whatsoever. I will say this kind of gets to our earlier debate or whatever about Chicago. I mean everyone's focused on the. I mean, who's bringing a baby to protest? I mean it seems a little bit crazy, don't you think?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, I don't.

[Krystal Ball]

It's like we don't actually know the.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Circumstances because I mean this was. This just like unfolded in this community.

[Krystal Ball]

So you're gonna bring. I mean I have a. I'm not taking that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

They may have been in the area and you know, the traffic was stopped. So I'm not sure why that was.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay. But implicit in what kind of what you said gets to oh, they shouldn't fire tear gas if there's a baby around. I remember. See, this is the problem. I've covered this shit for so long. I remember when illegals would bring their kids to the border and then people would get upset whenever they would get interdicted and they'd go, what does that incentive say? Bring your kids, bring your kids with you and you can't do anything about it. I'm just so sick of this emotional.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Blackmail, in my opinion. But do you think that the use of tear gas has been been appropriate?

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, I don't know on a case by case basis. And this is really more belies the point broadly about everything seems to be framed in my opinion at least as these people should just be allowed to live here. And it seems in general, having covered this again for over a decade, what possible enforcement is acceptable to the liberal conscious? Basically nothing remain in Mexico was cruel. Then we let them come in here. The only acceptable solution if you keep them in prison. Oh no, that's cruelty too. So they need a work visa. They need to be able to go around here. If they skip their asylum, those poor people, they skip their hearing. Even though they did it, it would be cruel to go and get them. So do you see how the permission structure has risen? And anytime a liberal mob creates violence, riot is a voice of the unheard and they don't deserve to be prosecuted. And everything they've done is fine in.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Chicago and in Portland like LA could make. You know, there was like a hot protest before the National Guard searched. But Chicago was a lot more peaceful before these people showed up. Chicago was much more peaceful. There were not riots, there were not even major protests. And so if your concern is a lack of chaos and law and order, this is the exact opposite of what you would ultimately want. I just think it's such a straw man to say, well, you wouldn't want any enforcement. It's like, okay, well, we could argue about what would be appropriate, but can we all say that this is not appropriate, that this is not an acceptable way to go about it, that we've got this Walgreens chasing people down in Walgreens and throwing them on the ground who are US Citizens just because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Can we say that masked out military officers roaming the streets and terrorizing random people and crashing into and shooting people, that this is not the way to do it? And then we can talk about what would be the right way to do it. But I don't think it should be so hard to say this is not acceptable. And that this is an issue not just for immigrants, but again, for all of us and for these communities in particular being impacted. And it's not a one off. This is part of a plan. This is what they want to do. And they're expanding this to other cities because this is part of their project of consolidating control and scaring people, basically.

[Krystal Ball]

So I can easily say, just like you did about criminals, like, yes, I think it's bad. I'm merely pointing out that at every level of enforcement, it's cruel and unusual. The only acceptable thing.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Just don't know why you have to dodge, like, why do you?

[Krystal Ball]

But it's not a dodge.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It is. Of course it is.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm trying to put you into the personality and the mind of people who share my politics, are currently in the government. Okay. I'm not even necessarily justifying it. I'm explaining to you how it happened and how it's a serious political constituency, actually. That's why they don't give a shit about whenever they see these videos remain in Mexico was crazy. Then whenever they come over here and you put them in prison, that's cruel too. The only acceptable solution is to let them loose, give them a work visa if you go and get them in any criminal way. It's cruel. It's fascism. And so you see the rhetorical ladder that we start to climb up here and then when you violently riot across.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The country, Actual fascism, though, we should be able to say this is not acceptable. And regardless of what the libs did that you didn't like, they are great grownups who have a lot of power and control. And by the way, Stephen Miller is running this and he's a total sadistic psycho. Who even Trump says is like wild white nationalist and he's in control of this. And I don't think that it would matter what the libs did because he has an ideological project that he has been trying to effectuate his entire life. So I don't know that the libs are really to blame for the existence of Stephen Miller.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, actually he's from California and he was radicalized by illegal politics, so I will say that. But actually, actually if you take it a little bit further, I don't know, I just think that your desire to try and talk about this in a vacuum in the same way that if I were to try and talk about every illegal immigrant who raped somebody in a vacuum, ignores very important political context on the political violence and chaos front, everything was fine with it when people were burning, rioting and looting. That was all MLK quotes galore. And even on the Charlie Kirk thing, I was thinking about this earlier when everyone was like, oh, it's back that we're being forced to mourn. How many times do I have to walk past George Floyd's face and have crowds of people tell me I have to kneel for eight minutes and whatever seconds. They had no problem with state mourning demanding me and my life and everybody around me. Like, do you see how that's gonna drive people to a very, very different place? Whenever you have that level of cultural and governmental, like actual trying to control of your life for over a decade. And then same on the immigration question where every time that you try to do something about it, you're called Nazi and fascist. Some of them are just gonna say fuck it, let's go. And that's part of what, you know, I do think that that bears responsibility cuz things don't happen in a vacuum.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay, but they just personal agency talk like normally you're so fast to ascribe people. Personal agency. Where is it for these people?

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, I just, I said it's bad. I mean, absolutely.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You've always gotta be couched in. Yeah, but the libs. Yeah, but blm. Yeah, but Gavin Newsom. Yes. And it's like, why can't you ascribe the same level of personal agency to these very powerful individuals who have put extensive plans in place and who. You're right, I do think we shouldn't talk about this in the vacuum. I think we should talk about it as part of an effort at totalitarian control and achieving a one party state. Now you may think that they're too incompetent to be able to pull that off. That may be the case, but that is in fact what they're trying to pull. And so that's the other part of this that, you know, I think needs to be brought into the picture is that the National Guard surge and all of the federal agents, in some ways the other federal agencies, because they're able to do more, are more of a threat into these cities. The militarization of regular law enforcement. This is part of a broader plan that is being effectuated by this government. And I really don't give a shit at this point what Joe Biden did or what some Liberal did in 2018 that you were unhappy about, because these are the people who have power now. And I don't know why we can't just, like, deal with the current existing threat. And then, yes, we can talk about the root cause, we can think about how to go in a different direction that's going to create an immigration solution that's more palatable for people so we don't end up in the extremes. I am down with all of that. But at the moment, the thing that we need to focus on is what's happening right now with this government, what they're doing and what their plans are.

[Krystal Ball]

I have no problem with it. We just did. Right. We're focused on it for certain, even with the National Guard and all that. But, you know, I don't think frankly saying a totalitarian one party state is happening is all that useful. Whenever we live here in Washington, D.C. you and I are, you know, recording just fine. There's a bunch of idiots who are picking up trash down at the Not. I didn't mean that, but I mean the people who are commanding them. The people who are idiots who put them in charge of picking up trash. Yes. Who are walking around. So the bifurcation of the reality and then the, you know, the reality of what's actually happening, happening. And then, yes, the deployment in some cases seems like important context to me. Like, nobody listen if they seize the ballot boxes or what did Michael Moore once say on our show that if they're gonna go and seize the ballot boxes and unironically rig the election, I am with you. I'll even promise you I will take to the streets for real. I actually will.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Something short of that that's also concerning.

[Krystal Ball]

But, like, what? I mean, like, we're about to argue about the vra. It's like, yeah, you don't like that it's gonna get struck down by Supreme Court. Court, sorry, that's within the political mechanism. That's not possible.

[Saagar Enjeti]

How about trying to criminalize like dissenting from Trump at all, like using the IRS they're targeting. So they've pulled the funding from blue states during the shutdown. Again to try to cripple any sort of democratic dissent and governance. You know, chilling speech policing, comedians monologues. Right. Making it so that you can't be here if you don't like Charlie Kirk.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, I objected to some of that. That you're listening. But look, even on the Democratic. Again, nobody wants to hear this. Obama actually set that up under the 2013 shutdown. The executive, the executive branch's ability to pull funding into at the total discretion to distribute funds from which he wants to.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Has anyone ever, has anyone ever denied red state funded? No.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, you're right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right. And so at a certain, like, where is the line for you? Does it really have to be they seize the ballot boxes like it has to go that far before you see the way the country is being like the rights that we've enjoyed are being taken away and it's being turned and weaponized. And they are like, again, whether or not they can succeed. It's very clear what the plan is. The plan is we want to make it so there basically is no opposition so that we have control, so that they can't win the House, you know, so that they're. They want to go after Act Blue so that, you know, any sort of fundraising is very difficult for Democrats. They want to go after individual donors so that you're too scared to give your money. Money to Democratic causes. That is the plan. And that they also want to change the composition of the electorate so that the people that vote for them, they're changing the asylum refugee program to favor like right wingers coming from Europe.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So these are all.

[Krystal Ball]

Listen, I'm with you. I think that's nuts.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This is all part and parcel of the same plan. So I know it sounds wild to say, but that is in fact, I mean, you don't think that's Stephen Miller's goal. Of course it is.

[Krystal Ball]

No, I genuinely don't. I actually think it's politics and I think that seems to be our fundamental disagreement. And in some cases.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You don't think he's an ideological actor.

[Krystal Ball]

No, I said he's an ideological actor. I didn't think that his plan is a totalitarian one party state. I genuinely don't. And that seems to be the premise of our disagreement in some cases. What you're talking about is that many liberals are so accustomed. Let's Say on the nonprofit status, it's like. Well yeah it is. I'm not defending per se in the way the Trump administration is going to do it, but let's be honest, is it not also banned a fantasy like to investigate the Koch brothers or to go into look into right wing tea party funding network? This is a long time normalized rhetoric in terms of Democratic administrations. If they weren't. It's not. No. Yes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

No, absolutely it's not.

[Krystal Ball]

No, it absolutely is in terms of their.

[Saagar Enjeti]

If anyone said that they should like we should like criminalize Republican donors.

[Krystal Ball]

Well no, okay. I don't think they said criminalize Republican donors but they said that they flirt with the. I actually even agree in terms of let's say in churches or you know, in terms of their political activity. I'm just saying though, if you look at it in some cases all Trump does is say thing. All Trump really does in some cases is say the quietest part out loud. For much of the way that the political system has acted, there's legitimate. Well no, but see this just seems to be our core I guess disagreement here in everything you interpret as a genuine crushing like what would it take for me to say yeah, this is it. Yes, unironically like rigging the election. Like actually rigging strike straight up the election or stopping the election or seizing ballot boxes within that I mean considering how much US history and all that I've wrong is there it's pretty within.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The confines a theoretical trappings of some bullshit elections then anything else is fine.

[Krystal Ball]

But then think about it. Well then what's not like Comey or.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Tish James or Adam Schiff. I like Letitia James. The other two I don't care for. But now we've got okay, the DOJ is gonna be my personal like hit squad. I'm going to go out, I'm going to gin up charges against whoever I want to I'm going to target. So you've got the DOJ acting out where you have funds withheld from flu states. It is an all out war on the opposition. That's what it is. And in a way that is truly different. And yes, some Democrat might have said something or the other. We have never seen in our lifetimes the complete weaponization of government against not just political elites but against the entire constituency of the opposition party. And that is what they're doing and what they have plans to expand.

[Krystal Ball]

So we have David Sirota standing by. So this will be my last word but my point. So you choose to see that what I choose to see is the federal grand jury throwing out the ham sandwich thing, making sure. Or saying the Chicago jury saying that much of what ICE is saying is bullshit. The Los Angeles jury throwing that. I'm like, that is still within the confines of the system. That's not a theoretical election. That's actually legal justification. By the way, James Comey is being tried in this place where I live. I could guarantee you he's being found not guilty 100%. Now, I mean, that doesn't say that he hasn't been harassed by the state. So I'm not gonna diminish that. That's really, really bad.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay. But that's not the same thing as being thrown into sea cot without due process. Yes. A multimillionaire. Okay, well, they're all really well. But it's not the same. Same thing, though. It's actually not. Is if a multimillionaire can contest his defense and then can get released on bond and also be found not guilty. You don't live in a pesticide.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. I mean, you know that the point of that is not just about Comey. The point of that is that Trump's enemies, anyone who would speak out against him are put on notice. We will do this to you. That's the point of those actions. It's the same thing. I mean, we objected vociferously to when last, like a tax auditor or whatever showed up in Matt Taibbi's house after on the Twitter files, Right?

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And this is being done, you know, and that I don't, you know, was it legitimate or not? We certainly were very uncomfortable with that. Now, this is being done explicitly in a whole of government way. So I would just say that I see your ham sandwich grand jury and I raise you a Supreme Court that's allowing things like Kavanaugh stops, that's allowing rescissions, that's allowing the complete, you know, destruction of government agencies, that's allowing this administration to do whatever they want, because that is a much more powerful institution than one or two grand juries here or there that check some of the abuses.

[Krystal Ball]

I think that's a fair point. Again, based on your rescissions thing, it's kind of baked in is that you agree with the race thing. So we'll just put that to the.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Side because we're going to talk about rescissions. I'm talking about the funding.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, sorry. Rescission. With the. Funny. Okay, so with the. Within that. Let's say that on the front of where you think that things are Gonna go the worst. Cause I would say that the worst of it, that true totalitarianism means that dissent itself does not exist, is that criminalization has no pretense in the legal or the judicial system. I just don't see it. I mean, I definitely do think that we're. That we. Trump has an enemies list. Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you. I agree. But it's a big. It's a big, big difference, again, in my opinion, between that and actually being thrown in jail. No pretense, you know, show trial, like in Moscow or something like that. I would say similarly with the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh, you can agree with it. There's a lot of shit. The Supreme Court that does that I disagree with. But that's not the same thing as saying that it was declared by executive fiat. Some of the rescissions have not been held up. You know, Lisa Cook is still on the Federal Reserve Board. Like, it's not Exactly. Like, it's 100% of what you want, maybe a lot more than you want would like. But that's very different in terms of how the system is operating. And that's part of why I'm like, yeah, I just think it's generally. I would say it's out of the confines of modern history, definitely not out of the confines of American history. And that's part of why I look at all this in particular. Pair it with some of the things that we've all gone through. And I was like, yes, Trump is extraordinary to the current mind. And I don't defend or even, frankly, like, I would say almost 80% of a lot of what the White House has done. I think it's grotesque. I think it has betrayed much of the spirit of what people voted on. And, in fact, I think what disgusts me the most, really, about it is a lot of the lying is because it's not just Trump. Of course Trump was a liar, but the people around him actually made assurances, both privately but also really publicly about the way things were gonna go. And then to just flip on a dime like that. I am much more concerned at a Democratic level with that. And because I don't see that the voters. I mean, you know, I'm a rare exception. There's most people who support or just gonna go along with everything. And that actually probably scares me maybe equally to what you are, because it shows me that the stuff itself doesn't even matter.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And I think. See, you talk about fake elections. That's what I think is fake, is that the mind is so controlled by so many of these people with a cult of personality that you can literally flip on something that you said that you were gonna do and they're gonna do anything about about it or create any sort of democratic check. So in a way, I almost, I view that as one of the more dangerous elements of maga. But we have, we have.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Let's get started.

[Krystal Ball]

I apologize to the audience and to David Sirota. So let's go ahead and get him in here.

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

All right, at long last. Much anticipated. We are joined now by David Serrato who of course is founder of Lever News, among many other things and is out with a new book. David, welcome.

[Krystal Ball]

Thank you.

[David Sirota]

Thanks for having me.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, of course. So let's put the book jacket up on the screen here. Guys. Need to make sure to check this out. You guys have been doing phenomenal work on corruption in America. In particular the headline, the title of the book is Master the Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. David, let's start with this news that's incredibly relevant. We put up three up on the screen here about one of the cases that's going before the Supreme Court. Or actually is it two cases that are going before the Supreme Court that listen, we already don't have the greatest campaign finance system. There already aren't a lot of limits. But there's an effort afoot to try to eliminate what meager limits we do have. So explain that to the audience for, for us.

[David Sirota]

So we're at the 15 year anniversary of Citizens United and Citizens United was the culmination of this movement that we document in Master Plan. And I should say we call it the Hidden Plot. And people think they know this story, but trust me, you do not know the story of how corruption was legalized because it's been secret for decades. And we uncovered all sorts of documents exposing how they wrote it down. I mean, right, they wrote down how they were going to deregulate the campaign finance system and weaken anti bribery laws. Americans in polls tell us that they hate the Citizens United decision. But, but as you allude to, the Supreme Court is literally right now going to hear a case that could dismantle whatever was left of America's anti corruption laws after Citizens United. And it's a case spearheaded by J.D. vance. So essentially what this case would do, what J.D. vance is trying to do do is say that parties, the limits on how much parties can coordinate their spending with candidates should be essentially eliminated. Which the effect of that would be the reason the rules exist is to, is to prevent what would end up being, if this happens, which is that donors could simply funnel much larger amounts of money through parties to candidates, essentially using parties as a kind of shell corporation or a pass through, through entity to flood much more money directly to candidates. So not even through supposedly independent super PACs, we're talking about much larger amounts of money directly into this, into the, into candidates. And the other case that's going on right now is a case that's trying to, to narrow the enforceability of anti corruption laws. This is the, the line of rulings like the Bob McDonnell ruling, the Chris the Bridge Gate rulings. So further narrowing it, there's an appeal at the court that cites, remember the story of Donald Trump soliciting $1 billion reportedly of campaign contributions from oil executives in exchange for promising favors. This, this appeal at the Supreme Court cites that situation to say, look at this, pay to play culture is now so pervasive that essentially we need to make it unprosecutable because pay to play culture is now essentially, essentially what politics is.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's insane. So sort of the way you should view that situation.

[David Sirota]

Exactly, exactly. I mean, it literally says, imagine if prosecutors prosecuted this kind of quid pro quo corruption. This would essentially criminalize all of politics.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, that's where we are. Well, you also talk about Ferraris there in the article. Can you expand on that?

[David Sirota]

Yeah. So that's part of the kit that, that's one of the cases in this line of, of cases to weaken the enforceability of anti corruption laws and anti bribery laws. That quote from John Roberts where he says, you know, this, this case is not having to deal with the tawdry details of Ferraris and Rolexes. It's about the, and this is his words, the overzealous, and I'm paraphrasing here, the overzealous enforcement by federal prosecutors of anti bribery laws. That's the core court's posture here. And it's worth noting that the court has been issuing these rulings making it harder and harder to prosecute bribery while certain members of the court are accepting lavish gifts from billionaires with business before the court. So, so in a certain sense, they kind of have an interest in making sure that bribery and this kind of corruption isn't, is unprosecated.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That is such an important point and one that doesn't go Remarked upon enough. I did want to give people a little bit of good news here though, because I saw you were talking on Twitter about how the commonly held belief is like, well, after Citizens United, there's not a lot we can do about campaign finance or require constitutional amendment. We all know how likely that is to happen. But you've actually been doing some investigating and there may be actually some ways that individual states can help curb the corrupt influence of money in their politics.

[David Sirota]

Yeah. So this is actually some good news. In Montana, luminaries of both parties are pushing a ballot measure that takes a look at how to deal with money in politics in a different way than standard campaign contribution limits or disclosure requirements. The long and the short of it is, is that the idea that corporations are people, people that are entitled to the rights to free speech with money being defined as speech. The whole idea that corporations are people stems from state incorporation laws that deems them or grants them the same powers as people under the law. This is the Citizens United case. All the campaign finance cases rely on those state incorporation laws. So what's happening in Montana is there's a ballot measure to say, okay, if that's the case, then we can change our state laws to grant corporations certain powers, but not grant them other powers. Legal scholars will tell you that the corporations under the law are artificial entities created by state laws. Which means, and we've done this in the past, way back where we said, you know, corporations have this as part of their charter. They have this power and this power, and they don't have this power in Montana. What they're proposing to do is say they have all the powers that they have, but they do not have the power to spend in elections. And here's the thing, I know people listening to this probably saying, well, doesn't it mean that a company could just like move out of Montana and move to Delaware and then do what it wants? Well, the answer is not in inside the state. Because all state laws have a provision that essentially say, if you're an out of state company doing business in our state state, you must comply with the basic laws and powers that we grant to corporations in state. So the point is Montana doing this can change its situation. For Montana, it doesn't have to wait for other states to move forward with this. And of course, then you extend it. You say, well, listen, states blue states that are more inclined to do this right now don't have to wait to do it on their ballot. They could do it through their legislature. So I think what, what they're looking at in Montana. Montana is a template. And the thing is is that the Supreme Court just recently and over many decades continues to have ruled that how this, how corporations are treated flows from state law. And my point in saying that is, is that this is a way to use Supreme Court precedent to deal with the problem in a way that the Supreme Court has previously and repeatedly said is within what it considers okay under the law.

[Krystal Ball]

Really interesting. So David, how does this connect to the upcoming midterm elections?

[David Sirota]

Well, look, I think it's not it's on the ballot in the midterm elections. So I think, you know, it's not going to be in place before the midterm elections. But look, I think the Democrats have a big problem in the midterm elections on the corruption issue. And I wrote about this recently, which is which is to say that in 2016, the last poll before the election showed Donald Trump losing on every issue issue except for corruption. If you can believe it here in 2025, the most recent Reuters poll showed the Republicans have a similar lead on the issue of corruption as they did in 2016. Who do you trust to deal with corruption? The Republicans are actually leading the Democrats and I think the Democrat that's a huge problem for the midterms because clearly it means the Democrats have not not made a forceful case about how they are whether or not they are serious about cleaning up corruption. And I think part of the problem here is that a lot of their anti corruption argument is a purely anti Trump argument. And, and it, it doesn't, it's not willing to concede the system is corrupt. And if you remember the John McCain race, I think back to that a lot the 2000 John McCain race where John McCain at one point almost won the Republican nomination. I would argue that the reason his anti corruption message and it was a pure anti corruption message, the reason it resonated was because he was willing to talk about both parties. And I think a lot of voters saw that as you're willing to, to be authentic and speak honestly about the situation as opposed to just blaming one side for the problem.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, gave him his sort of maverick branch standing. Let's talk a little bit about the a little more about the midterms. So there's this other Supreme Court case where it looks like the Supreme Court is poised to strike down additional aspects of, you know, the Civil Rights act, the Voting Rights Act. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Harry Entin talk about the impact that this could have on our on.

[Harry Enten]

The midterms okay, so you know, if you go back six months ago, you go back to April. Kate Baldwin, what were we at looking? Well, we were looking at the Democrats with a very clear shot of taking control of the US House of Representatives. According to the Cauchy prediction market odds, we saw them at an 83% chance, but those odds have gone plummeting down. Now we're talking about just a 63% chance while the GOP's chances up like a rocket up like gold, up from 17% to now a 37% chance. So we'll look like a pretty clear likely Democratic win in the House come next year. Has become much closer to a toss up at this point, although still slightly leaning Democratic.

[Saagar Enjeti]

What's changed?

[Harry Enten]

What do you think should go back to April? Look at the generic congressional ballot. What you see, you see plus three Democrats in 2025 in April. You see plus three Democrats back in April of 2017. Now jump over to this side of the screen. What happens? Well, the Democrats are no longer keeping pace with the pace that they were setting back in 2017. 2018. You look back in 2017, 17, you saw that the Democrats had leaped up to an eight point advantage. If both sides max out, we're probably looking at a GOP gain of plus seven House seats. That doesn't even take into account the potential gutting of the VRA that is right now going to be in front of the Supreme Court. If you add that in, you could be looking.

[Krystal Ball]

Rights Act.

[Harry Enten]

Yes, exactly right, the Voting Rights Act. If you add that in, then you could be looking about adding 10, 12, 15, 17 on top of this seven seats.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So Nate Cohn of the New York Times did an analysis here and said basically if Republicans really max out what they could do with that section of the Voting Rights act being nullified by the Supreme Court, Democrats would need to win the popular vote by more than five points to even have a prayer of winning back control of the House. So talk a little bit about that case and what some of the details there and what you think the impact could be.

[David Sirota]

Yeah, so the case is basically making it easier to gerrymander. I mean that's the, that's the top line for the especially in Republican states. It basically would say that districts that are drawn in accordance with the old Voting Rights act or the existing Voting Rights act, districts drawn to make sure there is adequate minority representation, that that provision would essentially become unenforceable if not eliminated. And what that would mean for, for various districts with African American members of Congress and The like that, that it would eliminate or at least Republican legislatures would be empowered to eliminate more of those districts in, in a way that increases their chances of winning those districts. And essentially what it would say, it would make it harder to prove or harder to get the law enforced to say that a specific map was violating essentially the basic civil rights that were outlined in the Voting Rights Act. It would raise the threshold. So I do think it's true. The upshot here is our Republican states with Republican legislatures and Republican governors, if this ruling comes down, are they going to call emergency sessions to redraw their maps? I, I think we should assume a lot of them are, are. And I want to bring it back to what we reveal in our book, which is Master Plan, which is, look, you have to understand so much of this comes out of that early 1970s era where you've got conservatives saying look, we, and this is in the Powell memo, look, we have a problem where the government has become too responsive to what people want. This is essentially what Lewis Powell, the Supreme Court justice was arguing in the infamous Powell memo. And what, what it was really saying is democracy has become a problem for us. So we need more investment in essentially electing who we want, corporations, oligarchs and the like to prevent the people from getting so much of what they want because it's threatening our so called free market system. So you've seen that in the deregulation of campaign finance. That's why one pillar, you're now seeing it in the attempt to change the maps, right? Change the process the way we elect people. You've seen it in the attack on unions, right? These are the three pillars that we have to stop the public from getting what it wants. So I look at the redistricting stuff as one pillar of this larger plan to, to, to reduce the power of people, people to essentially get what they want from government because the people in power with money don't want that. They see that responsiveness as a threat.

[Krystal Ball]

What I found interesting after Citizens United, David, is there was a lot of talk about, you know, I think fine correctly about a lot of Republican billionaires who would take advantage. It ended up actually being quite bipartisan, including unions, many others who used it much to their advantage. I wonder if you could talk about that in the comments context of this as well, specifically with California talking about redistricting and whether you see that as the acceptable balance. What's a better end state? Cause I think that's what you're trying to get at.

[David Sirota]

No, it's a fair Question. Look, in my view, what California's doing on its redistricting ballot measure is a response to what the Republicans started. I think that's obvious. Do I think it's a good thing? Do I think an arms race of, of gerrymandering is a good thing? No, it's a very bad thing. This is, this is where I think we don't want to go, but it is where we are. How to put, put this all back in the bottle? I mean, that's the big question. I mean, I do look to a place as an example, like New York City with Zoran Mamdani, and I say here is, here is something we can look at as a potential solution. And I want to be clear about what I, what I'm saying. I'm not saying Zoran Mamdani is the solution. What I'm saying is there's been a debate about how did Zoran Mamdani, as an example, win a Democratic primary against all of that money in the financial and media capital of the, of the world? Was it that he was a compelling candidate or was it his slick ads? Was it a great message? All of those things are important. But the thing that, to my mind, that was most important was that New York City has a system of public funding financing of elections, which allowed him to get enough resources to be competitive, not enough to outspend his opponents, but enough to be competitive. And I look at systems of public financing of elections which are, operate in about 20 cities and a couple of states. And I say this is a way that if you want, I don't care if you're a Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, if you want candidates who can come from outside of the system of private financing of donations coming in with the expectation of legislative favors, then we should be looking at those systems as a way to do that. And look, Congress has gotten very close at various points to creating public financing systems of elections for Congress. It was first proposed, an old idea, was first proposed by Teddy Roosevelt. So my point in bringing this up is, and we talked about the money, Montana situation, we're going to have to start thinking like, way outside of the box. If you've got J.D. vance at the Supreme Court saying we got to dismantle what's left of, of what was left after Citizens United, of traditional old campaign finance laws, it's time to actually take a look at how do we actually change the entire system, change state and corporation laws, public financing of elections, like that's where the discussion actually needs to be.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Provoking.

[Saagar Enjeti]

How do we get away from plutocracy and towards something approximating like majoritarian representation, democratic representation. David, thank you so much for your reporting. Tell people again, remind them book title and where to find it.

[David Sirota]

Yeah, it's called Master Plan. It's the hidden plot to legalize corruption. Again, you may think you know this story, like I've gotten people. Oh, I, you know, I already know. Everything's like, trust me, you do not not know. These are never before published documents, photos, transcripts. And you can find the [e-mail] book and I just want to say thanks to both of you for having us on to discuss it. And one of the things I talk about in, in, in that we talk about in the book is, you know, the infiltration of media by the same Powell memo, billionaires and corporations. You know, we have seen that of later, sort of a culmination of that. And independent media, the rise of it right now is also one of those things that I look at as an optimistic development. And you guys are really, really a huge part of that.

[Krystal Ball]

Wow, thanks. Really nice, David. Thank you very much.

[Saagar Enjeti]

David, we feel very much the same about you and the important work that you're doing out there. So thank you so much. Great to see you, David.

[Krystal Ball]

See you, man.

[David Sirota]

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Krystal Ball]

Thanks for watching guys. We appreciate it. Friday show tomorrow. They'll see you then.

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

This is an I Heart podcast.