← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
10/20/25: Israel Blows Up Ceasefire, US Journo Attacked By Settlers, Rand Paul Shreds Trump On Venezuela, Bolton Indicted & MORE!
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- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
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Jasper Nathaniel
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Saagar Enjeti
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Krystal Ball
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Krystal Ball
Get started risk free@greenlight.com iheart hey guys.
- [01:35]
Saagar Enjeti
Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:36]
Krystal Ball
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.
- [01:43]
Saagar Enjeti
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [01:49]
Krystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:00]
Saagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com Good morning everybody. Happy Monday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have? Crystal?
- [02:12]
Krystal Ball
Indeed we do a lot to get to so the ceasefire in Gaza was back off. Now it may be back on. We're going to take you through the TikTok of exactly what happened and where we are now as best as we can figure it out. We're also gonna be joined by Jasper Nathaniel. You guys may remember him. We've had him on the show a number of times. He's a journalist and activist. He's been covering the attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. He himself was lured into a trap by the idf, chased by murderous settlers. And then the US Embassy said, even if you like need our help, we're not gonna help you. So he is going to join us to break down exactly what happened, how it connects to broader context of what's going on with Palestinians and to Palestinians. In addition, we've got more news in Venezuela, more boats blown up, more international fallout, more indications that we are rapidly speeding towards a potential regime change war. John Bolton indicted. George Santos sentence commuted. Lot going on there. New revealing Epstein docs that Sagar is going to break down for us. And Shoikat Chakravadi, who is the former AOC Chief of staff and is now challenging Nancy Pelosi in her congressional seat, is also going to join us to break down his race and how he sees the future of the country and the future of the Democratic Party. So a lot of interesting stuff.
- [03:27]
Saagar Enjeti
He's a smart guy. I've always enjoyed reading and reading some of his takes and I'm interested to hear some of what he has to say about that race. Thank you to everybody who's been supporting the show. BreakingPoints.com we do want to give you an example of why we need your support. Let's go ahead and put Crystal's screenshot up here on the screen so you guys can all see Crystal has been posting on TikTok and you can see that multiple of her posts about Israel are now, quote, ineligible for recommendation. So everybody go follow Crystal. By the way, follow me as well. I have joined TikTok. I've given in. I only have 354.
- [04:01]
Krystal Ball
Just keep this up for a second though. It's kind of interesting. The, the Miriam Adelson one was like literally the only Israel one that they allowed me to keep up. That Gavin Newsom one is literally just me throwing to the clip of Gavin Newsom being like a pack. What's that? It's interesting.
- [04:17]
Saagar Enjeti
That's why it's interesting.
- [04:19]
Krystal Ball
Crazy. And so that one and then two others that I did talking about the Ceasefire deal, ineligible for recommendation. So you can see the new Zionist takeover of TikTok has taken hold. And it is just a reminder of how vulnerable we are. Like we rely on these big tech platforms and, you know, it's not always a Safe bet to do so. So that's why your support means a lot, because this is. This is what we're dealing with.
- [04:45]
Saagar Enjeti
Crazy though, we're Alive today on YouTube. What I think we can all learn from this day, from the Spotify, from YouTube. No one's gonna save you if the government comes knocking on their door or somebod. This show, multiple other shows. If you're critical of Israel or the powers that be, we could be done in a day. The only thing that keeps us alive is all of you. So breakingpoints.com, if you are able to help us out, seriously, I mean, these are good reminders of just how quickly things can turn. So if you can't afford it, no worries, please just hit subscribe on YouTube to our channel. And if you're listening to this on a podcast, please just send your favorite episode to a friend. The more organic growth we have, obviously it also helps in order to show, eventually to show people if there ever is some sort of censorship crackdown. Genuinely, you have no idea. And being in this business, this morning, for example, AWS had a complete meltdown on their servers. Multiple websites, services, and all these other things just crash. I mean, we live in a very, very centralized world of single points of failure. It would be only two podcast platforms, Apple and Spotify, before we're dead. It would be on video, it would be YouTube, and then the entire recommendation algorithm is taken away. So anyway, look, we're not just talking for real. We designed this business very intentionally to make sure that subscribers are the one backbone that we can always rely on. So please, thank you very much if you can't support us. BreakingPoints.com all right, let's go ahead and get to the Israel ceasefire, and who the hell even knows what's going on there? It really is, like, totally shocking. I think whenever we break down everything that has happened with the lead up to the ceasefire, it also really vindicates a lot of the people who are like, hey, just hold on a second. Before we're all celebrating. We celebrate. How about this? We celebrate the release of the hostages, which actually did happen. The rest of it, wait and see.
- [06:33]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, exactly. So on Saturday, I'm just going to take you through the timeline of what transpired and brought us to this present moment, which is rife with a lot of uncertainty, as it has been from the beginning. Let's go and put a one up on the screen. So Saturday, at some point, we get this news from Barack Ravid, you know, official stenographer of the U.S. government. And the Israeli government. He says, according to the State Department, the US has informed the guarantor nations of the Gaza peace agreement of credible reports indicating an imminent ceasefire violation by Hamas against the people of Gaza. This planned attack against Palestinian civilians would constitute a direct and grave violation of the ceasefire agreement and undermine the significant progress achieved through mediation efforts. The guarantors demand Hamas uphold its obligation under the ceasefire term. Should Hamas proceed with this attack, measures will be taken to protect the people of Gaza and protect the integrity of the ceasefire. The US and other guarantors remain resolute in our commitment to ensuring the safety of civilians, maintaining calm on the ground, and advancing peace and prosperity for the people of Gaza and the region as a whole. So anyone who's been covering this looks at that and is like, oh, boy, here we go. They are giving Israel basically cover to violate the cease fire agreement. You will also know, if you've been watching this closely, that Israel has been violating the ceasefire agreement effectively since that agreement went into effect. More on that in a moment. Then we see. Let's put a two up on the screen. There was some incident that occurred, okay? And initially there was a lot of confusion about who killed who and what exactly happened. We got some clarity on that. I'll get to that in a moment. But in response to this incident, Israel begins bombing Gaza in what they describe here as a major ceasefire violation. Heavy Israeli bombing rocks the Gaza Strip on Sunday, they write, killing at least 15 Palestinians in a major violation the ceasefire. More than 100 airstrikes were reported in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north, and parts of central Gaza. Among the sites hit were a cafe, a mobile phone charging station, a group of journalists, and a house sheltering displaced people. The Israeli military said the strikes were in response to an alleged attack by Palestinians on its troops in southern Rafah involving a rocket propelled grenade and sniper fire. Israel's Channel 12 furthermore, said political leadership has also decided to halt the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza until further notice. So we have Israel bombing wild throughout the Strip, the south central part of the Strip and the northern part of the Strip, saying they're gonna cut off all aid. Okay? That was again, another key part of the ceasefire agreement was at least 600 trucks would be entering per day. And they said, at this point, we're also not gonna open the Rafah border crossing, which I don't think that they've opened to this point anyway. Go ahead and put a four up on the screen because Ryan and actually also Sagar were able to get the news of what this incident actually was. So Ryan writes here, soon after the explosion in Rafah, I'm told by a source familiar, the White House and Pentagon knew that the incident that again the Israelis were using as a pretext to do an all out, once again assault on the Gaza Strip, that this was caused by an Israeli settler bulldozer running over an unexplored exploited ordinance contradicting Netanyahu's claim that Hamas had popped up from tunnels After Netanyahu said he was blocking all aid from entering Gaza. In response and unleashed a bombing campaign, the administration conveyed to Israel they know what happened. Netanyahu then announced he would reopen the crossings in a few hours. So Sager, the long and short of that is again their bulldozer ran over one of their unexploded ordinances. So they basically blew themselves up, claimed it was Hamas and use that as a pretext to cut off all aid. Collective punishment wildly illegal obviously and brutal and cruel and in contrary to the ceasefire agreement and go back to all out assault on the Gaza Strip. Now the administration deserves credit here because they apparently came and said no, we understand what happened, this was not Hamas and you are going to, we're going to go back to the ceasefire. The ceasefire is going to be enforced. Now they only get so much credit because Israel has already violated the ceasefire roughly for literally roughly 50 times. But as best we can tell, that is the chain of events and it underscores how Israel wants to go back to the genocide. And this thing is incredibly, incredibly fragile. It requires constant vigilance from this administration to keep it even approximating being on.
- [11:02]
Saagar Enjeti
The rails, which is the issue. That's the thing Netanyahu. So Trump is in one of his moods where he wants peace, which is good. Listen, I'll take it. It's one of those. Apparently he berated Zelensky in a meeting for over two and a half hours and said listen man, you're either gon lose, you're going to have to give up and decided not to give him long range missiles. That seems to be the mood that he's in on Friday. We'll see how it lasts until Sunday. But what the Israelis are banking on is eventually we'll get away with this. And I think they're right. I mean it's one of those where consider the amount of management that it's going to take on the US side to have to debunk every Israeli claim or like for example is every single time that the Israelis want To restart it, are we just going to have to put Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff on a plane? Which they are right now, if anybody's wondering. They left Miami and are on their way to Israel to try and to solidify the ceasefire. The amount of attention that this is gonna take, not just from the low level, but from the very top of the administration. Cuz the only person that can actually stop Netanyahu is Trump himself. So you have to elevate it through the interagency process, send it up to Trump. There's just no way we know this White House. There's no way that they can stick to this for days and months and years on end. And this is the eventual endgame. Meanwhile, I mean, should we all sit with this? They straight up lied as usual about this bulldozer. But here's the issue is this time I'm not exactly sure how the US had like perfect intelligence and they were immediately telling reporters like Ryan, Kurt Mills and others, they're like, this is bullshit, it didn't happen. What about when it's ambiguous, we have no idea?
- [12:28]
Krystal Ball
Or what about when Hamas genuinely does? Like, I mean, they are on a campaign of retribution. Like, we already saw Israel trying to use that as a reason to break the ceasefire.
- [12:37]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, I wanna sit with that because that was kind of the original parts of the ceasefire violation. If we look to the very top at some of the things that the state had said, they said, quote, a planned attack against Palestinian civilians would constitute a direct and grave violation of the ceasefire, which is incredibly ironic considering what.
- [12:53]
Krystal Ball
The Israelis have done to Palestinians.
- [12:55]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, let's sit with what Trump himself said, which Ryan and I covered on our show last Wednesday. Trump endorsed Hamas retribution. He said, I don't have a problem with it, to be honest with you, because they were killing. I mean, according to them, nobody really knows, but they were killing people who were either, quote, collaborators or people who killed children for food and sold it on the black market.
- [13:17]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I think Trump also just got no villains and was like, oh, you gotta get, yeah, get rid of gangs.
- [13:23]
Saagar Enjeti
Get rid of them. I mean, listen, you know, in the absence of law and order, somebody has to fill the void. So for Hamas, this gets to a much bigger thing, which my original take had been before the Israeli lie had been, who is going to govern Gaza? And when I say govern, I'm not even talking about the high level political entity. True governance starts at the street level. If you were a looter and you sold food on the black market, well, somebody has to Deal with you. Right now the only person is Hamas. Who are the troops that are going to enforce that? You said you want them to lay down their weapons. They have ruled that place for what, 18, 19 years now almost at this time there is no police or other governed authority. So if the solution is de Ba', athification, like we did in Iraq, we take all the weapons away, civil war, chaos, which is exactly what they're advocating for. They're like Hamas, you have to unilaterally disarm. Meanwhile the pro Israel gangs get to keep their weapons. Well, what do you think is gonna happen then? They're gonna go and they're gonna kill everybody and then who's gonna defend them? So of course they're gonna come up rise. So without a centralized governing authority and a literal occupation by the United States or the UAE or Saudi Arabia, this is the end state which we've all desired. And it's not one that I think that people are gonna put up with of ways it all starts now, like the war, as horrible as it was, the actual like next step starts today with the political civilian administration of the Gaza Strip. And so the demand that Hamas not carry out its law and order executions or whatever has to be then replaced by some sort of central figure, some sort of central backed legitimate authority or you're going to have Iraq and Afghanistan all over again, which are already on the road to. And then same with the Israelis, they're, they're legitimately, I think, going to be able to claim chaos and attacks on them because nobody can stop it. Nobody is gonna say, oh, you don't carry out attacks on, no one's gonna go and arrest somebody who's gonna go in and try attack Israel, right? So the vacuum, the same terrorist vacuum that created isis, that created Al Qaeda in Iraq, that create, I mean, who the entire story of Afghanistan is about to play out again. I actually think it's gonna be frankly like just as disastrous because you not only have a bombed out, you have 1.7, 1.8 million people, whoever is left is alive, that are desperate for anything. I mean people in those sorts of desperate straits, they'll go along with, you know, the most radical party if they can stop shooting and looting. That's how the Taliban rose to power in the 1990s. So I see a lot of dangers, I see a lot of dangers ahead inside of Gaza.
- [16:04]
Krystal Ball
And it's just so clear, like if you had any doubt that the Israelis didn't want to just find any excuse at any point to get, get Back to all out war. I think that should be completely dispelled first. You had this flap over, oh, they're not getting us the remains of the hostages quickly enough, even though in the ceasefire deal everyone understood this is gonna be very difficult. And by the way, the Israelis are blocking any like heavy equipment, earth moving equipment, to be able to dig out anything from the rubble. So how are you supposed to pull this off? So that's the first thing that they try. Oh, Hamas is violating the ceasefire in that way again as an excuse so that they can get back to their all out. Then you have them, oh, suddenly they care so much about Palestinian civilian life and they're just appalled at what Hamas is doing in the streets and the campaign of retribution. Then you have whatever this thing was with the bulldozer where, and it's really interesting to me too, Sagar, that the State Department had some sort of a warning of an imminent ceasefire violation. And then they used this bulldozer thing as a pretext where they just literally blew themselves up with their own ordinance, unexploded ordinance, lie about it, get caught. And so this administration has to come in and enforce and what the Israelis do and what they have been doing. Let's put a 3 up on the screen again. This was before this bulldozer situation. The Israeli army had already committed 47 violations of the ceasefire, killing 38 people, wounding another 143. One of those instances, they killed 11 members of a Palestinian family. Deadliest single violation of the ceasefire that took effect at that point eight days ago. Among them were seven children that were killed in that attack. So you know what they do, and they're doing the same thing in Lebanon. They see what they can get away with and they keep pushing the envelope, keep pushing the envelope. And so this, they went a little too far with this bulldozer bullshit. They got checked a little bit, but they're gonna keep trying, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. And that's why, forget about phase two and governance and reconstruction and all of that far off. And they are so far at odds from any shared vision between the US, Palestinians and Israel. But even just maintaining this very new ceasefire feels increasingly, I don't want to say impossible, but extraordinarily, extraordinarily difficult.
- [18:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Look, I mean, I would say impossible in the long run, just considering US policy with Israel. It just seems frankly, like, so difficult. I'll read you another quote just from yesterday. Israeli television from Ben gvir. Quote, now we have received the hostages. We must return to war and open the Gates of hell upon Gaza. That's a national security advisor. Okay, Smotriz said what? He said we will have Jewish settlement inside of Gaza. Let's sit with the reality of all this.
- [18:57]
Krystal Ball
And how are they going to react when it's increasingly clear Hamas is just back in charge? Because who else is going to be in charge? Which is they're the only ones who.
- [19:05]
Saagar Enjeti
Have a horseshoe moment with the Israeli right wing where they're like, well, wait, we can't with. The whole point of the war was to say Hamas is no longer in charge. And then for many of us to be like, yeah, that was an impossible goal. But they're like, no, but we have to continue the war. And so the fact that Hamas still has at least some political administration capability, will democratic support to enforce something on the ground shows you already that the war itself was a failure. Again, it's impossible without occupation. We've tried this a million times throughout history. The Israelis have no interest in actual civilian administration of Gaza. They'd rather just them all leave. And so in the absence then, now what? You know, the uae, Saudi Arabia, the US would have to step up. I'm not for this. I don't think we should occupy Israel's mess inside of Gaza. So what's gonna happen? Just hectoring tweets from the State Department and threats of death from the Israelis and just the constant mowing the lawn effect. Now with Trump himself, he's got these grand plans. So here was his most recent interview with Maria Bartrioma over on Fox News about his plan for Gaza. Let's take a listen. Could be developed.
- [20:05]
Krystal Ball
And you said you wanted to develop it.
- [20:07]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, not me developing plans for that.
- [20:08]
John Bolton (clip speaker)
Not, not me as an individual. The US I liked it as like Freedom Place. You call it Freedom Place, and we would get all of the people that live there into decent homes throughout the region. If you look, Egypt has a lot of land, Jordan has a lot of land, you know, right next door, a lot of countries have a lot of land. So I had an initial vision that we would get them look at Gaza. I mean, you know, there's nothing standing. The whole thing is, it's all rubble. So it's not too hard to top that.
- [20:48]
Saagar Enjeti
So he says, freedom Place you could call it. Again, not possible. You need full blown occupation. You need a US administration of Japan, of Germany, and those are the only two successful ones. Not every recent experiment that we have done, it didn't work. The likely modal outcome in the Middle east is we destroy a regime, we decimate and immiserate the population. And then we have a long experiment where we try to impose something, and then eventually the most radical element inside of that society will probably rise to the top. Very top.
- [21:20]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [21:20]
Saagar Enjeti
So congratulations.
- [21:21]
Krystal Ball
Well, and as someone who's opposed to immigration and really makes a lot of his politics around that, he sure does like to create migration crises. So pushing millions of people, whoever remains in the Gaza Strip, out of Gaza. I mean, it's just. And the phase two of this, I don't even. It's really not even worth bothering to talk about, to be honest with you, because it's so preposterous. Tony Blair and Trump's the head of the board and no Palestinians will be able to stay. But then here's the president again being like, no, they're gonna leave. They're gonna have great homes in other countries where, I don't know, they've got room in Egypt. Surely Egypt has its own political issue. Major political issues, by the way, major economic issues. Like, they're not super keen on absorbing a population that is destitute and conscious, Completely and thoroughly traumatized. Like, every single individual in Gaza is going to need so much care and assistance to get them back to being able to function in society. I mean, it's just insane what's been done to these people. You can't even wrap your head around it, let alone the children, the medical care, you know, the lack of nutrition, the amputations. And so not only is it, you know, a difficult situation when you have migration crisis anyway, but then you have this incredibly traumatized, you know, like. Like population suffering from all these healthcare. Anyway, the whole thing is insane. Like, there's no contemplating of what this could look like in any way that's gonna be livable for Palestinians, let alone just the Israelis. Have no interest in doing anything other than complete war and ethnic cleansing until there's nothing left. Because at this point, that's what they see as a final solution. Like, that is on the table and not just for far right, total psychos. That has become a far more acceptable endpoint for a broad swath of the Israeli population. And that's what this administration, like, they will have to be so focused and committed and willing to use all the levers that they have to force some sort of an outcome on the Israelis. And, yeah, it's hard to imagine it's theoretically possible.
- [23:19]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't personally see it as. I mean, look at Ukraine. We were, yeah, Zelensky comes to the Oval, we berate him. It looks like the war is Going to end. We finally get Putin summit. Then afterwards we have this grand meeting of all the Europeans. Nothing comes, nothing happens, Absolutely nothing changes on the battlefield. Trump gets mad at Putin, says, I'm gonna give you the Ukrainians long range missiles. So that's where we were ending up. He actually even said maybe Ukraine can take back all of Crimea. So that's where we were. Then Ukraine. Zelensky comes to Washington and this is all from behind the scenes reporting. We're not exactly sure, probably most of it leaked from the Ukrainian side. Trump berates him for two hours, has a phone call with Putin and says, why don't you just take all of Putin's terms? So we're back. I mean, I don't know which way we went. Now imagine being on the Israel side, right? If you're the Hamas people, yeah, you took the deal. These hostages are gone. But the incentive side on Israel is now they don't even have to care to pretend about the hostages.
- [24:14]
Krystal Ball
That's right.
- [24:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Anymore. And I mean, the ceasefire has been what, like 10 days? And they've tried to break it three times. Seriously, tried to break it three times. How is this gonna last for two years? Three years, five years, 10?
- [24:24]
Krystal Ball
I mean, yeah, Israel still controls 53% of the Gaza Strip.
- [24:28]
Saagar Enjeti
And then, yeah, you have the civilian problem that I talked about with literal like law enforcement. And yes, it's great that aid is gonna be there. Eventually somebody's gonna beat somebody up for something. Who's gonna do anything about that? You're gonna have cops like, no, you're gonna call somebody and they're gonna have rise of gang violence. Like that's what happens in these scenarios we've had. Unfortunately, we've played it over and over and over again. You don't even have to be all that, you know, intelligent to see where things are going. So anyway, all right. Speaking of gang violence, Jasper Nathaniel, American journalist, has been in the west bank, ruthlessly attacked by these Jewish settlers inside of the west bank, basically told to fend for himself by the United States Embassy. So let's go by the United States Embassy, let's speak to him.
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Krystal Ball
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Saagar Enjeti
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Saagar Enjeti
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- [27:44]
Krystal Ball
We are very fortunate to be joined this morning by Jasper Nathaniel who is an incredible journalist. You guys should go subscribe to his substack Infinite Jazz and a great friend of the show who just witnessed and experienced something incredibly wild. Jasper, great to have you.
- [27:58]
Jasper Nathaniel
Thanks for having me.
- [27:59]
Saagar Enjeti
Good to see you man.
- [27:59]
Krystal Ball
So I saw these videos on social media of you being chased down by a mob of violent Israeli terrorist settlers. And we can put some of these images up on the screen. And you, of course, have been documenting abuses against Palestinians in the west bank for months at this point. If you could just take us through where you are and what the hell we're looking at here.
- [28:23]
Jasper Nathaniel
Yeah, I'm in a town called Termisaya, which is just outside Ramallah in the. In the central West Bank. This is the first day of the olive harvest for the. The village. Basically, everybody went out together as a group because they. They knew they were expecting settler violence. And so everybody drove in a caravan to their. To their individual plots. And basically, from the very beginning of the day, we were seeing violent settlers. The first road we tried to take, there was a settler with a gun just sort of menacing us. But then things got really bad later when we were trying to leave the fields and we got trapped by. On one side, there was a couple of settlers who would not let us pass. And then on the other side, there was an IDF jeep. And so I got out of our car to go up to talk to the soldiers, because the. The people I was with were. They were not white. They're palace. They're Palestinian Americans, actually, which is an important point. But I was the only white person, basically, so. So I got out my hands up, walked up the hill to talk to them. They're aiming their guns at me, which is pretty much how soldiers talk to you in the West Bank. And I shouted to them, like, we. We are being trapped by settlers who are not letting us out, and we need safe passage. And they started saying, what are you doing here? Blah, blah, blah. Like, it's a little back and forth. And I convinced them, like, we're really just trying to get out, and we need your help. And they said, fine, okay, you can. You can come. So I went back in the car. We drove up. They told us the soldiers said, wait here. So we waited maybe a minute, and then the army jeep just sped off out of nowhere and left. There was two settlers on an atv, one of them with a gun, and a couple other Palestinians. And basically, to fast forward a little bit, the other car had been smashed and had its tires slashed by settlers, and they were having trouble getting out. And so I was trying to help that car get out when the videos you just showed, about 100 or so settlers just emerged from the hills. And I just started running. We all started running. I mean, they originally tried to go in the car, but in the video, you can see the car gets overtaken they drag the driver and the passenger out, and they both miraculously escaped, and we basically ran for our lives. And when I got back down to the car that I had been in, one of the. The settler who was basically right on my tail. Who is the guy who you see in the video, in the. Another video, which maybe you'll show. Really big guy with a really big club.
- [31:36]
Krystal Ball
B1B guy.
- [31:38]
Jasper Nathaniel
Okay. So basically, he smashed through our windshield, and then he runs ahead, and that's a video of him just beating an old lady, an elderly lady who had been picking olives. He knocked her unconscious with the club, and then he hit her twice more when she was on the ground. And then he kept running. And then he beat two activists, actually two European activists. And I went to help a lady. This is that scene right now. She has a brain hemorrhage is. Last I heard, she was in the icu, but she had stabilized. So that's good news. But it was just total chaos. I mean, it was pandemonium. And, you know, this is funny. Funnily enough, this is a wealthier town in The West bank that is 85% American citizens, actually. So it's people who back and forth, and they've been pretty insulated from a lot of what certainly what, like the shepherding villages in the Hebron hills face. Because, you know, they have money and they have blue passports, and. And only in the last couple years have they really started to feel the heat. And I think that yesterday was a very clear indication that, I mean, this was a message sent by the settlers in coordination with the idf, that.
- [33:14]
Shoikat Chakraborty
We.
- [33:14]
Jasper Nathaniel
Will hunt you down and we'll hurt you or we'll kill you, and we'll do it on your own land. And nobody is spared. Not old ladies, not American journalists, not farmers. Anybody in our path, anybody on their own land will be clubbed.
- [33:32]
John Bolton (clip speaker)
And.
- [33:35]
Jasper Nathaniel
You know, this is like, if I wasn't there yesterday, nobody would know about this, or maybe it would be a little story. This is happening everywhere, every single day in the West Bank. And it's one of those things where it's like. It's really hard to explain just how shocking and brazen and cruel it is. And I don't just mean, like, the scene itself that you see on video, which I guess is pretty shocking, but, like, these settlers have literally stolen their agricultural land and occupied their farmhouses. So they've built, like, these nice. And when I say farmhouse, think more like small mansion. I mean, again, these are, like wealthy people. They put a lot of money into Building up little homes in their olive fields. And the settlers are now living in them. Yeah, living in them. And launching attacks on the home's owners from those houses.
- [34:37]
Krystal Ball
And in collaboration with the idf, which is another important part of your story.
- [34:41]
Saagar Enjeti
Jasmine, can I also add a corollary? Hey, Jasper, where are all these settlers from? Did you hear any familiar accents?
- [34:47]
Jasper Nathaniel
I didn't hear anybody talking. They had masks on and they did not say a word, so. That's a good question. I mean, they're probably from all over. Some of them are probably from Israel. Some of them could be Russian, American. They could be from anywhere. Sorry, Crystal, can you repeat your question?
- [35:07]
Krystal Ball
Oh, I just said an important part of your story is that these are not rogue actors, because that's the way oftentimes in Western media or Joe Biden's administration sanctioned a couple of these most psychotic characters. They act like they're fringe characters, but in fact, and your story demonstrates this, they are working in collaboration directly with the government and with IDF assistance.
- [35:31]
Jasper Nathaniel
Yes. I mean, bigger picture, the Israeli government provides an unbelievable amount of financial backing and, you know, political backing to the. The most violent settlers, including the actual murderers. They. They often arm them, they give them. They. They. You know, these settlers, what they do is they peel off from a settlement and they basically, like, put down a tent somewhere and raise an Israeli flag, and then the tent becomes two tents, and then a little home is built, and suddenly they've got control of this whole area. And even under Israeli law, outposts are illegal because you need to get, you know, authorization to build a settlement. But Smotrich, what he's been doing, the finance minister in Israel, is offering retroactive authorization to outposts. So the people who are out here stealing land, terrorizing Palestinians are getting full backing from the government in doing this. In terms of the idf, Listen, the most generous reading for what happened yesterday, just for, you know, to. To. To give them the benefit of the doubt, is that they really up.
- [36:49]
Krystal Ball
They.
- [36:50]
Jasper Nathaniel
Sorry, excuse my language, but they didn't.
- [36:53]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Okay?
- [36:54]
Jasper Nathaniel
They didn't know that there were a hundred settlers hiding just, you know, in the trees. And maybe they thought the two settlers that were already there, you know, even though one had a gun, they. They thought, oh, he'll probably just leave on his own. And it was just like they messed up and they left us to get attacked. My experience was that they let us up, left, and then immediately the settlers came out from the hills and. And chased me and chased us. And I want to also say, like, two weeks ago, I wrote a story about Palestinian Americans who have been killed in the West Bank. And I went with their families to Washington D.C. as they, you know, in a, in a completely futile effort, sought accountability. And a number of those kids who were killed have been killed right around where I am because again, this is where a lot of the Americans live. So, so right now I'm staying at the house of Mohammed Ibrahim, who is the 16 year old Palestinian American who's currently in Israeli military detention. He's been there for over eight months now. His first cousin is Sephora Musala who was beaten to death by a band of settlers. Probably exactly like the ones that were chasing me. Could even be some of the same people. About a couple kilometers away from here is where Sepholah was beaten to death. Tawfiq was shot dead by an Israeli sniper about a five minute drive from here. So I mean, I am really in the heart of where the Americans are killed, the Palestinian Americans are killed. And so what we witnessed yesterday, or what I witnessed yesterday, this is what happens here. This is what they do. I mean, you know, it's a, it's a lynch mob. And I'll tell you, they're terrifying. I mean these guys are terrifying and they have guns and people know they are not afraid to kill and they're not afraid to club old ladies. And so it is, it's quite effective what they do. Now I'll just add the residents of these towns also understand that not only do they want to get to their olive trees because it's, you know, in part it's their livelihood. There's other places, I should say, that are much more dependent on their olives. Here, since there's a little more money, it's a little bit less so, but there's still a deep symbolic value. But what they think is that if they stop going out into the fields and they let the settlers just run the hills, they'll be coming for the village next. Settlers, famously are never satisfied. They get all the agricultural in and then what they're going to see is a lot of beautiful homes and they're going to go for those homes.
- [40:00]
Saagar Enjeti
I do want to make sure. I mean, I think your testimony is incredible. I also do want to make sure we talk about the role of the US embassy here. Can we put B2B please on the screen just to show your exchange text message Exchange here with the US Embassy. You said you've talked about, we've told the Israelis that they plan. You say we need American protection. We are Americans. You repeatedly say I am an American tourist, can you protect me? And they say, no, the protection of American citizens is the responsibility of the host nation government. You reply, are you implying the Israeli government will protect me and other Americans here? I don't understand. The IDF directly led us into an ambush. And they reply, that is what is supposed to happen. Yeah. So effectively they told you, drop down. They said, we will do absolutely nothing for you. You know, you are a United States citizen. You are also in the home of people who have duals or I guess American citizenship. You're in a village with a lot of American citizens, and these people are being left completely, completely out there by their own government.
- [40:55]
Jasper Nathaniel
There's 60,000 Palestinian Americans in the west bank, and most of them are in this area, and they get zero, zero protection from the United States, from the State Department. And, you know, if you, if you look at those text messages, he says to me, it's the host nation's responsibility to protect American tourists. And if they don't do it, we pull our embassy from there like we did with Syria and with Venezuela and I think Yemen.
- [41:25]
Krystal Ball
So.
- [41:25]
Jasper Nathaniel
And then he acknowledges Israel is actually failing to protect Americans. So by his logic, they should have pulled the embassy out of Jerusalem. But instead, of course, you know, Huckabee is as close as ever with Netanyahu, and I do not believe we're considering pulling out the embassy. So, look, I don't need to explain the, the just like, gross double standards with America's kid gloves that they use with Israel or just the, the relationship. But I have to say, I, you know, I, I was not subtle there. I, I told them before that exchange, we spoke on the phone and I said he had seen the video. I can't reveal the guy's name because it was off the record. But, but I said, listen, man, I was very close to being killed. Like, if those guys caught me, we saw what they did with the old lady, what do you think they would have done with me? And I'm going back out to the fields tomorrow to document it, and I need you to protect me. And they said, no. So there it is.
- [42:28]
Krystal Ball
I want to put before up on the screen. To your point about, there are no safe places, safe people, nothing. So this is this Christian village that Huckabee had previously made a big deal about and gone to visit and now being attacked also by Israeli settlers. I saw a video and you were speaking to some of the same about. For people who don't know, a longtime activist practice has been to as a Westerner or white person or An American to be present during the harvest, during other critical times, because there was a sense that, like, okay, well, they won't murder the American journalist, surely, so this will provide some level of protection to the Palestinians or they won't murder the European activists. So this will provide some level of protection. And that thinking like that is no longer the case. Anyone and everything is a target. There's total impunity. It's like. Like they know that they could have murdered that old lady and there would never be any. They would never be tried for it. They certainly wouldn't be convicted for it. There would be no justice from the Israeli justice system for anyone who is other than a Jewish Israeli. So is that your experience as well, that American journalists or European activists, they are now just as much a target and nothing is off the table in the way that perhaps it used to be be?
- [43:52]
Jasper Nathaniel
It's funny, because right before this, well, to answer your question, yes, that's always been my experience. But however, just before this, I was back in the olive fields, and I actually just posted this video on Twitter immediately before coming on, I was back in the fields on the. On the. Exactly where I was attacked yesterday, exactly where the old woman was clubbed yesterday. And it's a peaceful day there.
- [44:17]
Krystal Ball
There.
- [44:18]
Jasper Nathaniel
There's no settlers around, and the IDF is patrolling and going up to the olive farmers and asking if they're okay or if they need anything. Now, do I think sincere. No. Do I think it's going to last forever? Absolutely not. But it's very clear why this is happening. And I know for a fact because as I was there, a police commander pointed to me. He recognized me from the video. He wanted to talk to me. They're doing the, you know, I'm going to call it the charade of an investigation. Maybe they can prove me wrong. You know, they insisted that they're taking it very seriously. They were also so disturbed by the video of me getting chased and the old lady getting hit, and they're gonna go after that man and get him. And I said to them, look, prove me wrong. You know, I've never seen it happen. I just came from Masafir Yato, where Aude Hataleen was murdered by Yenan Levy. You know, Levy is still walking free. He's still doing construction there. Violence. Settlers don't get arrested. Prove me wrong. So, look, do I think that what happened yesterday and the coverage of it is going to, you know, change everything? Absolutely not. But. But my point is it does show that the Israeli government or the Israeli military or both, they are responsive to, to this kind of thing. Now we've all watched what they've done in Gaza for the last two years. Obviously, you know, they've committed a just horrific genocide and have largely just like batted away, you know, shamelessly batted away every accusation against them. But in this case, it could not have been more clear that the fact that all these people saw what happened is why they had a safe day of harvesting their olives today. And so I think that, you know, there's a balance between wanting to fully acknowledge what you're saying, Crystal, which is that the settlers, the violent settlers act with complete impunity. But there is evidence that if we show the world the kind of violence and brutality that they're facing, you know, maybe they'll have a day of good.
- [46:28]
Krystal Ball
Harvesting, which is some pressure. That's an important point. All right, guys, everybody needs to subscribe to Jasper Substack. Infinite Jazz over at Substack and Jasper. Please be safe and we really appreciate your work and your physical and intellectual courage.
- [46:45]
Saagar Enjeti
Good to see you, man.
- [46:47]
Jasper Nathaniel
Thanks for having me.
- [46:50]
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- [49:48]
Saagar Enjeti
Turning now to Venezuela, some very troubling stuff. A new statement from the President saying that Maduro offered everything. But that that's not enough. Let's take a listen.
- [49:57]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Maduro offered everything in his country, all the natural resources.
- [50:02]
Saagar Enjeti
He even recorded a message to you in English recently offering mediation.
- [50:07]
Shoikat Chakraborty
What should we do in order to stop that?
- [50:08]
John Bolton (clip speaker)
He has offered everything. He's offered everything. You're right. You know why? Because he doesn't want to fuck around with the United States.
- [50:17]
Saagar Enjeti
Then take it.
- [50:17]
Krystal Ball
Take the deal.
- [50:19]
Saagar Enjeti
Take the deal. All right. It's a good deal. We get some oil, they get some sanctions relie, we all move on with our lives. There's no more Venezuelan migrants trekking their way to the United States. I like it. It's a good deal. And instead I have no idea what has pervaded. This I would really love. And this I'm not trying to say, I'm not trying to not blame Trump, but something in his information environment has changed or at least around Venezuela. Cuz remember this is the administration which had Rick Grenell, who by the way is one of the better members of the Administration. He's the guy who's the US special hostage envoy. He negotiated with Maduro, released to some citizens. He was directly engaging with Maduro apparently about some future deal. Things were actually on the right track. But then here's what happened. Mike Waltz, the retard in chief of the National Security Council got himself fired. Marco Rubio got himself selected for the National Security Advisor. The first person since Kissinger to be the dual NSA Secretary of State. He runs American foreign policy to a degree. Again not seen since the Kissinger days. And I warned about this from day one. I was like guys, Rubio. Cuz everyone, everyone said guys stalker, don't worry about it. Rubio is a reformed neocon. I said maybe, maybe on Ukraine or at the very least not reformed. He'll listen to what he's told on Ukraine, he'll listen to what he's told on other areas and again bookmark it. You can go watch what I said on the Lex Regan podcast. I was like, what I am deeply worried about is Venezuela. It's an issue which I know, cause I know these South Floridians, they're obsessed, it's monomaniacal and they don't have the requisite level of pushback in Washington. Cuz we haven't seen these psychos in power since the 1980s. So everyone's kind of forgotten how obsessed they are with Latin America. I knew the political constituency, he's the guy who'd been pushing for regime change in 2019, the whole Juan Guido situation. He posted that photo of Gaddafi next to Maduro. Like this is deep for him for his ideology. So he comes into power and immediately somehow has convinced Trump again, despite the fact there's no data that Maduro is like the chief fentanyl smuggler of Latin America, which. No, it's called Mexico. It's the Mexican drug cartels. Those are the people who are sending fentanyl here. It has nothing to do with Venezuela. And yet he somehow convinced him that this is the number one fentanyl smuggler of the United States. Now we're bombing all this Caribbean, you know, the Caribbean waters, international waters, doing all these crazy drone strikes, which I think Trump makes him feel good, right to do that. But the thing is, is that there's a far cry between that now green lighting the CIA regime change ops which we covered in our last show, and then also now openly demanding basically his removal from power. Like we are, if you. And we're gonna about to go through all the other stuff with the military. The media is not Taking this stuff seriously. This is genuinely the closest that we have come to an actual legit regime change war probably since Iraq. And I think everybody is just. Everybody just kind of thinks it won't happen. It's like the pieces are all there, guys. It's like December 02 over here, except nobody is on Fox News or nobody, frankly, in the legitimate media. They're trying to. They're pointing out the different chess pieces as if they're individual. They're like, US Admiral fired drone strike. You're like, no, put the totality. Look at where things are going. Like, we're looking to the checkmate scenario.
- [53:40]
Krystal Ball
They're very bad at that in general. And I mean, part of what is so troubling about what Trump says there about like, yeah, they offered us everything, is because I think the reasonable cope would be like, oh, he's just doing all this to pressure them to get some kind of a deal. So if you're saying like, oh, no, they offered me the deal of my dreams, but I'm still gonna bomb random. I'm still gonna authorize the CIA to do covert regime change operation, like, then there's no off ramp. Like, if he offered you, quote, unquote, everything and you're still moving forward, that is an incredibly, incredibly dire indication. You know, I don't know. I've been trying to think about this too, because there are pieces of it that don't totally make sense. So I think you're right. I think in this administration in particular, some of these characters have realized that Trump isn't gonna check what they say. So they can just tell him.
- [54:32]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, they can just say anything.
- [54:33]
Krystal Ball
And they have seem to have a. Again, this is not to deny him agency. It's just try to understand the inner workings of this administration. Rubio has an ideological fixation on Venezuela. Right. In the same way Biden was a dying, the wool committed Zionist. Rub was like a dynamo, committed neocon. When it comes to Venezuela, certainly, and other areas, maybe he's more flexible. But Venezuela, that one is locked in. And then it benefits Stephen Miller and his war on immigrants because you've got the trend of piece. And if you're labeling drug traffickers, you're labeling them like enemy combatants, that gives you a free hand to do a lot of the things that he wants to do.
- [55:08]
Saagar Enjeti
It's a legal thing too. If you're in active war with somebody, then you can claim it's more of a legal justification.
- [55:13]
Krystal Ball
No, it gives you just. It gives you. I mean, I think it's abhorrent I think what they're, by the way, what they're doing is illegal even with this paper thin justification they're given. But it gives you the COVID to do the extrajudicial assassinations that we're seeing in the Caribbean. It could potentially be expanded into the U.S. there's nothing that would keep it from also being used on US soil. So Stephen Miller likes that from his ideological perspective, I have to think with Trump, they've been talking about Trenda, Aragua and really making that a big thing for a while now. And so I think that has fueled his interest in this regime change operation. Like, I think maybe he genuinely is convinced that there's some Maduro, Trender gang, cartel, Fentanyl, whatever thing that fits with his political brand. And then you have the other ego piece of they tried to do it in his first term and they failed. So he feels kind of humiliated that they did this Juan Guaido thing. And by the way, Max Blumenthal has an interview that is really worth listening to, to with the guy who was alleged to be the head of this secret plot to overthrow the Maduro regime. The US Government, the first Trump administration denies they had any involvement here. But you can go and listen and you can see some of the documents that are coming out in discovery with this guy as well. But he says they were trying to foment this secret plot using former special ops, he was a former Green Beret, in order to within Venezuela, overthrow the Maduro government at that point. Point. So in any case, there's also an element of just like his ego being bruised by the fact that this thing didn't work out the first time around.
- [56:47]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, and the psychoanalysis, again, all here matters because this is how it works, right? Under currently, as I just told the story of Ukraine, we've gone through four different Ukraine policies literally in the last six months. So who knows what you're gonna wake up and get. Rand Paul, by the way, speaking out vociferously against these drugs. You gotta give the guy credit. Very principled person, at least on this issue. Let's take a, take a, listen.
- [57:07]
Krystal Ball
President Trump has authorized military strikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. As you know, so far more than 20 people, Senator, have been killed in six different strikes. Do you believe that these strikes against these suspected drug boats are legal?
- [57:28]
John Bolton (clip speaker)
No, they go against all of our tradition. You know, when you kill someone, you should know if you're not in, at war, not in a declared war, you really need to know someone's name at least you have to accuse them of something. You have to present evidence. So all these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime. And for decades, if not centuries, when you stop people at sea, in international waters or in your own waters, you announce that you're going to board the ship and you're looking for contraband, smuggling or drugs. This, this happens every day off of Miami. But we know from Coast Guard statistics that about 25% of the time the Coast Guard boards a ship, there are no drugs. So if our policy now is to blow up every ship we suspect or accuse of drug running, that would be a bizarre world in which 25% of the people might be innocent. The other thing about these speedboats is they're, they're 2,000 miles away from us. If they have drugs, they're probably peddling drugs to one of the islands of Trinidad or Tobago off of Venezuela. The, the idea of they're coming here is like, it's a huge assumption. And really shouldn't you have to present some proof. It is the difference between war and peace. In war, though, you don't ask people's name. But if they want all out war where we kill anybody and everybody that is in the country of Venezuela or coming out, that has to have a declaration of war. It's something that is not pretty, very expensive. And I'm not in favor of declaring war on Venezuela, but the Congress should vote. The president shouldn't do this by himself.
- [59:01]
Saagar Enjeti
Props to Rand Paul there talking about how these strikes are not only the legality but also just the sheer, you know, kind of craziness of the policy. And I want to put. So let me again take you through the chess pieces. One of the pieces of news that we covered last week was about this US Military admiral or US Naval admiral who had visited the Caribbean. And he had done that twice since the big buildup. And we actually looked at that as a piece of significance because of the huge buildup, naval buildup. Well, it now turns out, let's put this up here on the screen. That he has now had to step down. This is from southcom. Admiral Alvin Halsey is leaving less than a year into his tenure as the Pentagon escalates attacks against boats in the Caribbean Sea. And he is not only leaving it amidst the rapid buildup of 10,000 forces in the region, but of this new CIA mission. And also also the speculation, the scuttlebutt, at least from what I've heard around town, is he was one of those people who raised concerns about some of these strikes. Not just the legal justification, but the strategic justification as well. You put those two things together with him going away, it's not good. And also, by the way, can I remind everybody that there's currently no real journalists who are right now at the Pentagon today who can't even ask, they can't even get the bullshit version from the Pentagon spokesperson while they're in the building. This is not good. Like this is exactly the time whenever you really need people with experience and others to actually, you know, put some scrutiny on what's happening. And you know, there's not even any embeds as far as I understand. There's no journalists down on the carriers even tracking to see what's happening. Even in the height of the war in Iraq. One of my favorite books, Generation Kill, there was a Rolling Stone journalist in the lead Humvee of the lead convoy going into Iraq. Like we had some limited ideas idea of what was going on here. Nothing, it's just government video. We don't know a damn thing about what's happening.
- [60:54]
Krystal Ball
That's right.
- [60:57]
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- [61:57]
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- [62:58]
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- [63:55]
Krystal Ball
Those strikes in the Caribbean, every time we learn something about them, it, you know, turns out to be nothing like the way that it's being presented. Not that okay, even if they were drug traffickers, it still wouldn't be okay. We've been interjecting drug traffickers in these waters. If you have to blow them up and they can't stand trial, what does that tell you about the case that you'd be able to make against them? But you had an instance recently where one of the people that we randomly murdered in the Caribbean was Colombian. At least one of them. And so the President of Colombia, who is very outspoken Left leftists, says Mr. Trump, Columbia has never been rude to the USA. On the contrary, it's greatly admired its culture. You are rude and ignorant toward Colombia, Reid, as your charge d' affaires in Colombia did 100 Years of Solitude and he assured you you will learn something about solitude. I don't do business like you do. I am a socialist. I believe in aid, common good and common goods of humanity. Greatest of all life put in danger by your oil. If I'm not a merchant Then much less a drug trafficker. In my heart, there is no greed can never get along with greed. A Mafioso is a human being who embodies the best of capitalism, greed. And I am the opposite, a lover of life, therefore a millennial warrior for life. Greed flees from us because life is more powerful. And in response to this exchange, and he and Trump were going back and forth, Trump has now cut off aid to Colombia and is threatening increased tariffs on them. Now, we aren't like Colombia receives a fair amount of US Aid, but not as much as it did at one point in like the early 2000s during Plan Colombia and that era. But in any case, so this is, you know, some of the fallout going on in Colombia. Colombia is an important, like, large part of the cocaine production is in Colombia. So if you want to deal with, you know, drug production and drug flows, this is a country you want to be able to partner with. Instead, we're antagonizing them so we can blow up random fishing boats in the Caribbean.
- [65:41]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, and if you put it together with what's happening. Let's go to the next part from Trump. He went ahead and said that President Gustavo is an illegal drug leader. Strongly encouraging massive production of drugs all over Colombia has become the biggest. As of today, these payments or any other form of payment or subsidies will no longer be made to Colombia. The purpose of drug production is the sale of massive amounts of products into the United States. So this is immediately, you know, cutting aid in response to the criticism. Colombia, of course, next to Venezuela and actually was part of what their difficulty has been is also dealing with a lot of these Venezuelan migrants, which they themselves have their own crisis with. It's causing a lot of political consternation in the country and has for some time. Let's again start to put some of the chess pieces together. Let's put this next one up here. Again, nobody blinks an eye. Apparently B52s flew off the coast of Venezuela in a recent show of force. I mean, these are like nuclear capable bomber. If people don't know what a B52 is, it is genuinely one of the coolest aircraft that the United States military has. I got to see a couple when I was in Qatar. And seeing them in the plane or seeing them in the sky, it's unbelievable, like the level of military might that they are. And so to take three and to just, you know, take it all around Venice, Venezuela, off the coast, there's only one reason to do that. It's the same reason that we always fly Them it's a threat. And so yeah, they took off from Barksdale Air Force Base and they just kind of circled around Venezuela in a huge show of force. All of this is just pointing in one direction. As you said. The COPE is just basically it's all negotiation. But I think here's the fear from Maduro. What if he's like, okay, this is it. I can't negotiate with these people. I. And so when the eventual time does come for negotiation, you say, no, forget it. And then, you know, there's one miscalculation. All it takes is one errant Venezuelan pilot or air defense or somebody to do something and then boom. I mean, that's why you don't get into very close situation. Why even be in this situation? He said he would give us the oil. Take it, just take it. What's the problem?
- [67:47]
John Bolton (clip speaker)
I don't know.
- [67:48]
Saagar Enjeti
Last part. We just want to give a shout out to our friend Juan David Rojas. Put this up here on the screen. He wrote a great piece. I encourage everybody to go read it. Why Regime Change in Venezuela is Bad for America. And he talks about specifically the last time the United States amassed this level of military might in the hemisphere was the 1989 invasion of Panama, which ousted Manuel Noriega. And while the assembled forces are inadequate for a full scale invasion, decapitation strikes on government officials and state assets similar to NATO's 2011 intervention in Libya seem likely. And as he points out, one of the reasons that this is happening is from Marco Rubio, the fact that all the statistics don't really add up whenever it comes to the fountain of fentanyl and everything coming here. But he goes through this strategic justification. The notion that a post Maduro government can promptly fix Venezuela is disturbingly reminiscent of Washington fantasies about post Taliban Afghanistan. Unlike nor yet who governed six years to 1983 and 1989, Chavismo has ruled Venezuela for 27, has destroyed the country's institutions. On increasingly rare occasions when opposition candidates are allowed to prevail, the winners are then stripped of their constitutional powers. In 2024, to ensure Maduro was reelected, the regime perpetuated election fraud so brazen that even some of his closest international allies called the results into question. Even in an ideal negotiated transition, it would take decades for Venezuela to restore a semblance of the rule of law. And nobody signed up for that. I don't want that. I don't wanna be responsible for Venezuela. I don't think Venezuelans want us to be responsible. Like leave them to their own destiny. At a certain point, how much better.
- [69:21]
Krystal Ball
Would it be to make a deal, a business deal with them?
- [69:24]
Saagar Enjeti
That'd be great.
- [69:25]
Krystal Ball
It sanctions relief and they can like Maduro can sink or swim on his own if he's able to run the government in a way that people find effective and yeah, let them to decide their own fate. I mean that feels like what it should be, an America first type of a principle. And there's nothing good, there is nothing good that will come of some regime change, war. And the other thing that Juan de VI goes through is like, you know, there's a number of already armed and trained militant groups in and near Venezuela. So it's also not like there's, you know, all the ingredients for chaos, chaos and violence and death and destruction in a failed state. It's all there. And you know, apparently that's, that's what we're flirting with at this point. Absolutely, absolutely insane.
- [70:10]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [70:14]
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- [71:14]
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- [72:15]
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- [73:11]
Saagar Enjeti
Turning now to John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor has been indicted. Let's go and put this up here on the Federal grand jury in Maryland returned an indictment on 18 separate counts, eight counts of unlawful transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information. These are from the alleged violations of the 1917 Espionage act which prohibit the unauthorized possession or transmission of national defense information. So basically let me go through and read some of the key allegations inside the criminal complaint. The indictment, by the way, is public so you can go through and read it for yourself. Quote Bolton is alleged to have shared over 1000 pages of diary like records of his time at the National Security Advisor with family members or quote editors via his personal email account while he was preparing his book. These records reportedly included sensitive classified information from meetings with senior US Officials, foreign leader discussions and intelligence briefings. He is alleged to have printed and stored classified material at his home in Bethesda, Maryland. The indictment claims that Bircenal's potent personal email account account, which he at times emailed to his wife and his daughter, were later then hacked by a cyber actor believed to have been linked to Iran and that hackers gained access to all of the classified information that he had stored there. That the representative he told the FBI in 2021 about the hack, but he did not disclose the classified information was stored in the account or that hackers had obtained the classified data. He's pleaded not guilty and said he's a victim of political retribution. Now, I mean, I think that that is probably true that he's a victim of political retribution. But, you know, first they came for John Bolton. And I didn't say very much, cuz it's John Bolton. And you know, I. First they came for John Bolton and I read the indictment and it turned out that he did the very thing that he has accused others of doing and he has called for a crackdown for government, you know, for government intervention, for prison time. And so, yeah, that's. That's mostly what I have to say. After they came for John Bolton.
- [75:07]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. Well, okay, so I think it's actually very interesting. I guess first, really technically they did come for James Comey, so. And then first they came for. And I think those, those two prosecutions are much more, very different, much flimsier and more bullshit. I mean, Letitia James is complete and total bullshit. Comey. I mean, these prosecutors had to resign. Like they had to put total flunkies in charge before they would pursue these charges. So this one is different. Now what I will say here is I think it's worth pausing and thinking about the mind of not just John Bolton, but I think this is the way that many elites behave when they get into power 100% they think about, okay, how am I going to position myself for my career, my book deal, how am I going to profit off of this public service? And so when he comes into the first Trump administration, he immediately starts this text chain with his wife and his daughter where, where it's, you know, he's calling it his diary and he's sharing with them all kinds of. This is according to the government story. Right. He's gonna be able to make his own case about what was going on and whether it was classified and he'll be able to defend himself. And I think he certainly has a good case, that this is political retribution, wouldn't have been charged under another government. I do think that that is the case. But so he comes in thinking, how am I going to parlay this into a book deal? Which he did. Right, by the way.
- [76:26]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, he did.
- [76:26]
Krystal Ball
After the fact. So he's sharing with them all this stuff at the moment to keep track of what's going on and all the decision making that he's privy to at the. Now, I think this is completely characteristic of the way that many elites operate when they get into office. And it is also completely characteristic of the type of. Yes. Crimes that elites are usually like, yeah, this is fine.
- [76:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Of course I get to store classified info for my book in my personal email account. Who amongst us?
- [76:54]
Krystal Ball
Now, if you're a whistleblower and you're disclosing something, you're sharing something classified, wrong setting and blah, blah, blah, then God forbid. But, you know, and then also there's the irony, of course, of Trump with the documents stacked up in his bathroom or whatever, that will put that aside for the moment. But so now any elite who gets crosswise with Trump, the things that usually elites are just allowed to do, now, they're not going to be allowed to do that. Now, I am okay with that if it's applied across the board. The problem is that obviously it's done in this incredibly political way where if it's. It's just for Trump's enemies. And so it reminds very much of that famous saying, for my friends, everything for my enemies, the law.
- [77:36]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes.
- [77:36]
Krystal Ball
And with Trump, it's not just the things that actually were legitimate violations. They will also comb through your mortgage application and try to find some sort of bullshit, whatever, like they did with Letitia James. They're trying to do it with Adam Schiff and others to make a case against you. Even if there really is no case to make with this one, they happen to have a little bit more to work with. It just falls in the category of things that elites typically do and get away with. But now that you're on the wrong side of the King, you're gonna be made to pay.
- [78:04]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, like I, you know, sometimes the King. The King actually doesn't miss. And on this one, let's. Glenn actually flagged this fantastic clip of John talking about Julian Assange. Let's take a listen.
- [78:14]
John Bolton (clip speaker)
Well, I think that's a small amount of the sentence he actually deserves. He's committed clear criminal activity. He's no more a German journalist than the chair I'm sitting on. The information that he divulged did, in fact put many people in jeopardy. It undercut the ability of the United States to have confidential diplomatic communications, not just with other foreign governments, but in many countries, with dissidents, people who even speaking to American diplomats, could find themselves in trouble. And so, you know, he. He's been complaining about his treatment over the past period of time. He's the one who sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Now he faces extradition to the United States. I presume he will get due process in the United Kingdom to determine whether extradition should go forward. And when he gets to the United States, he'll get due process here. And I hope he gets at least 176 years in jail for what he did.
- [79:12]
Saagar Enjeti
176 years. Well, John, we'll see how you can test that whenever it comes to your own.
- [79:18]
Krystal Ball
Probably if we went back, I bet he said a bunch of stuff about Hillary's classified situation too, because at that point, you know, he was a loyal Republican.
- [79:25]
Saagar Enjeti
So these guys, you know, it's like he said about their egos. You can, I mean I, and I covered the Hillary email thing and I remember one of my, one of the things that actually made me really angry about it is there was this naval sailor who accidentally shared pictures from onboard a nuclear submarine. And he had been charged with releasing information about classified information. And he, I think he was either thrown in jail, he got seriously like the book was thrown at him. And what he did was in no way comparable to what Hillary had done. And that was a clean hit. Cuz it's like she gets to get away with everything. Whereas the normal everyday people who are working inside the government, when they do something even remotely close to that by accident, again literally by accident accent, they get thrown in jail here. You know, to your point, he's doing this to enrich himself. What great service has John Bolton ever performed for the United States of America or for the business world? No, he trades off of his name and of his influence. I have some great stories about the speaker fees and other things that he demands whenever he would speak to like little student organizations that I have heard from around Wash. He's one of the notorious divas in this town who has writers in his contract like he's Metallica or something. You think I'm joking? I'm not joking. Everybody here knows what I'm talking about. And so that's the guy. And so he did this to make money. That's what it was about. And he thought he was above the law. And so. John, no one is above the law.
- [80:51]
Krystal Ball
Well, actually a lot of people are above the law. We'll get to George Santos here in a moment, but now that you're crosswise with Trump, you're not gonna be above the law. I did look it up. So with regard to Hillary Clinton, using a non secure personal server for official communication, he said in a 2017 interview that if I had done at the State Department what senior US officials like Clinton did, I'd be in jail right now. And asserted that if he or any typical government official had done that, then they would face immediate prosecution and imprisonment. So that was his view before, when he was on, you know, when he was closely aligned with the Republican Party and this was a partisan issue. He was, yeah, nothing but the law for misharing or mishandling classified information. But on the other side of this, we've got the George Santos sentence commutation, and he was convicted. It's worth remembering what he actually did. So he stole 11 different people's identities in order to steal their funds to fund his life. And his campaign convicted of took money from his campaign and uses personal slush fund. There was a lot more besides that he did. And it'd be one thing if it's just this one guy. I will say the way he was treated in prison, I found to be. He was in solitary confinement, which I think is torture and shouldn't be used on anyone, let alone a person who's convicted of basically a white collar crime. But in any case, he joins a list of nine other Republican congressmen who have had their sentences either commuted or been pardoned. If you are on Trump's good side and you've seen the way that people have paid money to get in Trump's inner circle or hire a lawyer who's close with Don Jr. Or whatever, then you can, you can commit whatever crimes you want as long as you say the right things about Trump. I mean, Here we have 10 Republican congressmen who've been granted pardons or clemency from Trump, with Santos just being the latest one. And so that is the reality of this regime. The notion that there is any sort of impartiality is completely and utterly dangerous. Dead. It is all political. It is all, I will go after my enemies if you say nice things about me. If you're gonna toe the line, then I will pardon you. I will commute your sentence. And that is very important because it gives all the people around him a sense of impunity, because they all know even if they are committing crimes, certainly if they're committing crimes on his behalf, they will face no accountability, because as long as they stay on his goods side, he will pardon them, he will commute their sentences. And so that is the broader picture. Bolton is a complicated one, because first of all, I think he's one of the great villains of our politics. And second of all, because he, I mean, according to the government's case, again, he'll have the ability to make his own case whatever. He genuinely did mishandle classified information, applying his own what he said in the past to his own actions, he would be worthy of prosecution. And by the way, another thing we didn't mention, which another very negative fact for him is Iran did hack into.
- [83:53]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, no, exactly. Messages that's actually worse than Hillary.
- [83:56]
Krystal Ball
And we're able to. Yeah, and we're able to glean some information. We're trying to threaten and blackmail him with the information that they had been able to obtain. So you do have, you know, a foreign adversary that's able to gain access to this information, et cetera. Very negative set of facts for him. But then you add it to the overall picture of like this being part of a retribution campaign. And I think it is true that under another administrator, including another Republican administration, or back when he was a, you know, loyal Republican under another Democratic administration, I don't think he gets prosecuted. But for it being this particular administration.
- [84:29]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I think you're one could make the case that it was political not to prosecute him, that actually the Biden administration let him off of the hook because they liked him cuz he was on TV criticizing Trump. So maybe we're just riding the ship and you know, the next time. Jokes aside, this is a interesting question. When the Democrats are in power, then why would they not. Why should they not then use this new standard against like if you're, why would you not prosecute Jared Kushner? Why would you not prosecute Steve Wykoff? Why would you not prosecute any of the people? I mean, I'll put Stephen aside because it's kind of a separate thing, but I don't know. I've seen that. Considering the no Kings protest we're about to talk about, which I caught later on today, that's kind of what the base wants. And so I wonder what direction that they're going to go. What do you think?
- [85:11]
Krystal Ball
I think that a litmus test in the 2028 primary will be holding some of the Trump administration officials to account. I don't think Witkoff and Kushner at the top. I would say Steven Miller, Kristi Noem are towards the, you know, towards the top of the list. Maybe Russ Vote, but Miller would be, you know, target number one, maybe Elon Musk. I think that it will be a litmus test of like, and there's a fine line we can have this. We won't dwell on. We don't have to have a long debate about this right now, but I'm sure it'll be a conversation that we continue to have. There's a fine line between, you know, politicizing and retribution and just going for blood. 8 and I think a lot some of the problems we have in this country right now is from elites acting with impunity. So I do think you need some elite accountability for crimes that are committed. I'm thinking of the war criminals in the first Bush administration, again, John Bolton. I'm thinking of the bankers who never went to prison. And when you have a vastly unequal society by wealth and then you have a show of elites who are able to commit over overt criminal acts, especially acts against the American people and do that with impunity, then that does contribute to like a total societal collapse. So yeah, I think there will be, I think there will be some of that. Now, do I see a Gavin Newsom, like going through people's mortgage applications and just inventing things out of whole cloth? No, I don't think. I mean, remember, these are the people who couldn't get around to appointing Merrick Garland and decided it should be Merrick Garland who was like the lamest person on the planet in order to even go after like the guy who was their main adversary. That's who Democratic Party elites ultimately are. So I think you're right. Where the base is, is they definitely want to see not, you know, not a like exactly what's being done in the Trump administration, but they want to see some accountability for these things. The question is whether they're elites of the. Whoever gets elected is going to have the stones to do any of that. And that's a very open question.
- [87:12]
Saagar Enjeti
All right, let's see.
- [87:14]
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- [87:19]
Saagar Enjeti
Risk.
- [87:19]
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- [88:15]
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- [89:13]
Morton Buildings Advertiser
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- [90:13]
Krystal Ball
So this morning we are joined in studio by a gentleman who is challenging Nancy Pelosi in the Democratic primary for Congress. Also former Chief Chief of Staff to AOC Shoikat Chakrabody. Great to have you.
- [90:24]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, thanks for having me here.
- [90:25]
Saagar Enjeti
Good to see you man.
- [90:25]
Krystal Ball
Welcome. Glad to have you in town. I wanted to start with I know you were at the no Kings protest in San Francisco. Yeah, we've got you guys can put some of these images up on the screen from around the country. I know the estimates were in the many millions for these actions across the country. In my little town in King George county they even had like, pretty decent number of people, which is something I've, like, never seen before. Just talk about your experience in San Francisco and what your interactions were like with the people who came out for it.
- [90:52]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, it was a lot of fun, you know, and it was energizing. It was like electrifying. It was about 50,000 people in San Francisco that showed up. Way bigger than the last one because I went to the last one as well. And people, I mean, it's just like gives you some hope. I think that was the main overwhelming sort of vibe, I'd say. I got there and it was, you know, peaceful. Like there was nothing even bordering on violence.
- [91:15]
Krystal Ball
No antifa attacks?
- [91:16]
Shoikat Chakraborty
No antifa attacks, Nothing going on. And you know, the thing I think is really important about something like, like this is it is also building infrastructure to actually get people out on the streets. Right. So the fact that you can keep doing this, repeat this, I think we're going to have some real infrastructure to get folks out on the streets and to have some sort of real opposition.
- [91:33]
Krystal Ball
When we need that.
- [91:34]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, that's kind of my question to you because, you know, I grew up around the Tea Party age, coming of age in politics. And what I saw was not only the marches, but there was a political infrastructure. And with respect, I don't see that same level candidates like you at this point in the 2000, in that cycle, let's say in the 2010 race, they had major money behind them to challenge incumbents. I'm sure you're studying some of those runs, so explain that disconnect to me. Why is it that millions can take to the streets, but there doesn't seem to be a centralized organized force, people standing up and saying, I'm done with the Democratic establishment. Or are they saying it and I'm mistaken?
- [92:10]
Shoikat Chakraborty
What do you think? So there isn't the same, I'd say, kind of like moneyed infrastructure that the Tea Party had. But I do think this is one of the big divides between candidates like myself, like Kat Abu Ghazali, the newer folks who are running, and the old guard. Right. I think candidates like us, we are part of that and we see our roles as not just trying to go in to be politicians and legislators. Like we actually need to be organizers and be part of this sort of these protests on the street and actually be organizing civil society to create a real opposition party. So I agree. I think what the Tea Party did was an example of how that actually happened on the other side.
- [92:42]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay.
- [92:43]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. One of the things that I have noted for a while now is different among the Democratic base in Trump 2.0 is that that they really are frustrated with their leadership. Pelosi, no longer the leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, who, I mean, Pelosi, at least she had some Machiavellian instincts. Jeffries is just completely. Seems weak. Schumer has been pathetic as well. And so when I see those images, you see the same level, or even heightened level of dissatisfaction, anger from the base at what the Trump administration is doing, doing, and a leadership that they feel increasingly has let them down. That's very different from the first Trump administration where they felt like Nancy Pelosi and Schiff and others were fighting for them and they were all aligned. I do think that creates an opening not just for candidates like you, but for more of a sort of Sanders left populist ideology, because those are the people that actually are being caught fighting. Like, those are the people who've been leading the charge. And so if you have a big base who's disgusted with the lack of fight and you see that the fighters are people who tend to share our ideology, I think that does create nobody. Not to mention the fact that the previous liberal direction of let's not rock the boat and let's just try to return to the status quo has obviously completely failed.
- [93:59]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, I think it's twofold. Right. One thing is when Trump won the first time, I think a lot of people, especially mainstream Democrats, thought that was just a fluke. And Trump getting elected again has gotten a big part of the party in the base to just think about this as, like, what is actually going on. This is a real failure of the Democratic establishment. And so I think there's two things that's going on where they're seeing the current Democratic Party being completely unable to do anything about what's going on in the moment with what I think is an authoritarian coup. And so they're looking for leaders who are actually gonna take this moment seriously. They're not. They don't want the sort of lay back and play dead politics. Let the backlash build, and we're just gonna win in the next election off that backlash. Because that might not happen. Right. But the other piece is people really are thirsty for an actual vision to fix the deep economic problems that led to someone like Trump. Like, that's something I had to explain the first Trump term when I was working with aoc. I had to try to explain Trump was a result of these larger problems. I don't find that to explain that Anymore, Everyone gets it. Right? So now we're at a place where I just get to pitch. What's our version of the vision for actually how to fix this? Because MAGA's not doing it right. MAGA's not going to fix it.
- [95:03]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, my question though, on San Francisco is, let's be real, Nancy Pelosi is still tremendously popular, right. In her among a lot of Democrats. I saw a recent unfavorable rating, like 33% that was like total. But in your district, she has constantly, never really had to take any of these primary challenges seriously. So I guess my question is, how do you seek to over, like, why is this time different? I mean, I've been doing the show with Crystal for years now. I've probably interviewed every primary challenger that has come to Nancy Pelosi. I'm still here interviewing another Nancy Pelosi challenger. Why is this time different?
- [95:36]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, so the bet with this race was that there's this deep dissatisfaction with the Democratic establishment, right. Not necessarily Nancy Pelosi herself, but that people are really ready for change. And we actually ran a poll last month that showed a couple interesting things. You know, still shows Nancy Pelosi is generally well liked. You know, people actually respect her and like her. But when you ask Pelosi supporters would they be willing to vote for somebody new, about 50, 51% say yes. Right. When you ask. And overall in the population is about two thirds of the population. And then when you actually poll her against me first, one thing we learned is I've already cut the lead in half. I was down 25, now I'm down 13. And when we actually show a positive bio of her and a bio of myself, we end up winning the race by six. So people in the district are really, you know, basically they're at this place where, like, we like her, we think she was great for a certain time, but clearly we need something new. Right. And, and so the point is to just get across the fact that I'm actually a serious candidate. I've got real experience in politics. And also everything I'm running on is overwhelmingly popular, not just in San Francisco, but across the country. I'm running on things to actually fix our economic problems. I'm running on anti corruption. And that's really resonating with the district.
- [96:44]
Krystal Ball
Is she for sure running again? She filed her.
- [96:46]
Shoikat Chakraborty
She's filed with the fec.
- [96:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay.
- [96:50]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Whenever people ask her, are you definitely running again? She always, always is mum about it. But, you know, the rumors are maybe it's going to Be her daughter. That ends up being her pick.
- [96:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Who knows which.
- [96:59]
Krystal Ball
Doesn't she have two daughters?
- [97:00]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Christine.
- [97:00]
Krystal Ball
Christine would be interesting famous in Washington. I would love for you to talk a little bit while we have you about. You said, you know, you need to offer people an alternative positive vision. I think you've been one of the people who has been at the forefront of actually really thinking deeply about what that vision would look like. So talk a little bit about how you see that. That.
- [97:18]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, you know, I think it's. It's basically like to back up a bit. Like, I think basically for decades now, wages have been stagnant for most Americans while the cost of essentials have really skyrocketed. Right. And I think at the same time, our country's just been really stuck actually being able to do anything big. We can't take on big projects. We've de. Industrialized the Midwest. I think one real example of how bad our state capacity is is I think of EVs in China, right? Like EVs in China 10 years ago when they were started to make them, we were being so smug about it. We were like, ah, they're never gonna catch up to us. Our technology is so great. And then literally last year, they are Starting to make EVs, our bed in ours. And we're just like, well, game's over. No way we can.
- [97:57]
Saagar Enjeti
We can compete.
- [97:58]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Right?
- [97:58]
Krystal Ball
That's it. It feels a little bit like that, to be honest.
- [98:01]
Shoikat Chakraborty
I know, right.
- [98:02]
Saagar Enjeti
And that's kind of true at this.
- [98:03]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Point, but that's such a. It's such a failure of imagination, I think, on our part of what can we actually do as a country? So, you know, part of what I'm running on is I'd say the things that people like Bernie or AOC and everybody runs on, which is we need structural fixes to things like health care, childcare, education, these big cost centers. Right. We actually need universal health care. Universal childcare. But the other piece that I've been really promoting this was really a lot of the Green New Deal work is we actually need to have the government do a massive mobilization to kind of build up our industrial capacity and our state capacity to do stuff, to build industries, to build housing, to build all the stuff that we actually need in this country to survive. And the examples we look at when we talk about this are a lot of the rich nations that got rich in the 20th century. Because if you look at the history of the 20th century, basically every rich nation today, they went through these periods where they massively transformed their economy in really short periods of time. And the way they did it is they really governed in a way that's very different from us. They didn't just pass some policies. You had to actually have this movement that was organizing civil society, society, to kind of be on this mission. And often that mission was to get rich as a nation. And sometimes the mission, in our case, you know, during World War II, is to beat the fascists. And you made real plans. You had institutions to finance and execute those plans. It's a whole different kind of governing. And that's really been a focus of a lot of my work.
- [99:20]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, but to press you a little bit, you're part of the party that you've been involved with now for some time, has not really had a good run in San Francisco. Right. So San Francisco, Daniel Lurie beats London Breed. In the mayoral race, you had Chesu Boudin, who went down, it seems like the homelessness and the great crime, which, look, no offense, was definitely associated with a lot of the politics that you've been involved with some past, was utterly rejected by a lot of those voters. So, like, why should I believe your vision for governance when the very city which you probably had the most influence on, not you personally, your brand of politics had the most influence on, basically became an emblem for failed city in the United States?
- [99:56]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, you know, I really think that it was. It's a backlash of government dysfunction, because I agree, you know, I think the San Francisco government has not actually managed to take care of the homeless people in our city and have them not have to live out on the streets. Right. And I'm not sure Daniel Lurie is necessarily going to fix that either, and we're going to see the same backlash. I think this is the same reason at a national level, you have someone like Barack Obama win on a message of change, and then when people feel like that didn't work out, you have someone like Donald Trump win. I think people are really quite open to what the change looks like, but people are really sure that whatever we're doing right now, that's not working.
- [100:28]
Krystal Ball
Are you worried that Trump's abuse of government power because in a certain way, he's kind of greasing the skids for what you're talking about. He's like, you know, what? Congress, forget it. Judiciary, like, who cares? Who cares about laws? I'm just gonna do what I wanna do.
- [100:42]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Right.
- [100:42]
Krystal Ball
In a certain way, he creates space for a more aggressive government policy in another way, something Sara and I have both been concerned about is like, it gives libertarians a bit of an argument of, hey, when you've got this unchecked government, it's kind of a problem. Are you worried about a backlash to his abuse of government, making it more difficult for a vision such as yours that does require direct government action to be accepted by the people?
- [101:06]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, I'm worried about that.
- [101:07]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [101:08]
Shoikat Chakraborty
And I'm the kind of person, I don't generally believe that there's like one system that'll fix anything. Like, the people do matter. And yeah, you can have, you can use a powerful government for good and you can use it for bad. Right. And fdr, in my opinion, was an example of how we had a powerful government that had lost state capacity and used it to improve people's lives. So, you know, I think the job here is to try to distinguish that, to say that, you know, the stuff that's going wrong right now, that's because Trump is throwing out Congress, which, by the way, I'm not saying we throw out Congress. Right. Like, FDR actually used to love going in front of Congress and, you know, defend his ideas, and that's how he felt he could build political support for it.
- [101:44]
Saagar Enjeti
Not all the time, though.
- [101:45]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Not always.
- [101:45]
Saagar Enjeti
They went against him, though.
- [101:46]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Okay. Yeah, no, but he did actually. He did all the committee. He actually showed up front of Congress and. Which, which Trump has never done. And so I, you know, I think it's more powerful if you actually bring civil society and the body politic along when you're doing this kind of big approach. Like, you can't actually just go it alone and have the government just do something because you need to have.
- [102:06]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I, I want, I apologize for getting so specific, but, like, that is part of your job. We're going to be representing. So, like, I think about that mall in Sanford. What is it? The Westfield Mall.
- [102:13]
Shoikat Chakraborty
I bought the Westfield Mall.
- [102:14]
Saagar Enjeti
I bought one of my ties there. It empty now. Right. It's because of crime, it's because of homelessness. I read an article recently in the Wall Street Journal. It's a multi billion dollar boondoggle. They won't pay the mortgage. Like, what are you going to do about that? You know, at the end, like, that was a great place and now it got ruined. It got ruined by, again, a lot of that governance. And I, I'm just not hearing, you know, quite a bit about that.
- [102:32]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Look, I'm not going to downplay, you know, the issues around homelessness and crime. That mall specifically, though, I do think there's been some misinformation around because malls are not doing well all around the country.
- [102:40]
Saagar Enjeti
That's true.
- [102:40]
NYX Leakproof Underwear Advertiser
That's true.
- [102:41]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Got some, you know, the Japantown Mall, Stonestown Gallery in San Francisco. They're doing great and they've managed to pivot to figure out a model that actually works. I get the feeling that Westfield just didn't. They had this old mall style and they're in the middle of downtown where there's all this other retail. So, yeah, I think crime and homelessness had something to do with it, but I don't think that's the whole story with Westfield.
- [102:59]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, all right. I mean, I'll take your word for it. I just think it's more of like, if there's a reason why, you know, people point to it as fail, not just the mall, but like, you know, retail market street and everything. I remember visiting. I can't believe what happened to this place. And so that's why I'm just honestly a bit skeptical. Like, I hear big things about Green New Deal, et cetera. Sure, it sounds great. But, you know, if that's actually how the governance itself of the city is having visited, I mean, one of the critiques you've had, I know, is around oligarchy. Like, you're going to be representing probably one of the most per capita cities with billionaires. What's your plan to deal with that? There's going to be a lot of, you know, paper millionaires who are in that district who really like some of the more status quo. Is it going to be voters? Is it going to be them? Because I've seen a lot of them being priority by San Francisco politicians.
- [103:40]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, we can't. I mean, there are a lot of them, but they're still a small fraction of the actual city. Right. And if you look at people in San Francisco, if you ask them about this question of oligarchy, especially tech workers, actually, because I talked to a lot of tech workers, they hate it. You know, tech workers are really embarrassed by being kind of represented by people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and David Sacks. And they kind of are the first to be like, we need to show that we are not them. Right. And so in San Francisco, though, when you talk about these failed policies, I think actually the failed policies is a result of the lack of state capacity on San Francisco's level. You know, the fact that San Francisco doesn't actually build, you know, and part of my politics here is, and this doesn't always line up with progressives, but I do think red tape and construction Costs. I'm both. You know, I think the thing that the YIMBYs I think get right is yes, we do actually need to make it faster and easier and cheaper to construct. But the thing I think they get wrong is that's not going to be all we need to actually get stuff. You know, we actually need public financing, social housing, all these other tools to make sure we get the stuff built.
- [104:41]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, you're. Yes. And on a budget.
- [104:43]
Shoikat Chakraborty
I'm a yes and guy.
- [104:43]
Krystal Ball
Yes. Let's talk a little bit about because Sagar brings up the tech heavy district that you would represent. I mean, what are your thoughts on the development of AI? The likely mass displacement of workers, the way that would upend the social contract. Right now they're all in what I would consider basically a race to the bottom to speed. Who can get their AI to AGI fastest without any regard for what the consequences to society would, would be. I know you're deep thinker on all these things. So what are your thoughts there and what we should do?
- [105:12]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Oh man. I mean I think it's so lame that right now AI is going to a place where we're just going to have like a slop TikTok full of AI porn is I guess like the monetization strategy. Yeah, I mean it is just like we've created the speculative bubble where we're letting the markets decide where this stuff goes and it's going to create complete dystopia. But I think of the AI question as kind of downswing from the fact that we don't have any capacity at a national level to do any sort of planning of where our economy goes. Right. And where some big disruptive technology like this, how it should be used. Because it could be the case that when you have a very productive technology, the benefits of that is spread across more of society. It's not just accumulating the same element. And there's one version of this where I equate it to kind of automation. The car manufacturing sector. So when that started happening, when car manufacturing started getting really awkward automated. In Germany they have labor and corporations and government that all sit on the boards of their car manufacturers. Right. And they do some planning. They're like this is how we're going to do automation in our car manufacturing. The result of that it sort of changed because EVs have really changed the game. But initially the result of that was German workers ended up making twice as much in wages as their American counterparts. They also made more cars per capita than American car manufacturing. And they had more automation than Americans. America. Right. So I think that's the way we should be treating AI. We need to actually have society have a say on how we're using this technology so it doesn't just turn into, you know, slop news feeds.
- [106:35]
Saagar Enjeti
You mentioned tech billionaires. Where do you stand on the H1B question? So you'd be representing a district with a lot of.
- [106:40]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, B's.
- [106:41]
Saagar Enjeti
You talked about tech workers. A lot of those people have come to me, said we're being abused by H1B workers. What do you think about the issue?
- [106:46]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, I mean, I'm in the camp of we definitely need reform. Like I do think we need to. I think we should detach hydrogen H1B from employer, like employees from employers, because I think it's a very exploitative system. And I think we need to have higher basically prevailing wage requirements on the visa so that it has upward push on wages. So the result of bringing it. So you really are bringing H1B workers that you can't hire locally and it's pushing everyone's wages up. So it's net benefit.
- [107:12]
Saagar Enjeti
But do you think these companies have been abusing the H1B system? A lot of them would be in your district.
- [107:15]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, absolutely. They've been abusing it. Yes.
- [107:17]
Krystal Ball
Okay, I'm going to talk about the disposal disconnect between where the base of the Democratic Party has been and where Democratic Party leadership has been on Israel in particular. If we can put F2 up on the screen, this was an interesting set of polls that was, I think, leaked, actually, that this is from Democrats in a variety of swing districts. So that was the, you know, the sample that was taken here and they asked people for favorable or unfavorable views on the variety of things. So unfavorable for Israel is 50% favorable, is only 27%. Palestine completely opposite 60% favorable, only 13% unfavorable. Netanyahu has a 6% approval rating. AIPAC has a 16% approval rating. The Israel lobby in general, 14. The UN 73 positive. And Doctors Without Borders 82 can put the next one up on the screen as well. Just some other numbers to chew on with regard to this topic. In your own words, please describe your impressions of Israel. They ask here, 59% offer something that is negative. The number one response there was they're committing a general genocide. On the positive side, they're kind of mixed. The number one is support the people, not so much the government. Number two is Israel has a right to exist. And then you've got some 12% that are more or less neutral to their views here. Let's put the next one up on the screen as well. When thinking about the current crisis in the Middle east, you mostly have sympathy for Palestinians. Equal sympathy for Palestinians and Israelis or mostly have sympathy for the the Israelis. 5%, 5% of the Democratic base say they mostly have sympathy for the Israelis and yet their leadership overwhelmingly mostly has sympathy for the Israelis. Does this feel to you like an important litmus test issue for Democratic based voters? Because of course, if you poll it's not the number one issue that most people say yet it seems like it's such a moral abomination nation and such a failure, a moral failure on the part of Democratic leadership who likes to posture like they care about human rights and they care about international law. That to me it seems that it has become an important kind of dividing line issue in Democratic primaries in particular.
- [109:26]
John Bolton (clip speaker)
Yeah, I agree.
- [109:27]
Shoikat Chakraborty
I think it's become a proxy for the larger question of who do you serve. Right. Are you actually representing people or are you representing money? Because there's no explanation for why you would continue voting to send unconditional military funding to Israel when your voters are telling you they don't want it. When you see the horrible genocide that Israel's committing with that money when it's against our own law, the Lehi law says we shouldn't be doing this other than money. Right. That's the only answer. And I actually think you see this on a whole host of issues. There's a big divide between where voters are at on things like congressional stock trading ban. Right. Or banning the revolving door between Congress and the lobbying industry on big money and where politicians and that's honestly it's a big political opportunity in some cases for people like me who are running, who are actually just running on these issues that are very popular. We get painted as progressives, which I call myself a progressive, but it's really just popular issues.
- [110:19]
Saagar Enjeti
So what did you think of your old boss's decision to vote for defensive weapons to Israel? Is that a vote that you would take?
- [110:26]
Shoikat Chakraborty
I wouldn't have voted the same way as her. No. But I think if you look at she did the same vote as Bernie. They've been voting that way for a of lot long time. And ultimately she didn't actually vote on the bill. So no real money got sent to Israel there.
- [110:38]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. But the logic of it. So you're saying no more at what's.
- [110:41]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Your my logic on it is any money we're sending to Israel Right now I don't think they're being so careful about this is only going to defense, this is only going to offense. Any money we give to support their defensive capabilities, that's more money they have for their offensive capabilities. And those offensive capabilities are being used for abhorrent actions. Right.
- [111:00]
Krystal Ball
Last question for you. You did serve as AOC's chief of staff. She's talked about both as a potential primary challenger to Chuck Schumer, which frankly I think she would win in a landslide if he even decided to run again. And she's also talked about as a potential presidential contender. Do you think she could be an effective presidential contender? Do you think that she would have an ability to lead the country in that way?
- [111:19]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Absolutely. Yeah. I think she is a generational talent and I think she's incredible at communicating. I think the thing she's got is twofold. One, she actually cares, which is rare in politicians. And she is able to explain things and do the kind of politics that I think is necessary for this moment. Like if we want to do big stuff, if we want to actually get the country to be able to do these big structural changes, fix health care, get industrialization happening again, you actually need someone in the presidency who's to able, able to communicate that and use as a way to build political will to do those big things. You're not gonna be able to do it through a regular establishment Democrat who's just poll testing everything and figuring out what to say at the moment.
- [112:01]
Saagar Enjeti
See that's interesting cuz when you came in, I remember when you became a chief of staff, cuz you're a shit stirrer in Congress, which I liked.
- [112:08]
John Bolton (clip speaker)
I loved it.
- [112:09]
Saagar Enjeti
That's part of the reason I've always respected you. But the critique I've seen from a lot of progressives has been that after you left, I forget your other colleague's name after the two of you guys. Corbin Trump, Corbin Trout, that's right. After the two of you guys left, it's like ah, now we're starting to play the Pelosi game. We're starting to go for the Oversight Committee even though we're still not going to get it, start to play ball with leadership. We're not doing sit ins anymore. So what do you think went wrong or if anything went wrong?
- [112:31]
Shoikat Chakraborty
I don't think anything went wrong. I mean I left, you know, I left sort of in a planned way. Like I came in, I did the shit stirring to get the Green New Deal launched, got our office hired, had a kid on the way and I got out and I think she needs support. Right. That's the other piece of this is if someone like AOC does become president, she actually wants to do this big thing. That's really what it comes down to. Because it's not just about winning this presidency. We actually have to deliver at the end of the day or it is gonna go back to some sort of authoritarianism. But she's gonna need a Congress to back her up. And that's a big part of my focus right now is I am trying to recruit people to run all across the country. I'm talking to people who are popping up primary Democrats. We're going to need a movement to replace a whole bunch of these Democrats to completely change the party. And in that sort of environment, I think she can be very successful.
- [113:14]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, all right, all right.
- [113:15]
Krystal Ball
Shoikat, tell people where they can support your campaign if they're so inclined.
- [113:19]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Yeah, go to my website. It's shoikat. US S A I K A T us. You know, I mentioned in that poll that if all we do is get everyone to hear about this campaign in the district, we're going to win. So we're doing a huge volunteer run operation. So if you live in the Bay Area area, you can come out to canvas. We've been canvassing every weekend. We get like 50 to 60 people every day on Saturday and Sunday. That's incredible. But if you're outside of the district, we're doing phone banks from anywhere in the country. So please sign up to volunteer on our website or you know, send a few bucks our way. If that works.
- [113:48]
Saagar Enjeti
I'll be looking at your campaign with interest, sir. So we'll see you later.
- [113:51]
Krystal Ball
Thanks.
- [113:52]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Thanks so much for having me.
- [113:53]
Saagar Enjeti
Thank you guys so much for watching. We're going to have to skip the Epstein segment today just because we went long as usual. Don't worry, we're will cover it tomorrow. We'll see you all then.
- [114:16]
Krystal Ball
Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.
- [114:21]
Saagar Enjeti
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- [114:35]
Krystal Ball
This thing moves.
- [114:36]
Saagar Enjeti
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- [114:57]
Krystal Ball
Happen to his family.
- [115:00]
Jasper Nathaniel
Inspired by shocking actual events, I'm working.
- [115:03]
Krystal Ball
On a story about the Murdochs. Their abuses of power are playing out in real time.
- [115:07]
Shoikat Chakraborty
Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark.
- [115:12]
Jasper Nathaniel
It's only cheating if you get caught.
- [115:15]
Morton Buildings Advertiser
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- [115:18]
Shoikat Chakraborty
The Family New episodes Wednesdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
- [115:25]
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- [115:54]
Krystal Ball
This is an I Heart podcast.