← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
10/22/25: Kushner And JD Try To Tame Bibi, Trump Sues DOJ, Trump Lashes Out At Mamdani
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- [00:00]
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- [01:59]
Krystal Ball
Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive.
- [02:03]
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Role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for.
- [02:07]
Krystal Ball
The future of this show. This is the only place where you.
- [02:09]
Saagar Enjeti
Can find honest perspectives from the left.
- [02:11]
Krystal Ball
And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important.
- [02:15]
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To you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become.
- [02:18]
Krystal Ball
A member today and you'll get access.
- [02:19]
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- [02:22]
Krystal Ball
And all put together for you every.
- [02:23]
Saagar Enjeti
Morning in your inbo.
- [02:25]
Krystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com.
- [02:33]
Saagar Enjeti
All right. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Emily, how you doing?
- [02:35]
Krystal Ball
Doing great. We have a big show. We have multiple guests and we're taping a weekend show today as well that people should definitely make sure to tune in for. That'll be a good one.
- [02:43]
Saagar Enjeti
That's right. Last week, Chrisland Sagar had Ken Vogel on to talk about his new book, Devil's Bargain. Oh, no, Devil's Advocates. Yes, Devil's Advocates. It's about representing the worst people in the world. And they told everybody to buy copies of it. Not enough of you did. So we're having him back on.
- [02:59]
Krystal Ball
Well, the punishment.
- [03:00]
Saagar Enjeti
We will keep having him on until you send this book to number one.
- [03:03]
Krystal Ball
Yes.
- [03:04]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. Because we rely on a lot of Ken Vogel's reporting on corruption in D.C. and around the world. So we'll get back. Also, just a great reporter.
- [03:12]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. And he's had a really interesting career, which is what we want to talk to him about today and get into the entire sort of question of lobbying here in D.C. and how he covers it. So hope everyone tunes in for that. Ryan, we'll be talking about pretty big news yesterday out of Israel. JD Vance has some comments about what the future of this peace plan actually may materialize to look like. Donald Trump could be paid $230 million by his own Department of Justice. We'll break down why. And the New York City mayoral election continues to titillate every single day.
- [03:49]
Saagar Enjeti
So good time.
- [03:50]
Krystal Ball
There's some AI we're going to run for everyone. But also just updates in that race, Graham Platner, big updates in the Graham Platner race. I mean, big in air quotes probably.
- [04:01]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes. Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate candidate in Maine. Now that Janet Mills is in, all of Schumer's oppo is coming out. Schumer has endorsed. We'll talk about the latest that's been thrown at him. And we'll also get response from Representative Ro Khanna, who has endorsed him and is standing, standing by him. We're also going to talk about Karine Jean Pierre, who is making the rounds to promote her latest book and keeps getting confronted with the question of why should anybody listen to anything you have to say?
- [04:31]
Krystal Ball
Yes.
- [04:32]
Saagar Enjeti
And her answers have not been very persuasive.
- [04:34]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. No. Well. And yet here we are listening to what she has to say. But we're listening to tell you that you shouldn't listen. So it's a little meta. And we're going to be talking about energy.
- [04:42]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. We'll be talking to CEO of clean capital, John Powers, and we've been looking to get some clean energy guys on to talk about what the kind of commercial market has been like for them both in the wake of the build back better. And then also the one big beautiful bill, how that has changed what it means to bring on new levels of energy production and what that's doing for energy prices.
- [05:08]
Krystal Ball
And Ryan wandered in here this morning saying that he's going to know the future president of Ireland. Like someone you talk to, a crazy person, you sort of pat on the head and you're like, okay, all right. But, but he actually might.
- [05:20]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. The Irish presidential election is on Friday. And when I was in Dublin a couple, maybe a couple months ago at this point, Abu Bakr, Abed and I, as well as our friends from the ditch over there interviewed Catherine Connolly in the Dublin pub, the basement of Dublin pub. She had just launched her presidential campaign. She is now on track, I think, to become the next president of Ireland. So we're going to play a little bit of our interview from back in July or August, whenever that was.
- [05:52]
Krystal Ball
Looking forward to that. So everyone stay tuned. Let's start in the Middle east where Vice President J.D. vance weighed in on where things stand right now because the peace deal, as Kristen Sager have covered, is obviously in a fragile place. That's no surprise. Here's J.D. vance.
- [06:10]
Saagar Enjeti
Yesterday, the president actually put out a truth this morning that I thought was very instructive. We know that Hamas has to comply with the deal and if Hamas doesn't comply with the deal, very bad things are going to happen. But I'm not going to do what the President United States has thus far refused to do, which is put an explicit deadline on it. Because a lot of this stuff is difficult, A lot of this stuff is unpredictable. I don't think it's actually advisable for us to say this has to be done in a week because a lot of this work is very hard. It's never been done before. And in order for us to give it a chance to succeed, we, we've got to be a little bit flexible. I think what you're seeing from our Gulf Arab friends, certainly from our Israeli friends, is a certain amount of impatience with Hamas. But we're going to keep on working at this process. In terms of the 20 point plan that the president put out there is very clear. It's supported not just by Israel, by, but by all of our Gulf Arab friends. It's that Hamas has to disarm. It's that Hamas has to actually behave itself and that Hamas, while all the fighters can be given some sort of clemency, they're not going to be able to kill each other and they're not going to be able to kill their fellow Palestinians. Now, again, that's going to take a little bit of time.
- [07:17]
Krystal Ball
So Vance is in Israel. If you're listening to this, not watching, you would have seen Jared Kushner flanking JD Vance. Not really a surprise. But Vance made some additional comments relevant to the Kushner question. Let's roll a two.
- [07:31]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, Jared's the investor here. I'm not going to give you a percentage, but look, what we've seen the past week gives me great optimism. The cease fire is going to hold. And if we get from where we were a week ago to a long term durable peace between Israel and Gaza, there are going to be hills and valleys. There are going to be moments where it looks like things aren't going particularly well. But given that and given the history of conflict, I think that everybody should be proud of where we are today. No reconstruction aid, no reconstruction funds will be going into areas that Hamas still controls. And as far as the demilitarization goes.
- [08:04]
Krystal Ball
Once the ISF is up, there needs to be a security force that they can feel safe from that in order for it to be the transition to be complete. So that needs to happen. There are considerations being happening now in.
- [08:16]
Saagar Enjeti
The area that the IDF controls, as.
- [08:18]
Krystal Ball
Long as that could be secured to.
- [08:19]
Saagar Enjeti
Start the construction as a new Gaza, in order to give the Palestinians living in Gaza a place to go, a place to get jobs, a place to live. So that's one of the many things being considered.
- [08:29]
Krystal Ball
And so that last clip was actually of Jared Kushner himself, who is quite literally an investor in the region, no question about it. His firm, Affinity Partners, has investment from the Saudi Royal Fund.
- [08:42]
Saagar Enjeti
Let's put investment in quotes.
- [08:43]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, investment, investment. The Qatari.
- [08:46]
Saagar Enjeti
It's an investment. It's just not necessarily looking for percentage gains year over year.
- [08:50]
Krystal Ball
That's right. So, Ryan, with J.D. vance, Jared Kushner in Israel right now. J.D. vance is the one who invokes the term optimism. So if someone was looking for this peace deal to hold, does the last 24 hours leave them optimistic?
- [09:06]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes. And you can gauge that by the Israeli reaction rage at the idea that Hamas should be given any patience. He was pressed repeatedly by Israeli reporters throughout that event to say, will you put a timeline? You know, Hamas is already supposed to have returned all of the bodies. They haven't yet. Shouldn't we be allowed to open the war again. Okay? And he says, no, have some patience. He says, well, what about a timeline? A week, two weeks, like. And he kept, and he kept coming back to them and saying, look, you know, a lot of these bodies are under thousands of tons of rubble. So this is a logistical challenge. And it was an interesting kind of contrast between what Vance was describing, which is kind of the real world, which is very rarely described in this situation, versus the just made up ideas, the diplomacy about how we just need to go root out evil. So it was kind of jarring to see the contrast between the two things being presented there. And so in Kushner and Vance were there. They asked J.D. vance, are you here because of the, you think that the Israeli overreaction on Sunday to that incident in Rafah, which is disputed about, you know, what happened? Are you here because you think Israel overreacted and you're trying to clamp them down? And he said, no, no, no, I was planning on coming anyway. But the answer wasn't convincing. It seemed very clear. And it seemed clear to the Israeli media that Witkoff, Kushner and Vance came basically to babysit. And they, while they were there, they talked a lot about this deconfliction center where they have 200American service members in the Negev desert who are basically going to be in an operational center with the idf. And that is being received in some quarters of Israel as a humiliation, that this is the United States kind of taking over control because they don't trust Israel to abide by the terms of the ceasefire. Now, what I was told over the weekend when I was reporting on that incident that happened in Rafah is that it was. And so if people didn't follow that there was. The IDF claimed that there had been snipers and terrorists jumped out of a tunnel with RPGs and there was this massive complex attack. And then somehow they snuck back into Gaza. Well, they were in Rafah and they snuck back into, behind the Israeli lines. What I was told is that it was this 200 member American unit that discovered very quickly, no, that's not what happened. And that's how the information then got relayed higher up the chain of the Pentagon. And so that shows, like, the way that this deconfliction process is supposed to work.
- [12:09]
Krystal Ball
And clearly people in the administration believed or did not believe, I should say, the Israeli story, because they were leaking as much to Kurt Mills and others.
- [12:21]
Saagar Enjeti
Right, right. And Netanyahu on Sunday afternoon announced a complete full spectrum ban on life essentials going into Gaza. In response to what he said was this attack, hours later, he said, actually, we're going to resume allowing in life essentials Monday morning, which was just hours away. So you could tell that something had changed. And so to your question, I think that's the reason there was some optimism that this deconfliction center is becoming a real node of power in the region. And so if the IDF wants to restart the war, restart its attack in a full scale way, you know, they're going to continue doing what they call mowing the lawn, which is killing one to a dozen Palestinians every single day. And they have this imaginary yellow line that now they're now allegedly, they're going to start putting down little markers every 200 meters to say if you go beyond this yellow line will kill you. They have been killing people beyond this line that doesn't exist except in maps. And no Palestinian really knows where it is. And if they go over, they shoot and kill them. So they'll continue to do that. But in order to ramp it back up to the levels we were seeing before, they'll have to go through this deconfliction center, which is run by the Americans. And for now, the Americans don't want this to break wide open again.
- [13:52]
Krystal Ball
So on that note, did you see this exchange between Zach Witkoff?
- [13:59]
Saagar Enjeti
I sure did.
- [14:00]
Krystal Ball
This was.
- [14:01]
Saagar Enjeti
I mean, this is an Aton fish burger or whatever.
- [14:03]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. And this goes to, I think what you were describing behind the Vance Kushner motivation in going to. Maybe the way to describe it is babysit this process because Zach Witkoff, who is the son of, of Steve Witkoff, got into a very interesting exchange on X that they all did it in the, quote, tweet way. So it's really hard to actually read. But basically, Fishberger was attacking Wyckoff and Kushner because, quote, their close ties with the Qatari government actually significantly prolonged the conflict because it kept them under the illusion that Qatar was an honest broker throughout this war. Zach Witkoff, very defensive of this process. And it just shows you how deeply tied to their legacy. People in this administration, people outside of this administration, like Jared Kushner, who does not have a formal role, want this peace process to be. He says Witkoff and Kushner didn't, quote, prolong anything. They worked around the clock to bring Israelis home safely. It's easy to criticize from afar. It also shows how little you understand about complex foreign policy issues. A simple thank you might be more appropriate. And they went back and forth for a really long time. And Witkoff was essentially Zach Witkoff, that is, was essentially defending their relationships with the Qataris in the sense that, Ryan, you were saying there's something jarring about hearing the realism of these guys who are business people, come in and not use these, like, diplomatic platitudes, but just kind of discuss it in a way that you don't hear in Washington.
- [15:44]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, also, Leslie Stahl, asked, in her interview on 60 Minutes, asked Witkoff and Kushner about their conflicts of interest. And one of them said, what you call conflicts of interest, we call experience.
- [15:56]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, it's so good.
- [15:58]
Saagar Enjeti
I thought he was gonna say, what you call conflicts of interest, we call $2 billion in our pocket. Yeah. So what is, if we have $2.
- [16:05]
Krystal Ball
Billion and everyone's at peace, what's the big deal? Yeah.
- [16:09]
Saagar Enjeti
Zach Witkoff, for his part, is, you know, he ran around Pakistan shaking him down for crypto, ran around the Gulf shaking them down for deals for Witkoff Company, which Steve Witkoff is still a part owner of. So, like, Zach Witkoff is out doing all these deals, benefiting the company that his dad owns. Now, I say all that, and I'm team Zach Witkoff in this argument that he's having with. With Fishburger, because Fishburger's point is ridiculous, because he's saying this would have ended much sooner if it weren't for this Qatari corruption. Like Fishberger and his whole crew. Hate that it ended at all. What do you mean, ended sooner? You didn't want it to end, period. This deal has been on offer for a very long time, and you haven't wanted to take it. The underlying argument that Fishberger was making is the Doha attack brought about the.
- [17:04]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [17:05]
Saagar Enjeti
And Zach is like, that's idiotic. You tried to kill the negotiators. We were moving toward a deal with these negotiators. You failed to kill him. You killed Khalilahaya's son, killed four office workers. You killed a security guard, you injured his wife, you injured their grandkids. But that didn't. Like. That didn't bring us to a deal here. What brought them to a deal is Trump saying, it's time to make a deal. Actually, that's it. He said, look, it's over. You're taking it. Stop being such a whining baby. What was his phrase? Why are you always so negative?
- [17:39]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, take the victim or play the victim.
- [17:41]
Saagar Enjeti
I think we've heard that that's Witkoff saying, play the victim. Witkoff. And then, sorry, yesterday in the press conference said something very fascinating because there's been this reporting that Witkoff keeps telling Israelis, stop acting like victims privately. You're not the victim here. He told Ben gvir, stop acting like this victim all the time publicly. Yesterday morning, he said, I was just in a meeting with 10 hostage families and released hostages. Everybody was crying. He talked about how it was such a privilege for him to be in there. And he said, you know what? There was not a single victim in that room. So he's now saying it publicly to their face. Stop with this victim crap. We're sick of it.
- [18:25]
Krystal Ball
Well, and the reason that exchange between Zach Witkoff was, or I think is important right now, is that it shows you why JD Vance and Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are in Israel right now in that they believe it's possible a tripwire is sort of intentionally tripped and everything falls apart. And so I think, actually, Ryan, your description of babysitting is accurate. That's what's happening right now. It's exactly the same.
- [18:55]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. Jeremy yesterday just described it as like, basically putting a leash on the attack dog, which I think is also maybe a better one. And that doesn't mean that they won't let that attack dog loose again at some time in the near future, but just not yet. Like Netanyahu's idea that Trump could do this gigantic victory lap at Sharm El Sheikh and nominate himself repeatedly for the Nobel Prize, and then he's going to blow the deal up within a week. Yeah, yeah, the guy. A little quick there.
- [19:26]
Krystal Ball
Yes, I know you wanted to mention the Israeli right's reaction to all of this, Ryan.
- [19:30]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, they've been talking about it as a humiliation. And actually some of the Israeli left. There is no Israeli left, but the types have been saying Netanyahu has brought us to a full vassal state, that we are now thoroughly and obviously under the thumb of the United States, where Trump is just explicitly and publicly dictating to us what we can do. Whereas, obviously, the US Being the most powerful country in the world, can tell other countries what to do. But to do it so brazenly, they say, is a real slap across the face of Israeli dignity. And it is, would the US Allow. There's American troops and a giant American presence that is kind of controlling what the Israelis can do in response to what they perceive as breakdowns of the agreement. And the big conflict that's coming is Trump keeps insisting that Indonesians or Jordanians or some other Arab or Muslim troops come in as part of this stabilization force, as Kushner was talking about in that clip. You Watched Netanyahu absolutely does not want that to happen. But Netanyahu is kind of boxed in because when he tells, when he. Just imagine him going to Trump, let's say Indonesia is like, all right, we got 20,000 guys ready to send. And Netanyahu is like, I don't want them. Trump's gonna blow his top. What do you mean you don't want them? Are you always so negative? I'm solving this for you. But they don't want more Muslim people, especially with guns in Gaza. They want fewer. So that's gonna be an interesting conflict when it comes.
- [21:27]
Krystal Ball
Early days, early days now, as the administration tries to augment this very fragile peace process, the Russia peace process, the Ukraine peace process is falling apart. An official told CNN yesterday, an administration official said they're, quote, no plans for a summit between Trump and Putin, quote, in the immediate future. As CNN notes, the change in posture comes after Trump said the leaders would meet, quote, within two weeks or so. Pretty quick. After they spoke by phone last Thursday, it's looking less likely that'll actually happen. This is another quote from administration officials, Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov. Sergei Lavrov had a productive call. Therefore, an additional in person meeting between the secretary and Foreign minister is not necessary. And there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future, according to that administration official in cnn. So Rubio and Lavrov spoke over the phone on Monday, and it seems as though any hopes for this Budapest summit fell apart afterwards.
- [22:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, what Trump needs is small powers that he can just tell what to do. Like with Hamas and PIJ on one side and then Israel on the other, he can, with enough force, kind of dictate, at least in the short term, what the terms are. Witkoff is now gonna, he's gonna apparently mediate between Morocco and Algeria. That's something that they can bite off. Maybe we'll see this. That's been a long, simmering conflict. We'll see. But Russia, like Trump, can't just tell Putin what to do. And Trump thought he and Putin were on the same page. Turns out they're not. So he's just flailing.
- [23:09]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, we've seen it play out in public where on the one hand, Trump is like going full John Bolton neoconservative towards Putin, and then the next day going full like Jeffrey Sachs realist. And, you know, it gets, the narrative gets spun that he's, he's fully in one direction or the other. But this is actually Trump's bizarre bizarrely transparent negotiating process playing out where it's almost like insulting to your intelligence when he goes and is like we're just going to conquer Putin and take him out and all of that. Like, we know what you're doing. Yeah, we know exactly what you're doing.
- [23:51]
Saagar Enjeti
He just can't believe that Putin won't take yes for an answer.
- [23:54]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, it's not going so well for Donald Trump, who was supposed to solve this in 24 hours according to his own and he's addressed that and said it hasn't quite been that easy. To your point, Ryan, that he thought he had a little bit more sway than he actually does. So we'll see obviously in the future how this continues to evolve. But right now looking pretty bad for peace in Ukraine.
- [24:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. So maybe he can reach peace with Venezuela. Like that's another thing he could do.
- [24:22]
Krystal Ball
Even less likely.
- [24:22]
Saagar Enjeti
Just like not. But all he has to do there is not attack them.
- [24:25]
Krystal Ball
Even less likely.
- [24:26]
Saagar Enjeti
We'll see.
- [24:27]
Krystal Ball
Already got the ships down there. What do you do? Right. CIA is down there doing their work.
- [24:32]
Saagar Enjeti
I have faith. He could just not bomb them.
- [24:35]
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- [27:25]
Krystal Ball
Well, is Donald Trump set to get $230 million in what would essentially be restitution payments from his own Department of Justice if he asked? Trump? He says actually that it's the just outcome here. So let's go ahead and roll some of Donald Trump's comments. This is B1 who is asking for what?
- [27:45]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Are you asking the Justice Department to pay you compensation?
- [27:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Forced compensation?
- [27:50]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Your federal the federal federal investigations into you?
- [27:53]
Krystal Ball
Are you asking them to pay compensation.
- [27:55]
Saagar Enjeti
And how much into me? I don't get any compensation. I do it for nothing. I gave up my salary into me?
- [28:02]
Krystal Ball
No, it's going to be the Justice Department.
- [28:04]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Are you asking them to pay you compensation for the federal investigations that happened to you? And how much are you asking?
- [28:12]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, I guess they probably owe me a lot of money for that. But as far as all of the litigation, everything that's going, yeah, they probably owe me a lot of money. But if I get money from our country, I'll do something nice with it, like give it to charity or give it to the White House while we restore the White House.
- [28:29]
Krystal Ball
So that was at Donald Trump's Diwali celebration yesterday. Reporters were asking him about A New York Times story, which we can put up on the screen, that reported President Trump is demanding the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit. The Times reports the situation is no parallel in American history, as Mr. Trump, a presidential candidate, was pursued by federal law enforcement and eventually won the election, taking over the very government that must now review his claims. It is also the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts created by installing the president's former lawyers atop the Justice Department. Now, something that's getting lost in a lot of this, because it's a few paragraphs down in the Times story, is, quote, Mr. Trump submitted complaints through an administrative claim process that often is the precursor to lawsuits. The first claim was lodged in late 2023, seeks damages for a number of purported violations of his rights, including the FBI and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 campaign. That's according, again, to people familiar with the matter. And the second complaint was fired, filed before the election last year in the summer of 2024, and accuses the F of violating, quote, Mr. Trump's privacy by searching Mar a Lago, his club and residence in Florida in 2022 for classified documents. It also accuses the Justice Department of malicious prosecution and charging him with mishandling sensitive records after he left office. And Sarah Bedford over at the Washington examiner points out, again, both of those claims for damages were filed before he became president again, when he was in the middle of spending, she says, millions of dollars defending himself against politicized cases that ultimately got thrown out. She also pointed to the DOJ paying out SETT and partisan cases. The FBI agent, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as you may remember, got $2 million over their firing while they were texting about going after Trump with the FBI. So it's not entirely without precedent. But, Ryan, when your own DOJ is then in the position to approve basically the restitution claims, almost impossible to disentangle. The personal. What is even the word for that? The conflicts. I guess conflict seems like an understatement.
- [30:54]
Saagar Enjeti
What's even the conflict? He wants the money and he's gonna take it. The conflict, I guess, is with the taxpayer, who he's gonna take it from. But why are you all complaining? This is $1 from every adult in America.
- [31:06]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, it's $1 to the Trump defense fund, it's $1.
- [31:09]
Saagar Enjeti
You don't have $1 for our president for what you did to him. One dollar. I mean, from you and you and you and you and you and you. Yeah.
- [31:17]
Krystal Ball
$2 from Ryan Graham.
- [31:19]
Saagar Enjeti
If he could do that, he would definitely say, okay, $3 from every Democrat. But yeah, so he, if you're Paul.
- [31:27]
Krystal Ball
Just got 10ft higher.
- [31:28]
Saagar Enjeti
If you voted for Trump, you're still paying him a dollar.
- [31:31]
Krystal Ball
Yep.
- [31:32]
Saagar Enjeti
Because actually it's a little less than that. So what are you really complaining? Because I think the adult population in the United states is about 250, 260 million and he's only asking for 230 million. So it's more like 95 cents from every American. Of course he should send. We should get a photo of him and we can put up like a Save a president, like, just for $1.
- [31:52]
Krystal Ball
It's like the.
- [31:53]
Saagar Enjeti
Sarah McLaughlin, you can build this president a ballroom. The ballroom will be beautiful. Yeah. He's currently tearing down the east wing of the White House and he's, he doesn't mind illegally moving money. Like, he does it all the time. Moving it. Like, you cannot, as president, just take from one congressionally appropriated bucket and move it over to another. He does that all the time. So why is he even going through this whole rigmarole of he's going to take $230 million from the Justice Department and then he's going to hand it over here to his construction buddies building the ballroom? Just take the money. You're president. Well, you're stealing it from all over the place, all the time.
- [32:37]
Krystal Ball
His, his back and forth with reporters. Somewhat amusing because the New York Times report was from anonymous sources. Trump just gets asked about it on camera and is like, yeah, they owe me. Right? Like, this is like the way the Times wrote this story is that this was like a very, a very high level piece of investigative journalism and it's very good for that scoop. Yeah. Scandalous. And then Trump's like, yeah, they owe me money. He gets asked by a reporter and.
- [33:02]
Saagar Enjeti
He'S like, y. Yeah, pay me.
- [33:03]
Krystal Ball
I mean, they really could have just called him. Probably. They didn't rely on the anonymous sources. They could have used the biggest source in the media.
- [33:11]
Saagar Enjeti
I would suspect that he was one of the anonymous sources.
- [33:14]
Krystal Ball
Not impossible.
- [33:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Is Maggie on there?
- [33:17]
Krystal Ball
Nope. Tyler Page, though.
- [33:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, well, good reporting by the New York Times. Utterly preposterous. Utterly outrageous. Like, there aren't enough words for the idea that a guy who's made himself already a billion dollars through his, like, crypto scams. He and his kids running these crypto scams where he's getting all these people who want things from the American people. So he thinks that because he's president, they want things from him. So people should therefore legally be able to bribe him, give him crypto, give him money, because he really believes he's like Napoleon, like he's the revolution, he's the state. He really believes that, but he's not. The government is in the United States of America, supposed to be representative of the American people. It's the American people's money, it's the American people's government.
- [34:08]
Krystal Ball
Remember when he posted the Napoleon quote, he who saves his country violates no law. Yeah, right. I'm paraphrasing.
- [34:14]
Saagar Enjeti
I think, Yeah, I think it was a made up Napoleon quote too, right?
- [34:17]
Krystal Ball
Oh, it was apocryphal.
- [34:17]
Saagar Enjeti
It might be. I don't know.
- [34:19]
Krystal Ball
Either way, he posted it. I think it all caps do, actually.
- [34:22]
Saagar Enjeti
Of course. Yes, he did.
- [34:24]
Krystal Ball
So, yes, these claims were filed before he was president. Probably from Trump's perspective, it would make sense drop the claims. He doesn't need $230 million from the US government to go into construction. He already has millions and millions of dollars from the tech companies that he just threw a dinner for. Not just tech companies, but all of these companies that are funding the White House renovations he's made.
- [34:50]
Saagar Enjeti
Who is doing this work? You cannot get people to show up on job sites in Washington, D.C. because of ice running around everywhere. Who's doing this work? This is an interesting question.
- [35:02]
Krystal Ball
Well, they also have said that treasury employees, because this is the East Wing, have to stop taking pictures of the construction. Basically, the only place you have a good view is from Treasury. You really can't see it if you're. I mean, press barely can see it. So, I mean, maybe some people with like telephoto lenses are able to get pictures, but it's really hard to see. So no idea. But on top of all of that, so basically his net worth has ballooned because of crypto. Or the Trump family net worth has ballooned because of crypto. It will certainly benefit him when he is out of office. The $230 million in compensation from taxpayers basically could just be dropped now that he is president. These were claims that were filed before he was president in damages he won. So he doesn't need the money. Could just drop it and then have no significant conflict of interest questions floating over the administration. But I feel like maybe we're just beyond that.
- [36:00]
Saagar Enjeti
Ryan, Donald Trump. I will not take a salary because I care so much about the American public. Keep this $400,000, but I will take $230 million from you.
- [36:13]
Krystal Ball
230 till 2:30. Well, part of this it's more understandable, I suppose, as like a punishment and a disincentive for further corruption if you aren't in the process of attempting to remake reorganize the Department of Justice itself. So he controls the Department of Justice right now, which is obviously the predicate for this entire story. So if he's worried about punishing the US Government and creating a disincentive, which by the way, I support, the DOJ acted horribly throughout the Russia collusion investigation. The punishment looks like Donald Trump getting reelected and completely reorganizing and dismantling the DOJ. The $230 million in potential payments seems like small potatoes compared to him reorganizing the FBI and the DOJ completely as president. So seems like the thing to do would just be drop the claims.
- [37:12]
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- [39:05]
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- [40:01]
Saagar Enjeti
And he's also threatening. Not threatening, threatening to use the power and using the power of the government to go after his opposition. You can put up B3 and actually a good story in Barry Weiss's Free Press inside the Trump Induced Chilling Effect on Liberal Philanthropy by Gabe Kaminsky takes a look at what the effect already is of Trump saying in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination that he's going to go after all of the groups that he blames for it. And who he blames for it is like liberal nonprofit organizations. Which is to me patently absurd. But setting that aside, he has threatened to use the IRS to go after his opponents, which is completely new. Like you had this kind of fake Lois Lerner scandal 15 years ago from the Obama administration where like the Republicans were like, oh, they're going after conservative groups. They also went after like medical marijuana groups and they're like, they went after.
- [41:10]
Krystal Ball
More conservative groups than they did the others.
- [41:11]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, maybe more conservative groups probably being shady about their nonprofit status. I mean, come on.
- [41:17]
Krystal Ball
Then the medical marijuana groups, I mean.
- [41:19]
Saagar Enjeti
They were also being shady. So they went after them too. Yeah, like, and now they don't go after anybody except so they had years of non enforcement. Now what Trump is going to bring back is selective enforcement and the qualification will be Do I perceive you to be part of the broad opposition? Do you represent an interest group that has something to do with somebody who voted against me? And so what Kaminsky was finding here is that it's already basically crippling liberal foundations because it's making, making it very hard for them to raise money because nobody wants to be, you know, have the, you know, to be under the, under the watchful eye of, of the IRS or the doj. They're spending the money that they do have on security and on high powered lawyers to go through their books and, and, and make sure that, you know, they're completely buttoned up because now they're, they're all expecting that somebody's going to be looking through everything. And there are some cases where the Biden administration here actually deserves some blame because there was this one case where Israel claimed that like these five human rights groups in East Jerusalem or the west bank were, were actually terrorist organizations. Europe demanded all of the evidence for this. Israel handed over no evidence. And Europe was like, we're not, we're not counting this. This doesn't, this doesn't work. Biden, of course, was like, oh, well, Netanyahu says these are terrorists, they must be terrorists and just accept it. Even though there was reporting that the Biden administration knew this was all made up, they just accepted it and didn't push back. And so now the Trump administration is coming in and saying, ah, this American nonprofit did a, you know, has a fellowship program with this Palestinian nonprofit and Biden said that they were terrorists, so therefore you're terrorists too. It's like, Jesus Christ.
- [43:17]
Krystal Ball
Well, and it's going, I mean, so this report, we'll read a little bit from it here. One head of a nonprofit told Gabe, who's a great reporter, we've had him on before, quote, everybody is concerned across the board about being investigated. That person oversees a nonprofit that has more than $1 billion in assets. Another told Gabe it is directly impacting the ability of groups to raise money. There is a chilling effect across the entire nonprofit sector that's echoed actually by some groups on the right. So in the report, Lawson Bader, the head of Donors Trust, quote, one of the country's most influential right leaning nonprofits, told me that he has heard from many liberal foundations since he told the Free Press in late September that the stream of retaliatory rhetoric since Kirk's assassination has the potential to weaponize philanthropy in a way that is antithetical to philanthropic freedom. There's another, there was another Republican who was Talking to Gabe about something similar as well. So Philanthropy Roundtable actually is, I would say, maybe right leaning. They say philanthropy is under attack and that they, quote, stand firmly on the side of philanthropic freedom and defending the right of Americans to give how, when and where they choose within the bounds of the law. Now, one interesting part of this though, Ryan, is it sort of reminds me of weaponized Farah enforcement. So Foreign Agents Registration act enforcement. And some of the quotes in here are about nonprofits, just like cleaning up their activity and hiring general counsels to make sure that they're actually operating in compliance with nonprofit standards, because that is a thing. There are nonprofits that are just like wildly out of compliance and it's normalized with nonprofit standards and they get all of the tax benefits of that. But interestingly here Gabe quotes Jason Smith, so Republican of Missouri, saying that organizations who are influenced by our adversaries and who act counter to US national influence should not benefit from tax exempt status. The days of turning a blind eye to bad actors in the US Nonprofit sector are over. Jason Smith told Gabe, I'm reading that and thinking. I know he is implying what you just described Ryan about potential like quote, Hamas connections. Sounds a whole lot like AIPAC could be in trouble.
- [45:26]
Saagar Enjeti
Under a future Democratic administration. I guess Mamdani can't be president since he wasn't born here. But yeah, under, I don't know, I can't even think under President Platner. But see how he, President Platner can say that AIPAC is Comrade Platner. Yeah, Comrade Platner is supportive Chairman Platner, that AIPAC is allied with an organization that is the government of Israel that is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Humanity. And so therefore, yeah, should be itself dissolved. I guess that's. I can't imagine a world in which that actually happened.
- [46:08]
Krystal Ball
Smith was very careful to use the word adversaries. Organizations are influenced by our adversaries. But the law is really not just adversaries. It's foreign control. And so it'll be like, you can see how this is setting basically doom spiral precedent, but we have yet to understand exactly how they're going to implement this. There's obviously the MPSM7 that Ken has reported on and talked about a lot that you can understand how it already is having this, quote, chilling effect that Gabe reports on. Now there are, and you and I would probably disagree on this. I do think there is money that goes from groups like Tides to groups that do, like bail funds for some of these protests in Portland or It was in Minneapolis. And I think there's probably reason to look into whether they're going beyond just bail funds.
- [47:01]
Saagar Enjeti
Like what? Like you and I might disagree on that.
- [47:04]
Krystal Ball
Like actually funding demonstrations that are organized for the purpose of being like rabble rousing, breaking laws and the like.
- [47:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, what I would. Most of these organizations in my experience across the board think that they are aligned with the Democratic Party. Like they're part of the Democratic Party orbit.
- [47:28]
Krystal Ball
We're talking about tides and such.
- [47:29]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And the groups that tides funds or passes money through to, they're basically part of the Democratic Party. And they all think that violent street demonstrations hurt Democrats. Like that's a like antifa lefty thing to want to get kind of rowdy in the street.
- [47:52]
Krystal Ball
They've supported bail funds for like antifa organizations and that sort of thing.
- [47:55]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, that's what I'm talking about. Bail funds for people who get arrested at demonstrations are different.
- [48:01]
Krystal Ball
Totally legitimate. I'm saying that there's. I think there's actually probably. And I'm not saying actually that the federal government needs to be weaponized to go into it, but I think that there probably is some reason to suspect certain groups that have gotten money through pass through entities are actually using that money not just for bail funds, but for supporting the demonstrations themselves. Not just coming in after and bailing people out.
- [48:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh yeah, but yes, but demonstrations, that's right there in the First Amendment demonstrations.
- [48:33]
Krystal Ball
That they know are not demonstrations. That's what I'm saying.
- [48:35]
Saagar Enjeti
That you think they're gonna potentially turn.
- [48:37]
Krystal Ball
Into riots, like Portland, like black bloc antifa type stuff.
- [48:42]
Saagar Enjeti
I would highly doubt it. That's like 50 Portland Portlanders. If you're in Portland, let us know. But that's like 50 Portlanders.
- [48:49]
Krystal Ball
Not just Portland, but like Seattle and the like. I'm trying to look for who had some good reporting on this. I just interviewed them actually, but I'm trying to remember where. Anyway, that's beside the point. The bigger point is that the larger effort here, and this is what I should have started by saying, I don't think there's some like vast widespread conspiracy to prop up using George Soros money, violent antifa rioters. I don't think that's the case. And I think what the Trump administration is doing is another example of obviously weaponizing the government in a way that is going to be flipped around the second there's a Dem back in office. Doesn't matter if it's happened to some degree before, it's going to happen on a higher degree now into the future. And something you said stuck with me a few weeks ago, Ryan, it's that when you start having this chilling effect on people getting into power or people organizing whatever it is, you just incentivize people having action in the, or exercising agency in the political process. And that's dangerous for everyone.
- [49:54]
Saagar Enjeti
Right? Yeah. It's like be careful what you wish for. Because the Galaxy Brain argument would be that these liberal foundations are actually taking like public anger and funneling it into and shepherding it kind of into a Democratic Party led political process where it is muffled and muzzled and kind of just dispersed in a way that doesn't actually then represent any threat to the system. And that if you get rid of that, then the anger has nowhere to go. And so the anger then just bursts out wherever. It bursts out in different populists moments. Because the first analysis that people will have when they start learning about philanthropy is like, oh, how ironic it is that the children and the grandchildren and the descendants of the Carnegies and the Fords and all Rothschilds and the Soros and all of these, or the Knight, all of these oligarchs and plutocrats from 150 years ago, their descendants are now working against the plutocratic interest and working to uplift the working class and the public. And then after you've been in it for a while, you're like, oh wait, actually, actually it's what we think it is. It is, it is capital just, you know, exploiting tax policy in order to hoard wealth and using that wealth to, to actually kind of muffle discontent with this, with the contradictions and problems that the plutocrats created 150 years ago. So go ahead and get rid of that and see what happens would be the Galaxy Brain take.
- [51:41]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, well, I mean nonprofit. We should do a full segment on like nonprofit laws, period. Like how they've just been.
- [51:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, the shorter version of it was like, it's actually Soros and Tides that are holding people back. You think that they're coming for you? No, no, no, no. It's the opposite.
- [51:58]
Krystal Ball
Not yet. Yeah, not yet. Yeah, well, we'll see. We will see. But it's. I thought this was a good report. So something to keep an eye on for sure. And by the way, it's pretty interesting that in this climate where criticism of Trump is like your ticket to ostracization on the conservative movement, that you have Donors Trust and Philanthropy roundtable saying anything, because it's literally a climate where a Trump is super sensitive to these loyalty litmus tests and b he's weaponizing the like is weaponizing the IRS and others to go look at people's nonprofit statuses. So that tells you how concerned people are about the precedent that this could potentially set. And I think that tells you how serious the precedent that's being set is. So the fact that you have those groups talking about it is significant in and of itself. Even if you know you don't buy it and whatever you think they're it's bullshit. It's a fairly bold thing to do in this environment to even make those statements. If your donors trust me Roundtable this is true.
- [53:03]
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- [54:56]
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- [55:53]
Saagar Enjeti
Let's move to the New York City Mayoral election.
- [55:55]
Krystal Ball
Let's do it. All kinds of good stuff.
- [55:56]
Saagar Enjeti
Donald Trump very frustrated that his man Andrew Cuomo is not catching fire as an as an independent candidate in the general election. Cuomo I'm sure becoming increasingly bitter at the Ackman's and the others in the world who insisted that he pursue this humiliating general election race, but Trump doing everything he can to come to his defense. Let's roll a little bit of our good president here. But he's going to explain there might be some dark, deep psychological reason where they want to vote the opposite way. I don't know what it is, but we have to win the midterms. Otherwise all of the things that we've done, so many of them are going to be taken away by the radical left lunatics. I mean we're going to end up with a communist mayor in New York. Can you believe it? A communist. Remember, I would always say we will not have a socialist elected in our country. Remember, I'd say that all the time. And I was right. We skipped socialists. We got a communist elected. So I didn't tell a lie.
- [56:58]
Krystal Ball
I didn't tell a lie.
- [56:59]
Saagar Enjeti
I was right. We'll have a communist, not a socialist. Okay. Anyway, so he also accused Mamdani of posing, quote, posing with a terrorist. This, this echoing what the New York Post and RNC has said. This is because he appeared with an imam in New York City, Siraj Wahaj, who the right has been calling a quote, unindicted co conspirator of the 93 World Trade Center.
- [57:33]
Krystal Ball
Technically not true. Right?
- [57:35]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. Which, yeah, not true.
- [57:37]
Krystal Ball
Fox News had to issue a correction.
- [57:38]
Saagar Enjeti
On its story by the way I see that the RNC is not corrected. It's hit here. So hopefully he's sends them a little letter because, like, you can't do that. And I've seen, like, the Laura Loomer types say that, you know, this is somebody that the NYPD considered to be a threat and had under surveillance. It's like, bro, the NYPD had every mosque in the city under surveillance. Like, the fact that the NYPD considers somebody to be suspicious who was Muslim in New York City does not mean that there was actually anything remotely wrong with them.
- [58:09]
Krystal Ball
He was a character witness for the Blind Sheik, though, right.
- [58:13]
Saagar Enjeti
Because he was like. Yeah, he was in the. Whatever.
- [58:16]
Krystal Ball
He had been organizing, like, New York City.
- [58:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [58:18]
Krystal Ball
And he's.
- [58:19]
Saagar Enjeti
He's said things about, you know, women's rights and stuff.
- [58:22]
Krystal Ball
Gay rights. Yeah.
- [58:23]
Saagar Enjeti
That people would generally agree with. He's right. Wise also has a huge base of support in New York City, and that's why Eric Adams and Bill de Blasio appeared with him, went to him because they want to get his supporters to vote for them. He's a member of the community. Yeah. And it was never controversial until, you know, Mom Donnie showed up. Although I'm sure they tried to do something with de Blasio.
- [58:48]
Krystal Ball
If you go back Eric Adams, I'm.
- [58:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Sure he got a pass.
- [58:50]
Krystal Ball
If you go back and look, there's. I mean, he's been controversial, but. And I maintain that if a conservative was out there with someone who had said the things about gay people and women that he said, it would have been a much bigger story.
- [59:04]
Saagar Enjeti
All that is to say, what was it that Trump had as his, like, preacher? Like, not his preacher, but like, the guy at his inauguration.
- [59:11]
Krystal Ball
At his inauguration, yeah.
- [59:12]
Saagar Enjeti
Which was Pagey or whatever, his name. John Pagey or whatever.
- [59:14]
Krystal Ball
Oh, Hagee.
- [59:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Hagee.
- [59:15]
Krystal Ball
Oh, yeah. Hagee said crazy stuff, obviously, about. But what.
- [59:19]
Saagar Enjeti
Like, that's like the guy doing the inaugural Trump.
- [59:24]
Krystal Ball
I mean, I don't remember whether it was Hagee, but that would. Obviously, Trump is a slightly different story because he talks to everybody. He talks to Alex Jones. He talks like.
- [59:32]
Saagar Enjeti
But if it were to cruise. So who's Trump to blame Mom Donnie for?
- [59:36]
Krystal Ball
No, I have no disagreement from me on that. No disagreement from me on that whatsoever. But again, I think it's true that this is very obviously much more of a controversy when Mamdani does it. And the coverage of the Mamdani stuff has been just the fact that Fox News had to issue a correction for calling him an unindicted co conspirator. Tells you what you need to know about the standard for mom. Donnie going to see him now. Adrian Cuomo went on impaulsive, spelled P A U L. Impulsive.
- [60:11]
Saagar Enjeti
Everybody loves to do a nameplay, and I never did grim news. So that was.
- [60:16]
Krystal Ball
That was a really brave decision.
- [60:18]
Saagar Enjeti
You know how hard that was?
- [60:19]
Krystal Ball
I mean, I did it difficult. Here's a little flavor of Cuomo on impulsive with Logan Paul.
- [60:26]
Saagar Enjeti
Ladies and gentlemen, Andrew Cuomo. Thank you. Thank you. Why would you want to be the.
- [60:30]
Krystal Ball
Mayor of New York?
- [60:31]
Saagar Enjeti
We are at a point where we have to make progress. Mamdani is a socialist, the child of wealth. Never had to work, never managed anyone.
- [60:39]
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- [60:41]
Saagar Enjeti
Take over New York. So why is Mamdani currently leading the polls? He has appealed with very simplistic solutions that would never work.
- [60:51]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [60:52]
Krystal Ball
Oh, yeah, that sounds good.
- [60:53]
Saagar Enjeti
Everyone wants a fast bus. What do you want?
- [60:55]
Krystal Ball
Slow bus.
- [60:56]
Saagar Enjeti
Fast.
- [60:57]
Krystal Ball
Okay, Ryan, that's facts of desperation to me. And of course, people, he probably is openly desperate at this point. We've seen him down in just about every poll. Not looking good for Andrew Cuomo. When you're going on impulsive to laugh about kicking your brother's ass, I mean.
- [61:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Democrats should reach out, go on these different sorry independents. Because Cuomo tried to be a Democrat and Democrats thoroughly rejected him. So he's independent on there. But yeah, he looks like somebody who wants this election to be over. Annoyed at the fact that he has to compete for it. Frustrated at the public for not allowing him to have this easy re entry into public life. And I guess just contemplating, like, you know, what kind of big money organization he's going to like, fall back on after his inevitable defeat in the upcoming election. Because, you know, and he keeps thinking that, and Bill Ackman keeps thinking that if Sliwa, Curtis Lewa, the Republican nominee, will drop out, that that would be the ticket for Cuomo. But it doesn't make any sense. Like, if you are currently supporting Sliwa, you either want some outsider who says, like, wacky fun stuff all the time, which is not Cuomo, or you are a very partisan Republican and you live in New York City and you hate Cuomo more than you hate Mamdani. At this point, Cuomo has been. The Republicans in New York hate Cuomo. So on what planet, if Sliwa dropped out, I would. The lead that Zoran Mamdani has over Cuomo, I think would actually expand. Like this weird idea that, like, everyone would just rush to support Cuomo if Only Sliwa wasn't there. It's just completely absurd.
- [63:07]
Krystal Ball
So John Hagee, by the way, did the benediction when Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem is what it looks like right now.
- [63:17]
Saagar Enjeti
And Hagee's one of these millennial, like, yeah, oh, he's bananas, apocalyptic. Like, we need all of the Jews in Israel to like burn so that we can bring about the apocalypse and whatever.
- [63:29]
Krystal Ball
He said the Antichrist will be like Jewish and half. Half Jewish and gay. He said all kinds of stuff that, like, I think he said.
- [63:38]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. So we don't have to wonder what would happen if Trump appeared with somebody. Well, Trump views like that, right.
- [63:43]
Krystal Ball
And I have looked it up. He has appeared with Ted Cruz, to my point, to undermine my point. But he's. Yeah, but I mean, like, he is. I'll say this, like, if he has a following, right? He has a following. And any conservatives who are acting like this is like that, it's utterly disqualifying for Mamdani to meet with a community leader. Whether or not you like that community leader, everyone does that. My point is just. I think it would be a huge media circus, but that was beside the point of what we were talking about. I think. I genuinely think it would be a huge media circus, like the Haggie stuff was at the time. So anyway, don't need to get into that anymore. We could do a full segment on that. Let's take a look at this mashup from Bill Maher show last week when Andrew Ross Sorkin went on and said, we have a financial literacy problem in.
- [64:36]
Saagar Enjeti
America, but the financial literacy problem in America is affecting the politics in America, which is that if you don't understand that, if you actually decide that you think rent stabilization is going to somehow increase the supply of apartments and homes in the country, you've got it completely backwards. Because what happens is the developers say, well, if they're going to stabilize the rent in this town, we don't really want to be developing in this town, in which case there's not going to be enough supply, in which case it's going to cost more to rent your apartment. That's just the way it is. And unless people understand that when, when a politician stands up and says, excuse me, I'm over here and I'm very happy to give you rent stabilization and the free groceries and this and that, and then it doesn't happen, I think people are going to be in for a surprise. I mean, a couple of things. Disturbed by the global, the globalized, the. What do you say? That just, just this made me crazy over the weekend. Did you see what he said? Globalize. He didn't say globalize. Yeah, infidel. But he did say that he wouldn't condemn it.
- [65:40]
Krystal Ball
That clip is so painful. Globalize the what? Globalize the. Globalize the. Globalized. Oh, he didn't say it, but he said he wouldn't condemn it.
- [65:47]
Saagar Enjeti
I will say that he's one of the harder working guys in media. Like, he's doing a column for the time.
- [65:52]
Krystal Ball
I feel bad for him.
- [65:53]
Saagar Enjeti
He's doing that show every day. Yeah, he's probably meeting with bankers late at night to like, you know, like.
- [66:00]
Krystal Ball
I feel bad for him because of that.
- [66:02]
Saagar Enjeti
He's gotta talk to also that. So the guy's probably running on fumes. So I sympathize with people stumbling over their words. Glass House over.
- [66:12]
Krystal Ball
We have had tried to get him on to talk about his new book, 1979.
- [66:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Didn't he come on with Kristel and Saga?
- [66:16]
Krystal Ball
I don't think he did, but I was listening to it this weekend. It's quite interesting.
- [66:21]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay. And so while I will sympathize with the stumbling over the words, what I won't sympathize with is lecturing people about not knowing how things work and then objectively not knowing how things work. Because he's talking about freeze the rent, and he's saying that that will disincentivize developers from building new projects. Except the freeze the rent program that Mamdani is talking about would apply to particular buildings that are already in the rent stabilization system or whatever. That would not necessarily apply to all new developments. And New York City housing law is extremely complicated. There's rent controlled, there's rent stabilized. There's lots of other things. But to say that it would just blanket apply to all rent is just false. And he lives in. At least he works in New York. I don't know where he lives. So he should know that. And it's fine to get that wrong, but he shouldn't get that wrong. While you're also criticizing kids for not having financial literacy.
- [67:22]
Krystal Ball
Well, I also think the question of, like, where's the financial literacy among those who are overseeing the status quo? If you're missing that part of it and you're criticizing the people criticizing the status quo. While arguably, I mean, I don't want to accuse them of defending the status quo in New York, but if you're just picking on the, quote, financial illiteracy of people who are now asking for rent stabilization, which I obviously disagree with, but There's a huge degree of financial illiteracy among the people who are overseeing the status quo. And if you're just attacking the people against the status quo, never asking or condescending to the people who are overseeing the status quo, then your priorities are wrong.
- [68:09]
Saagar Enjeti
And then you wanted to talk about this AI slot that Cuomo's been serving up to people. And if you're angry about your electricity bill every month, you should be a little bit frustrated that Cuomo is using the juice to create. Let's roll this utterly disturbing and bizarre AI Ad. Hello, it's me, de Blasio.
- [68:33]
Krystal Ball
You know, New York City's least favorite mayor.
- [68:36]
Saagar Enjeti
Today I want to introduce you to my mini me mom, Donnie.
- [68:40]
Krystal Ball
Hiya. If you thought my policies were evil.
- [68:42]
Saagar Enjeti
You'Re gonna freaking hate this. Sure will, boss. In 2020, I cut $1 billion NYPD, which dramatically spiked crime, but I wanted to fund the police entirely.
- [68:53]
Krystal Ball
So evil, so unsafe.
- [68:56]
Saagar Enjeti
What are we supposed to do with that?
- [68:57]
Krystal Ball
This is profoundly embarrassing. I don't know who's laughing at that. It's. I mean, well, who's the market for that?
- [69:06]
Saagar Enjeti
You could laugh at it.
- [69:07]
Krystal Ball
You could laugh at it. You can't laugh with it.
- [69:09]
Saagar Enjeti
It's a little too pathetic to laugh at almost.
- [69:11]
Krystal Ball
You can't laugh.
- [69:11]
Saagar Enjeti
I can imagine some people like it if you were stoned.
- [69:16]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that's not what he's going for, though, then.
- [69:19]
Saagar Enjeti
But you'd be so confused because in order to laugh at it, you have to have some sense of what on earth it's trying to do. And then if it doesn't do it. The subversion of that is very funny, but I keep like, what? Come on. Come on, guy. What are you doing?
- [69:33]
Krystal Ball
It's brutal, but it's the desperation.
- [69:35]
Saagar Enjeti
And they go, trump, this is your king. This is who Trump wants to be the mayor of New York City.
- [69:40]
Krystal Ball
Oh, I don't think any part of Trump wants him to be the mayor of New York City. He just wants him a little bit more than he wants Mamdani to be the mayor of New York City.
- [69:48]
Saagar Enjeti
Why is Trump not riding for Sliwa?
- [69:50]
Krystal Ball
Great question.
- [69:51]
Saagar Enjeti
Like, he has just as much chance as Cuomo and way more Riz.
- [69:55]
Krystal Ball
Way more Riz. Well, the AI stuff and the Logan Paul stuff. Like, Logan Paul, he's got a huge audience. Does he have a huge audience of people who are gonna vote in the New York City mayoral election based on an interview that Logan Paul, probably not. But he's like, Cuomo is down double digits to a 32 year old democratic, socialist. And just within the last, like, what, two weeks before the election, he decides to get this desperate. That's how bad. I mean, his whole campaign has been really bad. It's escalating in its awfulness. Remarkably.
- [70:32]
Saagar Enjeti
It really is. You wouldn't think it could have gotten worse.
- [70:35]
Krystal Ball
And here we are. Here we are now.
- [70:37]
Saagar Enjeti
Can't wait for his kind of post election analysis of what he did wrong in the general.
- [70:41]
Krystal Ball
That'll be good. That'll be good.
- [70:43]
Saagar Enjeti
And my favorite part is that he now is going around saying, why is everybody talking so much about Israel? This is a New York City mayoral election.
- [70:52]
Krystal Ball
Incredible.
- [70:53]
Saagar Enjeti
You made the whole thing about Israel.
- [70:55]
Krystal Ball
But he could have used that tactic in the primary when Mamdani was saying.
- [71:00]
Saagar Enjeti
I'm gonna arrest Netanyahu or whatever. Yeah. Be like, why? No.
- [71:03]
Krystal Ball
But when Mamdani was saying, hey, he got. Mamdani was praised for his excellent answer to that question in the debate where he said, I'm not going to Israel. I'm staying in New. I'm the mayor of New York. And Cuomo then decides to get back in the race on a bold platform of learning literally nothing from getting his ass handed to him by a 32 year old Democratic socialist in the primary, and has continued to talk, talk, talk about Israel as though it's the only way he could possibly win the New York City mayoral race. So let's put this last element on the screen for this block. He was at a town hall on the Upper west side Monday night with Alicia Wiesel, who is, I believe, the daughter. I'm sorry, the son of Elie Wissell. So obviously the famous author, Holocaust survivor. And the quote from Alicia Wiesel was, what would our fathers think? That we have to be here tonight in this moment, this moment that they spent their entire lives working to make sure never happened again. Ryan.
- [72:02]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, yeah. He like to campaign with Elie Wiesel's son while at the close of the race, while at the same time complaining that it's all that too much about Israel is not well thought out as a campaign. You know, strategy. By the way, everybody's Red Knight, which is, you know, tremendous work of. Of literature. He also wrote. Dawn, you read that one?
- [72:29]
Krystal Ball
I think we had to read it in school.
- [72:31]
Saagar Enjeti
It's crazy. It's like he. It's like his character and a British soldier, and he. And his job is to execute the British soldier at dawn, you know, because they were killing a lot of British soldiers at the time. And it's just him having a conversation with the guy that he asked to kill in the morning. It's really interesting. Disturbing book, but yeah. So I don't know what, like, what's Cuomo doing here?
- [72:59]
Krystal Ball
Final thought on this, and maybe you can explain it to me, but the. The rights. And it's not even just the right. It's people like Andrew Cuomo who want at the same time to look at Mamdani as a radical left culture warrior. And Cuomo isn't on the sort of. He's not on that as much as some people on the right are. But saying this guy is queer liberation means defund the police. That's my favorite Mamdani tweet, obviously. But you can't have that and then say he's an Islamist at the same time. Like, that's insane.
- [73:37]
Saagar Enjeti
It's like you can, because nothing is required to make any sense.
- [73:40]
Krystal Ball
But, like, that is the narrative on the right right now about Mamdani.
- [73:44]
Saagar Enjeti
Is that his queer sharia law, right?
- [73:46]
Krystal Ball
Queer sharia law. He's a queria law. I've heard people try to square that circle before, but, like, it's the same thing with Ilhan Omar.
- [73:54]
Saagar Enjeti
Or is it shaqueria law?
- [73:58]
Krystal Ball
That's something different. But it makes like that's. That. Is that landing with anybody? Because it really. It's on its face. The common sense question to that is like, you're telling me he's extremely pro gay and that he now met with this imam who has said, don't go out with sticks and look for homosexuals, but make them feel uncomfortable. You're saying that Mamdani endorses that secretly, that he's fooling us into. He's actually like a full Sharia in Manhattan type person.
- [74:33]
Saagar Enjeti
To Trump's credit, he really just sticks with the communist thing. Like, his friend Laura loomer just goes 100% on the Muslim hit, whereas Trump, I think, recognizes that that's absurd and just. He goes just hard on the. He's a commie.
- [74:56]
Krystal Ball
Yes, I guess that is Trump's credit. Yeah, we'll give him that.
- [75:16]
Saagar Enjeti
Get ready to power up your play.
- [75:18]
Krystal Ball
With Nintendo Switch 2.
- [75:20]
Saagar Enjeti
Power up the visuals with 4K support.
- [75:22]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [75:25]
Saagar Enjeti
Power up the fun with exclusive new games like Mario Kart World.
- [75:31]
Krystal Ball
And Donkey Kong Bonanza.
- [75:34]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, banana. Nintendo Switch 2 all together, anytime, anywhere. Games rated E to E. 10 games.
- [75:41]
Krystal Ball
And systems sold separately.
- [75:42]
Saagar Enjeti
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