10/2/25: WH Short Circuits On Corruption Allegations, Larry Ellison TikTok Takeover, Pro Israel Crackdown

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Episode: 10/2/25 – WH Short Circuits On Corruption Allegations, Larry Ellison TikTok Takeover, Pro Israel Crackdown
Date: October 2, 2025

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Episode Overview

This Breaking Points episode, hosted by Krystal Ball and guest Ryan Grim, dives deep into three explosive issues: allegations of White House corruption involving Gulf interests and the Trump orbit, Larry Ellison’s sweeping influence in tech and media culminating in the TikTok takeover, and a crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech both in politics and via social media censorship. The episode features intricate geopolitical analysis and an interview with TikTok creator Guy Christiansen (“your favorite, Guy”), providing a firsthand look at escalating online information controls.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. White House, Jared Kushner & Gulf Corruption Allegations

(Timestamps: 02:16–18:26)

• Kushner’s Gulf Business Entanglements

  • Ryan Grim details how Trump White House spokesperson Carolyn Levitt was pressed about Jared Kushner’s ongoing business with Gulf nations (02:16).
  • Despite a $2.5 billion investment from Gulf states (notably Saudi Arabia) to Kushner’s private equity firm, the White House dismissed concerns, branding such questions “despicable.”
  • "It's frankly despicable that you're...trying to suggest that it's inappropriate for Jared Kushner." – White House spokesperson (02:53).
  • Krystal and Ryan ridicule the “widely respected” label applied to Kushner, highlighting the self-interested nature of these business deals (03:54–04:24).

• NY Times Exposé and Wyckoff Family

  • Ryan walks through the NYT’s reporting that Steve Wyckoff, a real estate figure linked to Gulf negotiations, leveraged political connections for lucrative deals (03:56–06:57).
  • The 2017 Qatar blockade and the failed Kushner-Qatari bailout illustrate how high-level political decisions intertwine with private financial interests.

• Trump’s Unprecedented Qatar Security Guarantee

  • Krystal unveils that Trump, by executive order, granted Qatar a security guarantee comparable to NATO’s Article 5 (11:45–13:51).
  • "The unprecedented security agreement says it will treat any armed attack on the country as a threat to the peace and security of the United States." – Krystal Ball (12:55).

• Cynicism About Influence

  • Both hosts cast doubt on claims that billions of dollars don’t influence policy, satirically comparing it to people queuing for a Starbucks discount (13:02–13:13).

2. Larry Ellison: The TikTok Takeover & Media Empire

(Timestamps: 20:48–34:31)

• Ellison’s Political Intrigue and Media Expansion

  • Ryan reveals new emails showing Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s intricate involvement in Republican politics, Israel policy formation, and tech control (20:48–23:33).
  • Ellison set up meetings between Marco Rubio and Tony Blair, then fueled Rubio’s PAC and poured $350 million into the Tony Blair Institute, which in return shaped US and Israeli digital and diplomatic agendas.

• The Blair Institute-Oracle Nexus

  • Reporting shows deep overlap: Oracle staff and Blair Institute staff functionally interchangeable, driving both business and diplomatic agendas (26:15–27:39).

• Ellison’s Media and Tech Domination

  • Krystal runs down Ellison’s growing family empire: Skydance (Paramount, CBS News), plans to buy Warner Brothers Discovery (CNN, HBO, TikTok), and Oracle’s technical backbone supremacy (28:10–29:45).
  • “Leftists, wake up. Elon [Musk]? Yes, he’s the villain of old. It’s the Ellison family now.” – Krystal Ball (29:06).

• Ideological Influence

  • Oracle CEO Safra Katz: “We believe that we have to embed the love and respect for Israel in the American culture.” (29:57).

• Ellison and Surveillance

  • The hosts play a jaw-dropping clip of Ellison touting the benefits of total AI-powered surveillance: “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.” – Larry Ellison (30:18–31:45).

3. Pro-Israel Crackdown – TikTok Censorship and Free Speech

(Timestamps: 35:16–48:35)

• Meet TikTok Insider: Guy Christiansen

  • On September 13, TikTok changed its speech guidelines following lobbying by the ADL, hiring ex-IDF instructor Erica Mendel as a “hate speech czar.” She directly connects Zionism with Jewish identity (36:02–36:52).

• Chilling Effect on Speech

  • New rules make it nearly impossible to discuss Palestine, Israeli violence, or the IDF critically; creators must explicitly condemn organizations like Hamas whenever mentioned (38:10).
  • “They require anyone who makes videos on TikTok now to explicitly denounce all designated terrorist organizations by the State Department when mentioned in a neutral context.” – Guy Christiansen (38:10).
  • The result: content is suppressed, shadowbanned, and creators quickly demonetized if they rack up violations (43:47).

• Algorithmic Suppression and the Fight to Communicate

  • The deliberate suppression of pro-Palestinian content is widespread and difficult to appeal, impacting creators’ ability to advocate or report (39:59–41:47).

• Big Picture: Can Information Be Controlled?

  • Ryan and Guy debate whether full algorithmic censorship can succeed, given how awareness of issues like Israel/Palestine has already spread among US youth (45:15–47:34).
  • “The cat’s pretty much out of the bag here in America.” – Guy Christiansen (46:19).
  • “If you get banned or anything like that, let us know and we’ll keep everybody updated… those content guidelines are nuts.” – Krystal Ball (48:18–48:34).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s frankly despicable that you’re… trying to suggest that it’s inappropriate for Jared Kushner.”
  – WH spokesperson Carolyn Levitt (02:53)

• “The unprecedented security agreement says it will treat any armed attack on [Qatar] as a threat to the… United States.”
  – Krystal Ball (12:55)

• “People are swayed by… a free app on your phone. Billions of dollars, not gonna have any impact?”
  – Ryan Grim (13:04–13:12)

• “Elon [Musk]? Yes, he’s the villain of old. It’s the Ellison family now.”
  – Krystal Ball (29:06)

• “We believe that we have to embed the love and respect for Israel in the American culture.”
  – Oracle CEO Safra Katz (29:57)

• “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”
  – Larry Ellison (30:18–31:45)

• “They require anyone who makes videos on TikTok now to explicitly denounce all designated terrorist organizations by the State Department when mentioned in a neutral context.”
  – Guy Christiansen (38:10)

• “The cat’s pretty much out of the bag here in America.”
  – Guy Christiansen (46:19)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Jared Kushner & Gulf Corruption: 02:16–18:26
• Trump’s Qatar Guarantee & US Israel Policy: 11:45–15:59
• Larry Ellison’s Influence: Media, Tony Blair, Oracle, TikTok Takeover: 20:48–34:31
• Surveillance Clip from Ellison: 30:18–31:45
• TikTok Policy Changes & Censorship (Interview with Guy Christiansen): 35:16–48:35

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Tone & Style

The discussion is trenchant, at times with biting sarcasm and gallows humor, skeptical of establishment politics across the board, and fiercely anti-censorship. Krystal and Ryan blend deep reporting with conversational accessibility, punctuated by dry wit and exasperation at overt corruption and institutional machinations.

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Final Takeaway

This episode unpacks the deep intertwining of money, media, tech, and political power, particularly as it relates to US foreign policy, Israel, and the suppression of dissenting voices online. From the White House’s dismissive responses to corruption accusations, to the unprecedented consolidation of media and surveillance capacity under figures like Larry Ellison, and the unsettling shift in TikTok’s guidelines, Breaking Points issues a stark warning: concentrated wealth and influence in media and government now threatens honest discourse and democratic input more than ever, especially regarding Israel and Palestine.

Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

[Breaking Points Announcer]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Ryan Grim]

Yesterday at the White House, spokesperson Carolyn Levitt was pressed on the question of how is it appropriate that son in law Jared Kushner, who no longer has an official role in the White House, but does have business entanglements all throughout the Gulf, is allowed to be involved with those countries. Let's roll this. How did the White House decide that it is appropriate for Jared Kushner to be working on matters that involve Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, three countries that combined have given him more than $2.5 billion for his investment firm? I think it's frankly despicable that you're.

[Breaking Points Announcer]

Trying to suggest that, that it's inappropriate for Jared Kushner, who is widely respected.

[Ryan Grim]

Around the world and has great trust.

[Breaking Points Announcer]

In relationships with these critical partners in.

[Guy Christiansen]

These countries, to strike a 20 point.

[Breaking Points Announcer]

Comprehensive, detailed peace plan that no other administration would ever be able to achieve. And so Jared is donating his energy and his time to our government, to the President of the United States to secure world peace. And that is a very noble thing.

[Ryan Grim]

20 point plan has not actually been accepted yet by Palestinian factions. We're waiting on word on that. Jeremy Scale at Dropsite has a good story interviewing some top PHA official and others or top Hamas official on where they stand on that. But setting that aside, there's something so deeply instructive about the Carolyn Levitt finding it offensive to even suggest that $2.5 billion might influence Jared Kushner's objectives.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, he's widely respected around the world, Ryan.

[Ryan Grim]

He's very widely respected around the world. The elephant in the Middle east has been Steve Witkoff, who is friends with friends, probably frenemies, because they're both in real estate and development and they're both raising money from the Gulf. That puts them in both in competition and in some harmony here and there. Witkoff himself has been working on issues all over the world, but in particularly the Gulf, while his two sons, Zach and Alex Wytkopf, have been going around the globe with their tin cup out, filling it with either Bitcoin or dollars. We can put up this next element up on the screen is New York Times investigation into Alex Witkoff. Where Mideast envoy pitched peace, his son pitched investors, and they haven't dead to rights here. So basically, as Witkoff is working on the ceasefire framework and with Qatar as the mediator with the most amount of influence over Hamas, Alex Witkoff of the Witkoff Group, which also has Steve Witkoff as a member, like Steve Wyckoff, sold some of his shares but is still an owner of the Wyckoff Group, even if he wasn't, it's his sons. So there's you're not delinking that. Yes, but he still is literally an owner of the Wyckoff Group. So his son Alex goes to the Gulf and hits up the cutteries and says, we want money for this, for the Wyckoff Group, like give us money for these investments. And the cutteries confirmed it. The history here is very instructive. In 2017, when Jared Kushner was actually in the White House, his company went to Qatar to try to get a bailout for their 666 Fifth Avenue property. So in 2007, Kushner at the time bought, I think it was for $1.8 billion, the biggest Manhattan real estate purchase in history. And then like the next week, the bottom fell out of the real estate market. And the Kushner family, because of this Jared Kushner folly was, was looking at destitution. The, the loans were coming due, just 10 year loans. The loans are coming due 2017. He goes to the Gulf as he's a White House official, hits up the cutteries for money. They look at it and they're like, this is a terrible investment. And they turn him down. They thought they were getting an investment offer. This was not an on the up and up commercial transaction. This was a shakedown. Within weeks of them saying no to this, the UAE and Saudi Arabia nearly invaded with their actual militaries. Instead, they launch a blockade.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, I remember this.

[Ryan Grim]

On the economy of Qatar, which had a base with 10 to 20,000 service members. Rex Tillerson immediately comes in and slams Saudi Arabia and the Emirati, saying, what are you doing? These are our allies. We have a base here. You cannot blockade this country. Jared Kushner comes in. All of this has since been reported and was reported at the time by us. He comes in and says, oh, no, no, it's fine. We're siding with Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis over the Qataris here. That blockade lasted all the way through the Trump administration, badly damaged the Qatari economy. Only when Biden came in did they finally lift. Did they finally lift it. And I talked to a very high level official from Qatar who said if we had known what the cost was going to be of saying no to the Kushner, we would have paid it. We wish we had paid it. So that sets up Wyckoff. And so although Kushner, day two of like his post White House time gets a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia.

[Krystal Ball]

Into this, which we've extensively talked about.

[Ryan Grim]

Private equity fund, which is, there's no evidence they've invested any of it.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, and you remember, Ryan, that the internal documents released by the New York Times, they were like, this isn't a good investment, but we're gonna eclipse.

[Ryan Grim]

Got some of those documents.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. They were like, well, we're going to do it because of the state power involved. 2.5 billion is nothing paid for level of influence in the potential future next administration. And of course, Jared Kushner was present at the press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Trump talking about the Gaza Lago future development, which he, of course, has been pitching privately since before the November 2000 election.

[Ryan Grim]

Right, exactly. And so when. And Kushner actually instructed the Tony Blair Institute back in the spring, Times of Israel just reported this, instructing Tony Blair Institute come up with a post war plan for redevelopment. And then Trump puts Tony Blair, I.

[Krystal Ball]

Did not know that. That's crazy.

[Ryan Grim]

And Larry Ellison has given or pledged $350 million to the Tony Blair Institute. So this is an Ellison project over here. And so that is the context for when Alex Witkoff is going to Doha asking for investments. They understand that this is not a. Here's a pitch deck. And we think that you're looking at a good 4.5 to 5.5% return on your investment. It's a nice little country you've got here. Real shame if something would happen to it. And so the Wyckoffs are deeply in bed with the cutteries, which goes to the point that you were making at the top of the program. You get the Israelis complaining a lot about Witkoff's relationship with Qatar. And it's like, okay, you know what?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, we're gonna give it to him.

[Ryan Grim]

As they say in Ireland, fair play.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, we're giving it to him. To be fair, the Qataris say that they did not invest actually in the fund, at least this specific time. They do note, quote, as recently as May, the Wyckoff Group did receive some 100 million from a financial trust that is run by the private equity firm Apollo Global, which is partly owned by.

[Ryan Grim]

Qatar, they're gonna find some way to not piss him off.

[Krystal Ball]

The W family's relationship with Qatar traces back to the first Trump administration, including St. Wyckoff. By the time Trump was back in the White House, the relationship had evolved. And the Wyckoff Group saw Qatar as a, quote, go to source of funding. Now, the current White House is defending it, saying this is a smear of Steve Wyckoff. They say Qatar has used its $557 billion sovereign wealth fund to amass global influence in the U.S. focal Point has been real estate investment and that they have pounded more than 4.4 billion dollars into the Manhattan real estate market alone, including the Plaza, the St. Regis, and a stake in the Empire State Building. Now, this has basically been a Gulf project now for some time, right? This is the Wyckoffs. Jared Kushner. This gets to the original question, but what I have not stopped and able to think about is Jeremy Scahill in our reaction to the Trump deal, he was like, look, Trump has an enormous amount of dollar signs in his eyes, and that's part of the reason that this deal may get done. And I was like, oh, man, that is dark. In terms of his own personal influence. May want to see something like this happen. And Jared Kushner's presence there is not a surprise, by the way. All of this is a lead in to an extraordinary diplomatic development that is just. Is honestly insane. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. Trump has now given Qatar a, quote, unprecedented security guarantee after the Israeli attack. He says an executive order signed by President Trump Monday would provide Qatar a security guarantee with conditions similar to NATO's Article 5, everybody. Keep in mind NATO Article 5. By the way, I have a lot of issues with NATO, as anybody who watches this show knows. At the least, NATO is ratified by the U.S. senate.

[Ryan Grim]

Okay.

[Krystal Ball]

There's a legal process through which we all agree, I guess, that we're gonna die for North Montenegro, Macedonia or whatever. Stupid, in my opinion, but whatever. It's still ratified by our democratic process. Well, this is just by executive fiat that the United States will have similar Article 5 protection. They say the unprecedented security agreement says it will treat any armed attack on the country as a threat to the peace and security of the United States. I do not think people understand how insane it is to have an executive fiat order security guarantee. Not only is that not how it's supposed to work, it's wild. And it's one of those where look to the original premise of the question, does Qatari influence on the Trump people's orbit have anything to do with this? I cannot rule that out. I cannot rule that out at this time.

[Ryan Grim]

I mean, can you imagine how pure a soul you would have to be for billions of dollars not to have any influence on that? Right.

[Krystal Ball]

Of course it's nonsensical.

[Ryan Grim]

People are swayed by, like, a free, appreciative advertiser. Not a free app on your phone.

[Krystal Ball]

Probably a free app.

[Ryan Grim]

Probably a free app on your phone, too.

[Krystal Ball]

You're exactly right. Yeah. It's like getting $2,50 discount at Starbucks is enough to cause a line for the drive through everywhere. Billions of dollars, not gonna have any impact. I mean, I just think it's, I think it has not come under nearly enough scrutiny. Right now it's mostly the pro Israel side, which is furious with Trump for giving this security guarantee for Qatar. But this is the issue with the entire US Israel relationship. Trump brings Bibi here, he's like, you need to call and apologize. And Bibi's like, okay, you know, whatever, right? He calls and he apologize.

[Ryan Grim]

He released the photo of him apologizing.

[Krystal Ball]

Releasing the photo of Trump holding the phone. And it's great, good optics. But then instead of telling Israel, hey, don't ever do that again, we just invent some NATO Article 5 thing for Qatar to get them to serve as the mediators. Isn't there a much easier way to achieve what we're trying to do here to try and make sure that there is no attacks on Qatar, which is what, who's causing them? Israel. Right. Israel bombs Iran. Which bombs Qatar or whatever fires missiles at Qatar face saving or we all move on. Great. All right, how do you stop that? Don't let Israel bomb Iran. Simple. Don't let Israel bomb Qatar. Simple. Why are, why do we allow this to happen? We have to invent all of these quasi solutions to a singular problem.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. They don't trust Israel and they also don't trust us because there's this gaping open question that says, wait a minute, there's an American military base right outside of Doha. How did Israel pull off a bombing if you say you didn't know about it? What good is your American military base if planes can just fly in? This is a legit question and drop bomb.

[Krystal Ball]

Part of why I don't buy their.

[Ryan Grim]

Of course there had to be a stand down order because you've got people on the radar being like, this plane is not on anybody's manifest. What's it doing? It's heading for downtown Doha. They're like, just leave it alone, we're good. Otherwise it's like, what are you doing in this country? And so as Jeremy Scahill also reported at DropSite, two Arab sources told him that Marco Rubio told the Qataris that he could not promise that Israel would not hit them again. Wow. Nobody in the US has reported that because they don't have the Arab sources on that. And of course Rubio's not going to say it, but they didn't deny it when we went to for comment. And so if you're the Qataris.

[Krystal Ball]

How can you not guarantee that?

[Ryan Grim]

You've just been told, yes. Trump said they're not going to do it again. Rubio. I don't know if they're going to do it.

[Krystal Ball]

They could do it.

[Ryan Grim]

They might.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

So then they go back to Trump and they're like, we need a security guarantee. We need this in writing, that you will go to war with whoever attacks us. And Trump is like, all right.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. I guess he just didn't really think about it. What Qatar's got. No, like you just said, they're beefing with Saudi Arabia, with the uae. What are we doing here? You know, that'd be funny.

[Ryan Grim]

The Emiratis go after them, right?

[Krystal Ball]

Exactly. Now we're at war with the Emirates. It's definitely conceivable.

[Ryan Grim]

I'm sure we have kill switches in all of their weapons. So that presumably would be a pretty quick war.

[Krystal Ball]

It's such a. You know, you really do have to marvel at the wisdom of the Gulf, because for years they were like, look, all we have to do is bribe these people.

[Ryan Grim]

People.

[Krystal Ball]

We'll pay them $100 billion, Saudi Arabia, all this money, EA Sport, eventually. We need to do a segment about that, the whole EA Sports thing.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, they're buying Madden.

[Krystal Ball]

It's kind of crazy.

[Ryan Grim]

Saudi Arabia's buying Madden?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, they're taking it private. With who? Jared Kushner. Oh, right.

[Ryan Grim]

That's right.

[Krystal Ball]

It's like, okay, but you put all this together and just the way that this is all working, this is nuts in terms of personal relationship. The White House being like, he's a world respected. No, he's not. Okay. He's a joke. Everybody who's ever dealt with him knows he is a complete joke. The only reason that he has any money right now is because of his previous influence with the Trump family. Prior to that, him, his father and all that. Not a great reputation. Everybody knew it. And it's only because of his access to power and potential influence here on Trump that we are where we are. And they're denigrating that they're signing security guarantees with Qatar. And then this Wyckoff thing, as I said, you know, the Zionists have attacked him for a while as a Qatari asset, which they also ignore that Bibi's inner circle is also potentially a Qatari asset. Whatever. They're not consistent on the point they took money from Qatar as honest people here, Ryan, we have to admit, it's not looking good here for the Wyckoff Group and their own potential influence.

[Ryan Grim]

And this was the most likely way it was going to unfold once the U.S. after World War II was like, we're going to do this in dollars and we're going to just absolutely freeze, flood these families, not even countries. Basically, we're just going to flood these families, the Saud family, et cetera, with ungodly amounts of wealth. They're going to then have these giant pools of capital that they're going to figure out what to do with, and our political system is going to figure out a way to make sure that they are basically forced to reinvest it all back here in bribes. Here in the United States.

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[Ryan Grim]

In a moment, we're going to be joined by our favorite guy. That's the TikTok handle for a TikTok content creator who is going to walk us boomers and Gen Xers over here through the new censorship regime that's underway over at @TikTok. Related to that, we're going to discuss first the politics of not just the TikTok takeover, but the man who's at the center of it, and that's Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who is the on again, off again richest man in the world. He was briefly the richest man in the world when his Oracle stock blew up, went back down. So now he's like, you know, neck and neck with Musk and these other oligarchs. But we can put up this new article that I have with Murtaz Hussain over at Dropsite. The whole story is worth the read because we're getting access to a bunch of email correspondence from the 2010s and the late 2010s that is really opening up a window into worlds that have been occluded for a long time. And there's some really fascinating stuff that we're putting up. So this was to start with Ron Proser was, at the time of these email exchanges that we're reviewing here, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Marco Rubio, who in the email exchange they call Mario Rubio, was a senator from Florida. He had been elected in 2010 as a kind of pretty arch conservative. Like he came up with a Tea Party movement and he's launching a presidential campaign. So Proser and Larry Ellison, according to these emails that we've obtained and that have not been previously reported, are emailing back and forth about a variety of different things. They talk about having dinner and then they start talking about Mario Rubio, Marco Rubio. And Proser says, and we can put up this first email exchange here between them. I had a great time too, Ron, at dinner. I'm looking forward to the next time. Larry says, P.S. i'll tell you how dinner goes with Senator Rubio. Let me put up the, put up the response there. Larry, Hi. How was the conversation with Mario Rubio? Did he pass your scrutiny? Did you have a chance to talk about Israel? Would love to chat. My cell is. Big hug and again, thank you for a wonderful evening with you, Ron. A few hours later, Ellison responds in the affirmative. He says, quote, hi, Ron, great meeting with Marco Rubio. I set him up to meet with Tony Blair. Marco will be a great friend for Israel. So this is 2015. Ellison then goes on to put $5 million into Marco Rubio's super PAC for the presidential campaign. Doesn't work out for him, as we know. Donald Trump gets into the race. Donald Trump wins. Marco Rubio, though, has now since become Secretary of State now. So backing up Larry Ellison. He is an oligarch who has really kind of snuck into our politics. He's played a very effective long and quiet game, although it's getting difficult for him to kind of escape as much public scrutiny as he has been able to in the past just because of the sheer dominance that he's been able to display. Oracle is a database software technology that, because it sells also to businesses, has put itself kind of everywhere in the world very quietly, even though Oracle's just. It's not one of the top companies that you think of, but when it comes to its kind of persistence and its prevalence in your life, it's absolutely everywhere. Now, Ellison himself, I believe it was 2017. He made the largest ever donation to Friends of the idf, which is an American nonprofit that supports the Israeli military. And this line here, which says, I set him up to meet with Tony Blair. That's key. So why on earth is Larry Ellison setting anybody up to meet with the former UK Prime Minister who's most known for going along with George Bush with the invasion of the Iraq war? So after he becomes Prime Minister, Tony Blair sets up the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Larry Ellison has given or pledged more than $350 million. I think we have an element on that one to the Tony Blair Institute. Recent reporting by the New Statesman and Lighthouse Reports reveals what everybody had kind of already known about tbi. Tony Blair Institute, that it effectively has merged with Oracle in significant ways. Like, you have board members who are both on TBI and also on Oracle. You would have Oracle employees able to basically just jump into the TBI calendars and schedule meetings with executives. So this New Statesman published this report that interviewed tons of Oracle and Blair Institute employees and said, yeah, basically we're one and the same here, that the Blair Institute is acting as kind of a sales arm for Oracle. This is important because in the spring, this past spring, as Times of Israel just recently reported, Jared Kushner asked the Tony Blair Institute to come up with a post Gaza, post war, post genocide reconstruction and redevelopment plan. Some of those details leaked. So The Tony Blair Institute did put together this project. If you're following along, you saw that when Donald Trump announced that he was creating this board of Peace that was going to be chaired by himself, he said the key figure on it was going to be none other than Tony Blair, which. Which brings everything full circle. Obviously at the center of all of this is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who helped set up the TikTok deal as a senator. Rubio, by the way, was one of the most outspoken against TikTok the whole time. And obviously Rubio plays a role as well in the diplomatic lead up in the rollout of this Gaza plan, which if the reporting is accurate, that the Blair Institute is an arm effectively of.

[Krystal Ball]

Oracle or is influenced by that.

[Ryan Grim]

Influenced by Oracle. At the very least, $350 million is going to buy you some influence in a nonprofit.

[Krystal Ball]

I think we can honestly all say.

[Ryan Grim]

And being in regular meetings and as this new statement reported, like, effectively, like.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, it is to me, Ryan. I know there was a lot of liberal freak out about Elon and Twitter. I think the Ellison family is way more effective right now. I mean, let's think about this. Like, we have the TikTok connection now in terms of the back, like the data which will be put up.

[Ryan Grim]

E5 on the.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, E5, we can put that up there about. I mean, you can't even make this stuff up. Like, after buying Paramount, Larry Ellison's son now wants to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. This is David Ellison. This is the guy who loves Bari Weiss. Well, this is one of the richest families in the world who is now controlling CBS News, Paramount, Skydance, which is one of the biggest movie studios, Paramount plus, which means a ton of like, the red meat content, which is create, you know, the whole Taylor Sheridan universe, et cetera. Now they want to buy wbd. So they would own CNN, they would own HBO Max. Now they're gonna own TikTok, not to mention Oracle, which is the backbone of like, computer data centers of the entire.

[Ryan Grim]

World, which already does the data work for TikTok. Yeah, which was the original thing, right?

[Krystal Ball]

It was the original thing. So put that all together and you're like, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Ryan Grim]

We've been chasing the wrong shiny objects.

[Krystal Ball]

That's what I'm saying. So, you know, leftists, wake up Elon. Yes, he's the villain of old. It's the Ellison family now.

[Ryan Grim]

It's wild. It's wild.

[Krystal Ball]

And you know, he'. You know, Larry Ellison owns an entire private island in Hawaii. He owns a Ritz Carlton hotel. And basically runs his own little kingdom. You can go read about it. It's wild. He has somehow been under the radar. Obviously, he's been very influential on Republican politics. But the level of control now that this family has over American political discourse and particularly has, like, an unending, basically desire to shape American public opinion to be pro Israel, we should all be very, very skeptical.

[Ryan Grim]

And so we also have a quote in this story from Oracle CEO Safra Katz saying. This is from one of the emails. We believe that we have to embed the love and respect for Israel in the American culture.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay.

[Ryan Grim]

Like, they're very explicit about them.

[Krystal Ball]

And that was from 2015.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Krystal Ball]

This is before this is even a thing 10 years ago.

[Ryan Grim]

And to your point about Ellison and his interestingness. Let's roll E6 if you think. You think you're not bothered enough. Let's roll E6.

[Jacob Goldstein]

Your body cams will be transmitting that. The police will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording, watching and recording everything that's going on. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on.

[Ryan Grim]

When you come to government and what government's doing there, obviously there are artificial intelligence tools, and some of them, I know that Oracle have developed around financial management for government. But also tell us a bit about what, because you're right at the forefront of this revolution, what it means for what government should do in terms of its digital infrastructure, digital ID data centers, and so on.

[Jacob Goldstein]

How do you take advantage of these incredible AI models? And the first thing a country needs to do is to unify all of their data so it can be consumed and used by the AI model. You have to take all of your healthcare data, your diagnostic data, your electronic health records, your genomic data, and in the Middle east, in the uae, for example, they're incredibly rich in data.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I'm out. I'm out on that.

[Ryan Grim]

I regret to inform you it is too late. He is now basically the most powerful man in the world. Just want to underline what he just said. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on.

[Krystal Ball]

See, this is where I'm just like, you know, might as well be China, because at least there is the government, all right, and not Larry Ellison. I would at least take the government. I would take the authoritarian Chinese government over that.

[Ryan Grim]

Right? Because there's at least some participatory democratic ways to pressure that government. Right. They don't have elections, kind of. Not really, but Here we're gonna have the worst of all worlds because we'll have the outlet of fake elections where people's anger at the system can be channeled into. These days where you go and check a box, when it goes into a void, it's just poof, gone.

[Krystal Ball]

You gotta be careful with where you go down that road, Ryan. It might lead you to some interesting theories of governance. All right. Okay, let's go.

[Ryan Grim]

Look, we tried this one and this is what we're getting.

[Krystal Ball]

That's true. All right, let's get to TikTok.

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[Ryan Grim]

Okay. Now moving to TikTok, which Larry Ellison is in the process of taking over. We're gonna be joined by Guy Christiansen, who is the creator behind the account. Your favorite, Guy. Guy, welcome to Breaking Points. Thanks for joining us.

[Krystal Ball]

Good to see you, Guy.

[Guy Christiansen]

Thank you, Ryan.

[Ryan Grim]

Thanks. All right, so you're gonna walk a couple boomers through what is going on over at TikTok. And so, and we've been talking offline, you've been trying to educate me, just with some success. But you know, you've got a lot of. It's a difficult task, so it's not on you. So tell me what I'm getting. Was September, what is it, 13th or 23rd?

[Guy Christiansen]

September 13th.

[Ryan Grim]

Okay. Yeah. So what happened on September 13th?

[Guy Christiansen]

TikTok changed their free speech guidelines and it has to do with their new hate speech czar who was hired through ADL lobbying. Her name's Erica Mendel. She's an ex IDF instructor. She's a former State Department contractor. And she says that Zionism is an identity that goes hand in hand with Judaism for her. And so TikTok hired Erica Mendel under pressure by ADO lobbying, which, you know, the national policy director takes credit for. And about two or three days after they hired Mendel, everyone who uses TikTok actually saw this. They pushed out a post notification when you open the app, says they're changing the guidelines. And in these guidelines, they changed a whole bunch of things around that makes it so much harder to talk about Palestine. You can't talk about graphic incidents or violence in the context of a public interest. And they explicitly list war as something you can't talk about. They make it much harder to criticize the state of Israel as an illegal apartheid state or characterize the IDF as terrorist forces and the way they lay out criticisms of national origin.

[Ryan Grim]

I also, and I also noticed that, that it said that if, if you mention. And I do reporting on Tick Tock now. And so I will say like, let's do this, like one or two minute videos where I'm saying like, okay, this is Hamas is responding to. And I don't even do the, like, I know that some people will say, like, h, because they're worried about the algorithm not spreading their stuff. I don't care if it spreads stuff. Right. Because we end up then posting the video on Twitter and Instagram, whatever. So I just use all the words. But like, I will say, like, okay, Hamas has received the take it or leave it ceasefire offer from Trump and Israel. Here is what Hamas is saying. Here's what Palestinian Islam Jihad is saying. Because I'm a news reporter and like, those are the organizations that are involved in the news. And I saw, correct me if I'm wrong, I thought I saw in the guidelines that every time I mention them, I have to then follow that up by condemning their existence. Is that like, how does this work?

[Guy Christiansen]

That's exactly right. They require anyone who makes videos on TikTok now to explicitly denounce all designated terrorist organizations by the State Department when mentioned in a neutral context. So you can just.

[Ryan Grim]

Instead of praise be upon him, it would have to be Hamas condemnation be upon them. Yeah, you have has said that within 72 hours they will respond to the.

[Krystal Ball]

That's so crazy. All right, so Guy, I know you have compiled some. Can we have some examples? Can we put these on the screen so you can just explain it again to a boomer like me? Some of these things about why videos are getting taken down. Just walk us through these.

[Guy Christiansen]

So just to put it into context, prior to the September 13th changes, prior to Erica Mindel entering the company, I looked at before I came on the past six months, what happened, and I only had two videos taken down. And since September 13th, it's been 11, and it's not been that long since, you know, they switched over. So what you're looking at here are notifications, screens that TikTok sends creators when they remove their videos. And so you'll see on the left, I'm trying to submit an appeal. That was a video where I talked about Max's reporting in the gray zone, about Charlie Kirk and his supposed turn on Israel leading up to his death. And you know, the guidelines make a cutout for public interest. And so I thought I could appeal, but of course not. They took it off the for you page and all feeds which you can see here on the right where it says visibility restricted. It's not eligible for the for you fee. That means nobody can see it unless they explicitly, like, open up my profile and go to my page and find the specific video or else they're not.

[Krystal Ball]

Going to see it at all. Huh. That is crazy. Do we have any more Guys, that we can show here.

[Ryan Grim]

Let's put up this next one here.

[Krystal Ball]

So, yeah, we have a few more here. There's one here on the right where. What is this one about exactly? This is again, the gray zone report, where I think it was.

[Guy Christiansen]

I think there were multiple videos about gray zone reporting that were removed, talking about Israel or Charlie Kirk. And then on the left is actually a screenshot trying to show that there's no option to appeal, so there's no recourse for that.

[Krystal Ball]

And what about these two? What do we see here?

[Guy Christiansen]

So the one on the left is you'll see your videos under review and can't be shared. Right now, TikTok does this thing. It's essentially shadow banning, where they don't actually tell you it's taken down, but nobody can see it. So it's like in this limbo stage. That was a video I published last night that thankfully went through the review system. But it can get stuck in this limbo for up to 24 hours or longer, which is what happened with this interview on the video. The. Right. Which is now able to be viewed in my profile, but it's not able to be pushed in feeds, so it's stuck at like a few thousand views.

[Ryan Grim]

And so. And this was an interview you did. You were at the ADC conference out in. Out in Dearborn. Right. So you did an interview there. And then it just. It takes like days for it to post. Yeah.

[Guy Christiansen]

So it went up and I think it got, you know, sometimes I let it out in the feed. It got like a hundred likes and then they took it off the. For you page and for, I think it was like 36 hours.

[Ryan Grim]

And what are you saying in these videos that you think is triggering? Well, a. I mean, I think you. You've had some controversial interactions with them. Maybe. Are they, like, looking at you specifically, or are you saying things in these videos that is triggering something or both. Like, what do you think's going on?

[Guy Christiansen]

I think that I'm not being targeted specifically yet, as far as I can tell what all these videos have in common that have been removed since September 13, or that I am talking about Israel. I'm talking about, you know, Apex Influence. I'm talking about Larry Ellison and the attempt to put TikTok under Zionist control. I'm criticizing Israel in some way. And it's the same thing I've heard from my audience, my friends who are creators, ever since September 13th. They've had the same exact experience. Videos that are, you know, more informational and critical. Of Israel get removed sometimes like comedy videos, lighter criticisms of Israel can make it through, but that's been all of our experience. And I, I did want to point out that in the new free speech guidelines, TikTok outlines these conspiracy theories that blame, quote unquote, powerful groups and are likely to undermine public confidence. And I believe that this is the part of the guidelines that they've been using to justify taking down videos criticizing aipac, the pros or lobby Zionist influence in the United States. It's so vague.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, that is so crazy, guys. So, I mean, yeah, I mean, the idea that you can't mention Hamas without saying I condemn Hamas is preposterous. How are you supposed to do any reporting, you know, whatsoever? However, YouTube tried to do this at one point where we weren't allowed to play videos of Trump claiming the election was stolen. And I was like, he does that every time he speaks. How can we possibly cover this?

[Ryan Grim]

And they wanted us to come in, wasn't stolen, right?

[Krystal Ball]

They wanted us to come in every time. How am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to do my job? But for you, I mean, I guess, look, at the very least that was done for our country, right? You know, here we're talking about a different country guy in terms, I mean, I don't know about your career or any of that. Are you going to be able to continue to make a living, you and you know, other creators and etc that kind of rely on this. Like, how is this affecting the entire ecosystem of political creators on TikTok?

[Guy Christiansen]

So I would assume that it's demonetizing everybody pretty much across the board. Because another aspect of getting your video taken off the feed, taking off the 4 you recommendation feed, is that if you get a certain number of these quote unquote violations or like soft violations, you like five of them in the span of a month, you're kicked out of the, out of the monetization program and you can't get any payments for any work you do on TikTok. So, you know, that's about a habit of me. It's happened to me a few times in the past two years as I've advocated for Palestinian liberation. But I mean, how are we meant to do our advocacy when we can't even name the state, we can't reference their crimes, we can't discuss the censorship. And they're like, I mean, there's such a thing going on where you can't talk about Larry Ellison and, or Netanyahu meeting with American influencers.

[Krystal Ball]

That's nuts. Yeah, but they can post their videos of talking with Netanyahu. You can't post about it.

[Ryan Grim]

What do you, what do you think the long term implications of this would be? Because there's, there's this idea among the Larry Ellison types of the world and Marco Rubio's and others that TikTok and Instagram really did change people's understanding of Israel because they were able to see the images of what was happening in Gaza, which then implies that there's some world that they are able to create in which people would not be able to see those images. And I'm just skeptical that any amount of algorithmic suppression can fully suppress an ongoing assault of 2 million people on a daily basis. It's going to get through somehow. And to me, YouTube, Spotify in particular remain like the places where people actually go to shape their thinking and their ideology, because that's where you spend more time engaged in thought with, in long form with this show or whether it's Rogan or whoever you're listening to, whereas TikTok and Instagram and the others, that's just kind of some basic raw material that I suspect you could get elsewhere. But maybe I'm wrong and maybe they actually can lock all this down. So from your understanding of how young people consume media, is it, is there a way that they could actually algorithmically lock all this down?

[Guy Christiansen]

I think that it's pretty scary to see Trump talk about retraining the algorithm in connection with what Netanyahu has said about how this TikTok purchase is number one for their eighth front, the digital war. It's going to be very consequential and it's. So it's entirely possible that they can, you know, block out all Palestine related content, all left happening content. It's possible, but I think that the cat's pretty much out of the bag here in America. If you had come and asked me a year earlier, I might be saying something different, but we're the majority who are here in America who are calling it genocide, what Israel's doing to Gaza. And you know, I'm talking to people, I'm talking to people my age across the political spectrum all the time. You know, the one thing I hear come out of every single one of their mouths is the word apac. They know. And so when Israel continues to make these moves and become bolder, more aggressive and desperate in trying to win back the narrative, win back American support, it's only, I think, gonna backfire on them. You know, the, the ADL just Got attacked by the right on X. Oh.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

[Guy Christiansen]

I mean, I'm eating it up. Anything to take down the adl. But you know, every single time they, they are exposed, paying influencers $7,000 a post and like in that recent pharah release by WikiLeaks and responsible statecraft, it just brings more attention on them and people are not gonna, you know, there's a rapidly declining trust in any pro Israel voices they do see on social media or on news outlets anymore. And so I think this is just like a losing game. It may even be a better strategy, I think, to try to start influencing this in the shadows once again.

[Ryan Grim]

But I don't know if that's possible.

[Krystal Ball]

Guy, thanks for joining us, man. And please do keep us updated. If you get banned or anything like that, let us know and we'll keep everybody updated. But very insightful. Again, as a boomer who doesn't use TikTok, I actually cannot believe those content guidelines. That is nuts. All right, okay, we'll see you later.

[Ryan Grim]

Condemnation be upon.

[Guy Christiansen]

Thank you guys. Thanks for having me.

[Krystal Ball]

Thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you, Ryan. There will be a Friday show tomorrow, everybody. Enjoy that and we will see you all later.

[Ryan Grim]

See you then.

[Krystal Ball]

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[Jacob Goldstein]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Jacob Goldstein]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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