10/28/25: Kamala 2028 Run, Trump's 2026 Election Plot, NBA Gambling Scandal

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Episode: Kamala 2028 Run, Trump's 2026 Election Plot, NBA Gambling Scandal (October 28, 2025)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into three major topics currently roiling American politics and sports:

• The evolving direction of the Democratic Party with Kamala Harris's potential 2028 presidential run, party infighting, and the disconnect between elites and the grassroots.
• A stark, detailed monologue about Trump’s ongoing plot to secure permanent MAGA control of Congress and federal institutions through a multi-pronged strategy, with substantial implications for the upcoming midterms.
• An investigative interview with Pablo Torre about the recent NBA gambling scandal, exposing the tangled relationships between players, organized crime, league leadership, and sports media.

Throughout, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti maintain their signature tone—sharp, populist, critical of establishment politics, and unafraid to highlight both systemic failure and individual responsibility.

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The Democratic Party at a Crossroads: Kamala 2028 and Base Frustration

Kamala Harris’s Potential Run and Party Dynamics

• Krystal reacts skeptically to Kamala Harris's hints at another presidential run, highlighting her track record:

  "You didn't even make it to the first votes... then you're handed the nomination after Biden is pushed down... and you lose. ... She also made some really key mistakes and is just incapable of being sort of like a normal person and going out in the world." (Krystal, 03:17)

• Krystal criticizes Harris's absence from grassroots struggles and public fights, perceiving her as self-promoting instead of responding to the urgency felt by much of the base.

  "All you're doing is your little self-promotional book tour. I mean, I find it utterly disqualifying, honestly, her absence and her lack of interest in what is happening in the country and the fights that are going on right now." (Krystal, 04:42)

• Saagar expresses skepticism about whether party elites or the base will actually move beyond deference to figures like Harris, citing U.S. tradition of reverence toward party elites and failed candidates (e.g., Nixon).
• Both agree there’s a growing disconnection between the Democratic leadership and its base, with rising stars (Gavin Newsom, AOC, Graham Platner) eclipsing the previous crop. Polls no longer show Harris as the clear favorite.

Party Disconnect, Changing Base, and Shift to Cultural Politics

• Saagar and Krystal discuss a chart showing a massive shift in Democratic Party platform language from economic to cultural terms (17:15):
  • Terms like “jobs,” “economic,” “middle class,” “veteran,” and “small business” declined steeply in platform frequency.
  • Words like “equity,” “reproductive,” “LGBT,” “climate,” and racial terms soared by multiples.

  "That was the cultural takeover over any economic message. And that's what went wrong for them." (Saagar, 17:35)

• Krystal recounts how, post-2012, party elites—especially Hillary Clinton—weaponized identity politics as a wedge against the economic populist left.

  "Hillary in particular pioneers... I'm going to sort of position myself like I'm actually to the left of Bernie because he doesn't care enough about racism." (Krystal, 18:20)

• They note establishment attempts to cancel new progressive figures (Zoran, Graham Platner) over past controversies—using the same tactics previously aimed at Sanders.

Party’s Strategic Error and 2028 Outlook

• Saagar lists “cultural” Democratic positions (abolish the police, free healthcare to illegals, lowering voting age to 16, etc.) as the least popular in polling, again underscoring the split between the party's focus and voter sentiment (20:28).
• Krystal warns against analyses that urge Democrats to merely position themselves at the statistical center, arguing narrative, fight, and authenticity matter far more (Krystal, 22:13).
• The episode closes this segment with both agreeing that the real test will come in 2028, with grassroots insurgents posing the strongest challenge yet to business-as-usual party elites.

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Trump’s “Permanent Defendable” MAGA Congress: Detailed Breakdown

Bannon’s Blueprint and Ongoing MAGA Legal Maneuvers

• Krystal and Saagar dissect Steve Bannon’s explicit plan to make the House "permanently defendable by the MAGA movement”:

  "[Bannon:] We need to... get the House in a situation that is permanently defendable by the MAGA movement." (Bannon, 28:33)

• Krystal summarizes four fronts in the Trump strategy:
  1. Personnel: Election cybersecurity and civil rights offices have been gutted; top roles are filled by “Stop the Steal” allies—e.g., Heather Honey (DHS Election Integrity) and Marcy McCarthy (CISA) with histories of conspiracy promotion and voter purges.
  2. Executive Orders: Multiple EOs signed to centralize federal control, tighten machine certification, end mail-in ballots, and grant “fraud audit” access to Trump-aligned figures.
  3. Gerrymandering: Heavy White House pressure (via JD Vance and direct communication with state GOP) to redraw congressional maps for maximal GOP advantage; the Supreme Court expected to gut Voting Rights Act provisions, raising the gerrymandering ceiling.
  4. Threats: DOJ monitors sent to blue states, National Guard deployments, Insurrection Act floated—all as intimidation and groundwork for contesting election results.
• Krystal reads alarming details about the newly partisan ownership of Dominion (now “Liberty Vote”), and fresh executive orders designed to disrupt electoral machinery in blue areas.

The Consequences—From Monologue to Action

• Krystal lays out the analytical bottom line:

  "The Trump administration are engaged in an all out war against their political adversaries in an attempt to seize long term control. That's what Bannon means when he says seize the institutions and create a permanent defendable MAGA majority. ..." (Krystal, 38:02)

• She urges public vigilance and organizing as the only check on these developments.
• Saagar’s premium reaction is teased but not included.

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NBA Gambling Scandal Exposé: Interview with Pablo Torre (41:32–62:27)

The Scandal: Systemic Corruption, Mob Ties, and League Incentives

• Pablo Torre, investigative journalist, breaks down the widening NBA gambling scandal:
  • The root: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s push for legalized and regulated sports gambling, creating an “incentive structure” for widespread, sometimes illicit betting (42:33).
• High-profile poker games (Operation Royal Flush) attracted NBA figures like Kevin Garnett, Ty Lue, and Chauncey Billups as “whales” to entice betting action in mob-organized, rigged games.
• Technology used for cheating: x-ray card scanners, marked sunglasses, rigged shuffling machines, all deployed in high-roller settings (45:32).
• Direct link to recent game-fixing: Player John Tay Porter, in debt to mob-associated gamblers, conspired to “hit the under” on his own stats—mirroring earlier mob tactics but now leveraging prop bets and inside info (47:33).

League, Media, and Government Response

• Saagar and Pablo discuss league complicity:

  "Adam Silver is now facing calls to come before Congress... The NBA cleared Terry Rozier of all wrongdoing. ... When the Department of Justice now comes out and says, actually that's completely false, how can we ever have any faith in the word of the NBA, of the NFL, of these private sports leagues which are directly in league with the betting companies?" (Saagar, 48:14)

• Pablo explains how the NBA, incentivized by billions in legal gambling money, prioritizes brand over truth—often muffling or minimizing internal investigations (49:34).
• The scandal’s broader cancer: Mainstream sports media, reliant on league access and betting ad dollars, generally shies away from adversarial reporting—leaving independent journalists to carry the torch, but also exposing bettors and fans to systemic corruption (53:54).

Notable Quotes & Media-Industry Rot

• Krystal: "Even us being outside of the sports media sphere, many of our competitors take tons of money from these gambling properties. ... If you were taking that money and you see something untoward, you're maybe gonna keep it to yourself rather than risk that cash." (Krystal, 56:44)
• Pablo: "There is such a demand for people who actually want to know the truth... The pendulum has just swung in such a way that I think there's actually now a business case, obviously, to get into a real journalistic operation." (Pablo, 57:17)

Capping with Scandal: Steve Ballmer & Kawhi Leonard Cap Circumvention

• Torre describes his latest work: Owner Steve Ballmer allegedly paid millions via a “green” company to star Kawhi Leonard, circumventing NBA salary rules. While the NBA claims to be “investigating,” it’s independent journalists, not federal authorities, who are moving the story (59:34).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|-------|---------| | 03:17 | "You didn't even make it to the first votes... then you're handed the nomination after Biden is pushed down... and you lose." | Krystal Ball | | 09:17 | "I want them to have a fight. Like, I want them to have to come out and be like, she's an abject failure and we're not going down this path ever." | Saagar Enjeti | | 17:35 | "That was the cultural takeover over any economic message. And that's what went wrong for them." | Saagar Enjeti | | 18:20 | "Hillary in particular pioneers... I'm going to sort of position myself like I'm actually to the left of Bernie because he doesn't care enough about racism." | Krystal Ball | | 28:33 | "We need to... get the House in a situation that is permanently defendable by the MAGA movement." | Steve Bannon (quoted by Krystal) | | 38:02 | "The Trump administration are engaged in an all out war against their political adversaries in an attempt to seize long term control." | Krystal Ball | | 42:33 | "All of this is fruit from the Adam Silver op ed to Johnte Porter group chat and now banned for life scandal..." | Pablo Torre | | 45:32 | "We're talking about x-ray machines that are hiding under the tables... sunglasses that can read marked cards... rigged deck shuffling machines." | Pablo Torre | | 57:17 | "There is such a demand for people who actually want to know the truth... the pendulum has swung... now a business case to get into a real journalistic operation." | Pablo Torre | | 59:34 | "...it is the richest owner in American sports, Steve Ballmer... trying to get money to Kawhi Leonard... this was for Cap circumvention..." | Pablo Torre |

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Key Segment Timestamps

• Kamala Harris / Democratic Party in Crisis: 02:22–26:19
• Trump’s MAGA Election Plot: 28:05–39:39
• NBA Gambling Scandal Interview (Pablo Torre): 41:32–62:27

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Summary Takeaways

• Democratic Party: Deep disconnect between base and elites; Kamala Harris’s comeback faces a newly restive, skeptical base and tough competition; party’s turn toward identity issues comes at the expense of economic focus, with electoral consequences.
• Republican/MAGA Maneuvering: The Trump wing is using a sophisticated, multi-front legal, institutional, and cultural strategy to cement long-term power; the passive response of institutions, including SCOTUS, is worrying to the hosts.
• NBA Scandal: The intersection of gambling, organized crime, and league complicity is laying bare the corruption of both sports and media; independent journalism is vital as mainstream media bows to business incentives.

The episode is a passionate, evidence-rich warning shot for both American politics and sports—highlighting how, in both arenas, money, insiders, and inertia threaten genuine accountability and popular will.

Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

This is an iHeart podcast. I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Don'T trust much of anything. It's the rage bait.

[Krystal Ball]

It feels like it's trying to divide people.

[Pablo Torre]

We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.

[Saagar Enjeti]

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[Pablo Torre]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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[Pablo Torre]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

Hey guys, Sagar and Kristal here.

[Krystal Ball]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Krystal Ball]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad, free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com.

[Krystal Ball]

So we've got a number of pieces here on the direction of the Democratic Party. So Kamala Harris has been doing her little book tour and taking some interviews and apparently she is seriously contemplating running for president again. Guys, let's go ahead and take a listen to this. Gen Z and Latinos in some numbers moved across to Trump. You stayed in your comfort zone, didn't you? That was the Democrats problem. I received 75 million votes from a variety of people.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But in the electric college you were not finished.

[Krystal Ball]

Are they going to see a woman in charge in the White House in their lifetime? For sure. Could it be you?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Possibly. Have you made a decision yet? No, I have not.

[Krystal Ball]

But you say in your book, I'm not done.

[Pablo Torre]

That is correct.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I am not done.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, my God. I don't know.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

I take from that that she is intending to run again.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I want it.

[Krystal Ball]

It's crazy to me, Sagar, because I mean, number one, okay, how did your two presidential races go? Number one in the Democratic Party, you didn't even make it to the first votes. Okay, so that was your first time out of the. When voters actually got to see you in debates and how this was gonna go. And they were like, this is not working for us. You had to drop out. Then you're handed the nomination after Biden is pushed down of the race and you lose. And I'm sympathetic. I think it was a very difficult hand she was dealt. But she also made some really key mistakes and is just incapable of being sort of like a normal person and going out in the world. Everything is poll tested. She doesn't really believe in anything. It's just like, let me put my finger in and try to figure out where the electorate is and people sensed that and now like, I could have been open to, you know, some growth and some development if she was in the fight now. But this is just, let me write a book and let me do some self aggrandizement at a moment when and I'll, you know, sort of like channeling a Democratic base here. Like they feel, and I feel the country is under imminent threat, that there is all this horror that is being put in all these communities across the country. All of this crazy shit that's going on that we're covering every day. Where have you been? Like, if you want to be a leader, that doesn't mean you just show, oh, here I am and look at my resume and aren't I next in line? No, you actually have to lead. People want to see you out there fighting. They want to see you at an ICE protest, getting arrested. Like, they want to see you at the Stop Oligarchy tour. They want to see you rallying for Zoron and all you're doing is your little self promotional book tour. I mean, I find it utterly disqualifying, honestly, her absence and her lack of interest in what is happening in the country and the fights that are going on right now. And I have to think that the Democratic base is very much going to feel the same way. It's crazy to me how out of touch this lady is.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I don't know, though. But at the same time, if you look at the polls, she's always up there. She's got like four or five. The Democratic base, while previously, you know, might be showing some fight and all of that, they still are deferential in some ways to previous party elites. Do they recognize. But do they recognize that the failure is Kamala's, or do they just blame.

[Krystal Ball]

Trump or do they blame the American? I think it's.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, I would like to know. I don't know.

[Krystal Ball]

I genuinely think, like, you know, even with regard to the primary polls already, she's not number one anymore.

[Pablo Torre]

No.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, that's true.

[Krystal Ball]

Pete Buttigieg is number one. Pete Gavin, aoc, was number one in a recent poll. And Gavin in particular. I think Gavin sucks. And we play the A pack like, oh, that's interesting clip. And I think he's going to run into a few Burke Walls himself, but he is in the fight. And the Democratic base certainly appreciates that. But, no, if you look at their disgust with current Democratic Party leadership, you think they're gonna go back to that well again, like the person who was a proven loser. Absolutely not. And yet the way this works, Sagar, is like, I'm sure she has people around her who are there just to, like, glaze her and prop her up and tell her she's amazing and that everybody still loves her and they're just waiting for her to come out and have her coronation or whatever, because they profit, like position. They're the consultants who are gonna do the ad buys and place the media buys and get the cut the percentage off of that. And they know that she can raise some money from. She's got all these donor connections or whatever. And so they have a personal financial interest in telling her that the country wants her and that there's some interest in her running for president again. It's insane to me.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Look, I hope you're right. I want it to be that way. I still am skeptical. I just think there's a weird reverence for these types of figures. There's a long, unfortunately, of California. Richard Nixon famously lost the election, you know, ran for governor, lost, as Kamala apparently had thought about it, and still was able to prevail in the primary and in the general election in 1968. So there is this weird thing that we have in this country of some sort of reverence. I would hope that you are correct. But also there's the theory of spoiler. Right. Where she could have enough people. Here's my thing. Will enough people speak out vehemently against her elites from which they have some trust. Obama, you know, Biden even, maybe Pete Buttigieg, others who served with her who are like, this woman is incompetent. She lost the presidency. We can't go down that direction. I hope so.

[Krystal Ball]

I look at the way Andrew Cuomo was.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it was abandoned. That's true.

[Krystal Ball]

He lost the primary, you know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, but, yeah, that's, that's the thing.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But heading into the primary, it's not like people spoke out for Zoran Mumbadani. Everybody just stayed silent. I mean, I guess silent.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. But that's what I'm saying. I don't know that it matters what Obama or, you know, certainly Joe Biden, Biden has to say about Kamala Harris. I think the base is in a very, very different place now. And, you know, like Graham Platner is a perfect example of this. We saw two polls that had him way up on Janet Mills. There's another poll that came up that had her up, but he did a town hall last night in a town of like 2,200 people and got 700 people there. And they were the most like normie, white hair, liberal looking, Democratic based voters that you could possibly imagine. It's just a different moment now. You know, they tried the Biden way, they tried the Kamala way and it failed. And at the end of the day, they're not gonna be, you know, they're not gonna listen to those folks again. MSNBC has lost their credibility. All sorts of liberal outlets have lost their credibility. I truly think that they are in a very different place than they were last time around. And by the way, these are the voters that also at least had the good sense to reject her in 2020 as well, before she even got to the, you know, got to the starting line credit. So, you know, I look, we. But even if I just think about Gavin Newsom, like, I think Gavin would eat her lunch and he has the donor base.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I want, I want them to have a fight. Like, I want them to have to come out and be like, she's an abject failure and we're not going down this path ever.

[Krystal Ball]

They're not going to do that. Like the elites in the party, they're not going to do that. But I don't think it matters. Like, the voters themselves will render the judgment. And so, you know, Gavin has the same. These are donor creatures like her. And Gavin, these are establishment donor creatures, and he's a much better political animal and political like, I totally agree. Than she is. And they have similar donor bases, both coming out of California. So if I even just think about him versus her, let alone the, you know, the AOCs or whoever is to emerge over these coming years that are much more charismatic and much more finger on the pulse of where the Democratic base is. I don't think she's got a prayer.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But I truly hope so. I just, I remain cynical about some politics, and it's one of those where I want to see the election status. Who knows where things are going to be in 2020. I could just. It's not that I count her out. It's. I don't count out the machine. The machine is powerful. And at the very least, like, they convinced us. Like, you're saying the voters will weigh in. I'm like, they didn't in 2024.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, they just handed her ass the nomination, and she literally got to run for president with no pushback. Even now, everyone can admit KJP was a disaster. We can admit Kamala, but has there been, like, Remember. Oh, I forgot the dnc. What is it called? The retrospective, the autopsy. How they won't examine Kamala. Like, nobody's blaming this woman. Nobody in the party, even today can be like, you were a disaster. Nobody can say it among the powerful. Yeah, but.

[Krystal Ball]

But I just, I, you know, in the way that 2020 went down is in terms of, like, Bernie being defeated and everybody rallying around. Biden was these elite figures, and the media apparatus still had sway.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And when they said, biden's our guy, the base flipped immediately. I mean, it was stunning. They do, like, that does not exist anymore. Doesn't exist anymore. And Platner, I mean, there's a long way to go. And I'm. That he's going to win. I don't know what's going to happen in Maine, but, you know, they threw everything they had at him. In a 2020 era, it would have been enough. He would have had to drop out. Like, you wouldn't have even gotten to this place to start with. Right. Janet Mills is here. She's the sitting governor of Maine. Of course we're going to back Janet Mills. Like, who do you think you are? And so the fact that he can even stay in the race and is at least a 50, 50 shot to be the nominee tells you it is a totally different day.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's a good point.

[Krystal Ball]

In the Democratic.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Cause I don't know if he's going to win on my main question is about, yeah, no, you're right. Is that in the old days he.

[Pablo Torre]

Would have been done.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Is that they would have been like, oh, other people.

[Krystal Ball]

You have a Nazi tattoo and you can stay in the race now as a Democrat and people are flooding your town halls. That is a very different moment for the Democratic base. I wanted to get to get this because I love it. So Kathy Hochul, again, this is another sign that things are very much shifting and influx with the Democratic base. Kathy Hochul felt the pressure to go and rally with Zoron. At this rally, it was Bernie Aoc Zoron and Brad Lander and others, and Kathy Hochul who had positioned herself previously as this very, like, moderate centristy figure. And the crowd chants at her aggressively, tax the rich. Because Zoran needs the Albanese cooperation in order to fund things like free childcare. And she has opposed that. And so the crowd is aware of that. And so they're chaining tax the rich. Zorin has to kind of like come out and save her so she doesn't get booed off the stage. And so she gets out asked about this moment. It's a very Kamala Harris answer that she gives here. And she pretends she didn't hear. She didn't know that they were saying tax the rich. She thought they were saying, like, let's go Bills or something like that. Let's take a listen to D2.

[Pablo Torre]

I thought they were saying, let's go Bills.

[Krystal Ball]

I wasn't sure. When you're up there, I heard some noise. I heard a lot of cheers.

[Pablo Torre]

But later on, it became clear to me that there is a. I know.

[Krystal Ball]

There'S passion for that. Oh, my God.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Let's go Bills and Queens.

[Krystal Ball]

Incredible. Incredible. It reminds me, because remember, what is it on Medicare for All? Kamala like, raised her hand saying that we should get rid of all private insurance. And then she thought better of that. And then she. Oh, I didn't hear the question. I didn't understand.

[Saagar Enjeti]

There's also the infamous Fuck Joe Biden chants that turned into let's go, Brandon. So there's been. There's been a lot of those there. Everyone. Anyway, look, again, I'm. I'm newer to football, but let's go Bills and Queen. Come on. All right. On a day when the jets won.

[Krystal Ball]

Get the fuck out of you.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, you know what you're talking.

[Krystal Ball]

And she even responded. She was like, I hear you. Like, the way she responded indicated she understood what the Crowd was ultimately chanting at her. This is an interesting clip too. The Morning Joe creatures coming out and Joe Scarborough sort of like accepting the rise of Zoran Mamdani. This is D3.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Let's listen Mamdani there. I did it right. And they've been Bernie Sanders. And what do they have in common? They have a populist message. And yes, people can say, oh, they're socialists, they're socialists, they're socialists. Yeah, they said that about Barack Obama too. And he kicked Republicans ass twice. So it's that populist message that they're putting out there that even. There are times that even Steve Bannon goes, yeah, what AOC saying there, I agree with. And a lot of people, like in the populist wing of the MAGA party agree with a lot of that stuff too. Same thing with Lisa Khan and what she was doing about breaking up monopolies. There is a lane for populist Democrats to run in and to win.

[Krystal Ball]

Lisa Khan, he's a big Lisa Khan fan.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Lisa Khan fan.

[Pablo Torre]

Jesus.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's impressive.

[Krystal Ball]

Amazing stuff. But I mean, for him to give Zoron any back cuomo or stay neutral or whatever, I mean, this man hated Bernie Sanders back during both of his runs. So again, shows you he's trying to have his finger in the wind of where things are all going.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, he's a New York City resident. He wants to stay on the good side. And we'll see. I do think it's all interesting, actually.

[Krystal Ball]

He probably lives in New Jersey. I don't know. Or I bet he lives in Connecticut.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You think he's a Manhattan guy?

[Krystal Ball]

I think he's a Connecticut tax.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He does give me Connecticut. Yeah, he gives me Connecticut taxes.

[Krystal Ball]

I'll look it up while you're talking.

[Pablo Torre]

I don't know.

[Saagar Enjeti]

At the same time, him and Mika are so into the social scene. I kind of think they are. So here's my theory, because I know that they have a house in Florida. They are six month and one day people in Florida. And the rest of the time, Manhattan Penthouse. Oh, damn, Damn.

[Krystal Ball]

I'll get him.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I would have guessed. I would have guessed Manhattan penthouse for five months and whatever. 29 days for tax dodging status.

[Krystal Ball]

They do also have a place in Florida.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay, all right. See, I knew that at least. Yeah. Let's stick with this though. Cause I think this is fascinating. This kind of gets to the Sauron point. Let's put this new chart up on the screen. This is from a new kind of centrist platform thing called deciding to win. And they put out a bunch of polling on the Democratic Party, and I thought this was absolutely fascinating. This is the change in the frequency per 1000 words of select terms in the party platform from 2012 to 2014. So the mention of jobs from 2012, percentage change to 2014 was minus 47%. Economic is minus 48%. Middle class was minus 79%. Economy, minus 50. Work minus 19. Veteran, minus 31. Criminal minus 30. Small business minus 23. Equity, plus 766. Reproductive. Plus 766. LGBT plus 1,044. Guns plus 725. Climate, plus 150. And white, black, Latino, up 11,000 or 1100% in percentage change in the Democratic platform. By the way, another thing that they note just to kind of the managerial bureaucratic creep of the Democratic Party platform is that it just became super long. It was pages and pages and pages long. And what I thought was so instructive. I think I borrowed this from Josh Barrow. One of the best things Trump did for the Republican Party platform is he made it like two pages. He was like, we're going to make America great, safe, and awesome again. And that's it. No policies, like, really inside of it. And it was deeply, like, it was short. It was understandable. What this kind of demonstrated to me was all of those, like, constituent check marks around land acknowledgements, trans, lgbt, immigration. You can see the job all starting to go down in there. Like, that was the cultural takeover over any economic message. And fundamentally, like, like that's what went wrong for them. I just did that event with Hasan Piker. Even he agrees with me. He's like, yeah, liberals use this bullshit to get away from talking about even the most basic problems of Americans. And that's why they lost.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, Sagra, look at what they're trying to do to Zoron, like right now in the New York prime. Like, oh, he's not. He doesn't care about Jewish people enough. And you know, he's not gonna protect.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, you're right.

[Krystal Ball]

You know, I mean, they have never stopped doing. They're still doing it, even as they're still blaming the left. Oh, it's the left's fault that the Democratic Party went too woke. I've seen Liz Smith talking about. And now they're trying to cancel Graham for his old Reddit post and his tattoo and cancel Zoron because he was insufficiently whatever, didn't say whatever magic words they want him to or condemn whatever magic phrase they want him to. This is the liberal playbook now. I'm not gonna say so they're the originators of this direction because they saw that post financial collapse coming into the later part of the Obama years. You can see this economic discontent, you see, you can see the rise of this Bernie style populist energy in the party and they've gotta block it. And rather than saying, well, they realize that just selling the same old centrism isn't gonna work. So Hillary in particular, of course Ryan wrote the book on this. Literally, Hillary in particular, pioneers. I'm going to sort of position myself like I'm actually to the left of Bernie because he doesn't care enough about racism. He doesn't care enough and talk enough about sexism and breaking up the big banks isn't gonna end racism. And. And that is what she uses aggressively to defeat Bernie and his movement and tag his followers as toxic Bernie Bros. Who are misogynistic and racist and sexist. So they roll out this playbook. Now then the Bernie Sanders wing adopts a lot of this language as well. So they sort of join in this project. So then you have a whole of party project that is in this very, you know, cultural identity direction. Of course, Bernie always holds onto like his core populist values, but adopts a lot more this language. But it really does come from liberals trying to defeat the left. And again, we know that because they're literally still using that playbook to this day. So I do think it's a longer conversation about this whole study that they did. It's a lot of centers like Biden people and whatever that put this out. There's a longer conversation about that. But this chart in particular, I think is very useful and very instructive over the reason why people rightly felt that this party is really not focused on economic issues. They have abandoned their commitment to delivering for the working class and are talking about things that are not core to my life and feel disconnected from me and that I may really disagree with. People are not crazy to feel that way is the bottom line here 100%.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The other thing is, if you look at the most unpopular Democratic positions from the same graphic, number one is the least popular position is abolish the police. Number two is prisons. Number three, provide free healthcare to illegals. Four, lowering the voting age to 16. Five, cutting police budgets by 10. Six, getting rid of tracking in schools. Seven, increase refugee admissions. Ten, restore affirmative action in college admissions. Like all of these are cultural policies. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And it's one of those, yeah, no shit. That the right wins. I've been trying to say this now on the show for, like, five years. I'm like, if you're gonna cling to this stuff, you just have no idea how you're able to lose it. You know, there's a fascinating new polling as well from the Argument magazine. Yes, I know, cringe, centrist, et cetera. But polling is polling, and we're allowed to discuss it. They even say on immigration, the vast majority of the concerns around immigration are driven from crime and from disorderly conduct. That's what people just, like, they don't seem to get that disorder. And the fact of, like, encouraging more criminal policy, the fact of lack of control over life is a huge reason why conservatives and right wingers win elections in this country. I have literally been trying to hammer it home for years. Culture is a huge part of it. Everybody says, oh, we shouldn't talk about it. But, like, if that's ultimately what becomes probably the sole thing that kind of is really up to people in power, then no shit, we're all gonna fight about it. And it's like one of those where, you know, I still don't think that the Democratic Party has particularly learned their lesson, or at the very least now currently, like, I'm personally skeptical. I could see it still going in that direction.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, the view I have is that you, like, I really think that the analysis where you just, okay, let's pull everybody's position and let's try to locate ourselves in the center. Like, that is not how Trump won. This, like, thing that just came out, which is, overall, the message is like, that's why Democrats need to be more centrist. That's the takeaway, which we get these similar analyses a million times. It reminds me very much of the autopsy post 2012, when Mitt Romney lost and there's a similar Republican, like, we need to move to the center. We gotta do something different on immigration. We're losing Latinos. We're never gonna win them back. And then Trump comes in, is like, fuck you. I'm gonna be radical on these issues, actually. And completely transforms the electorate because he has a free, forceful narrative, and he's not out there polling his position. He takes a lot of positions that are wildly unpopular, but he has a story that he is selling that made sense to a lot of people, and he sells it aggressively, and people feel like, oh, and he's gonna fight for, like, I believe that he's gonna say the things and do the things that he needs to do to right the wrongs. And allow the heroes of his particular story to succeed. You guys know all the ways that I think that story is bad and wrong, et cetera. But he. He has one. Democrats don't. Instead, they do these analyses and they look at the poll and they try to situate themselves in the middle rather than telling a story and demonstrating to people that are going to actually fight for something that makes sense, that lands, that has a logic that resonates in people's lives. So that's why some of these analyses are really, like, it's interesting to get the information. And there's, you know, I'm not saying it's, like, not useful at all, but I think that way of doing politics is actually the way the Democratic Party has been trying to do politics, Assuming the public sentiment is static, assuming this is the way that people actually choose their leaders, and it's just not how politics actually works.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Very true. Absolutely right. And I'm glad you said it. I do think, though, that what the graphic proves is that the cultural mentions actually became the dominating thing that they became known.

[Krystal Ball]

Agree. Yeah, I agree.

[Saagar Enjeti]

All I'm really just pointing out is that how much of these are in albatross around the neck. And because they still don't really stand for much, I'm personally still skeptical going into the midterm elections that that's happening because, again, you know, at this point, the Tea Party was an organized force. There were dozens of candidates all across the country. There was money behind it. And everyone says, oh, that's just because, like, I'm sorry, you guys don't understand. Yes, there was money behind it. There were literally organic chapters rising up across the nation, you know, in the same way that no Kings was. But the problem is, is that no Kings doesn't have a policy platform. Like, they don't have an ass. They don't have anything. They're basically just anti Trump. And anybody could be anti Trump, from Dan Goldman to Graham Platner. That doesn't mean anything. So if you don't stand particularly for something, then how does this work in 2028 when Trump is gone or if he's not running or whatever? Again, how does that manifest right into. And that'll be the true battle. And I'm just not sure, even with these Tea Party candidates, like, what do they really stand for? You could be a Platner. You could be. I mean, there's going to be some Democrat out there that wins in an R +25 district. Spanberger. Right. You could argue that she could be.

[Krystal Ball]

Whatever, like A banner underperforming, though.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Listen. Right, but it's one of those where.

[Krystal Ball]

You could technically say it CIA, Democrat. Yeah, they'll definitely say it. But I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll move on further. This conversation will continue. But I think Zoran is proof point number one. I think the midterms will be proof point number two. We'll see what happens there. What type of candidates are able to come out of primaries. You know, if, if Graham beats the sitting governor of Maine, it's going to be huge. That would be a huge indication. You know, Abdul Al said, of course, in Michigan is another one. We're watching closely. You know, what happens with Shoikat. There's a bunch of different candidates like this that are going to be very interesting to watch. So that'll be another test point. And then, but the ultimate test will be, of course, in 2028 picking the next leader.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's going to be 2028, by the way. Last thing, all on New Jersey. I'm very interested in New Jersey in that governor election. There's a tied for one point right now. If a Republican wins in the state of New Jersey, that's actually going to be crazy.

[Krystal Ball]

I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Don'T trust much of anything. It's the rage bait.

[Krystal Ball]

It feels like it's trying to divide people.

[Pablo Torre]

We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.

[Jacob Goldstein]

This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive. And when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O D O o dot com. That's O d O o dot com.

[Pablo Torre]

The US Electric grid is approaching a breaking point. As demand soars from data centers and home energy use, our aging infrastructure can't keep up. And the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news, one solution is already here. Propane It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and business businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn [e-mail].

[Krystal Ball]

Well, friends, we have arrived. It is time to fully sound the alarm about the midterm elections and whether voters will actually get to have their say in anything approaching a fair or meaningful way. So, in a recent interview, Steve Bannon understandably got a lot of attention for insisting Trump would be president again in 2020 because he is a, quote, vehicle of divine providence. But in that same interview, Bannon also had something to say about the US Congress, which is, of course, directly relevant for the midterm elections.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I think that to avoid actual civil conflict, which I think you're seeing right now, the beginning of the harbinger of it, if you want to stop that, you have to bind together tighter. We, as a populist nationalist movement, as a MAGA movement, we need to do like the redistricting fights. We need to get. This is why I was down in Texas. We need to. To get the House in a situation that is permanently defendable by the MAGA movement.

[Pablo Torre]

Right?

[Saagar Enjeti]

So it's a blocking mechanism. And take that. Like I said, you move maximalist strategy with a sense of urgency and you seize the institutions. And that's what we're doing right now. I don't see how that is a recipe for diffusing this crisis. I think that what happens is when people feel shut out of power and interest groups, groups, cannot get representation and cannot get an input into the way that policy is made, that's precisely when you end up with civil war. I disagree, because there is no sees the institutions.

[Krystal Ball]

Get the House in a situation where it is permanently defendable by the MAGA movement. So is Bannon just blowing smoke here? After all, he's not Trump. He's not a Trump official either. In fact, if you look, though, at everything the Trump administration is saying and doing, it is undeniably clear they are in the midst of executing a sophisticated plot in an attempt to rig the midterm elections in favor of Republicans. This plot has several different elements and, of course, no guarantees of success. But we need to grapple with what we are facing right now. So I'm going to take time to go through each of the various elements. Top line, though. First element is personnel. Federal government divisions dealing with election, cybersecurity and civil rights violations been gutted and replaced with 2020 election deniers from the stop this deal fraud. Second executive orders. Trump has signed several executive orders seeking to consolidate control of election mechanics, voter rolls and even election machines in his hands. A Republican operative, by the way, now owns Dominion Voting. Third, gerrymandering. Trump is pressuring Republican states to redraw maps to block out Democrats and is getting a major assist from the Supreme Court. Most likely fourth threats. Trump is sending election monitors to California and New Jersey, deploying National Guard in blue cities and threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act. All of this is occurring as he repeated insists elections are rigged, undocumented immigrants vote illegally and mail in ballots are fraudulent. Taken together, you can see they are serious. They are operating on a variety of fronts. They are unwilling to accept the verdict of voters. So let's start in depth with personnel. According to the New York Times, Trump has installed a number of Stop the Steal wackos in key election related roles after gutting departments which previously dealt with election integrity and rights. So several of these new officials come from the so called Election Integrity Network. This is a far right group at the heart of inventing lies during Trump's effort to steal the election in 2020. Now in the newly in the administration, in the newly created Election Integrity position at the Department of Homeland Security, Trump has installed a woman by the name of Heather Honey. She is a Stop the Steal nut who immediately jumped on official government calls when she was appointed to spread wild conspiracies about rigged voting machines. Prior to her appointment, she floated invoking a national emergency in order to gain control over state voting. Another wacko, a guy named Kurt Olson, has also been brought into the Trump administration to investigate the supposedly stolen 2020 election. Just in case you were wondering if they had given up on those old lies, Olson helped Cook Up MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's 2020 Rigged Election Delusions. In addition to them, you've got the former DeKalb County, Georgia Republican chair, Marcy McCarthy is appointed to be Director of Public affairs at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or cisa. Marcy was at the heart of spreading Georgia voting machine conspiracies back in 2020. But perhaps even more critically, she was involved in purging thousands of legitimate voters from the rolls in Georgia in 2024 in an effort that resulted in tens of thousands of voters losing their ability to vote in what appeared to be a racially biased manner. Now that experience of Marshall might be particularly relevant when you consider the election related executive orders that Trump has been signing. So back in March, Trump signed an executive order mandating more stringent IDs recertifications of voting machines under new rules that literally none of the existing machines currently comply with. And perhaps most troubling, this executive order granted Elon's doge access to voter rolls for, quote unquote fraud audits. Now, lest you think that with Elon's departure, this aspect would be dropped, the Trump Justice Department is demanding that states provide them with their voter rolls, an action that many, even red states, have actually resisted so far. The Trump DOJ has sent demands to 30 states already with intent to send to all 50. What's more, they have already sued eight different states for refusing to hand over their voter rolls so far. An additional executive order seeks to end mail in balloting, which of course is used more often at this point by Democrats, Democrats, and reiterates the commitment to get rid of every existing voting machine about those voting machines. By the way, you remember all the furor around Dominion Voting machines, supposedly rigged in 2020 by the Ghost of Hugo Chavez or some such nonsense? Well, that company has now been bought by a Trump ally, the former Republican elections director in St. Louis. And in the announcement of the purchase, this guy made a point of nodding towards that Venezuela conspiracy and of saying he was going to prioritize complying with Trump's executive orders. Dominion is being renamed Liberty Vote now. Now, perhaps this guy is just trying to rebrand, trying to pander to the conspiracy nuts in the MAGA base. But half of the voting machines in the country are Dominion, and they are now under partisan ownership. Next, we've got, of course, the mass gerrymandering push coming directly from the White House. Three states, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas. They've already drawn new maps that more heavily favor Republicans. Republicans. Five more states are considering following suit. In a sign of what a priority this is for the regime, JD Vance has visited Indiana twice to pressure lawmakers to draw new maps. And Trump spoke directly with Indiana Republicans earlier this month. Just yesterday, Governor Brown called an emergency session to consider the President's demand. In addition, the Supreme Court looks set to deliver a major assist on this front, striking down parts of the Voting Rights act, which would plausibly allow Republicans to eliminate roughly a dozen seats currently held by Democrats. Let's go ahead and put this chart up on the screen. So Nate Cohn did this analysis, and he found that the upshot of all of this gerrymandering, when you take into account Democratic attempts to retaliate in places like California, is that it could take Democrats winning the popular vote by as much as 5 points or 6 points in order to take back the house 5 point popular vote wins. Those are the stuff of modern day waves. We're talking the Obama wave in 2008, the Tea Party wave in 2010. This slanted playing field, it doesn't make a House majority impossible for Democrats, but it does make it very, very difficult. And that is of course, before you consider all the other efforts that I'm tracking here today to shape who can vote and how. Now, the last category of election rigging activities is both the most ominous and the most vague, and that is the threats which are emanating from this White House. Under this category, I place Trump's consistent rhetoric about stolen elections, his use and abuse of the military, and his promise to send election monitors into California and into New Jersey. Just yesterday, Trump posted this on Truth Social. He said, what's worse, the NBA players cheating at cards and probably much else, or the Democrats cheating on elections? The 2020 presidential election being rigged and stolen is a far bigger scandal. Look what happened to our country when a crooked moron became our president. We now know everything. I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much gusto as befitting the biggest scandal in American history. If not, it will happen again, including the upcoming midterms. No mail in or early voting. Yes to voter id. Watch how totally dishonest the California prop vote is. Millions of ballots being shipped. Get smart Republicans before it is too late. So consistent with this baseless claim that California is rigging the ballot initiative to determine whether they can redistrict, Trump has announced he is is sending DOJ election monitors into both California and New Jersey as a blatant intimidation tactic. And of course, as you know, he has sent the National Guard into multiple blue cities and is flirting with invoking the Insurrection Act. And Secretary of War Pete Hegseth won't deny the development of a rapid response military force that could be deployed in all 50 states before the midterms.

[Pablo Torre]

Secretary Hegseth Sir, a memo circulating on.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Social media details the establishment of a.

[Pablo Torre]

National Guard response force that's going to.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Be trained in crowd control and civil unrest and deployed in all 50 states by April of 2026.

[Pablo Torre]

Can you verify the authenticity of that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Memo and do you have any more.

[Pablo Torre]

Information on the operations?

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm not going to answer particulars on something that may be in the planning.

[Jacob Goldstein]

Process, but we definitely do have multiple.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Layers of National Guard response forces. Whether whether it's in each state, whether it's regionally, whether it's Title 10 active duty, whether it's Washington D.C. we've got a lot of different ways that constitutionally and legally we can employ Title 10 and Title 32 forces and we will do so when necessary.

[Krystal Ball]

So again, just so we're clear, we're talking here about a 50 state rapid response force that just happens to be in place in time for the midterms. Does all of this sound crazy? I don't know, guys. Using national emergencies to do wild stuff is kind of just how this administration operates. Operates. That's their whole shit. Not to mention Trump is the guy who literally already tried to steal an election and they already hired a lady who floated using a national emergency to control elections. By the way, they've also got a pretty powerful motive. The more crimes they commit, the more backlash they stoke, the more existential it is for them to hold onto power and never let go. You don't think Stephen Miller knows Democrats want him to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison? The Trump administration are engaged in an all out war against their political adversaries in an attempt to seize long term control. That's what Bannon means when he says seize the institutions and create a permanent defendable MAGA majority. And what's to stop them at this point? The Supreme Court, which has handed them 23 out of 28 decisions on the shadow docket. The media which is like being all bought up by the Zionist pro Trump Ellisons or threatened with lawsuits to comply. The Republican House majority? Come on, don't make me laugh. How about the Democratic House minority? That'll make me cry. It is ultimately on us. We need to understand what's happening. We need to track it. We need to educate our fellow citizens who may or may not share our political beliefs, but I hope are at least somewhat interested in continuing the very imperfect experiment that we have here with democracy. Because whatever the public is willing to accept, that is exactly what we are going to get. And so Sager, lengthy and a little tedious. Thank you for bearing with me but I wanted to put all together and.

[Saagar Enjeti]

If you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber. [e-mail].

[Krystal Ball]

I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it but I.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Don'T trust much of anything. It's the rage bait.

[Krystal Ball]

It feels like it's trying to divide people.

[Pablo Torre]

We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News Reporting for America.

[Jacob Goldstein]

This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous problem. Business software is expensive and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you to need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at o d o o.com that's o d o o.com the.

[Pablo Torre]

US electric grid is approaching a breaking point as demand soars from data centers and home energy use our aging infrastructure can't capture. And the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready. Powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn [e-mail].

[Saagar Enjeti]

Joining us now is Pablo Torre. He is a journalist. He is the host of Pablo Torre Finds out he is taking the sports world by storm. And for our purposes he is an expert and one of the few actually doing some deep dives in the sports world. So Pablo, thank you so much for joining us. A lot of respect, of course, of course.

[Pablo Torre]

Thanks for having me. I have too much to say probably about all the things you're interested in, but happy to try.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, we want to hear all of that. I have personally just watched with amazement at the coverage of this NBA gambling scandal. Let's go ahead and put this up here on the screen. Some of your own reporting that we can share with our audience. I'm sure they've heard a little bit here about the initial indictments in the NBA, Chauncey and the and the poker games. Quote, a number of former pro athletes played at a private poker games organized by those indicted by the DOJ in Operation Royal Flush. One of them was Kevin Garnett in 2019. There are a number of other names who you list. Pablo, why don't you break some of that down and also just tell us how existential this is to the NBA.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. So big picture first. And I'll tell you about some of the names that I've been reporting that haven't been in the indictment for reasons that I think make sense and are also a bit chin scratching the story here to me is that the NBA set up an incentive structure. One of the first things that Adam Silver did as commissioner of the league and he was hailed, almost welcomed as a savior of the sport in part because he did two things. Number one, he orchestrated the transfer of power from Donald Sterling, avowed racist, banned for life, to Steve Ballmer, another character I've been investigating in a a separate story which I have too much to say about with aspiration and the Clippers and the salary capture convention that I've been reporting on. But the other thing Adam Silver did that fall was write an op ed in the New York Times in which he said gambling should be legalized and regulated. He was the first commissioner to come out and say that this was one of his first acts in terms of taking over the sport. And so that incentive structure which we've seen happen, and you guys have covered it as well as anybody infiltrating the entirety of sports and sports media, has created these incentives in which there is a menu of almost micro bets which now carry legal markets for prop bets like unders on Terry Rozier, meaning you can bet on the underperformance of an obscure player like John Tay Porter, who has since been banned for life, by the way. And so all of this is fruit from that tree. All of it is fruit from the Adam Silver op ed to Johnte Porter group chat and now banned for life scandal into what happens when inside information that could be seemingly microscopic in its scope. Will this player play in this game? Will this guy leave this game because he is in coordination with you, perhaps, according to the indictment, trying to also profit off of those incentives. All of this comes together in a way that feels, if not existential, I think the story of the era of money in sports that we live in. And so, so Kevin Garnett, Ty Lue, the head coach of the Clippers, also a character who's been spotted at these games, one game in particular, April 2019, where Chauncey Billups was Antonio Gates, former pro football player, hall of Fame player. I'm not alleging that those guys were of the Chauncey Billups level in terms of what they knew or did not know, but they were used as whales face cards the government calls them to draw in in betters in the poker world, which happens to be connected deeply with of course, the world of sports betting.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. And let's talk a little bit more about the specifics here because some of the specifics are wild. You say maybe those guys aren't the level of at of understanding potentially alleged of Chauncey Billups who appears to have had knowledge that the games were rigged. These games were being set up by some of the sort of like classic New York mafia families. So give us some of the details about, about what was going on with these games and the way that they had them rigged so that they were, you know, raking in $7 million in the context of these rigged poker games.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, so the connective tissue between these two indictments and there are terrible puns all over the story by the way, guys. So it's Operation Royal Flush for the poker stuff is Operation Nothing but Bet for the sports betting stuff. But the reason I went back to the Dante Porter scandal is because the characters who overlooked lap some of those names, you know, and I reported on this in July because they were on that group chat with Johnte Porter. These are all poker guys, poker associated guys who turn out in one case to be also mob associated. And so in these poker games, Crystal, we're talking about X ray machines that are hiding under the tables. We're talking about sunglasses that can read marked cards. We're talking about rigged deck shuffling machines. That is the allegation in particular to Chauncey Billups in that April 2019 game in Las Vegas. Vegas. We're talking about technology in which people who were conspiring to rig poker games using NBA players as co conspirators, as whales to draw in the competition were also, according to these in two indictments in league with Chauncey Billups identified as co conspirator number eight in the sports betting indictment to also get information around which players on his team that he is the current head coach for the Portland Trailblazers would be playing in a game. Game. And so organized crime is an ancient story when it comes to secret poker games. You've seen a zillion movies along those lines. What's different is that there is now a legal sports betting market in which those same characters maybe because according to the indictment and according to my reporting, you have athletes who've always loved gambling and card games. Also an ancient non surprise might be be in debt and or in cooperation with some of the unsavory characters that, you know, Cash Patel referred to as La Cosa Nostra, which is the literal Italian mob.

[Krystal Ball]

And isn't that what happened with John Tay Porter, that he was in debt to these guys and that's part of how this all goes down?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, the reporting that I've been doing suggests that John Tay Porter got into debt with a man named Amar Awade, who is identified in these indictments as a guy named Flapper Poker or Flappy, AKA a mob associate. And the question of. And again, this is ancient. What happens when you get in debt to someone like that? They don't just want the repayment of the money. They say, I have another way that you can help us out. And Jonte Porter, a truly obscure backup that no one would have known otherwise, ended up, according to exhaustive group chat records, he ended up taking himself out of games, letting them know ahead of time. And that ended up being this thing that blew up the NBA last year.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yes, Pablo, what I wanna focus on is to zoom out on the system because. And let's put this up here on the screen from Politico, Adam Silver is now facing calls to come before Congress. By the way he should. Because one of the things that you and I talked about previously, Pablo, is that the NBA cleared Terry Rogier of all wrongdoing. They did an internal investigation, they allowed him to play and they said, hey, we did an investigation, he did nothing wrong. When the Department of Justice now comes out and says, actually that's completely false, false, how can we ever have any faith in the word of the NBA, of the NFL, of these private sports leagues which are directly in league with the betting companies, like, what does this tell us about Adam Silver's credibility at this point?

[Pablo Torre]

The conflict of interest here seems very obvious. And for anybody who's not a sports fan, keep that lens of what should a normal business do here if they're faced with any scandal, in this case in sports, in the NBA, it turns out you investigate yourself and you therefore have the ability to turn the dial on how big of a public scandal is this? And of course, the NBA has seen under Adam Silver, I mean, look, they have taken the money on the table at the expense of what I would call various risks to its brand. And I'll just keep it at that level because I want to speak the language of what these corporations and sports and commissioners speak. They want to minimize the scandal and damage to their brand. The bet that Adam Silver has made is that by getting into business with legalized gambling, in fact advocating for it, he could make the cost benefit analysis work such that the benefits, the money on the table, are worth that roll of the dice, so to speak. And so when it comes to what did they know and when did they know it, the NBA, I talked to Terry Rogier's lawyers, lawyer who told us they cleared us. The NBA cleared Terry Rogier is why he was able to play and get traded to the Miami Heat, by the way, in a transaction that did result in an eight figure salary payout from the Miami Heat and a first round pick, which is for those not in sports, a big deal.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And then the question is, so why didn't you, the NBA, the Heat are complaining. Why didn't you tell us what you were looking into? Why didn't you keep the investigation going, going if in fact the federal government was going to continue it? And according to my sources, never cleared Rozier, as is obvious based on the indictments. And so you have in this case, uniquely, I would say, a body with subpoena power in the government that has the ability to, by virtue of their interest in the story, hold the NBA to account when it comes to what did they want to know and when did they know it. In most cases in sports, Sagar, as you know, there isn't that level of check. There are journalists. Right. So that's what ostensibly I am trying to do. But in the public perception, when you have federal indictments, it puts with a real strong underline what is actually the conflict of interest at play.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And so just for people who, you know, maybe don't know the ins and outs of the case, what Terry Rogier is accused of is basically like faking a foot injury in the middle of a game, coming out early, and then people who bet that he would underperform his normal statistics, I think hundreds of thousands of dollars were able to cash in because he planned to go out early and planned to sort of not throw the game, but throw his own statistics. Which raises the question how much of the problem here is with these prop bets. Right. With the ability to bet on these very specific outcomes. Because then a player doesn't have to throw a whole game, they just have to underperform a little bit or just have to do something that whatever it is, is that you're able to bet on. How much of the problem is just those prop bets? And also, like, what's your sense of how widespread this is? Are we talking a few bad apples or is this just like, you know, during the Barry Bonds era of baseball where it's just like, oh, yeah, everybody's juicing. That's just how the game is at this point.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, that's why I frame it in terms of incentives. Because what is happening is that the legal betting market, market and the scandals that crop up have all been around prop bets hitting on unders. So just for people who don't know how it used to be. If you ever watched a mob movie, right, like back in the day, you would need to fix a game by fixing the outcome of the game. Meaning you need five players on one team to sort of coordinate in some fashion such that you actually impacted who won or lost. That's what typically bookies, the guy on your corner, in your neighborhood, in a dark alley, that's what they would allow you to bet on in this era because there's this exhaustive almost like Cheesecake Factory length menu of like, wait a minute, I can bet on pretty much anything. There are a zillion pages here.

[Krystal Ball]

You can bet on what color dildo gets thrown on the floor at a WNBA game.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I've been sounding the alarm on this forever, Pablo. And you know, one of the things that kind of gets to me is you just talked about journalism. This is a main thing I really wanted to talk to you about. You spent your life at Sports Illustrated and at espn. Now you're independent. You are more famous than ever before. I see your name dropped on every major sports podcast in the country. Pat McAfee, everybody else. But there seems to always be a hesitance. And it seems to me, you can tell me your observation that they are desperate to preserve their relationship to the league, to the NBA. They're afraid of platforming or emphasizing what you're saying, even though you're one of the few few doing actually revelatory journalism in sports. So I'm curious if you could talk about that dynamic, like how difficult it is for an ESPN or people connected fundamentally to a private organization that has no obligation to give you anything, to some of the work that you're putting out there and why you found so much success in a short period of time.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, again, I point to incentives. Right. So I worked at espn. I was familiar in that era with a company in which there was was literal billion dollar business dealing with the leagues directly, but at the same time an attempt to fund a newsroom that had some sort of firewall in between. Right. Any media organization of a certain scale is familiar with that dynamic. What is so different now is that the pretense of needing to support journalism. And again, I'll use brand equity as the motive for any company who wants to consider this, that brand, equal priority. The whole idea of we need to plausibly be a newsroom, an actual news gathering operation that has sharply declined as the sources of money have shifted, in this case to the legalized gambling operators. And so what I found is that I didn't set out to do investigative adversarial journalism that would take me to the stories that are most directly in conflict with commissioners of, of the sports that I otherwise cover and love and enjoy. As a fan, I did not set out to be the turd in some commissioner's punch bowl, frankly. But the race that I am apparently competing in is almost devoid of other competitors. And so what's happened is that I'm the guy who's just willing to do it and I am obsessive about like wanting to get it right. I come again from a fact checking background and a journalistic background and we request comment and everybody, everybody gets a chance to weigh in. We provide all of those opportunities as a quote unquote mainstream news organization would. But the fact is I'm willing to get on bad terms when it comes to the access that otherwise gets granted and the partnerships that are in play. If you're a sports talking head and your goal in life is to be on a set in which you talk about any of these sports, you should be aware that the people who ultimately have to, to green light your inclusion at that table sit in the league office, which is to say they don't want people who are going to actually jeopardize their business involved in their business. And likewise, if you're covering, for instance, Los Angeles Clippers and your day to day livelihood is access to games, you're signing up for a way harder life if you decide to stick a toe into the stuff that I'm doing. And so I'm not naive and I don't blame other journalists, reporters, whatever the term is you want to use to describe the different jobs that we do. I get the incentives again at play. I just think we're living in this desert, especially in sports media, but certainly broadly, you can speak to every facet of journalism across America now. But there's a desert when it comes to the quote, unquote toy department in which huge stories that reflect our national priorities and our national conflicts of interest interest are coming home to roost and there are not enough people covering it.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, well, I mean, I have to think that the, you know, the corporate ad dollars are an important part of that story too. I mean, even us being outside of the sports media sphere, many of our competitors take tons of money from these gambling poverties. They just have endless amount of money, it seems like to throw at different personalities. And so I would think that if you're going directly, if you were taking that money, money and you see something untoward, you're maybe gonna you know, keep it. Keep it to yourself rather than risk that cash into your operation.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, look, I am somebody who believes, again, I worked at espn. I worked at Sports Illustrated. I'm familiar with all the media companies in the world who have to make some level of internal firewall between business and news. I get that ancient attention, attempt to do that. All I would say is if you are taking money from any of the parties that you are also covering, you do, at some point, need to show, through journalism that holds those parties to account, that the firewall is plausible. And I think what's increasingly obvious is the implausibility of that firewall. And maybe it's because, again, the public demand for this stuff has been characterized in these boardrooms as so low, like journalism, that's not going to make you money. And therefore, let's just go all in on the business business of favoring our partners. But I think what you guys have experienced and what I've experienced as an independent journalist, as an independent newsroom, is that there is such a demand for people who actually want to know the truth, people who actually want to know, what am I not being told, and why am I not being told it about these institutions that I love that I'm giving my money to? And so the pendulum has just swung in such a way that I think there's actually now a business case, obviously, to get into a real journalistic operation. I just think that there are not enough places that are actively considering it along a profit motive as opposed to just a obligation, morally or otherwise.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You're totally right. And I see it everywhere. I mean, you know, the most successful sports journalists are basically just people who tweet press releases from the. From the NFL and from their age, from the players, agents. If a guy is really injured, you're gonna be the last to know. Right. And they're gonna be the last to tell you. You find things that, I mean, I found out this morning, Carson Wentz has been injured, like, weeks ago and is going under certain. Nobody said anything about that. And there's no incentive for the people who cover it to actually tell everybody the truth. So my last thing I do wanna let you expound on is that salary cap story. In my opinion, massive, massive scandal with, like, IRS implications, league implications, player implications, same thing touched on, very little acknowledged by much of the sports media. I do want to let you get some of the details out there because I want our audience to know how crazy and corrupt this is.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. So this is a story that is also being investigated. Scare quotes around that, I suppose, by the NBA and by Wachtel, the law firm that they hired as their outside counsel to look into this. And so it's funny is I've been covering two stories, the betting scandal and the Aspiration Clippers Kawhi Leonard capture convention scandal scandal that the NBA has been tracking in parallel as well. Basically listening to the pod, trying to figure out like what is the one guy here to make our life messy going to report next? And I say that not merely because I'm proud of the work, but just because I have an insight into the question of investigation. And in this story, it is the richest owner in American sports, Steve Ballmer, one of the 10 richest people in the world, who we report got into business with a guy who ended up defrauding him, him, which is unfortunate because that same guy, Joe Sandberg, the co founder of a climate change company called Aspiration, he had trusted Steve Ballmer had trusted, according to our reporting, to help him deceive the NBA. We're talking about $50 million into aspiration from Steve Ballmer. We're talking about $48 million guaranteed from aspiration to Kawhi Leonard in what amounts to the most unprecedented inscribed scope and in mess at this point. Cap circumvention scandal in American sports history. And the reason this matters is because from a pure big picture perspective, let's say you don't care about sports. Just understand sports ownership in America has never belonged more clearly to the richer and richer individuals that you might otherwise see all across Silicon Valley and now of course into the Middle east and private equity equity. Sports teams go up and up and up. The media economy that we spoke about is fragmented. Sports teams continue to appreciate in value. It's all green arrows. The richest people in the world want to buy them. And when they want to buy them, it turns out, according to my reporting, they get frustrated that there are actually some caps on their spending. So the things that the richest people in the world want more than anything else at this phase in their lives, often an NBA title or a star player for their team, team they just can't buy. There are rules around fair play they need to abide by. And so that is the story of Steve Ballmer trying to get money to Kawhi Leonard. And the question around these 3,000 plus pages of documents that I acquired and the now nine anonymous sources who worked at Aspiration who have testified to me that this was for Cap circumvention, it speaks to what the NBA once again is willing to find in an investigation in which the check is not, for now, the federal government when it comes to Steve Ballmer, but a dude with a podcast. And that's sort of the other thing that I'm working on too.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, you know, keep it up, man.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

If you're out there, if you're listening, you have something to leak, send it to Pablo. I would love to see you.

[Pablo Torre]

I'd appreciate it. My podcast would, in fact, appreciate. Thank you guys. I appreciate you too.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Thanks for coming on, man.

[Krystal Ball]

Thanks, Paulo. Great to meet you.

[Pablo Torre]

Anytime, anytime. Get ready to power up your play with Nintendo Switch 2. Power up the visuals with 4K support and a bigger, more vivid screen.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Power up the fun with exclusive new games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong bonanza.

[Pablo Torre]

Nintendo Switch 2 all together, anytime, anywhere.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Games rated E to E10 plus games and systems sold separately. Compatible TV required for 4K display. Ah, greetings from my bath festive friends. The holidays are overwhelming, but I'm tackling this season with PayPal and making the most of my money getting 5% cash back when I pay in 4. No fees, no interest.

[Pablo Torre]

I used it to get this portable spa with jets.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Now the bubbles can cling to my sculpted but pruny body. Make the most of your money this holiday with PayPal.

[Pablo Torre]

Save the offer in the app ends 1231. See paypal.com promoter points can be redeemed for cash and more. Paying for subject to terms and approval. PayPal Inc. And MLS 910457 what kind.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Of man would let this happen to his family?

[Krystal Ball]

Inspired by shocking actual events, I'm working on a story about the Murdochs. Their abuses of power are playing out in real time. Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark.

[Pablo Torre]

It's only cheating if you get caught.

[Krystal Ball]

Hulu Original Series Murdoch Death in the.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Family New episodes Wednesdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

[Krystal Ball]

This is an I heart podcast.