← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
10/7/25: Massive AI Bubble, China Runs Circles Around US, Bari Weiss CBS Takeover, Venezuela War
01:20:50
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- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
This is an iHeart podcast for over 50 years. They redefined rock. The spirit lives on. Monday Warrior Me Me Stride Today's Tom Sawyer, Mean Fry, Getty Lee and Alex lifeson rush live 50 something tour live by nights away from here. Sign up for presale access at Ticketmaster. Legends don't stop, they evolve. Rush Upgrade your laundry routine with a durable and reliable Maytag Laundry Pair at Lowes. Like the new Maytag Washer and Dryer with performance enhanced stain fighting power designed to cut through serious dirt and grime. And what's great is this laundry pair is in stock and ready for delivery when you need it the most. Don't miss out. Shop Maytag in store or online today at Lowe's.
- [01:05]
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- [01:35]
Krystal Ball
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:36]
Saagar Enjeti
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.
- [01:44]
Krystal Ball
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [01:49]
Saagar Enjeti
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. Morning in your inbox.
- [02:00]
Krystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning everybody. Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have Crystal?
- [02:12]
Saagar Enjeti
Did we do a lot of interesting topics this morning? So the Financial Times is writing that the US Is now just one big bet on AI. So how is that going to go for us? We will evaluate where we're at with all of that. Barry Weiss has officially been installed over at CBS as Editor in Chief. We'll take a look at what she is saying and what some of the journalists at CBS are feeling about that. It sure looks like we are headed to full regime change. War in Venezuela Some incredibly troubling reports that aren't getting nearly enough attention. We'll dig into all of that. Trump is floating. Hey, maybe I will. Pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. This comes as the Supreme Court has declined to hear her appeal. So a lot to get to there. Tim Dillon speaking out against the National Guard deployments in a variety of cities. And I'm taking a look at what exactly happened with this shooting. An immigration agent shot. Shot a Chicago resident. The government story is falling apart. There is apparently body cam footage that directly refutes what they were claiming happened. So I'm gonna do a monologue breaking down everything that we know about what transpired there.
- [03:16]
Krystal Ball
There we go. We had unfortunately to drop the Mark Sanchez story, but we will eventually get to it. Don't worry.
- [03:22]
Saagar Enjeti
We did address it. It was a good plug for our premium subs.
- [03:25]
Krystal Ball
That's true.
- [03:26]
Saagar Enjeti
We did address it in the ama.
- [03:27]
Krystal Ball
We did address it in our ama.
- [03:28]
Saagar Enjeti
So if you want to hear what Sagar thinks about the whole Mark Sanchez situation, which he is slightly obsessed with, it's just you have to be a premium subscriber.
- [03:36]
Krystal Ball
I just can't. I can't get enough of it. All right. So thank you to everybody, breakingpoints.com, as Krystal said, if you want to hear our Mark Sanchez thoughts and much more, you can go ahead and sign up for that. If you can't afford it, no worries. Just please go ahead and hit subscribe to this YouTube video. And if you are listening to this on a podcast, please send your favorite episode to a friend and or rate us five stars. It really does help other people find the show.
- [03:58]
Saagar Enjeti
And one more thing before we jump in. We got word from Ryan this morning. Alex Colston, that dropsite journalist that was part of the Samud flotilla, has been freed to Jordan along with most, but not all of the American citizens who were on board that boat. So glad to hear that he at least is safely out of Israel.
- [04:16]
Krystal Ball
That's right. And hope get Alex on the show. Soon we'll hear about some of his ordeal and what he went through. So let's go ahead and start with AI. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. I thought this was a fantastic piece. Came out in the Financial Times. Rasheer Sharmay, somebody I really respect, and what he wrote about here is, quote, america is now one big bet on AI. It is seen as the magic fix for every threat to the U.S. economy. And I'm going to read what I think are the most troubling paragraphs quote, lately Optimism has become a self fulfilling prophecy. The hundreds of billions of dollars investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40% of US GDP growth this year. Some analysts believe that estimate does not even fully capture AI spend. Real share could be higher. AI companies have accounted for 80% of gains in U.S. stocks so far in 2025. That is helping to fund and drive U.S. growth as the AI driven stock market draws in money from all over the world and feeds a boom in consumer spending by the rich. Since the wealthiest 10% of the population owns 85% of stocks, they enjoy the largest wealth effect when they go up. Little wonder then, latest data shows American consumer economy rests largely on spending by the wealthy. The top 10% of earners account for half of consumer spending, the highest share on record since that data began. Without all the excitement around AI, the US economy would be stalling out. Given the multiple threats, I thought that that was such an important, just like succinct way of putting it together. He says America has become one big bet on AI outside of the AI plays. Even European stock markets have been outperforming the US this decade. And now that gap is starting to spread. So far in 2025, every major sector from utilities, industrials, healthcare and banks has fared better in the rest of the world than in the us. So Silicon Valley parlance is like in the world of bits versus the world of atoms, as in like something in cyberspace something versus the real world. AI is honestly a bit of both, right? Cause you have to make chips, you have to build data centers. But fundamentally, the profit and everything else is a power law of exponential growth for stocks of a lot of the people who are involved. We all know it is not in any way distributed across the economy. And I thought that that summed it up in a way that should honestly be terrifying because something a friend of mine recently said to me was if Trump did not have this AI boom, the tariff story would be a totally different conversation. I mean, it's still bubbling underneath, right? We talked about the yesterday soybeans. If you work in the, quote, normal economy and all of that, of course you're going to feel it. I was just taking a look yesterday at the equal weight S&P 500 versus the weighted S&P 500. It's unweighted. It's crazy. If you just take like the equal weight versus, you know, the Nvidia heavy S and P and all these others, the gap in growth is unbelievable. And I think what it underscores is the fundamental danger of where we are in a variety of ways from economic policy. Cause it's emboldening, actually. Trump on tariffs. Cause he thinks this is tariffs. He doesn't understand. It's all like data center growth, AI growth, Google and everybody kind of spending to the bottom. But the second is. And look, I know bubble talk is always easy and nobody knows when to call it, but at the very least, even if it's not a bubble or any of that, this is a huge risk. Any portfolio, if the US GDP is a portfolio, to say that 40% of your comes from a single sector, from not even just technology, from a single sector of that sector, you should be very afraid. And when 80% of the gains, which all of us rely on, let's say if you're in retirement, your 401k, that number's gotta go up. And it's only going up from one place, which means it can go down from one place to a single. You know, we talked about deepseek style yesterday.com, anything like that, 2007. I mean, we all remember, right? It can go south very quickly and then it can go south for a long time. And I can guarantee you, while the gains may only go to the top 10%, that the losses will go to 100.
- [08:23]
Saagar Enjeti
That's the way that works.
- [08:24]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that's the way that works.
- [08:25]
Saagar Enjeti
That is the way that works well. And it feels like we're sort of like damned if it works out well and damned if it doesn't work out. So obviously if it, if it ends up just to be like sort of worthless AI slop and the, you know, all the grand vision of what AI could be doesn't come to fruition, then you're going to have this massive crash. Our economy, like the perception of our economy is so tied up with these dramatic stock market gains, you know, divorced from the reality of the real economy that impacts most people day to day, that that collapse would be absolutely devastating and like you said, would have massive effects for everybody, whether you're heavily invested in the stock market or not. If the promise of AI does come to fruition, well, then you've got mass job loss and a need to completely rewrite the social contract. So that seems like, you know, do you guys feel like the country's in a place where we could all get together and have a unifying discussion about what a new social contract might look? Because I certainly feel like we're living in that country. So that's why the landscape is so incredibly terrifying. And I feel like there is such this has been so invisibilized. It's something that's bubbling below the surface. But there is so little attention being paid by the media to this incredibly massive looming potential problem and our economy. When they say that it's just one big bet on AI. Like, policymakers are just sort of like using AI as a bucket catch all for any sort of problem that they see in the economy. So if they're worried about the debt and the depths of the, oh, you know, once we get AI, like that's going to reduce costs, we're going to be able to figure it out. Or if they're worried about sticky inflation. So, well, AI is going to increase productivity, so we don't have to worry about that. Every problem we're falling behind in terms of like research and development. We're not what we used to be in terms of being the technological juggernaut. Oh, I'll fix that as well. Like it's this incredible wish casting placed on this technology, which is unproven at this point at best, and which has not demonstrated, you know, the basic ability even to be profitable at any of these companies.
- [10:29]
Krystal Ball
What also scares me is if I take a look at that piece and I say that every sector from utility to industrial to healthcare to banks, is faring in the rest of the world. In the us what happens if we get into a serious war? Look at Russia. You think they have AI in Russia? Oh yeah. You know what they have? Defense, industrial base, a shitload of oil. That's what matters. That's the actual thing that matters. That's how you have GDP growth even when the entire world is gonna cut you off. I mean, yes, China has an AI sector. They still have an unbelievable industrial sector. So many different potentials that are coming out in the real world. That's actually manufacturing, building products on top of financialization, which if you read about how they conceive of the economy, they think that compounding stock growth is bad for the elite and divorces you from the real world. This is a direct line from Xi Jinp. He said, hey, stocks, they don't need to grow that much. We're not into that. We're into the world of the real. That's what we focus on. And that's how we got here. This is, this is very, very scary stuff. Also, we talked a few days ago, I was with Ryan. Derek Thompson, Shout out did a fantastic interview and what he said actually is that because the only growth right now in the US economy is coming from AI, it means that all private Investment is flowing in that direction, which is directly then at the. It's a zero sum game, right? There's only a certain amount of money. Well, that amount of money is only going to go where? To the AI where the most compounding effects. So that means that let's say you're private equity giant or something like vc, anything. What you're going to invest in is where you're going to get the most return on your capital. Of course, that's your job. Well, that also means though that some guy who's running a construction firm, let's say he's built it to $100 million company, he wants to take it to a $2 billion company. Nobody's investing in that because the margins are not going to be the same as some data center stuff. Yeah, I was reading this morning. Let's go ahead and put a 3 please up on the screen. This OpenAI AMD deal. So I was reading about this. All right, so what happens is, is OpenAI and AMD have now, quote, announced a massive computing deal. New phase of the AI boom. The five year agreement will challenge Nvidia's market dominance and gives OpenAI 10% of AMD if it hits milestones for chip deployment. So the way that this is structured though is so crazy. So basically what happened is AMD was like, hey, OpenAI was like, we want X amount of chips. AMD goes, cool, give us $78 billion. And they say, well, how would you like to pay? I'm reading this from Matt Levine. He kind of writes up a script. Well, we were thinking we would announce a deal and that will just add 78 billion to the value of your company. That should cover it. And AMD is like, oh, you know, they go, you still have to pay. And they go, why? And they go, okay, why don't we pay you cash for the value of the chips? And then you have to give us that back in stock. And then when we announce the deal, the stock will go up and we'll get our 78 billion back. AMD goes, yeah, sure, let's do that. And so basically what happened is they gave them stock worth $35 billion. They took some cash, but then the value of the stock increased so much it basically covered the cost of the cash that was put in. So it's a complete circular game. And they just did this with Nvidia. I watched the same thing happen where Nvidia is like, we're gonna spend 150 billion and then the value of the stock goes more than 150 billion. Where is the reality? Where's the cat? Does this have anything to do with cash flow? No, it's just literally all expectations. And that's what's really scary about it. So put a 2 up on the screen just to underscore what you were talking about. There's a new Senate Democratic report. They said AI could erase some quote, 100 million US jobs, 89% of fast food, 64% of accounting, 47% of trucking all over the next 10 years. Keep in mind, truck in particular is what worries me because that's like one of the best ways for people who don't have anything more than a high school diploma to actually make some six figure income. And it's one of those where, look, you know, I'm not a Luddite, I'm not saying that all automation or anything is bad, but you obviously need to think about the disruptive effect of your economy. The promise is always, oh well, that'll create so much wealth that they'll figure out something else. Oh, we used to have, you know, people before the alarm clock, people would come and throw something at your window. You guys think I'm joking. These are the actual things the libertarians say. And they're not like wrong in a sense, but I'm like, yeah, I don't know, it seems a little different. It just seems a little bit different. And they're like, well, we used to have horse keepers when we all went around in ponies, but then the car opened up America. I'm like, just doesn't seem, it doesn't seem the same. That's just me. That's me. You can decide whether you think it.
- [14:59]
Saagar Enjeti
Is one to one just to hold on that. Because this is an argument that people genuinely make and it's a reasonable one. You look at the past and you're like, oh, there were all, all these concerns about the industrial revolution and all these concerns about the car, the automobile and all this technological displacement in the past. And it ended up that there was a period of transition and then there were new jobs that were opened up and it was all okay, so we're going to project from the past to the future and say it's all going to be okay. One of the things that is different is if we just use the example of the automobile. Well, the automobile was replacing horses. AI is meant to replace humans. That's what's different. Like this is not a technology to supplement human labor. By and large this, if you listen to what the creators themselves say, this is A tech that is meant to replace. You just go out and look at, I mean, just as one, like, you know, example here, apocryphal example, potentially this AI actress who, you know, who they designed this, like teen girl AI actress that apparently has agents lining up to work with her in major studios or interested in her or whatever. For capitalists. If you don't have someone who's gonna complain and has to go to the bathroom and is gonna get sick and gonna have kids and have to deal with their kids and gonna unionize or whatever, not having to deal with that, they're like, yes, great. That is their goal. And that's what makes the potential job displacement here, I think, so much different than what we've seen in the past and why you should take very seriously these sorts of numbers about the number of jobs that I could displace. And again, so, you know, that's if things go quote, unquote, well and AI lives up to its promise. If it doesn't live up to its promise, then we have this gigantic bubble and all of these billions, probably trillions of dollars that have been speculated on AI that is going to lead to some sort of a collapse. So it's such an incredibly perilous situation.
- [17:02]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [17:02]
Saagar Enjeti
And that's before we even get to like, you know, the immediate resource taxation of AI development. There's this article in the Wall Street Journal about Elon Musk's development outside of Memphis. We can put a 3 up on the screen here. And you know this, of course, they locate this gigantic data center. I think this is the one that he calls like the Colossus. Yeah, the Colossus 2 data center. Of course, it's located very close to these poor black communities in Memphis. The residents there have complained about the noise, they've complained about. They feel that there are toxins that in the air. Since this thing started to go up and you have reports across the country. This is actually something I'm worried about, of wells going dry because the AI centers use so much water. Of course, we've been really trying to focus here on the way that electricity prices are already going up in our home state of Virginia. 40% of energy generation already going to AI data centers in North Carolina. They're passing. They pass legislation to pass some of the costs from AI data center electricity onto consumers so that you are bearing the cost for this, even though you may not want it whatsoever. So the resource drain here entailed in these things is just like, you can't even wrap your head around it. The amount of electricity that these things require is equivalent to, like, large cities. It's absolutely insane.
- [18:27]
Krystal Ball
Let me just underscore that labor crews hired by Musk Xai were excavating power equipment on site, preparing to build a new plant capable of generating over a gigawatt of electricity, which was enough to power 800,000 homes. But that just shows you that you're going to need enough power for 800,000 homes in the city of Memphis. Yeah, and that's how much that they're already planning before. Before they even have to draw from the grid. I actually think that types of investment like this need to be a municipal demand. So this is where I've gotten a lot of pushback from a lot of these AI people who are like, you shouldn't be advocating for censorship on the grid. You should be advocating for more power. I'm like, where have you been, bro? I'm the biggest nuclear guy that there is. Shut. You know, shut up. But if that's the case, then you people, if you're gonna make all this money, then you need to invest massively in the. It should be a municipal demand. If you come in, what's your power projection? You're building a power plant that is going to, at the very least, take care of some 75 to 80% of that. And so there's gonna be some sort of tax levied to make sure that all of this extra electricity that you're demanding is going into, let's say, nuclear energy project, whatever, more oil and gas. I don't care where it comes from. It just needs to make sure that it's not being offset on the consumer. Because the alternative is that right now they're pretending to invest in some of this power generation. But as we all know, guys, power projects take years to come online. It takes them six, seven years to make a new nuclear reactor site. That's even if you get the permits, which none of them have ever materialized more recently. So in the interim, what's gonna happen? I have read that in some municipalities there is a increased Data center specific 267% electricity bill to people, to consumers. 267%. If you're on a fixed income or if you are a suburban household that is devastating to your monthly nut. I mean, just think about that. It's like gas price, for example. If there was a 267% increase there, you have to pay it. I mean, you know, you can only cut so much whenever it comes to, you know, turning the lights off or any of that. That's not going to do very much when you have such a massive increase. That is what worries me the most. And actually the politically things are going in the opposite direction where in fact the state legislators are all getting paid off by Amazon and Google and all these other people, Nvidia. And they're like, oh, it's going to create, you know, 10,000 new jobs. I'm like, yeah, construction jobs in the interim. Great. I don't bemoan that. I think it's fine. But how is that going to roll into the rest of the economy? What are those types of jobs? Are they actually gonna be distributed? Because it seems to me that the absolute vast majority of the profit keeps rolling up to the Oracles, to the Larry Ellisons, to the Elon Musk, to Amazon and to all these other folks. And we don't see how any of this is actually materializing yet in the real world. Let's put a 4 up on the screen if you want to know where money sees opportunity. What was I Talking about earlier? BlackRock is on the verge of buying, quote aligned Data Centers, a massive data center construction company, a deal valued at some $40 billion. That is the value prop that they see in just data center construction. And if BlackRock owns it, that means the money is not going to you, it's going to private investors. Let's go to the next part here. And this is about the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission that has voted to let BlackRock buy a company that actually runs Minnesota Power. More Perfect Union did a segment on it. Let's take a listen.
- [21:53]
Alyssa Jean Schaefer
BlackRock bought global infrastructure Partners, which is a big investment fund that itself buys up things like water and waste systems, transportation companies and even large shares of entire airports. If you've flown in or out of London, congratulations. You're probably a customer of GIP. So BlackRock owns global infrastructure Partners, which is trying to buy Elite, which owns Minnesota Power, which owns infrastructure like power plants, dams and the land they're on. Usually when private equity and asset managers buy stuff, they just do it behind closed doors. But because people would literally die without power, it's considered a critical service and therefore a regulated monopoly under Minnesota law.
- [22:27]
Krystal Ball
BlackRock doesn't necessarily have the same amount of reporting responsibilities as a publicly traded corporation. We've had a lack of transportation transparency already regarding our rates and the quality of services in our community. And superior that ability to access that data would be decreased by the purchase, which would be a huge problem.
- [22:49]
Alyssa Jean Schaefer
The community has made it clear that they oppose the deal and a judge has already recommended against it. But it doesn't end there. The final approval is going to come from the Public Utility Commission, a board made up of just five people appointed by the governor. This could have huge implications for anyone who uses basic utilities like electricity or water. That is the things that keep us from freezing to death in the woods. Because if they realize it's profitable, nothing will stop them. And this kind of thing has happened before in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with a power company called upco. This is Alyssa Jean Schaefer, the director of climate and energy at the Private Equity Stakeholder Project.
- [23:20]
Advertisement Voice
If we look at Northern Michigan, there's a utility called the upper Peninsula Power Company, or UPCO. This was acquired by a private equity firm in 2014.
- [23:32]
Krystal Ball
UPCO customers have seen a spike in their rates many say they can't afford. After the private equity firm took it.
- [23:37]
Advertisement Voice
Over shortly thereafter, they raised the bills. A couple of years later, bills went up again. Then that private equity firm sold it to a different private equity firm. Once the new private equity owners were in control, they raised bills again.
- [23:51]
Krystal Ball
Since 2014, UPCO, being owned by private.
- [23:54]
Advertisement Voice
Equity has seen four bill hikes.
- [23:56]
Krystal Ball
And where do you think that that's going and to whose benefit? You can see exactly how it's all happening and I mean the fakery of it. As I describ in that OpenAI AMD deal, it just seems very key and I just think we all have to just grapple with again. For what? To what benefit? I hear all the time about productivity gains in the white collar workplace. Great. I'm against meetings, I'm against bulletins and all this list. Nobody more than me. I don't know how the slackers out there are all doing it. And I don't mean that you are a slacker. I'm saying physically.
- [24:24]
Saagar Enjeti
Are people on a slack channel?
- [24:26]
Krystal Ball
On slack channels for people who can bug you at any hour of the day.
- [24:32]
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- [25:36]
Krystal Ball
All I know is what I've been told and that to have Truth is.
- [25:39]
Maggie Freeling
A Whole Lie for almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [25:56]
Krystal Ball
I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.
- [25:59]
Maggie Freeling
We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.
- [26:08]
Krystal Ball
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.
- [26:15]
Maggie Freeling
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
- [26:25]
Krystal Ball
I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.
- [26:30]
Saagar Enjeti
They literally made me say that I.
- [26:32]
Krystal Ball
Took a match and struck and threw it on her.
- [26:34]
Saagar Enjeti
They made me say that I poured gas on her.
- [26:38]
Maggie Freeling
From Lava For Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.
- [26:49]
Krystal Ball
America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [26:58]
Maggie Freeling
Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava For Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
- [27:19]
Jonathan Goldstein
I'm Jonathan Goldstein and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken how can.
- [27:26]
Krystal Ball
One year old woman fall in love again?
- [27:33]
Jonathan Goldstein
And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old.
- [27:38]
Krystal Ball
And so I pointed the gun at him and said this isn't a joke. And he got down. And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like okay, this is power.
- [27:48]
Jonathan Goldstein
Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother try to solve my problems through hypnotism.
- [27:54]
Krystal Ball
We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time, being more able to look people in the eye, not always hide behind a microphone.
- [28:02]
Jonathan Goldstein
Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [28:15]
Krystal Ball
You Also see the consumer side effect of this where it's unscrupulous and it's crazy. So friend of the show, Seth Harp, put this up here on the screen. Craziness. So he shows that people on Amazon have AIed his book and are selling it there, I guess either pulling the text from Google Books or something like that, and they're able to set up some sort of drop ship where you have an AI knockoff of the book versus the genuine piece. As he says here, quote, we need to rise up and stop the tech industry by force. Our livelihoods, our culture and our ecological environment are worth fighting for. I am deadly serious. I like his energy. But what he points out is that his book actually explicitly states that he has a copyright proviso. It cannot, according to his copyright, be fed into AI systems. But instead, what's happened is somehow somebody's been able to do that and they've been able to explode everywhere online. And what I think also is very crazy is that this is just one of the more high profile examples. Because the Fort Bragg cartel was such a popular book, I saw other authors show that their books also had, quote, AI competitors. When you search for it, you also had this instance where immediately after the whole Charlie Kirk thing happened, that there were these weird. There were these weird books that started going everywhere, like in terms of biographies of Charlie.
- [29:38]
Saagar Enjeti
So we thought even some that were like, everything we know about Charlie Kirk's assassination that popped up like, like, you know, immediately because some AI entrepreneur, quote unquote fraudster really saw the opportunity, saw that there was a lot of public interest, and just said to, you know, ChatGPT or whatever, write me a book about what we know on Charlie Kirk's murder. Spun that thing up immediately and instantly it's up on Amazon. Exactly. It's insane.
- [30:06]
Krystal Ball
Let's go and put that on the screen, can we? It is a eight, please, just to show everybody so you can see. These AI slot books about Charlie Kirk's assassination ignited conspiracy theories online. Like you just said about Psyops. I mean, look, this is my biggest concern and in fact, what we have talked about with Sora, the amount of AI videos that are now just explicitly going viral about, you know, there's the famous ones that are boomers, but I saw a few yesterday. People send them to me now because they know that I'm interested. And it's like a woman trying to save her son from a crocodile getting eaten. It's uncanny valley where I can tell. But I mean, no offense to our older audience but if you're like 50 or 60, I could see how you fall. They have tens of thousands of views. They're going everywhere. And the reason why they churn this stuff out is because they can churn an unbelievable amount of slop. If even a couple go viral, let's say it can cover the cost of what the generation is. And then you do that at scale forever. It's a classic content business where they only need a few of these things, you know, to actually to go viral. I've seen.
- [31:08]
Saagar Enjeti
Apparently this is like all. I'm not really on Facebook, but apparently this is like most of what Facebook is at this point. Because that's where the boomers congregate.
- [31:15]
Krystal Ball
That's right.
- [31:16]
Saagar Enjeti
So they would be vulnerable to it. And it's just like AI slop generated by fake AI accounts served to other fake eye, fake AI accounts that you know. Then some percentage of boomers are also taken in by. I myself enjoy a good cat video. I was watching some cat video talks yesterday and I realized I was like, I don't know if this is real or not. I mean, it's pretty low stakes when you're talking about a cat video. But when you're talking about something serious which any of us could imagine, a political figure or whatever, then it's a different deal. It's very destabilizing for our shared understanding of reality. And it's already good enough that we're at that point. Even though a trained eye can tell most of the real from the fake.
- [32:02]
Krystal Ball
Exactly. And let's continue here. A8C, please. This was from Robin Williams daughter. I thought it was actually such a nice message where she says, quote, please stop sending me AI videos of dad. If you have any decency, stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone, even full stop. It's dumb. It's a waste of time and energy. Believe me, it is not what he would want to watch the legacies of real people be content down to this vaguely looks and sounds like him so that his. So that's enough. Just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop. Puppeteering them is maddening. You are not making art. You are making disgusting over processed hot dogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music and then shoving them down someone else's throat hoping they will give you a little thumbs up and like it's gross. And for the love of everything, stop calling quote it the future AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be reconstumed you are taking in the human centipede of content and from the very, very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume. So that is from Robin Williams daughter Zelda. Really appreciate that from her. And at the same time, we talked about China earlier. We weren't able to cover this bridge. But there's this new video going out and going massively viral for the right reasons. It's not AI. China has now officially opened the world's tallest bridge. They did it in less than four years. The bridge has a restaurant at the top, 2,600ft above the river. The bridge cuts a two hour drive to two minutes. Features a theme park with a glass skywalk, a high speed glass elevator and a waterfall. Off of the top of the bridge, visitors can bungee jump off of it. The Grand Canyon Bridge is 2,050ft above the river and spans 4,600ft across. The quote, insane. And you can see beautiful.
- [33:53]
Saagar Enjeti
That is the waterfall features.
- [33:55]
Krystal Ball
It must be nice to live in a real country. You know, last time that we were doing stuff like this was when Hoover Dam. That was over almost 100 years ago. By the way, if you've ever been to Hoover Dam, it's pretty awesome.
- [34:03]
Saagar Enjeti
People are making the comparison to the bridge that was knocked down by the ship in Baltimore and how long it will take for them. I mean, I think they have started construction, which is actually pretty good for America's standards. But it's going to be years and years before that thing is complete. And that's just, you know, a basic aspiration. I mean, look, it's an extraordinary modern marvel, etc. But it's also like nothing special in the grand scheme of bridges. And that will take much longer than the four years apparently that they were able to construct this in. And that's not all. Some incredible scientific breakthroughs coming out of China that we would be remiss if we didn't mention. Let's put a 11 up on the screen. So they apparently have been able to innovate in terms of potential anti aging. Chinese scientists achieve a breakthrough in reverse aging in primates. They've demonstrated that genetically engineered human stem cells can reverse key signs of aging in monkeys. And these were, you know, monkeys very similar to humans, marking a major step toward potential therapies for age related decline in humans. This is one development that our friend Arnaud Bertrand looked into and said, yeah, looks pretty legit and pretty potentially transformational. They also recently developed this bone glue. This is a 10 that we can put up on the screen that, you know, instead of if you have these micro fractures and complex procedures that you'd have to do requiring like screws and metal plates and all the rest, they've developed this bone glue that repairs bone fractures. They say in just three minutes. Another one that Arnaud Bertrand looked into and said, man, looks pretty legit. So that's what they're up to now. They are also in on the AI race. Yeah. So you know. Yeah, deep seek. Among other. They're also not the only Chinese competitor in the AI development race. But it's not apparently what their entire economy is based on, as is ours.
- [35:54]
Krystal Ball
The point is, is that they can have all of the above because they have the real stuff. They have actual, you know, functioning government. They have a plan. It comes with a lot of trade offs. Okay. You know, always be remiss if we didn't say there are a lot of trade offs. But I have to be honest, it is looking, you know, it is challenging the Western conception of itself on a daily basis. They are like the Japanese of the 1900s, which could prove that you could leap a single generation and you could catch up to the west. And in many cases you can actually do it a lot better than them. But with a system which is completely foreign, completely in some ways either antithetical or different to whatever is actually happening, you know, with the so called like amazing creative destruction. And instead it's entirely state powered, it's state sponsored, and it's just the sheer force of will. It also, what we have to note is it explains that weird hot mic moment between Putin and Xi Jinping talking about organ transplants and immortality. So maybe Xi was in on this anti aging secret. Let's relive that for people who haven't seen it. In the past, people rarely lived longer than 70 years. But today they say that at 70 you were still a child.
- [37:06]
Saagar Enjeti
Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you.
- [37:12]
Krystal Ball
Become and can even achieve immortality. The two of them talking about immortality. Maybe she was in on this. But you know, people saw. I mean, even I said, I was like, oh, it's kind of like a God complex. I'm like, maybe it's just reality. Maybe that's what the world super rich and especially the leader of one of the most developing countries in the world can look at and can say, no, this is actually going to happen, happen in my lifetime. But I think you just put it together and you put their, you put their production, their economic structure, their values, and then you look at ours and you're like, come on, what are we doing here? I mean, they would never allow themselves to be in a situation where some 80% of their entire growth is attributed in their stock market to a single sector of the economy. Same with their GDP growth. Now look again, I've said they had a lot of problems. In fact, that book I just read by like Dan Wang, these bridges, they're obsessed with these bridges. It's like everything is about infrastructure. It's almost New Deal esque. You know the Civilian Conservation Corps, they're like, just go and build rest stops. Who cares if anybody uses them? But I mean, there's something there. The point actually, I think for them is to project the legitimacy of the state outside of Beijing, Shanghai, Guang, like the big cities, they have to go out into the rural areas and be like, I tangibly am making your life better. You used to literally have to go two hours on some mountain path. I just built you a big ass bridge. People are gonna come from all over China to come in to see it and it's awesome. And they do that with train stations, rural train stations, everywhere, all across. Even if people don't use them just to show people the government's here, we're here to help. We have made your life better. You are living in the 21st century. Even if you used to live in a backwater, what we would have considered it. I mean, there's something there, right? In terms of legitimacy and projection. Sure, it's not purely capitalist or makes sense from an efficiency point of view, but it does from a more grand, strategic way of trying to disperse big growth and big projects all over the country. In some ways, that's what makes you more of a unified country. And of course they have division, they have all kinds of problems. But listen, I would like to have their problems personally. I would like to have that issue of too many bridges and too many infrastructure projects as opposed to, what are we saying? The Baltimore Bridge, which apparently is barely. We're not even on, on a projected timeline to finish all that quickly. How many potholes you and I drive here in Washington, D.C. area every day? It's a shithole. Like, it's a shithole and nobody does anything about it. And everybody's blaming each other. The metro, our, you know, our premier flagship city here in Washington over the last 10 years, it's gotten so much worse. Probably the same with a lot of different public transportation. I was.
- [39:45]
Saagar Enjeti
I mean, our government is literally shut down. Yeah, our government shut down and there's like no, no one even cares. No hope of it reopening anytime soon. Air travel is apparently slowed. I know there's smaller airports that have no air traffic control. That's the level of dysfunction that we're at in this country. And especially, I mean, especially when you have the crackdown in dissent now that's coming from this country as well. It's not like we can even be like, yeah, but at least we're free. At least we can say whatever we want. Oh, really? We're about to tell you about Bari Weiss taking over CBS News. So how's that going for us as well?
- [40:17]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, listen, should we transition?
- [40:19]
Saagar Enjeti
It's a good transition.
- [40:23]
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- [41:26]
Krystal Ball
All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half truth is a whole lie.
- [41:31]
Maggie Freeling
For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [41:47]
Krystal Ball
I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.
- [41:49]
Maggie Freeling
We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.
- [41:58]
Krystal Ball
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Kerr.
- [42:05]
Maggie Freeling
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer. And I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
- [42:15]
Krystal Ball
I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.
- [42:21]
Saagar Enjeti
They literally made me say that I.
- [42:22]
Krystal Ball
Took a match and struck and threw it on her.
- [42:24]
Saagar Enjeti
They made me say that I poured gas on her.
- [42:29]
Maggie Freeling
From lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.
- [42:39]
Krystal Ball
America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [42:48]
Maggie Freeling
Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season at AD free. Subscribe to Lava For Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
- [43:09]
Jonathan Goldstein
I'm Jonathan Goldstein. And on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart.
- [43:16]
Krystal Ball
How can 101-year-old woman fall in love again?
- [43:23]
Jonathan Goldstein
And I help a man atonement for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old.
- [43:29]
Krystal Ball
And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down. And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power.
- [43:39]
Jonathan Goldstein
Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism.
- [43:44]
Krystal Ball
We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're, like, super charming all the time, being more able to look people in the eye, not always hide behind a microphone.
- [43:53]
Jonathan Goldstein
Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [44:04]
Saagar Enjeti
Bari Weiss, now officially editor in chief over at CBS News. It is wild, like, just to reflect on who this person is and where she came from and what. I mean, she's like, you know, she was this opinion writer at the New York Times. She was at odds with her colleagues there and ends up leaving the Times after feeling some level of pressure starts the quote, unquote, Free Press. And now because, I mean, listen, it's because she will consistently toe the Zionist line. Like, it's very clear why she got the job. Now she's gonna be editor in chief over at cbs. So let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of her video from the main Free Press channel talking about what she is bringing to the table over there.
- [44:50]
Bari Weiss
This morning, the Free Press is joining Paramount. This move is a testament to many things. The Free Press team, the vision of Paramount's new leaders, the luck of starting an independent media company at just the right moment, and the courage of my colleagues to leave behind old worlds to build a new one. There is a market, a big one, for honest journalism, and you've given us a mandate to pursue that mission from an even bigger platform. I'm going to continue to lead this incredible community alongside my tireless team, remaining CEO and editor in chief of the Free Press and of course hosting this show. But as of today, I'll be taking on another title, too. I'm now editor in chief of CBS News, working with new colleagues on the programs that have impacted American culture for generations. Shows like 60 Minutes and Sunday Morning. And also shaping how millions of Americans read, listen, watch, and most importantly, understand the news in the 21st century.
- [45:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, so we got that. We also have her letter that she sent out to CBS News employees that we can put up on the screen. Dear colleagues, thrilled and humbled to be writing you this. As the new editor in chief of cbs. You can see the principles that she lays out that she says she will champion. Number one, journalism that reports on the world as it actually is. Journalism that is fair, fearless, factual, respects our audience to tell the truth, plainly makes sense of a noisy, confusing world, explains things clearly holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny, et cetera, et cetera. I want to revise a little bit what I said at the top, that she got the job just because she's an art Zionist. That's certainly part of it. Oh, it's a huge part of it. That's a huge part of it. But I think the best way to understand the free press and the role that they served, putting aside the pro Israel propaganda, which has become a central part of what they did, but wasn't initially prior to October 7th, they sort of do the same type of journalism that was being done at places like the Washington Post in peak woke era, where instead of punching up at power, they would find some random person who did something stupid and write a big story. Oh, my God. Can you believe this random person wore this Halloween costume? I remember that story. Yeah, right. They do the equivalent of that, but coming from the right. So not only do you.
- [47:09]
Krystal Ball
I wouldn't say it's from the right.
- [47:10]
Saagar Enjeti
But yeah, not only do they have the consistent commitment, like, you will never have a problem with Bari Weiss doing real journalism around Israel. That's not gonna happen. So not only do you have that consistent commitment, but you also have a commitment to always punching down and never really training your sights on power. Certainly not power when it comes to capital and money.
- [47:31]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [47:31]
Saagar Enjeti
So that's what you get, truly, with the Barry Weiss package. That is what you're buying. And so, you know, we made a lot of fun about their valuation. It ended up being bought for $150 million. Insane. Completely insane. But they're not really paying for the business. They're not really paying for. Certainly if you look at the YouTube channel, like this little video she made had like 18,000 views on it, which you would think would be a big announcement, and was one of the better performers on their channel compared to the rest of what they put out. What they're paying for is that protection of the elite and commitment to the Zionist ideological project.
- [48:06]
Krystal Ball
Let me triple down on that. And this is why people saying it's coming from the right are not understanding what's happening here. Barry Weiss is a basically traditional center left Zionist. That's what it is coded right wing very recently, but is actually a very explicit and comfortable part of the American elite. What she has done very expertly is tell extremely rich people what they want to hear. So, and this is. Everyone needs to really stick with this because what happened with the whole Barry Weiss saga is she got what, according to her, you know, forced out of the New York Times or whatever for speaking up against Wokeism. But the reality of her career is going to where the power is. So you have to give her some political entrepreneurial credit. She identified, remember the idw, the intellectual dark web of Rogan and Eric Weinstein and Sam Harris and all these people. She writes the big piece which coins the term in the New York Times. She cozies up to them to go on Rogan into the podcasters because she can see this alternative system kind of rising. Of course, her Rogan episode becomes one of the most viral disastrous moments in history with the whole Tulsi Gabbard toady remark, which has millions upon millions of views on YouTube, far more, I think, than the entire Free Press channel combined. Just putting that out there, if you haven't seen it. But the point is, is that at every moment, it's all about zeroing in on what can I do. So when it was very in vogue to be pro free speech or to code pro free speech, that's what she does. Then she focuses on the free press. The free press itself is basically anti woke leftism, which is the ideology of the super elite, which is you have these people, like the technology industry in particular, by the way, who all invested in the free press, not because they thought it was a good investment, but because it was an ideological project. So for them, they're like socially liberal and all of that, but they just really hate either Wokeism or they want to be able to stand up for, I don't know, like a better New York Times opinion page. Like, they think that that is the greatest thing, that is the thing. And that's where the quote punching down really starts to come from. It's not even really down it's just not at the top. And that's how you ingratiate yourself. And look at her career since the Free Press. She moved to Los Angeles. This is very key. She gets her name dropped in a Curb youb Enthusiasm episode because she's Larry David, really likes Barry Weiss. She was at the Bezos wedding. The way that this entire thing even came about is that what did she do? She ingratiated herself with the Ellison family, who of course this is like the classic example of Larry Ellison. Socially liberal, fiscally conservative, loves guys like Tim Scott in the Republican Party. And of course megazionist him and his son. She courts him. He brings her to the Allen Company meeting, right? Which is like the famous meeting where of the confab of the global super elite rich. And that's where this whole deal gets brokered. The Bezos thing, like I mentioned, it's all about ingratiating yourself to the people who are at the very, very top. And what they all got annoyed about was Wokeism. And in particular they got annoyed by journalism, which would challenge them. Now, a lot of that journalism was actually very annoying and stupid. Like you just talked about the Halloween costume or some Woke bullshit about how Mark Zuckerberg stole the election for Donald Trump because of Cambridge analytics, like a totally fake story. But that radicalized a lot of the tech elite to be able to buy into a critique of journalism, which doesn't really though actually get to the fundamental critique. Because the critique originally, let's say of the Zuckerberg thing is that you're focusing all this Cambridge Analytica and you're trying to control the censorship machine, but you're not actually focusing on the censorship machine itself or the conglomeration and the massive amounts of power. She has never once actually challenged anything powerful in the entire term of the free press, except for basically going after critics of Israel. And then you supercharge October 7th. On top of that. There is no world where this gets bought for 150 million after October 7th or before October 7th. It doesn't happen. Why? Because at the end of the day, this whole anti woke oh, publishing like vague critiques of the COVID regime, I'm like, I'm sorry, this is milqueto shit. In the days of the Internet, it's not courageous to, to publish a guy who said, oh, mask mandates were stupid. Right? People on YouTube have been saying that stuff for years. What it's really all about is about trying to trying some middle ground where it's kind of critiquing people in power and it's supposedly subversive because it's vaguely points and winks at some of the independent eras of the Internet and then kind of washing it together to make it more respectable. October 7th poured gasoline on that because as I just said, when you cozy up to the people in power, you fundamentally become kind of an arm of their interests. And in particular, a lot of the tech elite who backed her also happen to be megazionists themselves. And that's also a project which has been core to her conception since her very beginning in politics. And you marry that with, again, she speaks the language of the elite and of course is maga pro Israel and so can use her like, veneer of respectability to turn murdering mass amounts of Palestinian children into an intellectually defensible cause. Like that's what the entire thing is about.
- [53:28]
Saagar Enjeti
That's her real value Prop.
- [53:30]
Krystal Ball
Yes and no. Because at the same time, it's still so important for these mega tech titans and others who back her to also have her serve as like a punching bag or a puncher to all of their ideological opponents in the rest of the sphere.
- [53:45]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, part of what happened and why, I mean, I'm a little confused by how you're characterizing her politically. I mean, they threw like an inauguration party for Donald Trump. They hired Batya, they hired Abigail Shrier who's like, you know, anti trans lady. Like they've clearly anti trans, but, you know, that's what. And they've done.
- [54:02]
Krystal Ball
That is what the trans people would like to see.
- [54:04]
Saagar Enjeti
But they've done a lot of work in the sphere of questioning transgenderism. I guess we'll say that's not right wing, though. That's like, that is right wing.
- [54:14]
Krystal Ball
I mean, it may code that way.
- [54:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Today it is right wing, but. But in any case, free press really comes out of this like, sense of all these kids on college campuses are going too crazy. And to your point about the alignment with like the tech oligarchs, they were pissed off at their own employees for being like annoying on a variety of issues and wanting to, you know, wanting to castigate them and have it, yeah. Pronouns on the bi, like all that sort of stuff. And so that's why she's really part of this tech elite shift to the right on cultural issues in particular. And that is the role that she served for them. And then in addition to this, you know, her most consistent principle throughout her career, even starting when she was in college, is like commitment to Israel and cancellation on behalf of Israel. You know, this is the same lady who was all in on, oh, we're against wokeness, we're against cancel culture until it comes to Israel. And then she totally flips on a dime. So that's why I say the real benefit if we zoom out of the free press and of Barry Weiss's approach to quote unquote journalism is that you're never gonna have to worry that actual centers of power are going to be challenged. Whether that is with regard to Israel, whether that's regard to tech elite, whether that's regard to concentrations of capital. That is not what she's gonna focus on. That's not what her project is going to ultimately be. And so that's what you're getting for that.
- [55:36]
Krystal Ball
The reason why I wouldn't describe her as right wing is she's also one of the people to punch punch explicitly, let's say, at anybody talking about immigration. She's one of those people who would happily punch Biden on the border, but she'd be like, oh, but some of this stuff is just going way too far.
- [55:52]
Saagar Enjeti
But you agree with that.
- [55:53]
Krystal Ball
But you're talking about ice, I'm talking about actual calling for restriction. And she's always trying to kind of control. She's basically trying to gatekeep a lot of the right wing. I'm not trying to do that, by the way. And one of the things is that, that she uses a lot of this kind of concern, trolling around norms and the establishment, et cetera, to explicitly push a very neoconservative agenda both on Israel and on Iran. That's why, you know, the neoliberals themselves, Barry's a perfect example. Pro Israel is supposedly right wing. I mean, look, I'm not bringing her personal life into this to denigrate her. I'm saying she is personally a lesbian, right? And so this is somebody who I, at least I'm assuming has some socially liberal values, right? And traditionally has been quote of the left by her own admission. The only reason it codes right today for a variety of culture war reasons. But what a lot of people who kind of share my politics is really view that as a takeover of what a lot of the more populist energy really was in the American right wing. And so really what we have seen is kind of this sane oligarch or this like Zionist oligarch, washing and trying to turn themselves into like the true of the Trump agenda or even anything that even resembles what the issue set was for a lot of people to even Trump back Trump in 2016 and again here. But all of it does come back to basically being a social staple of the world's super elite and being their go to person. Van Jones is another example. Like, you have a variety of these types of characters. I would say Bill Maher is one of them, although I guess he does have his own audience. Van Jones, Barry Weiss. I'm trying to think of a few Thomas Friedman, Tyler Cowan, who we'll get to here in a little bit, guys who are just absolutely beloved by somebody with a net worth somewhere around 5 billion and up. I will never understand it, but it's one of those things that really speaks to them and that's why the Zionism is a big part of it. But it's not really the whole story because it really is about ingratiating yourself with very powerful people, telling them exactly what they want to hear and then kind of doing their bidding and setting it up so that you get a world historic payday from one of the richest men's son in the world. Right. And from David Ellison. That's what it's about. And that's actually why it's a grift. Because you can see I was pro.
- [58:08]
Saagar Enjeti
Freestyle, very successful one.
- [58:09]
Krystal Ball
And I was, of course, yeah, I love being called a grifter. I'm like, oh, really? Who's the grifter? The lady who sets this thing up and sells it off for 150 million? 1 of the most bullshit valuations in media history, or the guy who's out here begging people for $10 a month on YouTube. Okay, all right, that's not. And I didn't pay. You know, unlike the free press, who supposedly has all these great business things, they spent so much money trying to get people to sign up for their subscription program. You know, because Peace Guy is a publicly traded company. I would love to see their financials, like the actual real financials, the amount of money put in the burn and whether they were making any money at all. I would be willing to bet it was in the rain red whenever they bought it. But I mean, it doesn't matter because some idiot will buy it.
- [58:53]
Saagar Enjeti
But yeah, there you go. Well, the Tao has some reporting B3 we can put up on the screen. As you might suspect, CBS News insiders are like, what the fuck is going on here? And very leery of what is to come. And by the way, just so you know, we're not speculating, you could have a B4 up on the screen. Glenn Greenwald highlighted this Haaretz article. He says Israeli newspaper Haaretz understands what's happening and why Barry Weiss appointed editor in chief of CBS News. And then the subhead says Weiss is a staunch supporter of Israel and her journalism often circles back to her Jewish identity. You know, it's not speculation that a big part of the tumult at CBS has to do with Israel. In particular, we know with regard to 60 Minutes, you know they did an actually like really great piece on Gaza. It was, it was belated, et cetera, but they did it. And apparently Sherry Redstone's very upset about this. Like this was a, a significant and this is reported on part of what they were upset with in terms of the direction of cbs. So Barry is brought in to correct the course in their view of the direction they're heading. And here's to get back to what Sagar and I were saying about what is the free press, what have they been up to? I mean, here's some examples of what they were up to. Can be five up on the screen. They did this piece called the Gaza Famine Myth. They did the piece about how well really, you know these kids that the media is portraying as starving to death. Well really they have these other conditions. So it's not fair to say that Israel is starving them because they have these pre existing conditions. First of all, there are plenty of other kids who have been highlighted or literally died from starvation that don't fit that model. Second of all, it is no revelation of course whatsoever that people who are vulnerable, who have preexisting conditions are going to be the one ones who are most vulnerable in a state imposed famine. So that's the type of work that they have been doing on behalf of the Zionist project.
- [60:49]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, and that's just. And see, that's what was a big part of the value proposition. And I'm not a huge defender of CBS News. They published a lot of stupid shit over the years. By the way, one of the things I hate most about the network news thing is that they get all kinds of preferential treatment and ad rates that prop up their failing business. I wish they would be able to compete with us on a normal market. But we also wanted to pull some of the non Israel stuff that these people are buying. This is the compelling content that will now be available to the entire nation via network news. Let's take a listen.
- [61:22]
Saagar Enjeti
Anthony Bourdain broke How a Generation of Men Eat. The cult of personality he left in his wake is frankly insufferable. A lot of what we're seeing in food culture, chef culture today has its roots, roots in the type of eating and journalism. Anthony Bourdain did. Bourdain treated ordering soup like a search and rescue mission. And now every man thinks they have to spelunk into some cave in order to get a bowl of pho. And unless they do, they're not really having dinner. Everyone just needs to calm down, take a step back, enjoy the slice of pizza or burger you're eating. It's not that deep.
- [61:56]
Krystal Ball
It's not that deep, says Barry's sister there in her compelling cultural content. That's some of the stuff that you're missing out on if you haven't in a Free Press subscriber.
- [62:06]
Saagar Enjeti
$150 million value right there.
- [62:08]
Krystal Ball
That's your $150 million.
- [62:09]
Saagar Enjeti
You're bringing a lot of value to this.
- [62:10]
Krystal Ball
We also have a great one here from our friend Griffin, who has flagged this. Let's put B8 up here on the screen. This is about Tyler Cowen, who I mentioned, writing about how his favorite actress is not human. Tilly Norwood doesn't need a hairstylist, has no regrettable tweets. And if you wish to see a virgin on screen, this is one of your better chances. That's because she's rights.
- [62:37]
Saagar Enjeti
If you wish to see a virgin on screen. Kay, okay.
- [62:42]
Krystal Ball
All right, got it.
- [62:45]
Saagar Enjeti
Interesting, interesting take there.
- [62:47]
Krystal Ball
That's what the great journalism over at Free Press is. And then finally, this is one of my favorites.
- [62:52]
Saagar Enjeti
I do have to say it was pretty fearless for them to publish that, I guess.
- [62:56]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, certainly fearless indeed. This is one of my other favorites. We've talked a lot about Olivia Rheingold here. She's the lady who wrote that.
- [63:03]
Saagar Enjeti
Friend of the show.
- [63:05]
Krystal Ball
Friend of the show, Olivia, who by the way, you all know, obsessively watches the show because it's one of those people who Googles her own name and her Google alert set for them. And so Olivia is one of the. She's the woman who wrote that piece about the Gaza starvation myth. Right. Or the Gaza about how all of the children who were used in photos had pre existing conditions. That was her thing as to why people in Gaza weren't actually starving. I just want to give everyone to a view of the psychopathology of some of the people here. This is a multi essay tweet that Olivia put out around that she joined The Free Press January 8, 28th, 2025, about how being half Jewish has been the most painful experience of her entire life. And she goes on and on and on about the absolute pain of being half Jewish and not being considered Jewish enough to be Jewish by some American Jews and Barat mitzvahing and the convert, et cetera, and how eventual her journey to the religion. This isn't to make fun of somebody's religious journey. It's only to show you the psychopathology, again, of the type of individual who gets hired over at the Free Press. Because I looked into Rheingold's career, and again, this is the journalistic standard that is now happening over at CBS News. She's gonna be the editor in chief. Olivia Reingold was the podcast producer for Matt Iglesias. She was a podcast producer over at Politico, had never written in her bio on the Free Press. It makes it seem like she came from Politico. She never wrote a fucking story. Not one. All right? And so I'm looking through, and look, not to shame podcast producers, our podcast producer is great. I'm sure he'd be doing a lot better job than her. But I bet you if he were hired somebody else, let's say Griffin or Mac were hired someone else, they would not try and play it off as if they were here, like, let's say, hosting the show. Although I guess in Griffin's case, even.
- [64:58]
Saagar Enjeti
As he does hosting, he does host.
- [64:59]
Krystal Ball
Shows as part of the show. So it's like they were genuinely more qualified. And then she comes over and is like, I left Politico because of their horrible journalists. I'm like, bitch, you never wrote a story. What are we talking about here? You never even written a byline, and now you're some Gaza famine expert. She's the same lady who did the thing where she's like, I read every single one of Zoran Mamdani's. What was it, 30,000 tweets? It's called journalism. Again, no wonder that's what you think journalism is. You've never had a real journalism job. What are we talking about? So that's the standard. So if you can painfully tweet about your journey of being half Jewish and emotionally trying to put this out there as some weird. I don't even know what the hell was going on with that. And then also recently went to the Columbia Journalism bookstore and was like, they're selling Qurans. Oh, yeah.
- [65:49]
Saagar Enjeti
And people were like, oh, I forgot about that one.
- [65:51]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, it's on the syllabus.
- [65:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And she showed some other books that were about, like, I don't know, slavery or something. Oh, my gosh. Can you believe that students at Columbia are getting educated on world religion? Like what?
- [66:02]
Krystal Ball
I don't know. Yes.
- [66:03]
Saagar Enjeti
Shocker.
- [66:03]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. Absolute Shocker. You know, the funny thing is people actually looked at the University of Austin, which is that whole Bari Weiss disaster. The anti woke university. They have the Quran on their syllabus. Okay. So yeah, it's like, well, Barry's university thinks the Quran is worth teaching, but according to Olivia, it's not. This is the standards of what is now gonna be acceptable over at cbs. And what's even crazier is that Barry will report directly to David Ellison just to make sure everybody knows what this whole thing is about. The new editor in chief is reporting directly to the owner of the entire company. And the reason why is because it all needs to come back to, you know, what he thinks is important not only for his own bottom line. It couldn't be more obvious.
- [66:45]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, in addition to CBS News, for anybody that isn't like totally whatever line that he wants.
- [66:50]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. Look, again, I'm not defending cbs. I think they've published a lot of stupid shit over the years. I'm not saying they were in any way some great, amazing journalistic institution.
- [66:59]
Saagar Enjeti
60% was pretty good.
- [67:01]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, but that's not all. 16 minutes, right?
- [67:03]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [67:03]
Krystal Ball
There's a lot of other people who work.
- [67:04]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I know, but I'm just saying, like, to defend some of the work that they were doing.
- [67:07]
Krystal Ball
They've done some of the work.
- [67:08]
Saagar Enjeti
The point is just that you can make it a lot worse.
- [67:10]
Krystal Ball
And so my point is, if you wanted to fix it, is this how you would fix it? Because that's their theory. Is that the theory of what's gone wrong apparently over at cbs is that it's not pro Israel enough. Even though the previous owner literally was one of the has said since selling it that being pro Israel is like one of the most important things to her and to promoting the cause of Zionism. And you put it all together. And in particular also with the way this entire merger all went down, where do you think things are gonna go, folks? Yeah. So you have a preview there of who she likes to hire her own relatives to produce some Anthony Bourdain style slop content. Olivia Rheingold, who never apparently had written a real story before joining over at the Free Press. And Tyler Cowen to talk about Virgin.
- [67:56]
Saagar Enjeti
AI Baghdad Batya to defend things that are indefensible. The Trump regime. Got it. Yeah. I think there also is one other element which is we talked about this a little bit with Bryland Hollyhand. I think she also, because she's below the age of 60 and she has an Internet thing that there's Also this sense of like, she'll help us bring back the young people.
- [68:19]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [68:19]
Saagar Enjeti
But it's what she, the role she serves is as like convincing older people that she has some finger on the pulse of young people.
- [68:27]
Krystal Ball
Even though that's also definitely true. Yeah, very, very, very true. So anyway, that is our long take there. It's Zionism, it's power, it's capital. It's about telling very rich people exactly what they want to hear. And it is a great way to get paid. So I guess congratulations, congratulations to all of them and to everybody else who has this, you know, CBS this Morning and all that stuff in your house. Now you know where a lot of it is coming from.
- [68:51]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [68:51]
Krystal Ball
Let's get to Venezuela.
- [68:54]
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- [69:57]
Krystal Ball
All I know is what I've been told and that to have truth is a whole lie.
- [70:02]
Maggie Freeling
For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [70:18]
Krystal Ball
I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.
- [70:21]
Maggie Freeling
We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.
- [70:29]
Krystal Ball
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.
- [70:36]
Maggie Freeling
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
- [70:47]
Krystal Ball
I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.
- [70:52]
Saagar Enjeti
They literally made me say that I.
- [70:53]
Krystal Ball
Took a match and struck and threw it on her.
- [70:55]
Saagar Enjeti
They made me say that I poured guests on her.
- [71:00]
Maggie Freeling
From Lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.
- [71:10]
Krystal Ball
America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [71:19]
Maggie Freeling
Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or we're wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
- [71:41]
Jonathan Goldstein
I'm Jonathan Goldstein and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart.
- [71:47]
Saagar Enjeti
How can a hundred and one year old woman fall in love again?
- [71:54]
Jonathan Goldstein
And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old.
- [72:00]
Krystal Ball
And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down. And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power.
- [72:10]
Jonathan Goldstein
Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism.
- [72:15]
Krystal Ball
We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time, being more able to look people in the eye, not always hide behind a microphone.
- [72:24]
Jonathan Goldstein
Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [72:36]
Krystal Ball
Turning now to Venezuela, Absolutely massive news here from the New York Times. Let's go ahead and put this up here on the screen. Quote, Trump has now called off all diplomatic outreach to Venezuela. The move paves the way for a possible military escalation against drug traffickers or the government of Nicolas Maduro. So let's I'm gonna read portions of this just so everybody understands how batshit crazy it all is. Quote, President Trump has called off efforts to reach diplomatic agreement with Venezuela. Rick Grenell, who had been leading negotiations with Maduro and other top Venezuelan officials. But during a meeting with senior military leaders on Thursday, Trump called Grinnell and instructed him all diplomatic outreach, including talks with Maduro, is to stop. Trump has grown frustrated with Maduro's failure to accede to American demands to give up power voluntarily and continued insistent by Venezuelan officials that they have no part in drug trafficking. American officials have said the Trump administration has now drawn up multiple military plans for escalation. Those operations could also include plans to force Mr. Maduro from power. Marco Rubio, the secretary of State, has called Maduro, quote, an illegitimate leader and repeatedly cited U.S. indictment of him him on drug trafficking charges. This is insane. This is Completely insane. Did you read that headline?
- [73:55]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [73:56]
Krystal Ball
The paragraph said, Mr. Trump has grown frustrated at Maduro's decision not to accede to demands to step down from power. What? Yeah, so we're just calling, hey, you gotta go, man. And he's like, no. And they're like, okay, fine, we're just gonna force you out. Why? Because allegedly you're involved in drug trafficking. I mean, look, maybe, but at the end of the day, in terms of the whole drug trafficking thing, as we have covered here on the show, it's like 7% of all the cocaine in the United States. It's nothing. You wanna look at a government complicit in cocaine trafficking, it's called Mexico. Do we do anything about it? No, because it's the number one trading partner with the US and it's a big problem.
- [74:33]
Saagar Enjeti
All right, you wanna look at a government complicit in drug trafficking? Look at ourselves. And talk to Seth Harp about the war in Afghanistan. Okay? We're gonna be super real here. No, I mean, I. I think people can't wrap their heads around how crazy this is because they just can't accept that this is actually happening. But it really is happening. All of the attacks on these boats that they tell us are drug smugglers, but they offer zero evidence of that. And by the way, the widow of one of the people that was murdered on one of these Venezuela boats says he was just a fisherman.
- [75:07]
Krystal Ball
Maybe she's lying. Nobody knows.
- [75:09]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, but they rob. There's no reason to trust this government. Right. And we know, as you've pointed out, as statistics show, like, that would be very unlikely that a boat would be coming from Venezuela with drugs. That's just not really the way that the drug trafficking goes. Does some drugs transit through Venezuela? Yes. Do they get put on these small boats with 11 people on them, by the way, as one of them was very, very, very unlikely. In any case, all of this is a buildup to a regime change war. You have Marco Rubio in there who's been horny for this war for forever. So that's a major part of this. You have Trump. And I want people to understand this too. This isn't just about Venezuela. Trump's efforts to classify drug traffickers as terrorists and as enemy combatants, obviously they're drug traffickers here in the US and so if you are saying we are at war with these people and these are enemy combatants, guess what then, yeah, you don't have to go through due process. You just can murder them and say, oh, well, they were terrorists. Drug trafficker, enemies of the state. So it opens up Pandora's box in terms of the power of this administration, not to mention the way they are very clearly. I mean, this is the most clear indication that they're marching us along the path to a direct regime change effort here.
- [76:26]
Krystal Ball
And no, people, I mean, look, credit to the times, they broke the story. Although I will say, having dealt with some of this stuff in the past, let's just say that a lot of people who are against this are gonna be leaking like hell against Marco Rubio. I know some of the interpersonal dynamics that are involved here. Rubio himself is the most powerful White House official. This is where I wanna stick on. And this is the danger. And you can roll. I talked about Venezuela exactly whenever he was appointed I was like, guys, this is dangerous. Because the cope I got was he's changed his tune on Ukraine, he's changed his tune. And I go, yeah, maybe, but what about the issue areas which Trump doesn't care about, like Venezuela? I actually think I said that on the Lex Friedman podcast. Here we are now here today, Trump doesn't care about Venezuela to the extent that he did. He cares about some win against the drug traffickers. So Rubio dresses up something about how it's actually Maduro is involved in drug trafficking. And Trump is like, yeah, okay, let's go. Right? And now he's like, yeah, we've gotta have a win down there. And he somehow convinced himself that knocking Maduro out of power is gonna be some grand amazing thing that can be very easily done, apparently by the United States military. This is a fantasy. Remember, Rubio himself and the entire South Florida community has been obsessed with Venezuela for their own personal expatriate reasons. That is the only reason. All right? Not for the rest of us. It's like the old Cuba politics, except now apply to Venezuela. Those people have been salivating over regime change in Venezuela now for years. And what they have done is that their representative, Marco Rubio, who previously tweeted a picture of Maduro next to Muammar Gaddafi, is that they explicitly want violent US backed regime change. Which of course is only gonna make Maduro do what? Dig in, wouldn't you? If that's what happened to you. And this is the context of all of these strikes, because none of it makes any sense if you're thinking about drug trafficking. If you're going to strike a drug, a drug cartel, they're all in Mexico, they're all in Colombia, 93% of all it comes from there. You want to talk about fentanyl, it's all coming from China, transiting via Mexico. The DEA estimates 100% of all fentanyl that enters the United States comes from Mexico. 100% comes from Mexico, by the way.
- [78:38]
Saagar Enjeti
Most of the actual traffic, like the people carry it across the border. Most of them are American citizens, by the way.
- [78:43]
Krystal Ball
Yes, many are American, yeah. I mean, I'm not denying that at all. They work for the drug cartels, but.
- [78:48]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes, all right, but we're talking about the individual. That is where the individual people.
- [78:52]
Krystal Ball
The way I understand that it usually works now is that the drug cartels will bring it to the border and they don't want to deal with it in America. And so they tell the American criminal organizations, you come across, you get it, and you drive across the border. We own Mexico. We don't need to worry about problems here. But your government is your own problem. Right. So that's broadly what the story is. It's obviously a multifaceted issue of which we could actually do something about if we wanted to. But that's a separate conversation because that's nothing to do with Venezuela.
- [79:17]
Saagar Enjeti
Right.
- [79:17]
Krystal Ball
What's happening in Venezuela? Venezuela is like this neocon fever dream where they've whipped themselves up into demanding this guy step down for power. For what? What possible purpose? Who cares? Who rules Venezuela? Nobody. You can't even really say that this is about oil now at this point. Although it wouldn't be a bad idea to buy it from him either, if we got something out of it, let's say, with a migrant deal or something.
- [79:41]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, there were previous negotiations. Yeah, it's not bad.
- [79:44]
Krystal Ball
It's a great deal.
- [79:45]
Saagar Enjeti
And the other thing about this is, let's say they get their fondest dream and they get their Gaddafi situation. How did that go for Libya?
- [79:54]
Krystal Ball
Exactly?
- [79:55]
Saagar Enjeti
How will that go for Venezuela? You people are supposed to be opposed to refugees. How many migrants? What kind of a migrant crisis is that going to create? I mean, it's just insane. Why do you want a failed state? Why do you want a failed state? But that is exactly what they're gunning for thing here. And I think it also. So I can't get into Trump's head, but number one, I think there's a boomer Cold War mentality. Number two, they tried a regime change thing in his first administration with the whole Juan Guaido situation, and then there was some former Navy SEAL that turned up there that they claimed they had nothing to do with. But it appears that they may have also been funding or supporting some sort of former special ops to go in and actually actively try. There was some evidence to support that, to actively try, and that didn't. So I think there's also this sense of like, I failed the first time. I gotta get him back. Like, I gotta prevail this time around. That comes from Trump, fed by Marco Rubio. And then obviously, Trump likes the power and control from just being able to say, this person's a drug trafficker, so I can just murder them because they're an enemy combatant. Let's put C1 up on the screen, which talks about this aspect of it in particular, which people really need to again, sit with with Trump determines just Trump by himself, not in consultation with the Congress. Certainly the US Is now in a war with drug cartels, and he informed Congress of this. And let me read a little bit of what he says here. They say Mr. Trump's move to formally deem his campaign against drug cartels as an active armed conflict means he is cementing his claim to extraordinary wartime powers. Legal specialists, that in an armed conflict, as defined by international law, a country can lawfully kill enemy fighters even when they pose no threat, detain them indefinitely without trials, and prosecute them in military courts. The focus, they say, of the administration's attacks has been boats from Venezuela. The surge of overdose deaths in recent years has been driven by fentanyl, which drug trafficking experts say comes from Mexico, not South America. Beyond factual issues, the bare bones argument has been broadly criticized on legal grounds. Grounds. Think about, you know, the way this normally works. They say police arrest suspected drug dealers. It'd be a crime to instead summarily gun them down. But in an armed conflict, it is lawful to kill combatants for the opposing force on site. So that's why I say we need to focus on Venezuela and what's happening there. But this also gives Trump extraordinary lethal powers to use against anyone that the government claims is a suspected drug dealer and to summarily execute them without going through any sort of due process like that is the power that they are claiming right now. And to me, that is absolutely terrifying.
- [82:34]
Krystal Ball
But I'm also very afraid of is that would be the authority to assassinate Maduro, as you could say, he was a drug trafficker.
- [82:39]
Saagar Enjeti
Absolutely.
- [82:40]
Krystal Ball
That is where I'm like, yo, this could get wild very, very, very quickly. Luckily, there are some voices that are speaking out and that are paying attention to this Steve Bannon and them trying to put some pressure on, on the White House from the right saying, hey, enough. Let's not do this. Calling out Marco Rubio. Let's take a listen. Little Marco, our Secretary of State, who's we've tried to shift away from being a neocon. I thought we were there. He's got an amphibious ready group off the coast of Venezuela and they're up on Capitol Hill pitching. And this is the first time that the Trump administration, I think, has ever acknowledged issues, structural issues are customs and traditions. So they're trying to get ahead of the War Powers act by saying, no, no, no, no, no, you've misinterpreted. These are non state actors, these are drug dealers and we're gonna do a lot more in just taking out these speedboats. The plan is, I think been leaked that they intend to, or at least a plan is to tend to take over the ports and transportation nodes in an actual invasion. Yeah, I mean, well said. He's exactly right about this huge emp. And you know, the thing is, and you know, I want to give Ryan credit and you know, maybe Tudor our horn a little bit from the beginning when we saw that amphibious group, I was like, oh man, this is not about drugs. Because you had to put it together with. You have to have lived in Washington and, and seen and saw this stuff long enough to know the hard on that the neocons still have for Latin America. And they're obsessed with Venezuela. I will never understand it. Even Israel, I kind of get it. It's religious, right? Okay. I mean, you can, you not sympathize, but you can intellectually understand that. Ukraine, same thing. NATO, Russia, Cold War. And I was like, venezuela? Why? What? This is a. It has no, no meaningful impact on us at all. And it's like they are just obsessed with it to the point where, as you said about the whole migrant crisis, I mean, part of the, a huge number of these people are Venezuelan, part of the cause of the chaos down there. You want to create more chaos, but you say we're create more chaos to have less chaos. How's that going to work?
- [84:43]
Saagar Enjeti
Right?
- [84:43]
Krystal Ball
No, we want stability in Venezuela. You know, it'd be great if it came from Maduro. If not, whatever. That's our problem. It has nothing to do with us. And instead we're creating all this legal justification from the Trump thing to now, this ending of diplomacy. Guys, let's put C5 up here on the screen. This is again, this is scary shit. This is from Cash Patel. He says Maduro isn't just corrupt, he's an indicted narco terrorist with a $50 million DOJ bounty under my leadership, the FBI is now choking off every dollar, every account, every enabler. America will never be a safe haven for his blood money. But remember here he's calling him narco terrorist, which fits with that legal definition, which we learned earlier. $50 million DOJ bounty. Apparently they want to raise it to some 100 million. They're basically trying to encourage what, some sort of coup inside of the Venezuelan government? Which again, is America even good enough at coups anymore? Not really. When's the last time we pulled off a coup? Exactly. In Latin America that was apparently worked out. Well, I think it's been a long time since the 1970s. So the point is just around all of this is it's a psychotic, insane ideological plan. Trump is either too stupid or he knows exactly what's going on here and that there is not. There's no pressure from what I have seen from the ideological kind of anti war, right, except from Steve Bannon and from Kurt Mills who was played in that clip. And I think the reason is that they've been effectively bamboozled with this drug trafficking thing. Because it's like a fantasy, right? But we gotta take it to the cartels. I think a lot of people want that, I want that. But we have to live in reality. Can we really just bomb Mexico? Not really. When it's the number one trading partner of the United States, it's a problem, Right. What do you do? Do you want to nuke the US economy and NAFTA overnight? All these trucks that come across the border? It's not a feasible solution. And then at the same time you have, oh, they've killed all of us. And so they're trying to tie fentanyl to it. That's what I immediately saw from a lot of the government is like, this is all about fentanyl. I'm like, this is literally a lie. Like there's no fentanyl that comes from Venezuela to the United States. None, zero. And you're trying to disguise like a regime change war. And so a lot of the more traditional anti war right, is not up in arms about this. Cuz they actually buy the bullshit. They don't do their own research. You can only point to Bannon and Rand Paul and then of course the media. I mean this should be wall to wall shit. Cutting off diplomacy, cutting off diplomacy with Maduro and saying we are actively considering regime change. At the very same time, do you have an entire amphibious naval assault group and we're bombing things in the Caribbean and international waters and you're telling Congress to be a genius.
- [87:23]
Saagar Enjeti
This is a war.
- [87:24]
Krystal Ball
We're telling. Genius. This is a war. Wake up. Like, this is as close that we are possibly could be. And I actually think the lack of pressure makes it 10 times more likely. Cause at least they are somewhat receptive to online criticism. You can't deny that some of the anti Israel, anti Gaza or anti Israel, like, like part of the right way.
- [87:44]
Saagar Enjeti
Anti Iran strike, anti Iran.
- [87:46]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [87:47]
Saagar Enjeti
Limited that engagement.
- [87:48]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, look, obviously we were not successful on Ukraine. Same thing. I think some of the pushback had some impact. I have not gotten even 10% of what I want. But I do think that kind of organizing a coalition, being very loud actually did something about this. Here there's nothing because everybody buys the drug trafficking shit. And that makes it that plus the political constituency. Where does Trump live, Crystal? Florida. Right. Who do you think he's surrounded by down in Palm Beach?
- [88:13]
Saagar Enjeti
True.
- [88:13]
Krystal Ball
It's bad.
- [88:14]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [88:14]
Krystal Ball
This is very bad.
- [88:15]
Saagar Enjeti
No, I think you're right. I think, you know, people on the right just say, like, the boat went boom. Cool. You know, like, way to go based. And that's like as. And it's so. I mean, as you pointed out, they're literally announcing what they're doing here and everyone's just pretending like this isn't happening. Trump made some pretty ominous comments, too. Let's go ahead and play C8.
- [88:34]
Krystal Ball
They're not coming in by sea anymore. So now we'll have to start looking about out the land because they'll be forced to go by land. And let me tell you right now, that's not going to work out well for them either.
- [88:44]
Saagar Enjeti
So they're not coming by sea anymore. Now they're coming by land. So we'll have to look at the land. What does that mean? What does that mean? That what kind of an expansion of now who are you going to be? Drone striking, bombing and whatever. Where are they going to be? What is that going to mean?
- [88:57]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, are we doing strikes inside of Venezuela again? Like, you know, they keep floating this stuff in Mexico, I'll believe it when I, I just simply do not believe it will happen because of the geopolitical ramifications for trade. And look, Mexico is a democracy. I mean, Sheinbaum is very popular and they have all kinds of corruption problems. I would never defend the Mexican government, but at the very least, like, the one thing they are probably not going to tolerate, in my opinion, is literal bombing on their soil without the explicit, explicit permission of the Mexican government, which you and I is never gonna know, is never going to happen.
- [89:31]
Saagar Enjeti
And she literally has like a 92% approval rating. They are very united.
- [89:35]
Krystal Ball
And by the way, they're actually kind of working with us a little bit right now. Not that it's actually doing anything. Apparently cocaine importation is higher than ever. So. Yes, congratulations. These strikes are really doing a lot to actually stop the amount of cocaine coming into America.
- [89:48]
Saagar Enjeti
You know, there's another point to be made there too, which is that drug trafficking convictions are actually way down because they reassigned so many of the federal agents that would normally be focused on that to like rounding up Jose at Home Depot. So they have. We have drug trafficking, human trafficking. Those sorts of convictions and indictments are significantly down under this administration because of where they have shifted their resources to.
- [90:11]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. Ryan actually, by the way, thinks it's a good thing. He said America needs to do more cocaine. So that's. Yeah, it's the most.
- [90:17]
Saagar Enjeti
Ryan thing. Let's have Don Jr. On to discuss.
- [90:20]
Krystal Ball
Hey, Yeah, I guess, I don't know, I think it's sad. People poisoning their brains. I guess they think it's a good thing. Finally, by the way, we would just be remiss just to not point out who some of the clowns involved in all of this are. Can we put this please on the screen? The challenge coin. Kash Patel has now come out with his own genre of challenge coin. For those who are not just listening. How would you possibly describe this?
- [90:44]
Saagar Enjeti
What is this is like the punisher symbol. And then on the back it says presented by the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, and has his signature, two guns pointed down. Real tough. He's a different guy.
- [90:56]
Krystal Ball
Very tough guy in the Gwot community. I would hope that anybody who does this type of stuff is cringe and I won't say the other word that they usually would say that accompanies somebody who has something like this. In general, people who have fought and died and, you know, entered Valhalla generally don't memeify it into punisher logos.
- [91:19]
Saagar Enjeti
And that Kash Patel is one of.
- [91:21]
Krystal Ball
The most amazing members. He's the most. Try hard. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Yeah. At least he is a good reminder that not all the stereotypes about Indians are true because some of them are fucking idiots. But all right, there it goes.
- [91:33]
Saagar Enjeti
He's defying the stereotype.
- [91:35]
Krystal Ball
He's true. He did. Thank you, Cash, for showing the country that we are not on the list.
- [91:39]
Saagar Enjeti
The true breadth of Indian culture.
- [91:41]
Krystal Ball
Some of us can also be 40 year old losers who talk about Valhalla and have Challenge coins and can podcast their way to the top, so. Yeah. Thank you, Cass.
- [91:53]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. Haven't gotten an update on that Tyler Robinson investigation.
- [91:56]
Krystal Ball
No, it's been weeks. Yeah, you're right.
- [91:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Nothing new has come out, at least from the official channel, so. Interesting.
- [92:01]
Krystal Ball
That's true. I mean, at the same time, the legal system moves slowly, right? I mean, we had. I mean, Luigi, it's been, what, it's been almost nine months, right, since that happened. We're not even at trial yet, so. Yeah, he sat in prison too, for a while.
- [92:14]
Saagar Enjeti
You know, to be honest to me, it's more interesting that there isn't more mainstream journalism digging into. Okay, well, what was the timeline? Let's talk to his family members. I mean, Ken Klippenstein continues to be the only person who really spoke to any of his friends. How could that be? That's weird, you know, like Ken was able to get a hold of a number of his friends, a few.
- [92:32]
Krystal Ball
But I mean, there is some weird shit that's going on. I mean, this is all sidetracked, you know, the so called boyfriend or whatever has gone missing, you know, is like unable to be found. You got all these tech, you know, the whole Dairy Queen video from Canada. Nobody knows if it's real or not. Stuff about whether the Dairy Queen Queen even existed. I mean, listen, I mean, not to get too deep down the rabbit.
- [92:52]
Saagar Enjeti
We did get that one surveillance video from a gas station of him like fueling up the next day. Just like casually in the same maroon shirt fueling up at some gas station 200 miles.
- [93:02]
Krystal Ball
Police officer who? Family member, no interview, you know, nothing like that. Yeah, friends and family, other members of the discord, you know, there's been nothing major. So anyway, all right, take that for what you will. It's Cybersecurity Awareness month. Lifelock is here with tips to help protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication, report scams and update your software. And for comprehensive identity protection, Lifelock is your best choice. Lifelock alerts you to suspicious uses of your personal information and fixes identity theft, guaranteed or your money back. Start your protection today with a 30 day free trial@lifelock.com. use promo code. News terms apply.
- [93:59]
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Krystal Ball
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Krystal Ball
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- [94:28]
Krystal Ball
Is on and it's only on Prime Video. You better look out. You better get ready. This week it's a rivalry renew as the Philadelphia Eagles take over on the New York Giants. Coverage begins at 7pm Eastern with football's best party, TNF tonight presented by Verizon. Not a Prime member? Not a problem. Simply sign up for a 30 day free trial. It's the Eagles and the giants Thursday at 7pm Eastern, only on Prime Video. Restrictions apply. See Amazon.com Amazon prime for details. This is an iHeart podcast.