12/18/25: Trump Says He Is First 'Jewish President', Saagar Weeps Over White House Changes, Piers Morgan Vs Candace Owens

Summary

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Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode: December 18, 2025 — "Trump Says He Is First 'Jewish President', Saagar Weeps Over White House Changes, Piers Morgan Vs Candace Owens"
Hosts: Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti
Producer: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Krystal and Saagar explore the increasing brazenness of corruption and ego in Donald Trump’s presidency, from his pursuit of a third term and deep ties to mega-donor Miriam Adelson, to his controversial “Presidential Walk of Fame” at the White House. They also discuss Candace Owens’ explosive claims about the Charlie Kirk assassination, her mass influence, and the dangers of reckless speculation in independent media. Finally, they examine the cultural ramifications of Trump’s White House renovations and the evolving landscape of right-wing media and conspiratorial thinking.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump, Miriam Adelson, and the Third-Term Question

[02:17–07:55, 09:14–10:47]

• Trump’s Hanukkah Party Remarks: Played audio of Trump openly acknowledging a $250 million donation from Miriam Adelson, pledging to let her speak at his event, and joking about a third term.
• Dershowitz’s Legal Theorizing: Trump referencing discussions with Alan Dershowitz (noted for defending dubious legal claims) about whether he could serve a third term—Dershowitz has even written a book draft on the topic.
• Open Donor Influence: Hosts highlight how brazen cash-for-access politics have become.
  • Saagar: “He is too—about like, yeah, she gave me a bunch of money, so I guess we should let her say hello. Just making it very clear and open the way that the cash for access game works.” [04:37]
• Escalation from Trump’s 2016 Rhetoric: Hosts reflect on Trump’s original outsider appeal—“you can’t buy me”—and contrast it to the current era of open transactions for political access and favors.
  • Krystal: “This level of rich guys just openly trying to buy the government… it's way more out in the open… if you're newer to politics, you really don't get how different this is from the first time around.” [06:37]

Notable Quote

“The level of brazen corruption is truly… the worst we've ever had in this country. There is no doubt about it… This is another level we have never seen before.”
—Saagar Enjeti [08:59]

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2. Mark Levin Names Trump "First Jewish President"

[10:47–11:02]

• Mark Levin’s Endorsement: Fox News host Mark Levin is played on audio dubbing Trump “our first Jewish president,” evident of Trump’s perceived closeness to influential Jewish figures and Israel.
• Hosts React: Krystal describes this as “grotesque” and notes the extreme public nature of these relationships, again contrasting them with Trump’s early populist image.

Notable Quote

"It's just too naked, it's too out in the open and it's grotesque, honestly."
—Krystal Ball [11:02]

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3. Trump’s Foreign Policy and Israel Ties

[13:40–15:54]

• Power of Donors: Miriam Adelson and Mark Levin are shown as delighted backers of Trump’s foreign policy, particularly regarding Israel and Gaza.
• Gaza Suffering: Saagar reminds listeners of the human toll in Gaza during a supposed “ceasefire,” aligning donor influence with dire foreign consequences on the ground.

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4. The White House’s Transformation: Petty Plaques & the Trump Ballroom

[18:46–30:43]

• Trump’s ‘Presidential Walk of Fame’: Trump installs a series of plaques along the White House colonnade, each written in a vitriolic, self-serving style, taking petty swipes at predecessors.
• Clinic in Pettiness:
  • Example from Obama’s plaque: “Barack Hussein Obama was the first black president... one of the most divisive political leaders in American history.” [21:12]
  • On Biden: “Sleepy Joe Biden was by far the worst president in American history...” [22:53]
• Ballroom Construction: Trump’s new, massive ballroom costs $400 million (privately funded by billionaires), bypasses preservation review, and dwarfs the White House itself.
  • Saagar laments: “It’s Twitter. Twitter is sort of inherently undignified. Right. We’re talking about the White House here. And now you’re putting some Twitter-esque or True Social-esque bullshit on an official plaque at the White House.” [27:14]
• Public Backlash: Krystal says this issue resonates with Americans far more than expected; it crystallizes a sense that the President’s ego trumps historical dignity.
• NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) Sentiment: Hosts advocate for tighter regulation to prevent such unchecked alterations to national landmarks.

Notable Quote

“These kind of things. It's very visual, it's very visceral... it speaks to the fact that this is what he's spending his actual time and brain share on. And then meanwhile, he's rushing through some bullshit speech about the economy because he really doesn't give a shit.”
—Saagar Enjeti [28:15]

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5. Candace Owens, Conspiracies, & Right-Wing Media

[32:55–58:18]

• Candace Owens’ Rise on Conspiracy Claims:

  • Candace uses the assassination of Charlie Kirk to build a massive true-crime style streaming audience, engaging in wild speculation about who was complicit—including allegations against Turning Point USA staff, which she cannot substantiate.
  • On Piers Morgan, she spins and backpedals—Morgan presses for evidence:

    "So you've got no evidence, but you're telling the widow that these two people may have been involved in the murder."
    —Piers Morgan [36:34]

• Ethics & Recklessness in Independent Media:

  • Saagar strongly criticizes Candace's casual approach to evidence and the wider trend of speculation-without-verification, warning about both the legal and ethical dangers.
  • Krystal and Saagar discuss the responsibility of having a large, trusting audience, and the difference between reporting and baseless theorizing.

    “Reporting is real. Standards should be real... You have a lot of trust with people out there... I will never take them down a road unless I really not just believe it, but have it confirmed.”
    —Saagar Enjeti [44:39]

  • They note parallels with left-wing media’s Russiagate fever and the broader “post-truth” tendencies across political lines.

• Audience Disillusionment:

  • Candace’s partial backtrack after meeting with Erica Kirk leaves her audience angry; audience comments indicate a sense of betrayal.
  • Krystal points to the ever-shifting right-wing media ecosystem, where trust is transactional and conspiracies mutate rapidly to suit audience cravings.

Notable Quote

“It's a consequence of some of the shifting class dynamics... Russiagate, which was definitely equally bullshit, was kind of an elite version... Lower IQ movements are gonna look a lot more like this. And so this is a consequence of some of the shifting class dynamics that are here.”
—Krystal Ball [55:15]

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Memorable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On Open Corruption:

  • Saagar: “The level of brazen corruption is truly... the worst we've ever had in this country.” [08:59]

• On Trump’s “Jewish President” Label:

  • Krystal: “It's just too naked, it's too out in the open and it's grotesque.” [11:02]

• On Petty White House Changes:

  • Krystal (re: plaques): “Even if it wasn't neutral... could we at least have it be written better? Like grammatically correct, Maybe just maybe a little bit more dignified or something?” [22:29]
  • Saagar: “And now you're putting some Twitter-esque or True Social-esque bullshit on an official plaque at the White House. And it's so in his light... it sounds and reads like he literally did post it on True Social.” [27:14]

• On Candace Owens’ Storytelling:

  • Saagar: “She will just make some shit up... telling you that something came to her in a dream and therefore it must be true.” [40:22]

• On Journalism Ethics:

  • Saagar: “Reporting is real. Standards should be real... when you ruthlessly and recklessly just speculate as fact and imply... this is real life. That's where I just think it's so irresponsible.” [44:39]

• On Conspiratorial Thinking:

  • Krystal: “I also think that there's a big class element... Russiagate, which was definitely equally bullshit, was kind of an elite version... Lower IQ movements are gonna look a lot more like this.” [55:15]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Trump-Hanukkah-Third Term & Donor Influence: [02:17–10:47]
• Mark Levin & "First Jewish President": [10:47–11:02]
• Plaques & Trump’s Ballroom: [18:46–30:43]
• Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, & Conspiracy: [32:55–58:18]

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Conclusion

Krystal and Saagar deliver a searing critique of the Trump era’s unprecedented openness about political patronage, egotism, and self-dealing, as embodied in Trump’s relationship with major donors and his personalization of the White House. The episode also provides a broader media critique, focused on the ethical collapse of independent and partisan media, with the Candace Owens true-crime phenomenon as a cautionary tale for the post-truth age.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Guaranteed Human.

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[Sophie Cunningham]

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[Krystal Ball]

O hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.

[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 this show.

[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail].

[Saagar Enjeti]

Should we talk a little bit about the White House Hanukkah Party? Interesting. Some very interesting comments made here by Trump himself and also by one of his primary backers from the last campaign, Mary Madison, also from his prior campaigns as well, one of his top donors. She is very excited about giving him even more money to run for an unconstitutional third term. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what Trump had to say about Their relationship and what she had to say.

[Donald Trump]

Miriam gave my campaign indirectly and directly 250 million. She was number one. When somebody can give you 250 million, I think, think that we should give her the opportunity to say hello. And Miriam, make it quick, because 250 million is not what it used to be. Okay? Now, I met Alan Deuvich, and he said the legal thing about four more years. And I say, alan, I agree with you. So we can do it. Think about it. Alan's here someplace. Where's Alan? Alan is here. Oh, he had a flight. Think about. Thank you. Maybe I will be the first one or second.

[Candace Owens]

Yeah.

[Donald Trump]

She said, think about it. I'll give you another 250.

[Krystal Ball]

Wow.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So that's cool. Miriam saying, hey, I give you another $250 million if you run for a third term and throwing in there. Dropping in the Alan Dershowitz Epstein associate. Alan Dershowitz mention as well. Too personal. We can put D1B up on the screen. Apparently, Dershowitz wrote a book about whether or not Trump can serve as a third term. Trump, you know, is. Is talking to him about this. So, you know, apparently, Alex, how much.

[Krystal Ball]

Money is enough, brother? You know, I mean, I just don't get. You're in your. What isn't he in his late 70s? You're arguing with vendors on Martha's Vineyard. Like, what else do you need in your life to be writing this boomer slop for a bunch of people to be like, oh, how Alan Dershowitz said Trump can run for a third term. Also, anyone noticed that she said she talked to Dershowitz in Israel about this. This is a little too perfect. Okay.

[Sophie Cunningham]

Yeah, it's just too much.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's crazy how out in the open he is too. About like, yeah, she gave me a bunch of money, so I guess we should let her say hello. Just making it very clear and open the way that the cash for access game works. And of course, I mean, she's been incredibly, in terms of his, you know, his very, very positive towards Israel. He says he's, you know, the best president ever for Israel. What his foreign policy there has been. And, you know, I wish you could just call this Dershowitz book, which is titled, literally titled, could President Trump Constitutionally serve a third Term? I wish you could call this boomer slop. But like the President of the United States and Steve Bannon and some of his other advisors, I mean, they're printing out Trump 2028 merchant. This is a live question, a real issue. And apparently Trump is Interested enough that he's actually exploring this with Dershowitz. So what the Wall Street Journal says is that he received and discussed a draft copy of a book by lawyer out lawyer Alan Dershowitz that studies whether Trump could constitutionally serve a third term. In an interview Wednesday, Dershowitz said he told Trump the Constitution was not clear on the issue. Which, I mean, if you read the language, it's seems pretty damn clear on the issue, but. And apparently Miriam's interpretation was that Dershowitz was saying, oh, you could serve a third term. In a meeting in the Oval Office, Dershowitz handed Trump a draft of the book, which is set to be published next year. He said the book lays out a host of scenarios in which an individual could serve a third term. He said Trump told him he planned to read the book and asked him about his conclusions on serving. The Constitution bars anyone from being elected to the White House more than twice. I said, quote, it's not clear if a president can become a third term president and it's not clear if it's Trump president permissible, said Dershowitz, who previously served as a defense lawyer for the president. And he went on to say he found it interesting as an intellectual issue. Do I think he's going to run for a third term? No, I don't think he will run for a third term. Then what are we doing? Like, why are you writing this book.

[Krystal Ball]

And why are you talking about it?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Why is he seeking your advice and why are they printing out merchandise? And why is Mary Maddelson publicly bribing him with $250 million to run again?

[Krystal Ball]

Because it's all about a sink, which we will get to soon. It's all about ego and all of that. But okay, to the extent. Why is any of this even interesting? In the people were circulating a bunch of clips from 2016 from Trump's original appeal talking about how everybody on the stage was bought and how he had bought those same politicians and that's why nobody could buy him. And I mean, look, it's been eight years for some of our Gen Z audience. They probably don't even remember that. But that was crazy. That actually was crazy. That was part of the appeal. Now, obviously you could point to various different things about how he didn't operate that way in the first term or during the second term. But like the. This level of rich guys just like openly trying to buy the government, even in the first term, it really was not like this, I can tell you, like, it was more understated. You could Report it, et cetera. But like, this time, it's way more out in the open, like in a way that, again, if you're newer to politics, like, you really don't get how different this is from the first time around. I mean, Trump at one point spent his own money during the 2016 campaign. Right? It was a very different environment this time around. Like the open feeling of selling out, like with crypto. And oh, my God, this morning his media company merged with some nuclear fusion company. You're like, what the fuck is happening?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Or like getting his building and Don.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Jr. Is getting money. Like, everybody is getting paid. It's part of what. I mean, there are many reasons why, like his. His rhetoric about Somali fraud and whatever. One of the reasons why is so galling to me is I'm like, look at your regime. Like, you guys are stealing everything that's not nailed down. The whole thing is operated as a massive multi billion dollar grift for you and your cronies. Like, that is the core ideology at the heart of this administration. And your pardon Power is being used. How many grifters and con artists, white collar schemers, have you let off the hook and by the way, rob their victims of ever seeing a dollar of restitution? So, like, spare me. It's just disgusting. It's disgusting. And you're right, it was pretty brazen in the first term, but it was like people would go and stay at his hotel. Now, I'm telling you, I'm gonna cut you millions of dollars directly into your crypto scam. So I'm gonna bring you a gold bar in the Oval Office. I mean, the level of brazen corruption is truly. It is the worst we've ever had in this country. There is no doubt about it. And not to say, like, other politicians were perfect, blah, blah, blah. This is another level we have never seen before.

[Krystal Ball]

It's never been out in the open where you just like, listen, donors have always been ambassadors. Donors have always been at the White House Christmas party. Nobody's ever like, this lady gave me 250 million, so she lets her buy the mic.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Or Elon.

[Krystal Ball]

It just doesn't happen. Yeah, Elon. Being able to get a special government employee.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I'm just gonna let you do whatever you want to. You gave me money, now go do whatever you want to the government. Mr. Billionaire richest man on the planet who has endless conflicts of interest. So from the jump, it has just been a complete theft of the public trust. It's absolute insanity. And so this is, yeah, another Display where you have this person, Miriam Adelson. Trump famously said he's not sure if she's more loyal to the US or to Israel and thinks that she likes Israel better. And so this is the person who he's bragging about how much money she gave him in the past and how much money she'll give him again in the future if he decides to run again.

[Krystal Ball]

That's crazy. Also, I'd never heard her speak before. I didn't realize she had such an accent. I'm like, wow. I'm like, okay, got it. I mean, it's just, look, again, it's shocking, right? At the same time they wanna talk about Muslims or any of that. It's like you have a lady giving a quarter bill to the president and you hear her and you're like, what was that, Miriam? Huh? Do you speak English properly? You're like, wow, okay. And you know, you're openly advocating for a. For foreign country's interest. Pretty wild. Not the only wild thing, though, that came out of that one. Let's put D2. Mark Levin, the famous Fox News host, anointing Trump the first Jewish president. Let's take a listen.

[Donald Trump]

And I said, this is our first Jewish president.

[Krystal Ball]

Now.

[Donald Trump]

He's the first Jewish president to serve.

[Sophie Cunningham]

Two.

[Donald Trump]

Not consecutive presidencies. We thank you for everything.

[Krystal Ball]

Wow. I'm sure that will quiet the conspiracy theorists. I mean, I don't know, it's just one of those where you put it all together. It's just too naked, it's too out in the open and it's grotesque, honestly, which we'll get to soon with the presidential walk of fame, etc. But there is something about this which is so different from his original conception as a politician that if you weren't there to cover that, it's almost hard to tell you, like, how shocking it kind. Not shocking, like surprising, but like how shocking in its public presentation it is and how. I mean, look, I don't. Can't speak for maga. I don't know, you know, what goes through these people's minds. I'm sure they can rationalize everything, but at a certain point, it's just my belief that, you know, things like this, maybe they won't make him think he's a villain or any of that, but they're going to be like, it makes me upset or this is counter to his public image. Now, will they still support him? Probably. Okay, but he's not running for the ballot. So in the future, any politician, like you're talking about The Somali thing, I think the Somali thing is disgusting in terms of what they were doing. And I do think there's a lot of dei and a lot of other liberals don't want to talk about it because of their race or because of their religion. But like he just said, I'm not going to hear it from people who are openly selling pardons and Ponzis to Ponzi schemers. I can't. Right? It would be ridiculous. It would be hypocritical. And that's why when you see it online and they're like, oh, my God, these people are defraud. I'm like, guys like, you know, your president is also doing the same thing, and you have. You don't have shit to say about it. Right. We can't hear that from you. And hypocrisy is baked into politics, but at a certain point, it's also about power. You know, you're talking here about a bunch of Somali immigrants, and you're talking about the President of the United States. It's like, it's just not the same, bro. And you can't be. You can't be talking about one if you don't have the other. That's my belief. People have for years, Trump has got away with hypocrisy, but it's just my personal thing. Like, maybe it's just me, but I do think that something is kind of breaking with Trump and the Adelsons and the crypto stuff. I do think it's penetrating in a way that it hasn't before, and I think it's. Cause it's more brazen than ever before. I'm telling you, the first term was not like this. It was not like operationally. It was just very different. And so out in the open, the crypto stuff, the pardons and everything, it's just completely counter to so much of what his public image was in the past. And even during the campaign, I'm talking about Biden and corruption and all of that. Like, think about Hunter Biden. It seems quaint.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, Hunter's paintings. Are you kidding me?

[Krystal Ball]

Right? Which was bad. Like, covered it. It was bad. It was horrible.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

This. You're like, if that was horrible, like, do we have words for whatever this is?

[Saagar Enjeti]

I have no words for this.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, exactly.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Genuinely have no words. And something else I have no words for. It's important to, like, it's really important to understand these people, Mark Levin, Mary Madison in particular, have been very important in terms of Trump's foreign policy vis a vis Israel and Gaza and the entire Middle East. And they are delighted. They are delighted with him. They think that he has done a wonderful job. They're getting everything they want from this administration. You can see that. I mean, again, she's willing to pony up another quarter bill in order to get him back in the White House a third time. And so right now, we're supposedly in this quote, unquote, ceasefire. You've had so many Palestinians killed. The ceasefire. I don't know if Israel is abided by the ceasefire. Literally a single day. And at the same time, you have just absolute misery. Put D3 up on the screen. Had this horrific storms. You know, it's winter there. It's cold. You've had babies, literally, who are freezing to death. People in these flooded. You know, it's just horrible. Like, it's just horrible. And you still have. And of course, Ryan and Dropsite have done so. Some of the most important reporting on this. You still have so much aid being blocked, including supplies. That would at least help to ease some of the suffering here as they struggle with this cold rain coming in and the misery that all. Imagine living like this. Just imagine living like, especially after all that they have been through. So Miriam and Mark Levin, they think that what Trump has done here is just great. They're going just according to their plan.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, 100% that. I mean, that's genuinely what they voted for. And you know what? They're the ones who really got what they wanted. So, okay, guess we really see who has the power. And it's also the fact, I mean, the level of defense that people jump to for Miriam Adelson because she funds so many of the congressmen on the Republican side here in the country. They talk about how it's anti Semitic to worry about dual citizens. Like, remember they attacked Thomas Massie and others. It's like, guys, Trump himself literally said, I asked her whether she cares more about Israel or America. And I kind of think that we know the answer. It's like, literally, he just says the quiet trope out loud.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

That they're not. That they. That they accuse you of anti Semitism. And he still worships her here at the Oval Office. I mean, at the White House. Isn't she a recipient of the Medal of Freedom, too? From the president. Like, it's just so naked, so out in the open. Remember? And, oh, I forgot to mention that that's part of the reason why 2016, he literally attacked Sheldon Adelson and Marco Rubio. He's Sheldon Adelson. Will give Marco Rubio all the dollars that he wants to buy him or something. And now look at this.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He, like, called him a puppet.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, a puppy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Called him, like a perfect puppet for Sheldon Adelson.

[Krystal Ball]

Perfect puppet for Sheldon Adelson again. If you weren't around then. It's hard to describe, like, how different it is this time around, but yeah, there we go. All right, let's get to the White House.

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[Sophie Cunningham]

This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snore loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

[Krystal Ball]

As if things couldn't get any worse, and as if I could not be more personally attacked by Donald Trump's renovation of the White House, his legalized rescheduling of marijuana, which is very likely to happen today. Potentially not taxing gambling winnings, helping out pornography companies. He has further desecrated the People's House with new plaques underneath his so called walk or hall of Fame there on the White House colonnade. Let's take a look at some of these. This called the Presidential Walk of Fame was conceived, built and dedicated by President Donald J. Trump as a tribute to past presidents, good, bad, and somewhere in the middle who served our country and gave up so much in so doing. The Presidential Walk of Fame will long live as a testament and tribute to the greatness of america. Dedicated on November 5, 2025. I am personally asking, no matter who it is that comes into the office next year, we need a ritualistic burning on the rose but in the newly restored Rose Garden. So first we will plunder the concrete. We will take it, we will dig it all up. We will replant the Rose Garden. After the Rose Garden is there, we will ritualistically burn these plaques and any other such desecrated signs that say the Oval Office on the Oval Office or the Presidential Office. The ballroom, we will dismantle brick by brick. We need like Marxist Leninists to come in here, like Bolshevik Red Guard. I sign up, I'll be ready. Give me a Red Guard, give me an armband, I'm ready to roll. We'll get the troops together and we will, you know, by hand, you know, and our socialist, you know, like the hammer and the sickle, we'll come together. No bulldozers, we will do it together. We will rise up together and we will burn this fucker to the ground whenever it comes to the ballroom. Now, just to show you the plaque that we have here, let's put this one up here on the screen. These are the plaques that now accompany every president. You know, he famously. Why are the gold furnishings above the photo? You know what I mean? Like, the frames themselves are already offensive, tacky enough. But why the gold above the said frame? Like why? So let's take a look at. Let's read some of these plaques, shall we? Which Trump apparently wrote himself. This is Obama's. Barack Hussein Obama was the first black president community or it's very woke of Trump to capitalize black. Did you see that?

[Saagar Enjeti]

I just said so. Yes, very woke.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Thank you President Trump for sticking with the New York Times Post BLM style guide. A community organizer, one term senator from Illinois, one of the most divisive political leaders in American history. As president, he passed the highly ineffective unaffordable CARE act, resulting in his party losing control of both houses of Congress. The election of the largest House Republican majority since 1946. He presided over a stagnant economy, economy capitalized for no reason whatsoever. Approved the terrible Iran denuclear deal and signed the one sided Paris climate accords, both of which were later terminated by President Donald J. Trump. Under Obama, the ISIS caliphate spread across the Middle East. Libya collapsed into chaos. Russia invaded and took Crimea and Ukraine, crippled small businesses with crushing regulation. Environment, blah, blah, blah. Obama also spied on the 2016 presidential campaign of President Trump and presided over the. What was that? The creation of the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. The worst political scandal in American history. History. History capitalized. He handicapped successor.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Handpicked successor.

[Krystal Ball]

His hand picked successor. I said handicapped. Sorry. Well, maybe Hillary Rodham Clinton would then lose the presidency to Donald J. Trump.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Seems very neutral, very, you know, historically accurate, let's say.

[Krystal Ball]

Even if it wasn't neutral. All right, could we at least have it be written better? Like grammatically correct, Maybe just maybe a little bit more dignified or something?

[Saagar Enjeti]

A little briefer.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, briefer. Very lengthy, lots of run on sentences. Let's go to the next one.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Getting rid of the character limit on Twitter. Here is continues to bleed over into our politics.

[Krystal Ball]

Here is Joe Biden sleepy. Joe Biden was by far the worst president in American history taking office as a result. Look, I hate Biden. I wouldn't even call him the worst president in American history. Was the result of the most corrupt election ever seen in the United States. Oversaw a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our nation. His policies caused the highest inflation capitalized ever recorded, leading the US dollar dollar capitalized to lose more than 20% of its value in four years. His green new scam surrendered America. Okay, I think everybody gets the idea for what we've got there.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He gets even. Gets into the debate.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, he gets into the debate. The famous debate. Put E4 up there on the screen if there was any doubt whatsoever. White House Press secretary Caroline Levitt confirming, quote, the plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each president and the legacy they left behind as a student of history. Many were written directly by the President himself. We know. We know, ma'. Am. Thank you for confirming that. Ballroom update for everybody out there. Let's put this one up here on the screen. New model that was displayed in President Trump's Oval office. So you can see the campus. So we've Got the West Wing, you know, there you go. You got the iconic White House rail. Whoa. What is that monstrosity that's sitting there? Oh, that's the ballroom. Do you see how much bigger that ballroom is than the White House? I'm serious.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I didn't have to, like, get a new architect because the original one was like, I'm not doing this.

[Krystal Ball]

He's like, I'm not doing this. They actually started beefing. For anybody wondering, the cost may now actually be 400 million. Let's put that next one up there on the screen. This is an increase, I believe, in about 150 million since the last time that it had previously had been talked about. So, yeah, we're talking about $400 million. $400 million for the ballroom being privately donated or whatever by these multi billionaires to desecrate the White House campus. And unfortunately, this is a little NIMBY cell for all of you right now. Unfortunately, the White House campus and a few other things under control of the President do not have to go through any historical preservation or architectural review. They're basically under the total purview of the executive. The National Historical Preservation actually tried. Let's put this up here on the screen. That would have blocked the construction of the ballroom, but ended up overruling them and denying the motion in order to do so. This is shocking. And actually, we need to make sure that this never happens again after we dismantle the ballroom. By the way, after we dismantle the ballroom, we're going to say nobody can ever touch it again. And that actually needs to go through some architectural review. Now, people may think that this is some pet project and all of that, but the reason why I think it's fun to include in the show is what we learned about through those word clouds and through polling. This shit resonates in a way that I never thought that it would. And, yeah, I think there's a small C conservatism that a lot of people feel where they're like, oh, this is not about you. This is not about, like, the White House is literally not about you. And then whenever it comes to the plaques making it, it's not about overtly political. It's just overtly Trump, like, he's like, I am going to make the colonnade so petty. Right? Because what is. Yes, the pettiness, which is a direct expression of Donald Trump, but what those photos that come out of the Colonnade, it becomes a place where everyone's photo who's taken there, you know, I have one. It's not about me. I'm just saying people who have the photos that are taken there, it's about like that was at the White House, but now it's about the Trump House. Right. From the Rose Garden to the Colonnade to the gold to the Oval Office, he's like, this is about me. And that's what I think is resonating in terms of its takeover across the country. Call me a shit lib and all that. Don't care. I don't care whether it's Trump or anybody else. It's a monstrosity. Right? That's the point that I think a lot of people are resonating with is they can see this as a direct obsession of the president while they feel like the economy is slipping away and that this is your overall priority. So that's why, you know, I'm pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of people care. A lot of people. People care a hell of a lot more than I thought.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it's interesting. It's very interesting. What breaks through to the normies and really gets, you know, like has its cultural moment. But in terms of the plaques, listen, it's one thing when you see this bullshit from him on Twitter, right? It's Twitter. Twitter is sort of inherently undignified. Right. We're talking about the White House here. And now you're putting some Twitter esque or True Social esque bullshit on an official plaque at the White House. And it's so in his light. I mean, it sounds and reads like he literally did post it on True Social. And now this is what you're doing to the People's House. Yeah. It's so incredibly petty. It's so small, it's so undignified for the office. And I think it just makes Americans feel like, what have we come to? What have we come to? That this is what's going on in the White House with our President. That this is the man who is leading a country that many people see as the greatest on earth through their American exceptionalist lens. So, yeah, I do think these kind of things. It's very visual, it's very visceral, all of that. And it speaks, as you were saying, Sagar, to the fact that this is what he's spending his actual time and brain share on. And then meanwhile, he's rushing through some bullshit speech about the economy because he really doesn't give a shit and he thinks that everything is fine.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. At least that's the way that comes off. I mean, there's no defense. Okay? And this is why it's like, this needs to go, period. Like we cannot have this. And we need NIMBYISM to fully come into effect and be like, nobody gets to touch the White House without an insane architectural review process. We can't handle this.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Between that and the data centers becoming more NIMBY already.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay, so the thing is NIMBY gets a knock, and I get it, is that it is often weaponized by the landowner class. In San Francisco, the rich people don't protect their property values. Fine. But the fundamental idea behind NIMBY is people who live somewhere get to control the shit that happens in their neighborhood. And that's true. I mean it should be the most true for public resource. We're not even talking about private land here. We're talking about public land, like publicly owned, taxpayer funded land. And buildings which are not just iconic belong to all of us. That's the whole purpose.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

One of the things tragedies, unfortunately for the White House is that people can't really get that close to it anymore. You know, with 911 and Boston bombing and all that stuff, like I've watched it happen over the years. You used to be able to go up to the fence, now you can't even get close. And the more that it becomes securitized and people get farther away from it, you don't feel the connection that you deserve. In my opinion, everybody should be able to go up to the fence at the very least and take a picture, you know, if they want to. Or easily be able to get a tour because the history is yours, it's not theirs. That's the whole point. And I think that's what it inverts. It's very sad. Honestly. I was just looking of photos yesterday from the east wing. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe this is gone. I, I can't believe it. And it's one of those where they have, they, I think they don't know what they're playing with. They really believed that they could just do this and nobody would care. And then when those photos started to come out of the demolition and every, I mean those went very viral.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And because Trump started to realize, because he banned. Yeah, cuz he banned photographs being taken of the east wing, he kind of started to get like, oh this, this doesn't look great. I mean the other thing, it connects to the story about him exploring a third term. Because what you really think this guy is building this gigantic ballroom and he intends to just step aside peacefully when his term is over. Doesn't really feel like it, does it?

[Krystal Ball]

That's right.

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[Saagar Enjeti]

So we had a big meeting this week between Candace Owens and Erica Kirk. Candace Mann. Her streams have exploded in popularity. Talk about things that have sort of like broken containment. She has, you know, I mean, she's created this whole true crime mystery series out of the public assassination of her friend Charlie Kirk and has been saying very suggestive things about Erica Kirk, very aggressive things about Turning Point usa, et cetera. There was originally supposed to be they wanted to do a livestream with her and did it in kind of a shady way where she couldn't make it on that day. And then they were like, oh, she doesn't wanna do it. And she said, I'd do it remotely, whatever. So they scrapped that plan. And Erica Kirk suggested, after her media tour and her town hall and all of that, let's you and I have a private meeting. So I'll show you in a minute the Candace Owens show after the Erica Kirk meeting where she kind of did back down from some of her stuff and her audience was very not happy about that. But after all of this, she also went on with Piers Morgan where they argued about some of the conspiracy theories that she has been floating and you know, putting forward on her show. Let me give you a sense of how that went. This is basically, I did watch the whole thing. This is basically kind of emblematic of the entire hour where Piers is basically like, so what do you actually think happened and what evidence do you have for it? And Candace just is talking very fast and kind of spinning her wheels the whole time. Let's take a listen to F1.

[Donald Trump]

I want to get to the reality of what you're actually saying. So when you say that somebody at Turning Point usa, Charlie's company, was complicit in his murder, who, who was?

[Candace Owens]

I believe that there were multiple people at Turning Point who are, as I have said many times, my exact words are they are engaged in a cover up of what happened to Charlie on that day.

[Donald Trump]

No, but who was involved in his murder?

[Candace Owens]

I didn't say that they murdered Charlie.

[Donald Trump]

You said Turning Point were complicit in his murder.

[Candace Owens]

No, my exact sentence that I said was that there were people at Turning Point who are engaged in a cover up. Thoroughly.

[Donald Trump]

Candace, you didn't say that. You said literally, you said there were people at Turning Point complicit in his murder.

[Candace Owens]

Okay, that's what you said when you and I were discussing. That's why I said, let's go back. I was applying the logic of a conspiracy to jfk. I said, okay, jfk, you have people that are complicit. Of course, if you apply logic, if there's a conspiracy, there's going to be multiple people that are going to be complicit by the time in order for a large stage murder happen. Do I think someone at Turning Point pulled the trigger? No, obviously I don't think so much. Turning Point.

[Donald Trump]

Do you think anybody at Turning Point did anybody at Turning Point. Did anybody at Turning Point, in your opinion, know that Charlie Kirk was going to be murdered.

[Candace Owens]

There is specifically two people at Turning Point usa, and I have communicated that information to Erica and Justin Strife that I would not be surprised if they had foreknowledge of Charlie Kirk being assassinated.

[Donald Trump]

But you have any evidence?

[Candace Owens]

I'm not going to name. I am not going to name those people. Okay. Because it's not right for me to name those people until I know for a fact that people.

[Donald Trump]

Did you give the names to Erica?

[Candace Owens]

Yes, I absolutely did. I did.

[Donald Trump]

You gave the names to Erica of two employees, current employees at Turning Point, who you believe were involved in the preparation for the murder of Charlie Kirk? Is that what you're saying?

[Candace Owens]

I told them that if. If I were in your shoes, these would be two employees that I would look further into.

[Donald Trump]

And what evidence do you have that they had any prior knowledge of the murder?

[Candace Owens]

Because I don't have concrete evidence is the reason why I'm not naming them. So I've been to the.

[Donald Trump]

So you've got no evidence, but you're telling the widow that these two people may have been involved in the murder.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So this is basically how it went. You know, there's a lot of talk of Egyptian planes and all the rest, French Foreign Legion, all of that. Right. And I don't know. This is it actually, like, it's. It feels very frivolous to talk about this, but it actually is really important for a number of reasons. Number one, she's created a lot of problems on the right for the right, because after Charlie Kirk was murdered, first of all, I mean, they, you know, they really were trying to consolidate this, you know, this power grab. And look, they have a storyline. Tyler Robinson, he has the trans girlfriend, he's radicalized. And then Candace comes in and through the opening of the investigation is genuinely a mess, as apparently every investigation, Cash Patel is even remotely involved with.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, the brown shooter is still on the loose. I mean, can we talk about that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Lead with the MIT shooter as well? I mean, there's, like, you see these images of FBI agents just, like, shuffling around in the snow. Dan Bongino, I mean, it's just unbelievable, right? And he's flying around and doing podcasts with his girlfriend, et cetera. So. So the whole thing was, the investigation was a mess from the start. All sorts of mistakes in the handling. Said he had a guy, then they didn't have a guy. You had that weirdness with the one guy who stood up right away. You've got questions still about, okay, did he really use the rifle they're claiming and was this really the type of round that he used and all sorts of things that would sort of naturally arise in this and then compounded by the fact that you have this totally shambolic joke of an FBI director. So Candace jumps in to fill this void. And so instead of having this like, you know, consistent sort of conservative narrative in the way that conservative media is usually very good at, like here's our line and we're sticking to it. Instead she's asking, you know, asking all these questions and the Egyptian planes and like going all in on all of it. And maybe it's Israel and maybe Egypt's involved and maybe France is involved and maybe the administration, maybe Erica Kirksen, maybe TPUSA was directly involved. And so she has just created this absolute mess for the right. And at the same time, I think there's also a lot of jealousy, frankly, that her streams are gigantic, I mean truly gigantic. She's getting millions, the audience that she has gained off of speculation about the murder of her friend. So now you've got this fight between her and Tim Pool. And it also comes at a time when there is just, you can't even keep track of who's mad at whom and who's fighting with whom over all sorts of like personality based even mostly or not some of it's policy based, but most of it is like personality based beefs and grievances that are all coming to the surface. And she is really like a central actor in all of this.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, it's. I mean, again, we can't overstate the reach. She's got millions of subscribers on YouTube. She's doing more in single live streams than we'll do in a day. Okay.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Like she's big and she'll have concurrently, like 250,000 people concurrently watching her stream. And that is massive.

[Krystal Ball]

It's gigantic. It's orders of magnitude bigger than most people can pull who are in politics. Right. That's something that like some big time streamers might be able to get in a different circumstances. So, yeah, I mean, the right wing thing, you're definitely correct. I also think what your description of true crime was the best one. And that's why, you know, there's been all this discussion lately about Candace's female audience. It's like, well, have you ever looked at the demographics of true crime? Like, come on guys, who do you think's watching Nancy Grace or any of these other shows back in the day? This is a long time kind of female obsession. And then you have Candace, who's the perfect messenger? You can't deny her talent. She's unbelievable, like charismatic and her ability to convey when she wants to. And she can just, you know, she looks directly into the camera, her fight, like presentation, all of that. She's very, very powerful.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I do think she'll also just make some shit up.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, she'll just go for it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

She will just make some shit up. We're telling you that something came to her in a dream and therefore it must be true.

[Krystal Ball]

This is what I was about to get to with, with independent media, like kind of Venezuela yesterday, the phone lines people were going off the hook on Venezuela and people who don't know how to do reporting just roll with it. This is not a knock on anti war because they actually do reporting but everybody else just says shit. They'll be like, oh, this, this and this, guys. Like you actually need to learn. Maybe this is just because of the background that we came up in. Facts are things that you can verify. You can't just go off of single sources. Single sources lie to you all the time. I've gotten, you know, I'm not even gonna go into it in terms of Venezuela, just in terms of. I hear stuff all the time. I don't report it here on the show because you can't. I only ever go and publish something or say something definitively with. This is what I've heard when I've heard it from multiple people or people directly in the room with somebody. And even then what you need to do is follow up with like when you're gonna make explosive claims, especially around private individuals, you have to make comment, you have to give them a chance to respond. You have to make sure that their side is presented. This is just from a legal perspective in terms of like defamation law. But beyond that, it's irresponsible. And as we all saw yesterday, you can't just go out and claim off of single sources. Venezuela's war is coming tonight. Like these are deeply consequential. Your wards matter. I'll give you an example. On Iran, I had the fact that we were going to bomb Iran. I basically had it about three hours before that happened. But I wasn't 100% sure, which is why I never came and did it for breaking points or. And I told all of you behind the scenes, I was like, hey, I'm here and it's a done deal but for Midnight Hammer. But you can't do that. And there's a reason and what I think that a lot of these people are, you know, playing in is first of all, they're acting like defamation law doesn't exist, which. Listen, people, you're all going to find that one out the hard way. Good luck with that one. But second is that it's irresponsible because we all have trust in audiences. You and I both know if I, you know, I could have thrown caution to the wind and done that video on Iran would have gotten a lot. I'll give you another one. I had Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. I had that an hour before it was reported. Still only single source. Can't do it. Okay. Just can't. And there's. Even though I'm sure we could have made a lot of money, we could have gotten scoops and all that stuff. It doesn't matter, because the process is a process. You don't throw it out the window. And unfortunately, this is not just Canada. This is like an entire ecosystem is just reporting or wildly speculating all of these things in public. We, like Candace had trust with a large audience over Israel, fairly. I think, actually she was one of the people who really was coming out hard about the Israeli government, about Gaza. So she gained that dissident trust that you and I have to a limited extent, with also a lot of other people. And I understand the responsibility that I have to those people. But I think taking advantage of that, not just for the Charlie Kirk thing, but to wildly and ruthlessly just throw that out the window for whatever you personally, you know, happen to have some sort of crusade is really bad. And I see this happen, not just with Candace, with so many other people who get addicted to this shit on the Internet. Like, reporting is real. Standards should be real. I'm not saying that there's some law or anything around it outside of defamation law, which does exist, but, you know, we do have a responsibility. And I think that's something that, you know, watching the TPUSA thing, I mean, again, look, you can. You can ask all the questions you want about 30 odds, six bullets. Apparently everybody's a neck expert now whenever it comes to hunting, like, I'll leave that to the forensic people at trial. Tyler Robinson's people can present that at trial. I'd love to see what the ballistics experts and all that say. And we'll leave it to a jury of his peers to decide whether that's legitimate. And I'm not saying nobody has a right not to speculate or any of that, but when you ruthlessly and recklessly just speculate as fact and imply, let's say that people are involved and assassin. Like, this is real life. That's where I just think it's so irresponsible not, not to say, not to question the FBI. Always question the FBI, always. But, like, not. And I'm not some great big defender of tpusa. I'm not going to speak at America Fest. I don't really care what happens to them, to be honest with you. Yeah, it's just like there are people's lives here who are at stake and who work in the organization. But more importantly, it's about the trust that we have. Because, you know, you and I report on a lot of controversial and conspiratorial stuff, and I know the audience that that can attract, but I will never take them down a road unless I really not just believe it, but have it confirmed. And so you have a lot of trust with people out there over issues like Epstein. It'd be a lot easier if I could just be like, yep, Epstein 100% worked for Israel. I mean, kind of. Right. And I'll get you the evidence for that. But I didn't say it six months ago. I didn't have the evidence. I didn't have the emails with Ryan. It would have been easier, would have made a shitload more money if I just said, yeah, 100. But we don't do that here. Right? And even though it'd be a lot easier if we could. So, like, I know this is long winded, but, like, that's kind of my biggest disappointment. Not just with Candace, but with this entire ecosystem around just Charlie Kirk. Cause it's like he was a real human being. There were other human beings involved. There's a personal tragedy, a political project, also people working over at TP usa. And then there's also the element of just. You have a lot of trust with other people. So put Brigitte Macron and all this other shit aside, like, to just flip back and forth on whether they were involved or pulling the trigger or any of that. We've just come a long way past cash. Patel screwed something up. And how many times we talked here about the cash to screw up about cash blocking Joe Kent looking into foreign, you know, into a foreign connection to the assassination. I have no problem talking about that. It's when we start to get into the realm of transponders. Egyptian planes, French Foreign Legion, all that, you're like, I'm sorry. Like, this is just. I mean, look, it doesn't check out, period. It really just does not check out. Like, even the Egyptian claim, again, unfortunately for me, actually went and checked what we're talking about here. I'm like, this is so spurious. And so, like, this is so spurious to Even just be 100% sure that it's Egyptian. But then to be, to draw that even further to Israel and all that. We cannot do that with any real level of responsibility. And it's only, you know, we all have trust and the background to be able to go and actually check those things and to make sure that we contextualize the facts without just throwing stuff out there. The tip line, for example, do you know how many unreported tips that I have? A lot of them are true or they end up true. As I just told all of you that I have. I don't report them because you can't do it without any sort of background. It's irresponsible to the craft and also to trust. And I've seen not just her do that, but a lot of other people do it. And unfortunately, now it's this titillating true crime murder mystery which has gone so far beyond what just happened to Charlie Kirk.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, it's on steroids to make it bipartisan here. I mean, liberals really got excited about Russiagate and it became a true crime thing for them, right? And every night they tune into Rachel Maddow. What's the next shoe that's gonna drop? Who's the next play character in this, you know, grand scheme and mystery and, you know, like with this murder of Charlie Kirk, there were, there were kernels of truth. There was Trump campaign and Russia connection. Like, that was a real thing. And what Candace has to work with is, yes, the FBI did screw this up. Yes, there are parts of this that continue to be weird, Right. I don't think it's crazy for people to listen to the doctor saying like, oh, we had a neck of steel. And that's why I wouldn't be like 100%. What are you talking about? That sounds ridiculous. That's fine, right? But yes, she. And I don't even wanna focus just on her. We live in this, like post truth environment. And so much from the President of the United States who just says whatever the hell he feels like saying, bearing no relationship to reality, to Elon Musk buying Twitter. And you know, the way he has his own, like, he also is like Trump in just complete reality distortion. And that's part of what he does. Now we've got all of this AI slop in the mix where it's increasingly different, difficult to tell fact from fiction. And you've also had a sort of like conspiracy realignment into the right. Like, that was part of actually RFK Jr. Coming into the right helped to bring like the people used to be like hippie vaccine anti vaxxers into the right as well. And so you've had this shift in coalitions where you have a disproportionate number of people are really open to this stuff. And you've had stop the steal to prime of this and all kinds of crazy Covid conspiracies that prime for this as well. And so this is kind of the logical endpoint, which is why when I see Tim Poole and these other people getting so exercised about, I'm like, you've done this shit too. You may not have gone quite as wild with the Egyptian planes and Brigitte Macron has a dick or whatever, but you were happy to play in these waters when it was good for you and when it was serving you. And now she's taken it that next level and you're pissed that she's sort of winning in this conspiracy off. But even for her, there's a limit. So I'll skip ahead to. Basically, the Piers Morgan thing is like, they get into the Brigitte Macron penis thing, if you're interested in that. She does make one point that Sagra kind of referenced about like, hey, Pierce, you're gonna, you know, now that it's safe for you to say things are bad in Gaza, you're able to say it. And I was saying this from the beginning. I would add that Candace herself was extremely pro Israel until basically October 7th. So she also is kind of a newcomer to really seeing the truth of Israel and what they've been up to. But in any case, I think she is correct in that that that did help gain her a lot of trust and gained a lot of people a lot of trust who were there and have been sounding the alarm about what is actually going on in Gaza. But any case, back to her right after this Erica Kirk meeting. And the risks and danger, even for her is after this meeting, she goes and does her show and she promises like, oh, I'm gonna tell you guys everything that happened and I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna expose, like, what this meeting was all about. And first of all, she gives very little detail about what actually happened in the meeting. Second of all, she really seems to kind of back off some of her harder line positions vis a vis TPUSA in particular, let's go and play F4. This was right towards the top of her show, just after the Erica Kirk.

[Candace Owens]

Meeting, you guys were telling me not to drink water, so I didn't drink water. Well, I brought my own water, but I didn't drink that water too. It was a lot. There's a lot going on. Okay. And the conversation started with Justin Strife very sensibly saying, what are we looking to accomplish here? Like, what is the actual aim of this conversation? And he was pretty clear, and Erica is very clear that they were sort of most upset with what I obviously a bit of a fever pitch. What I tweeted that it was a God forsaken company and people should not give money to it. And I have to own that. That's aggressive. That is actually aggressive in the retrospect. I was very frustrated and I don't know, I just, I felt like we weren't getting any answers and there were so many lies and then I was getting attacked for asking all meaningful questions that was within their capacity to answer. And I've told you, I definitely my problem in life is that I can rise to anger very quickly after this.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You can hear, okay, that was too far, et cetera. And then I watched most of the rest of her show and she doesn't really get into much more about what was actually said in this meeting, et cetera. So Yashar Ali, who's been watching the Candid show and really been tracking the growth of it and what it has meant, et cetera, he did analysis of the comments on this stream and we can put some of them up on the screen here. And he said they were overwhelmingly negative. Tens of thousands of comments. He said 74% of them were negative. The dominant emotional currents of the comments were betrayal and disillusionment, suspicion, paranoia and conspiracy thinking, anger and hostility, confusion and cognitive dissonance. He says, here's some of the comments. I think this private meeting is going to cost Candace a lot. The best part of this episode is the comments as they validate my deflation. If they are still gathering evidence three months later, why did they destroy the crime scene within days of the incident, which is expressing skepticism about what some of what Candace said? Game over. Erica got what she wanted. All the hard work and credibility. Truth and justice for Charlie got shot. Pun intended. Sad day. Very sad day. Disappointed. Wish Candace didn't take Erica's bait by doing this. And so listen, I do actually think the Piers Morgan debate may have helped to bring some of her audience back because then she gets to be in the position of the supposed brave truth teller against the stick in the mud. Journalist. I mean, Pierce himself is like a tabloid sensationalist. But whatever, put that aside for the moment. I do think that kind of like helped her maybe bring her audience back along. But if they start to waver on, oh, Candace has been compromised. Candace got the call. Candace is no longer telling us the truth. Guess what? Someone else is gonna pop in and fill that vo because there's an audience to be had.

[Krystal Ball]

They're all there. Unfortunately, my YouTube algorithm keeps pushing me to this type of shit. There's an entire ecosystem of orbiters who are just grifting off of this. And, you know, I mean, look, I'm not, I'm not for censorship and all that. It's fine for all of this to exist. I just think at the Candace level, because it's, it's about. If we compare the trust and people like her who have been doing this now for years, and you gain this real connection with your audience. Like when you, when you disabuse that or in your. This case, what, you're like admitting that you were mad or something and that's why you went kind of far. I'm sorry, like, you have a responsibility. I've been mad plenty of times. It doesn't mean you violate or try not to violate your own personal ethics. So this is kind of an independent media problem. Also, you were talking about, you know, the RFK and all that for bringing conspiracy thinking. I actually don't think it's rfk. I think it was all stopped. I think Stop the Steal unleashed a love. Because think about it, at that time, what happened with Stop the Steal was Trump would not hear it from anybody else except for people who would just tell him whatever he wanted to hear. Sidney Powell, that ultimately is what truly engendered trust between Donald Trump and some of the people around him. You had to be willing to say this election was stolen. Yeah. Also transitioned to the base where many Republican Fox News commentators and others who knew that this was not true either had to endorse it, wink at it, or whatever. That just allowed this space to open where of course anybody is just gonna take it as far as humanly possible. You could try and wink at it like Josh Hawley or any others, but like at the end of the day, they had to say the election was stolen by Venezuelan dominions. That was like original sin, kind of ground zero. That opened up this entire kind of space and ultimately led people to just bring. That's what led people to live truly in a so called like post truth environment. Now, to your point, it's not like that isn't a bipartisan phenomenon also in its own right. When we think about Russiagate and other things, like both have their own types of conspiracies. I also think that there's a big class element where at the end of the day, Russiagate, which was definitely equally bullshit, was kind of an elite version of what that looks like. Whereas now when you're dealing with lower class and lower IQ people who are shifting into the Republican coalition, especially as things move around in terms of like, who votes in which direction, it's gonna look a lot more like this. It won't be all as dressed up and, you know, liberal elite conspiracies have. They have academics involved and everything is trussed up and it's made to be more respectable. Lower IQ movements are gonna look a lot more like this. And so this is a consequence of some of the shifting class dynamics that are here. So in Richard Hanania's low human capital theory, I think he's totally vindicated. I think this is actually what it looks like.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, I think there's a lot of, like, liberal moms who watch Candace too, though. I mean, I think she really. I don't know that this is just like a right winger's watching phenomenon, you know. And again, Yashir's been the one who's tracking this. Like, it's pretty. It's pretty mainstream because it's fun, because it's entertaining, because she's. I think there's an element because she's entertaining. But, you know, what you see is, like you said, you'll have people who will wink at it and they're gonna get outflanked by the people who will actually say it. And then the minute that they don't say the thing the audience wants, then there'll be someone else who will come in and who will say. And then. Or the other thing that happens is like, you ride that conspiracy as far as it goes, and then people get bored and they move on to whatever the next thing is. And you're kind of left to the side now with Candace. I think Candace is very talented.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, she'll be around.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And, you know, she's been able to, you know, she had her whole Brigitte Macron thing. She's done. You know, this isn't her first. Her first moment in the sun, but this is the height of her popularity and her sort of celebrity in terms of American culture. And, you know, I don't know. I don't know if it's. If this is the peak But I think it's becoming increasingly difficult to sustain as the conspiracies get more ridiculous, more elaborate, more countries and players involved. And now you're having to deal with the reality of, like, whatever actually happened in that meeting with Erica Kirk, whether they had lawyers there and were like, hey, listen, here's the facts, and if you keep saying this shit, then we're gonna have a problem.

[Krystal Ball]

Definitely could see that, too.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, and maybe she doesn't have an issue with that. Maybe she would like the publicity of getting. She still bothered her that, you know, the Macrons are suing her over her, like, whole Brigitte Macron transvestigation thing.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, we'll see, though, because, like, no matter, we live in, no matter how much money you have, like, at the end of the day, the court system will catch up with you. So we'll see. All right, thank you guys so much for watching. It was fun to end, I think. On that note, happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, etc, to everybody who is out there. We're gonna miss you all and thank you for the greatest gift of all, which is the ability to do this job, which is from all of you. So thank you. Thank you all very much, and we'll see you all very soon.

[Sophie Cunningham]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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