Corey Archibald (1:19)

When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter.

Saagar Enjeti (1:23)

Spice Cranberry and put your twist on tradition.

Corey Archibald (1:26)

It's a refreshing way to shake things up.

Saagar Enjeti (1:29)

This sip in season and only for a limited time. Sprite.

Corey Archibald (1:32)

Obey your thirst.

Krystal Ball (1:33)

Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

Saagar Enjeti (1:35)

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 (1:42)

This is the only place where you.

Ryan Grim (1:43)

Can find honest perspectives from the left.

Krystal Ball (1:45)

And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

Saagar Enjeti (1:48)

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

Krystal Ball (1:59)

We need your help to build the.

Casey Kennedy (2:00)

Future of independent news media and we.

Ryan Grim (2:02)

Hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning everybody.

Saagar Enjeti (2:05)

Happy Friday.

Krystal Ball (2:07)

Happy Friday.

Ryan Grim (2:08)

How you doing?

Saagar Enjeti (2:09)

Pretty good. I've been debating whether to throw on the Santa hat or not. I might do it later. The topic is content is a little serious at the top of the show. So I'm not sure I want to be Santa hatted out here to talk about this.

Krystal Ball (2:20)

I hadn't thought about that. That would be jarring. Crystal, I think you made the right call.

Saagar Enjeti (2:24)

That's, that's always my hesitation, like with the Halloween costumes and stuff too. It's like, you know, last year we did it and I did Ray Gun, which was fun and people really liked it. And I don't remember what we covered today but that day, but I don't think there's anything like too crazy serious. But yeah, it just feels very off if you're wearing some like, goofy costume and then you're covering like, you know, a mass murder or whatever, war, Epstein, pedophiles, etc. So in any case, Jeffrey Epstein.

Ryan Grim (2:52)

Yeah.

Saagar Enjeti (2:53)

Feels wrong. It feels really wrong.

Krystal Ball (2:55)

Doesn't feel right.

Saagar Enjeti (2:57)

Yeah. So anyway, but we do have major updates in terms of what we now know. Apparently, according to the government, is the killer who shot the two students, actually shot a number more than that, but killed two students at Brown University and then traveled some 55 miles and murdered a professor at his home at MIT. It was apparently the same guy. He's now been found dead, killed himself inside of a storage unit. And let me go ahead, see if I can pull up this New York Times article that just gives us like a rundown of what happened here. Also, interestingly, just off the top, apparently the tip that really blew the case open came from Reddit and it was like a. Yeah, it was not only Reddit, I think it was someone who was homeless and sleeps in the basement of one of the Brown University buildings. Saw this guy acting bizarrely, had an interaction with him in the bathroom, was like, this guy's dressed weird, he's acting weird, he's acting weird around this car, followed him a little bit and asked him like, dude, what are you up to? So, so anyway, that appears to be the tip that blew the thing open. So in any case, let me read from you for you a little bit here. They say a man suspected of carrying out a pair of deadly attacks, one at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine more, and another that killed an MIT professor in his home. Found dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire on Thursday. The suspect's death, which the police said was from a self inflicted gunshot wound, ended a five day search that began on Brown's campus. Providence, R.I. case both captivated and rattled New England as investigators pieced together grainy surveillance footage and feared another burst of violence. The search stretched across state Lines ultimately hinged on witness interviews in Providence, including a Reddit user, along with records from a car rental agency in Boston and search warrant in Salem, New Hampshire. Nothing can really fully bring closure to the lives that have been shattered over the past week. This may allow our community to move forward. So law enforcement officials identified the suspect as Claudio manuel Neves Valente, 48 years old, a former Brown student who was recently enrolled at the university more than two decades ago. Last known address was in Miami. Investigators still not sure what the motive was behind the attacks. This talks more about the anonymous tip, and then this gives us a little bit more on the suspects. So he had studied physics as a grad student at Brown in the early 2000s. He is from Portugal. Became a permanent resident of the US in 2017 through a diversity visa lottery. The Trump administration has now seized on that fact to say that they're shutting down the entire diversity visa lottery, which is, you know, something we could discuss more. They believe he studied at the same school as the professor that he murdered. So in Lisbon. So they studied at the school at the same time in Lisbon. Said the two might have known each other. Details of the relationship remain unclear and still completely unclear what the motive was for the, you know, the mass shooting at Brown University.

Krystal Ball (5:58)

So we should add studied.

Saagar Enjeti (5:59)

Go ahead, Emily.

Krystal Ball (6:00)

Together, I believe it's. Studied in Lisbon together even before Brown.

Saagar Enjeti (6:05)

So years and years ago.

Krystal Ball (6:06)

Which is an extremely bizarre connection.

Saagar Enjeti (6:10)

Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is. Is very strange. And, you know, I guess, you know, given that we. That the public rushes to view these things for. Through whatever like, partisan or political lens. On the one side you've got he's an immigrant. On the other side, he's a white guy. So from Portugal, the diversity lottery aspect of this, you know, I was reading more about it. There's. There's kind of an irony here is actually put in place the. The precursor program to it was specifically aimed at getting more Irish immigrants into the US because after the 1965 changes, where there were no more, like, country quotas, there was a sense that European countries and Eastern European countries were being disadvantaged in terms of bringing in immigrants. And so it was actually some of the more kind of like white nativist types that introduced this program because they wanted more white immigrants. And then over the years, as you had more of a diaspora from some of those European countries, you know, Irish in particular, then they sort of phased out of being really eligible for this program. They could use the, you know, family reunification and the, the chain migration aspects inherent in our Immigration policy. And so that visa lottery still has a significant portion of Europeans who come in through it, but it has skewed more towards African countries. And it's. It's meant to be for countries that don't historically have a lot of immigrants coming to the US Is basically the idea behind it.

Ryan Grim (7:40)

Yeah, the. The other irony of the 1965 law is that it was really geared toward their 1965. They had this nostalgia for, you know, Ellis island and all the Italians and Irish and Europeans who were coming in. And so in 65, they're like, all right, let's. Let's open it back up and let more Europeans in. Because they're, you know, those are our. Those are our white brothers over there. And they didn't want to come. Like, things were good in Europe, and American policymakers were just kind of stunned. Like, what do you mean? I thought. We thought everybody wanted to come to the United States of America. It's like the greatest place on earth. And instead, like you said, other countries filled the. Filled those quotas, leading to then some efforts to correct it. Be like, hold on, we gotta get the hue a little bit lighter. Come on. What's going on here with this immigration policy?

Saagar Enjeti (8:29)

Yes. So this one that was put in place originally to once again lighten the skin color of the people that came in over time, now has shifted in its proportions as well.

Krystal Ball (8:42)

I think another interesting aspect of the story is the frustration locally in Providence and on the Brown University campus. So I wanted to roll this clip of part of the press conference last night. There were two press conferences. There was one in Boston, and then there was one in Providence. This is the Providence press conference, and you just hear the frustration bubbling up.

Ryan Grim (9:03)

President Paxton, dan J. From NBC10. I want to go back to the question I asked you Saturday night. When I first arrived on the scene. There were no cameras in this building. And law enforcement, some that are standing up behind you, have said, if Brown had cameras in that part of the building, we would have gotten this guy.

Krystal Ball (9:23)

And I just want to pause there and mention that's not a small part of the story because allegedly the suspect then killed again.

Ryan Grim (9:32)

And it may have stopped this swirling action.

Saagar Enjeti (9:35)

Can you answer that question for me? Well, I don't think we have said.

Corey Archibald (9:39)

The locations of cameras at Brown.

Ryan Grim (9:42)

We have cameras because why would they take it from a rental car agency?

Saagar Enjeti (9:46)

We have 1200 cameras at Brown, but.

Ryan Grim (9:48)

Not in that building.

Saagar Enjeti (9:49)

We have some in that building. It's a large complex. And I think what you would see.

Corey Archibald (9:54)

Is the video evidence in this case, from my perspective, I'm not a law enforcement agent, has been incredibly helpful. The moving of the person around the.

Saagar Enjeti (10:04)

Neighborhood, those video images, they helped crack this case. So I think video was important.

Corey Archibald (10:10)

And as the Attorney General explained at.

Saagar Enjeti (10:13)

A recent press conference, this individual was not spending his time on the Brown campus.

Corey Archibald (10:18)

He came into a building on the.

Saagar Enjeti (10:20)

Edge of the campus.

Corey Archibald (10:21)

He left.

Ryan Grim (10:21)

He was in the neighborhoods.

Saagar Enjeti (10:23)

The investigation focused on the neighborhoods. The video was there, and that was.

Corey Archibald (10:28)

Really, really instrumental in cracking the case.

Saagar Enjeti (10:30)

But you can ask them.

Ryan Grim (10:32)

And this is my follow up, Madam President. You'd say the podium. Yes, video played a big role in this case. The neighbors video, the rental car video, but not the video from the building that he walked in freely, both before when he got in the confrontation and when he came back in, decided to kill people. You didn't have cameras in that building.

Saagar Enjeti (10:54)

Just say it so we could get this over in My.

Casey Kennedy (10:57)

My next question.

Ryan Grim (10:58)

Will you follow up with the cameras in that building?

Saagar Enjeti (11:03)

Yeah, you know, I think we need to look back. We'll look at everything that is done, but I do not think a lack of cameras in that building had anything to do with what happened.

Krystal Ball (11:13)

All right, we can stop it there. But, yeah, you can see that's the President Brown under intense scrutiny also for coming out after this originally happened and saying, basically, we think everybody should feel safe. That has infuriated the community as well, because now we know again, allegedly the suspect did kind of go along with the theory Sagar had floated about a potential Unabomber. Something in that ballpark targeting campuses and obviously seems to have happened again at mit.

Saagar Enjeti (11:49)

I mean, that I understand the sentiment that's being expressed there. I will also say that, like, that sentiment, I feel like, is how we've ended up with a mass surveillance state where there are cameras everywhere and we're all being tracked.

Corey Archibald (12:00)

Totally.

Saagar Enjeti (12:01)

You know, oh, my God, we need even more camera.

Ryan Grim (12:03)

Like, already has inch of this building that wasn't under surveillance, doesn't have surveillance.

Saagar Enjeti (12:07)

247 and facial recognition. And listen, the public will agree with that person. You know, there will be an instinct of like, yes, we have to, you know, and yes, install them. Metal detectors. And we got to make sure, you know, you're scanning their retinas as they're coming in or whatever. And so that is how you end up with the situation we are in, where basically you cannot really live your life without being under mass surveillance from. From the government. The other thing that I'll say is, you know, disconnected from that is I. I'M I'm very curious to see where the conspiratorial minds go with this because now you have very unclear motive. What the hell was going on here? This one guy that the professor that he murdered was doing extraordinarily important breakthrough work with regard to nuclear fusion technology. And so, and now this guy's dead, so we'll never know. He'll never be able to tell us what he was thinking or who he might have targeted next or whatever. So just brace yourself for. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of. And look, I understand because I myself am like, what the hell is going on here too? And of course you should always be skeptical of government claims, etc. But I just, I'm, I'm sure that we're going to be in for a lot of, a lot of speculation about what was really going on underneath the surface here and whether this is really the guy and all that kind of stuff.

Krystal Ball (13:28)

Yeah, and just a quick note, say, you know, cameras do not solve everything. Like almost every inch of New York City is surveilled and Luigi Mangioni was able to get to what, Pennsylvania? You know, New York City has this partnership with Microsoft. There's like a lawsuit over it right now where they're doing like constant biometrics from cameras that are all over the city. So it doesn't solve everything. I think it's interesting that the, or I do think that this subplot is interesting on the campus where there's mismanagement, because I wonder then to what extent it's going to bleed over to mit. Not that the MIT professor was not on campus, was at his own apartment in Brookline, but seriously scary situation in New England for several days and now that the man was found, the suspect here is found dead, they're not being clear about potential motives so far. There's plenty of time for that obviously to come out. But it also leaves wide open the possibility that motivation remains a mystery. Hopefully that's not the case. Hopefully it's, it's clear cut and we have information that comes out that makes it really clear what was going on. But it is, I mean, when we were talking earlier about these connections that go back literally to Lisbon in the late 90s and then Brown in the early 2000s, you have, in the case of the professor who was killed, a like, leading nuclear scientist. You have the vice president of the College Republicans at Brown. It's all very, it's, it's, I genuinely hope that there's clear cut motive Information out there because it's, it is like fodder for conspiracy theories, as you said.

Saagar Enjeti (15:05)

Crystal Ryan, did you see Israel jumped in to say, oh, we think Iran did it?

Ryan Grim (15:11)

Yes, they were, they were, yes. Because yeah, a nuclear science is getting killed. And they're like, oh. And it's like, no, you know what, like you're the only country actually that is just freely killing scientists and bragging about it. Like you're projecting onto others. That's this level of barbarity that, that, that, that did certainly in this case did not exist. And when it comes to the celebration of mass surveillance, it's interesting to note that the three high profile shooters over the last year have been caught by people. Whether, you know, Luigi was caught by a person at the McDonald's, like, hey, it looks like Luigi Tyler Robinson, if you believe he's shooter there, was turned in by his family who were like, oh, that looks like Tyler. And this guy caught by the Reddit user who just saw him suspiciously walking through the Brown campus and followed him and then told police like, so that's, that's old school. So, you know, social policing, the community rising to the occasion and saying this is, this is who it was. And then the police having that information and then tracking it down from there.

Saagar Enjeti (16:24)

I mean, it's kind of a mix. Right though, because the reason that Luigi and Tyler in particular were caught is because we had those camera images, whereas with this one it actually truly was just this like Reddit guy. Like this guy's acting really weird without even seeing, I think, the photos or the, or the videos. Yeah, good point. Yeah.

Ryan Grim (16:42)

But I mean, first to her combo. Yeah.

Krystal Ball (16:45)

Of the two and also that, I think that's an important point because with Tyler Robinson and potentially in this case, you have to ask whether law enforcement, including the FBI, would have been able to nab the suspect had someone not stepped up and seen something or done something. I think that's particularly true in the Tyler Robinson case when you have his family doing the enormously difficult thing of turning him in. Does, is he in custody if that doesn't happen or does law enforcement, you know, in a reasonable timeframe track him down? That it sort of saves the, saves the bacon of law enforcement to an extent too.

Saagar Enjeti (17:30)

Yeah, Cash once again, wasn't, wasn't looking great on this one. And the other thing, the last thing I want to say about this is you had people who were saying with confidence like, oh, we think this particular guy and named this one kid Brown University student and you know, his name went Everywhere, large accounts sharing this guy's name and his photo and digging into everything about him. And he had nothing to do with this. They were also saying Lori Loomer and others were. Oh, they shouted Allahu Akbar before the. No, no, actually they didn't. The killer did not do that. Apparently he was. Made some weird barking noises before he opened fire. People make shit up and they dox people and like, ruin their lives based on, you know, a hunch based on like, oh, their social media profile looks like this. And my political valence makes me think that it must, must be a Muslim person who's like that. And then they'll just casually ruin somebody's life. And we've seen this happen multiple times. When they were still searching for Tyler Robinson, we didn't have a killer of Charlie Kirk. They were doing the same shit with a bunch of different people. I'm one of our own fans of our show, wrote and said, please tell people to stop doing this. So please, I beg you, not that anyone's gonna listen, stop doing this because you destroy people's lives. And private people like this will be the only thing. You know, the biggest thing about them on the Internet is that, you know, people thought they, they killed this high. They were involved in this high profile murder. So I just, I just find the whole, the whole thing really disgusting. The baseless accusations and always again, designed to fit some person into whatever political narrative they want to push with regard to the killing. Cleaning out your home is everything. It clears your space, your mind, and it can give you holiday shopping power with trashy. Trashy is the easiest way to tidy up for the holidays. Clean out and donate what you don't need and make room for stuff you'll actually enjoy. Just buy a trashy bag, fill it with anything you no longer need, any brand, any condition. We take everything, then ship it free and earn trashy cash points instantly guaranteed. Keep earning points when you shop exclusive trashy deals and redeem for shopping wherever you want or even donate them to charity. It's simple, it's satisfying, and it's sustainable since 95% of what you send gets reused or recycled. So those pants you love but never wear, instead of your closet or a landfill, they could wind up hugging someone else's butt while also unlocking a little festive shopping power for you. Buy your bag and clean out for the holidays@trashee IO that's T R A S H I E I Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps.

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One for sales, another for inventory, a.

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Saagar Enjeti (21:45)

All right, so we've got today is Epstein files release day. Ryan's got a big and the happy.

Krystal Ball (21:50)

Epstein files release day to both of you.

Saagar Enjeti (21:53)

Indeed this is put on the Santa hat. So Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey partners together in Marjorie Taylor Greene. You had a bit of a bipartisan push and enough Republicans coming on to the discharge petition to force a vote on this. President Trump sort of backed down, realizing he was in a corner with this, signed this law that says, you know, you have to now release these files or else there will, you will actually be in violation of the law. So the deadline is today. You also had a number of federal judges come in who were involved in the various like Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein cases both in Florida and then what was that New York. Anyway, say, you know, we, we agree that these materials now that the law has been passed need to be released. So we know that material will be included and every ben Congress conveniently decided they would leave town early. So they're not, they're going to be totally out of dodge and make sure they're nowhere near whenever what comes out comes out. So Ryan, what are you, you know, what do you think we should expect since you are, I mean you probably the foremost journalist on this at this Point in the country, Julie K. Brown, a few other Jason Leopold mods, of course. What do you think we should be looking for in this release?

Ryan Grim (23:09)

And I, I, that's kind of you, I wouldn't put myself there. So many journalists have been doing so much work on this, including Whitney Webb for, you know, for so long now. We've, we've, we're relying on this, the tranche of stuff that's out and you know, so I think that there could be interesting stuff out of the grand jury testimony like that could, you know, there could be some serious breadcrumbs there. If people are wondering about the timing, the Trump's capitulation was very cleverly timed. Like he, because there's a 30 day timing. And so either it was luck or he recognized like oh or his team recognized like if we do it right now and sign it into law now, the 30 days will land on the Friday before Christmas. So let's hurt, let's just, let's just we're gonna lose this anyway. Better to lose it now because so much of history, what we remember of history revolves around how big a deal a story was when it happened. And if a story just kind of gets muzzled when it, when it happens like it, it's really difficult then to unearth it later as, as a major kind of quote unquote historical moment. It's like why you know, some scandals are IRA and contra and some scandals are just kind of, nobody's ever heard of them.

Krystal Ball (24:32)

I was thinking about this last night too because the shutdown is what prevented the bill from being the discharge petition from going through. And so it does, I mean I don't know if it would be strategically it would make sense that it was intentional but also I wonder if it was just dumb luck because they came back from the shutdown and immediately the discharge petition which they were worried about went through. They knew that was going to happen. But if that's luck, that is some incredible luck because you're totally right, Ryan.

Ryan Grim (24:58)

It'll combination of the two. But yeah, yeah and yeah, I, maybe they'll wait till 5pm I don't know.

Saagar Enjeti (25:05)

If you can bury news though in the way that you used to be able to because everybody's so it's not the same. The Friday news dump isn't what it used to be.

Krystal Ball (25:13)

And if anything, now that you have Christmas is on a Thursday this year, a lot of people are going to have a slow couple of weeks now you have like online who are going to make sure the story has Legs, because people have a little bit of extra time on their hands over the next couple of weeks.

Saagar Enjeti (25:30)

True.

Ryan Grim (25:30)

Yeah. And Democrats yesterday put out some new photos that, you know, they'd obtained. They got more with Chomsky, just very depressing stuff, showing how much he was palling around with him and Ehud Barak even and Bannon also some weird ass.

Saagar Enjeti (25:49)

Like Lolita quotes on people's, like, feet and body parts. Do you guys see that? Yeah.

Ryan Grim (25:57)

See if I can pull these up. Creepy.

Saagar Enjeti (25:59)

Yeah, very creepy. And you've also had the New York Times now deciding to get in the game with a couple of significant pieces, but one in particular, yeah, there's the Lolita. Lolita quotes on various body parts. So that's just really normal stuff. But the New York Times dug into his financing, and I know, Ryan, you had some thoughts about that. But they also dug into specifically the relationship with Trump. And maybe I can pull up some of the quotes here. I know Jasper Nathaniel had pulled some of the key quotes from this. But, you know, I mean, this won't be a surprise to any of us because we know that Trump and Epstein have this very, you know, significant relationship. But there were some details here that were for sure new. So one of the things is a. An Epstein employee from The ERA recalled Mr. Trump would occasionally send over modeling cards for Mr. Epstein to Peru, like a menu. And the. The Trump Modeling Agency has long been one of the, like, major red flags because these modeling agencies, including, you know, I mean, Epstein got close to Lex Wexner, and he has Victoria's Secret, and that's the whole thing. But, you know, Trump was very close to John Casablancas and sort of looked up to him as a role model. His modeling agency was maybe the most infamous and notorious for exploiting young girls, and he himself for exploiting young girls. And so the, you know, the modeling agencies have been used as a front for effectively, human trafficking. And that's a documented phenomenon. So that's obviously disturbing piece of information there. You've got this gross detail where Trump would love to, you know, they'd love to, like, publicly brag about their exploits, put themselves on speakerphones, so whoever was in the room had to uncomfortably listen to whatever their, like, sexual exploits. Apparently they called each other all the time to share this sort of information. This one woman says she remembers one call in the mid-90s in which the two. Two men discussed how much pubic hair a particular woman had and whether there was enough for Mr. Epstein to floss his teeth with. On another of these calls, Mr. Trump told Mr. Epstein about having sex with another woman on a pool table. This one is very disturbing. One of the 14 year old models who was brought to Mar A Lago as one of these, you know, parties, event type things, rant said she ran into Trump's then wife Marla Maples. According to her, she says during a trip to the bathroom they ran into Mr. Trump's new wife and they had met earlier. Ms. Maples clasped her hands, Ms. Coleman recalled, looked her in the eye. So this is the mother of the 14 year old model and says whatever you do, do not let her around any of these men and especially my husband, protect her. Now Marla Maples denies that, that, that she said that and that that quote occurred. But in any case, some new, new details there about the depth and nature of the Trump, Trump Epstein relationship and I think gives some insight into why Trump was very, very not excited about any of this information coming to light.

Ryan Grim (29:02)

And, and remember Trump bought Miss Teen USA in order, he's, this is from his own testimony in order for him to be able to creep into the locker room and look at the nude teens, like young teens, like that. He, he said this on, he said this publicly.

Saagar Enjeti (29:25)

Publicly. Yeah.

Ryan Grim (29:26)

So there's no question that aside from the gross stuff he said like about his own daughter, like he's, he's a, he's a gross dude.

Saagar Enjeti (29:35)

He put into this modeling industry by the way, which if you know, you know, know what he knew is a real interesting choice.

Ryan Grim (29:42)

Yeah. And, and there's that quote he gave to, I guess it was Vanity Fair or somebody where he said, yeah, Jeffrey Epstein likes him young. So like, yeah, all of this is, but yeah, probably not surprising to people that he's this much of a creep.

Saagar Enjeti (29:57)

I think it's surprising to some people in a sense with the young girls apparently. And I mean, you know, I mean this was always the glaring, like glaring blind spot for MAGA when they were very focused on Epstein and revealing, you know, the connections with the elite circles. Like you guys do know that this man was like besties with Donald Trump for a decade. You don't think there's going to be anything there. You don't think there's going to be anything there. So in any case, of course, you know what, what Trump would say, oh, go ahead.

Krystal Ball (30:29)

Well, I was just gonna say it goes back to the origins of maga, which is that Donald Trump was standing up on the stage and saying, I alone can fix it, for example, because I know the system. The same thing with the Clintons.

Ryan Grim (30:41)

Like Teen usa, I can fix the.

Krystal Ball (30:44)

Problem was this whole. But that, but that goes into this. Just this point is that he pitched himself to MAGA as somebody who was and created MAGA as somebody who was the billionaire against the other billionaires. He was part of the billionaire system, but he was going to sort of disrupt it from the inside. And it is, it is, you know, important. Then every time he does anything but disrupt the billionaire system from the inside, anytime he protects the billionaire system, anytime he's sort of revealed to be part of that system, I think it does. You guys talked about earlier this week, you and Sagar did a segment on Harry Enton looking at this Poll results showing 2024 Trump supporters. Strong support from Trump is down from 66% to 50%. Not super surprising. But at the same time it does, I think, lead. You know, Erica Kirk endorsed J.D. vance yesterday at Turning Point's big conference. That genuinely is surprising. Not that she would endorse him, but that she endorse him this early. And so there's it, it's setting a tone for what the Republican Party and what the kind of populist swing of the Republican Party MAGA is supposed to do going forward. If you're J.D. vance, you should be looking at those numbers, 66% to 50% and thinking very hard about them because of things like this.

Ryan Grim (32:06)

And now if you want.

Krystal Ball (32:09)

Not that J.D. i'm not like, obviously J.D. is connected to Teal and all of those people. So I'm just saying, like, the politics of it, I think are kind of.

Ryan Grim (32:15)

Interesting now when it, when it comes. And Emily and I talked about this a little bit on the show Wednesday when we talked about the New York Times story. And I promised or I pledged that we would try to have our story out by Friday. And we did get it out. The timing of the New York Times piece was helpful to us, I think, because we had been reporting around a lot of the same kind of period of time that they said that they uncovered the, the and, and put to bed the questions about like, where he made his money and whether or not he had intelligence connections. Not making any sense throughout the entire piece. Let me put this up. Would highly recommend reading this piece. It's. It's also just fascinating as just a, a piece of kind of alternative like espionage history, because I, it's fair to think of Epstein almost as like the Forrest Gump of the spy world. Like when it comes to Iran Contra, he's just everywhere. And I, I highlighted this one paragraph from the New York Times piece here where they write, Jeffrey Epstein had been spending extravagantly and despite his lofty compensation at Bear Stearns and his work for Douglas Lease, he found himself strapped, even occasionally bouncing rent checks. Back in New York, he joined forces with John Stanley Pottinger, a lawyer who had recently left a senior post in the Justice Department. Epstein, Pottinger and Pottinger's brother rented a penthouse office in the Hotel St. Moritz on Central Park South. The broker Joanna Cutler told us that Epstein initially stiffed her on the commission. And so this is an example of some of the really impressive kind of, of shoe leather reporting that the Times did for this piece to track down all these details. Like they got Joanna Cutler on the phone and, and got her to tell them, you know, that he stiffed her on the commission and confirmed this, this, this arrangement within the penthouse. But as we argue in the piece, if they had looked in the other direction, looked upwards, they would have in this, in this paragraph itself found two details worth exploring. One, that Douglas Leese is himself an arms trafficker. And we talk about his, his connection to the Iran Contra scandal, which was. It's called Iran Contra, but right in the middle of it is Israel because the United States was barred from shipping weapons to Iran. And so the arrangement that was we created was that Israel would send weapons to Iran, which is comical if you think about it, since they're. So Israel would ship weapons to Iran. Iran would then pay, would, would put money into this slush fund that Shimon Perez Ahud, Barack and Adan Khashoggi were organizing. And then the U.S. by the way.

Krystal Ball (35:13)

Khashoggi Trump buys what? The Khashoggi yacht.

Ryan Grim (35:17)

That. Yes, Khashog. This is Khashoggi's, this is Jamal Khashoggi's uncle, in fact. And then the US Would then backfill the weapons to Israel. So, so we weren't giving weapons to Iran, we're giving them to Israel. We would then use. And then Le Hezbollah then would release some hostages, American hostages that were being held and we would use the money to illegally finance the Contras. Cause Congress had said, you can't finance this, this, this, you know, this insurgency against the Nicaraguan leftist government. And so the Reagan administration used the proceeds to put them there. Now Stanley Pottinger was a lawyer who was like heavily involved in the Iran Contra scandal, helping to set up the, the flows of money. And so they have. So the Times found Epstein literally in business with an Iran Contra lawyer at the time that the thing is unfolding. And Douglas Leese who was also involved with it. And he was. Yeah. And he was associates with Khashoggi, but go ahead.

Krystal Ball (36:26)

Well, no, I was just gonna say. So Trump's NSA starting in 2019 was Matthew Pottinger, who is the son of John Stanley Pottinger, which is when Ro Khanna now describes the Epstein class. Here's an example of the Epstein class. It doesn't mean anyone's necessarily implicated in this massive of blackmail. It just means that it's all being pulled from the same small pool of people who are part of this like tightly knit network.

Ryan Grim (36:53)

But Pottinger in his defense, actually he died recently, but he represented a bunch of Epstein victims. I think he what whatever his time class traitor. Yeah.

Krystal Ball (37:06)

Although some people may be very suspicious of that because it could would look.

Ryan Grim (37:10)

Like controlled opposition might be. He. He's an interesting guy. He. He was almost ousted from the Nixon administration as part of the Saturday Night Massacre. And he was like packing up his stuff and then at the last minute the massacre was kind of stopped. So he kept his job. He also in this New York Times obit, it says that he figured out who Deep Throat was as part of this grand jury process.

Krystal Ball (37:36)

Oh, that's right.

Saagar Enjeti (37:38)

It.

Ryan Grim (37:38)

He kept that secret. He then be. He then made a fortune in real estate in the 80s and real estate, I'm not saying that he used Iran Contra funds, but real estate was a major way that Iran Contra funds were. Were laundered. Then he became a, a novelist, bestselling novelist. And he's according to his Times open, he has a spy thriller that hasn't been published yet. And then he, and then he represented the Epstein victims. So like what a life that that guy's life took. But then so you have all of this, the Epstein, Epstein being close with all of these different Iran Contra figures. After the lid gets blown on IRAN Contra, the CIA's airline, Southern Air Transport that was involved in this weapons shipments and drug running has to lay low for a while. And what we report here, Whitney Webb has written about this as well. But we have some new details from a journalist in Ohio who covered this at Jeffrey Epstein brought Southern air transport, the CIA's front company airline to Columbus, Ohio. They shipped moved the headquarters from Miami to Columbus, Ohio to start trafficking lingerie and fast fashion for less.

Krystal Ball (38:53)

Trafficking lingerie.

Ryan Grim (38:55)

So literally and as, as one friend responded last night, it's like, well, this is something decent that Epstein did for the world. So instead of trafficking drugs and, and like guns for the CIA, these planes for a couple years were moving. You Know, you know, crappy bombshell push up bras, right? Abercrombie and Fitch and Victoria's Secret. So it's like, okay, maybe there's no intel connections here at all, but how on earth did this guy end up bringing the CIA's airplanes to Les Wexner? Like, Times is going to have to do a little bit better than just hand waving it away with, with these kinds of details out there. That's kind of, kind of like kind of suspicious activity to be involved in.

Saagar Enjeti (39:38)

It was very interesting to me how much the New York Times wanted to say, like, oh, case closed, it's figured it out. No intel ties, no blackmail, no nothing. Nothing to see here. And then did a bunch of reporting that does not at all rule out those possibilities and in fact raises even more questions about them, as your reporting points out.

Ryan Grim (39:59)

And we also make the point in the preamble of the piece that in order to acquit him of all of these, like, links to intel and to say that there was nothing interesting going on here, what they had to do was craft this anti Semitic caricature of the guy in a genuinely offensive way because all they're left with is like, oh, he's just a giant con artist. And you go through it and you're like, this is like actually like, what are you doing here? But it's almost like, what's the Barry Gold? It's like a version of the Barry Goldwater quote. You, you would say anti Semitism in defense of the liberty of Israel is no vice.

Saagar Enjeti (40:42)

A lot of people apparently view it that way.

Ryan Grim (40:44)

Yeah, yeah, check that piece out.

Krystal Ball (40:50)

Yeah, read the piece. Because it just completely. If this is all just a coincidence, it's the greatest coincidence of all time.

Saagar Enjeti (41:00)

Yeah, well into. I, I don't know. Also to make the claims that the Times did of like, oh, there's no intel connection. And to not even, you know, not even reference the reporting that you and others have done, I think is also just very, you know, very lazy. Also very condescending, you know, like you don't even exist. Right.

Ryan Grim (41:17)

We even got a, we have a Times quote for the piece because I put all this to them. They said, quote, we report on facts that we are able to confirm, not supposition.

Krystal Ball (41:28)

What a bunch of.

Ryan Grim (41:30)

These are facts. Like, these are, these are facts. You're welcome to report on them if you can't. I don't know what to tell you.

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Saagar Enjeti (44:12)

All right guys, super excited to have this morning with us Corey Archibald and Casey Kennedy, who are the co founders of Track apac, who recently went public. Stop being anonymous on our show, which we were very privileged to have you guys there. Great to see you both. Thank you.

Ryan Grim (44:28)

Good morning. Thank you for having us.

Saagar Enjeti (44:29)

Yeah So I wanted to talk to you guys again because I feel like the question of APAC funding and overall position on Israel has just become such a central issue, in particular in Democratic primary primaries, although showing up in some Republican primaries as well. So I wanted to touch base with you guys about some of the races that you see as being really significant, just in terms of that funding question being a dividing line. But before I jumped into that, I wanted to just ask you guys, so how, how have things been going? How is it now, you know, coming out and being public faces? I know you guys have gotten a lot of scrutiny online, Casey. I know you have been punished in terms of your career. You lost your job for the work that you're doing. So, Casey, maybe start with you on. On how things are going.

Casey Kennedy (45:12)

Yeah, it's definitely been a tumultuous month, to say the least. Shortly after we did our initial interview with you folks, I did lose my job. That followed a doxing and harassment campaign from accounts like Stop Anti Semitism and that whole network of pro Israel troll accounts. Basically, they. My employer just didn't want to deal with that, so I am no longer with them. But on the bright side, the silver lining is that's really just unleashed me and given me all the time in the world to focus now on this. What's up until now been a volunteer time passion project for me. Now I can really focus on it full time and work on a lot of things that I've been pushing to the back burner and I'm excited for the opportunity to work on it even more.

Saagar Enjeti (45:59)

Did you expect, when you came forward, did you expect it would be a problem for your employer or did that kind of come out of the blue for you?

Casey Kennedy (46:06)

I was definitely unsure I was operating the account anonymously for that exact reason. I just didn't want to risk it. I obviously wasn't informing them of what I was doing during my free time. And I thought that I might be able to explain where I was coming from and maybe work out a way to keep my job. But it all just up pretty quickly.

Saagar Enjeti (46:30)

Crazy to me. I mean, all you do is put forward publicly available information. Compile publicly available information.

Casey Kennedy (46:36)

Yeah, yeah. It's pretty awful that people can just make smears and just really baseless claims and have that up in somebody's livelihood. So I know I'm not the only one. I'll be okay. I have other means to make my living. A lot of other people don't. And I think that's a really important point that we have to keep pushing in this narrative. You're seeing a lot of shift right now happening in the political spectrum. But it's not only in the political spectrum that we need to have this attention focused. It's regular people who are speaking up who are also being persecuted and targeted.

Saagar Enjeti (47:10)

Yeah. Corey, how about you?

Corey Archibald (47:13)

Oh, sorry. No, as Kasey said, it has definitely been a very tumultuous month. I have not had the same kind of impact and scrutiny that he has, although I've certainly had people picking through my. My. My very online life that I have lived for decades. And, you know, congratulations. You uncover that. I post about constantly. Well done, you. I guess. But I guess people are supposed to. They want me to be ashamed of who I am, and I'm not. I'm proud of the work that I've done and what we've been able to achieve through this project. And if anything, those kinds of attacks and scrutinies just make us more determined to keep doing what we're doing.

Saagar Enjeti (47:56)

All right, so let's turn to the topic at hand. There's a ton of races that we could have picked to focus on. But, Corey, why don't you go ahead and give us a little bit of a rundown of a few of the Democratic primaries that you're really watching where the question of AIPAC funding has taken a sort of central spotlight.

Corey Archibald (48:15)

Yeah, of course. Well, we are, as many people are, we are closely following and engaging with both races for Cori Bush and her rematch against Wesley Bell. And Abdullah said both of those races are important to us not only because of who the candidates are, especially because of who the candidates are and because of what they represent, and they are objectively the best choice in those primaries. But also I got a little personal connection to both races in the sense that I worked very closely with Cori Bush in her first two runs for Congress, and I took it very personally the way that she was attacked and smeared by aipac. It was part of the reason for the inspiration for founding this PAC and for joining up with Casey and working on this project. And then, of course, Abdullah said he's running against Haley Stevens, who is another villain. APAC had dumped truckloads of cash into the race against Andy Levin to get her into office. And so that's another one that I take a bit personally. And so for that reason, you know, those are. Those are two races that are, I think, have the opportunity. Once those two are in, once Cory is restored to Congress and once Abdullah is in the Senate, I think they will have A significant impact on the direction of Democratic policy. And so those are very important races to us. But, you know, there are also a number of other races that we have. We've supported.

Saagar Enjeti (49:40)

And sorry, just really quickly on Abdul El Sayo, because there's another significant contender in that race, Mallory McMorrow, and actually haven't followed closely. What is she, what has she said or has she said anything with regard to. To APAC funding? What's your sense there.

Corey Archibald (49:57)

Casey? I'll let you take this.

Ryan Grim (49:59)

Yeah.

Casey Kennedy (49:59)

So Mallory McMorrow has been an interesting kind of case study for how the needle has been moving on this topic. Topic within the Democratic Party.

Ryan Grim (50:08)

I'll pull up my story while you're talking.

Casey Kennedy (50:10)

Yeah, exactly that. You had a great piece on that. She actually, some supporters had kind of leaked to the press that they had read a position paper that she had submitted to a pro Israel organization, which we're pretty sure based on reporting, they.

Ryan Grim (50:25)

Didn'T just leak it to the press.

Casey Kennedy (50:28)

And they gave it to Ryan Grimm, dug it up. Is that how it originally came to earth? Okay, okay.

Krystal Ball (50:34)

Ryan is synonymous with the press.

Casey Kennedy (50:37)

That's right.

Ryan Grim (50:38)

That's right.

Casey Kennedy (50:39)

All right, Michigan. Ryan Grimm broke that Mallory McMorrow had submitted a position paper to a pro Israel group which was a APAC confirmed at that time, right out the gate.

Ryan Grim (50:51)

It wasn't a. So the. Her. Her supporter said it was apac. I suspect that it was actually dmfi, Democratic Majority for Israel, and that the supporter was using APAC as a shorthand. Because DMFI is a shorthand, which is.

Saagar Enjeti (51:07)

What we do, frankly.

Corey Archibald (51:08)

I mean, we.

Saagar Enjeti (51:08)

We use APAC as kind of a.

Corey Archibald (51:10)

A shorthand to. To refer to the. The whole lobby. But anyway, go ahead.

Saagar Enjeti (51:13)

I'm sorry.

Ryan Grim (51:15)

Yeah, yeah, so they called an APAC position paper, but I think it was dmfi.

Corey Archibald (51:19)

Yeah.

Casey Kennedy (51:19)

Okay, fair enough. Apac. Ally dmfi. She had submitted a position paper, and obviously that. What. That position paper hasn't been made public, but we can infer what was included in there based on.

Ryan Grim (51:33)

Was outstanding.

Casey Kennedy (51:34)

Yeah, yeah, they really gave her a lot of praise for her strong pro Israel position. And we also found out that she had taken a trip to Israel, which we believe was with the American Israel Education foundation is AIPAC's nonprofit arm. So that's definitely concerning. She has. She has said that she agrees it could meet the definition of genocide, but it's. It's not the forthright conviction that we're looking for in a candidate in this moment who we're really looking to have the Moral clarity to take a bold stand and not be kind of hedging their bets of where special interests might come after them for speaking the truth.

Saagar Enjeti (52:11)

Yeah, that kind of feels like her vibe on a range of issues on healthcare as well. She's tried to kind of, you know, signal. Yeah, I'd love to have universal healthcare, but here's why we can't do it.

Casey Kennedy (52:21)

Yeah, it feels like she's kind of threading a needle. You can see she's sort of pinned between the progressive lane that Abdul El Sayed is filling and the establishment lane that Haley Stevens is filling with the backing of Apex. So. So that's another one where the split is going to be interesting to see. I'm not sure right now how that's going to play out. The polls have them pretty evenly matched.

Saagar Enjeti (52:42)

Up, all three of them. Yeah. Pretty close. Yep.

Casey Kennedy (52:45)

Yeah, there would be some interesting plays for sure in that race.

Saagar Enjeti (52:48)

Ryan, maybe you should set up for us the Nita alum race because I know that's A versus Valerie Fousshi, which is another one that I know you've done a lot of reporting on. And then we can get Corey and Casey to weigh in on that one as well.

Ryan Grim (53:00)

Well, yeah, this race, this is a rematch of a race from 2022 when Nita Alam announced her. Her candidacy. She was a county commissioner from Durham and she was clo. If you, if you remember, she was close friends with a group of Muslim men who were a victim of a hate crime. If, like it was this like, horrific, like, national story where several men were killed in Durham and it became like huge news definitely in North Carolina, but even around the country and around the world. And that inspired her to get into. To local office. So she ran, became a county commissioner, then she ran for the House seat. And then Valerie Fouche came in with enormous amounts of backing, not just from aipac, but also from crypto. So. And she ended up only Nita Alam ended up only losing by four points or something you guys might remember better, like 4,000 votes or. It's a very, very, very close race, even though she was outspent absolutely massively. Now North Carolina has redrawn the district and it's actually more favorable now to Nid Alam. If she would. If this would have been the old district, she actually probably would have won even given the massive amount of crypto and APAC money being spent as we covered, on breaking points. Fouche throughout the last couple years or has kind of turned against Israel. She's made some critical comments in an interesting way and in the back of her mind, and I would assume, but definitely in the back of my mind, as she was doing, I was like, oh, I bet she assumes that Nita's going to launch another challenge to her and sees this as a massive political vulnerability because there's just so much money on the table. And either you guys can respond, but while you do, I'll just put up this. DMFI put out yesterday its list of dozens of endorsements of Democrats across the country and Fouche was not on there. Which is, which is quite interesting because it either means they're so frustrated that she distanced herself from them, you know, anticipating this challenge, or they recognize that even rebranded as dmfi, this pro Israel money is just too damaging in a Democratic primary to be public about.

Corey Archibald (55:37)

Yeah, I mean I think Valer Fosi is, is someone who, it's another I.

Ryan Grim (55:43)

I, I have no idea.

Corey Archibald (55:44)

I actually just learned this recently. I think it is fushi I, I, I, I used to say Fouche also. I, I, but I, if, well one of us is correct.

Ryan Grim (55:51)

Yeah, when Crystal said fi, I was like, that might actually be right.

Saagar Enjeti (55:54)

Oh, I just have only ever read it. So I just, yeah, I was actually.

Corey Archibald (56:00)

Corrected on it by someone from North Carolina recently. So I'll take that as, as gospel. But I, you know, this is, this is another interesting case because you know what, we is representative of the work that we're trying to achieve here. We want politicians to change their positions. We want them to recognize that they are creating a political liability for themselves by working with AIPAC and dmfi. And so in one sense it's hard to know cause I'm not inside somebody's head. So I don't know exactly how genuine her shift is. But I would say that paired with her somewhat critical comments of, of the genocide in Gaza, I think it does seem to be something of a genuine change in her position. And to that I'll say I've spent a lot of 2025 feeling on one hand very immensely relieved to see such a shift in a lot of politicians and public figures and how they view what's happening in Gaza and our role and our complicity in it. But on the other hand, it's so frustrating because a lot of people had to die for you to learn that lesson. And it just feels like she's a little late to the game. Like I welcome the change. I hope it's genuine. I feel that it's genuine. You know, time will tell. But you know, if I have to choose between someone who was late to the game in that way on such a life or death matter. I'll. I'll take the person who was on the right side the whole time.

Saagar Enjeti (57:42)

And what are some of the other. There were a couple other races that you guys had had sent me that were ones that I was less familiar with. One is the congressional race that now Colin Allred has jumped into in Texas after he withdrew from the. The Senate race. Talk about a few of the races that are a little bit more under the radar for people.

Casey Kennedy (57:59)

Yeah. So now down in Texas in the newly redistricted 33rd district, there's a candidate that we're supporting named Zeeshan Hafeez. He is going to be running against in the primary, Colin Allred, who just dropped out of the Texas Senate race to go run for a seat in Congress in the House. And also Representative Julie Johnson, who's currently representing the 32nd district, is going to be campaigning in the 33rd district for 2026. Julie Johnson is an active APAC backed rep. She's only taken a little over $40,000 from the Israel lobby, but she votes in lock step with them. Colin Allred has accepted over $646,000 from Pro Israel groups, including APAC and DMFI in the past, although it seems he did stop taking APAC and DMFI money after the 2022 cycle. But again, looking at his voting record, he was a pretty reliable pro Israel vote house. So in this race, we are supporting Zeeshan Hafeez. He's committed to rejecting AIPAC and the Israel Lobby outright and he's calling for overturning Citizens United to get big money out of our politics. He's never taken any corporate money. This is something that he's made really foundational to and a central plank of his campaign. And these are the kind of candidates that we're looking to get involved with who really have the backbone to stand up, call a genocide a genocide, and do what they can in their capacity as a federal representative to stop our complicity in this genocide.

Saagar Enjeti (59:39)

Yeah, and that sounds like one where there's a very, very clear divide there.

Corey Archibald (59:43)

And if I could just jump in really quickly on both of these two races that we just talked about, you know, the North Carolina 4 race and the Texas 33 race, these are two primaries that are coming up very soon. March 3rd is the primary for both. Both of these races. We are less than 90 days away. And we're also. I don't sound like fundraiser, but I am one. We are Coming up on the end of quarter. So, you know, if you're, if you're sitting at home and you're looking for candidates to support, like this is the moment to pay attention. This is the moment to think about these races because these are the, this is the point at which we decide what the future of the Democratic Party is going to look like no matter what Ken Martin decides to bury.

Saagar Enjeti (60:20)

And Corey, tell me a little bit or Casey, whoever's, you know, wants to jump on it about California 7 and May then Vang go for that one.

Casey Kennedy (60:28)

Casey yeah, so my Vang is challenging APAC backed Rep. Doris Matsui. Doris Matsui is 81 years old and she's running for re election. She actually filled the seat of her late husband Bob Matsui, who died in Congress back in 2005. Doris Matsui is a another reliable pro Israel vote. She consistently ranks among the most pro Israel votes in the Democratic caucus and she's since married a billionaire. So she is, you know, just really out of touch with what we need in these times. She's not bringing the fight to all the corruption and the madness that we see going on in Washington. And Mai Vang has stepped up. She's a, I believe she's a city council member currently and she is outright rejecting AIPAC in the Israel lobby, corporate money and she calls a genocide, a genocide. She's really bringing the pressure to Doris Matsui who has previously not spent a lot of time in the district. You'll see her making her campaign stops now. You can tell she's feeling the pressure. And this kind of young, exciting candidate is another one that we're thrilled to see stepping up into the ring.

Saagar Enjeti (61:37)

And then the last one you guys had sent me and then we had some sort of broader, more general questions, but was Cameron Caskey, who Kyle and I actually just interviewed him last week. He's running in the seat in New York that's opened up by Jerry Nadler's retirement. Very crowded primary. A bunch of people jumped into that one. What makes Cameron stand out to you guys?

Corey Archibald (61:58)

Yeah, so Cameron is, I mean for one, I've, I followed his activism since the days of Parkland and I've just been so impressed with him as an activist and the way that he consistently speaks so clearly on, on issues. He's not afraid to take a stand and he has certainly demonstrated that in the short time that he's been running this campaign. There is no other candidate in this race currently that, as you said, it's a very crowded primary and yet not a Single one of them in a district that, you know, heavily favored Zoran in the recent mayoral election, not a single one of them has come out very clearly and made a stand about Israel committing a genocide or calling for an arms embargo or rejecting support from AIPAC and the Israel lobby just generally. So he is the most clear on this issue. And he, I think he just represents such an important voice that I think would, would be a real game changer in Congress.

Saagar Enjeti (62:52)

Yeah. And for people who don't know he was there, he survived the Parkland shooting. You know, he's 17 years old. He became an activist. He talks about, you know, starting that organization sitting in his bedroom and also has really been through the ringer, you know, the Alex Jones and these people saying he's a crisis actor and all that. Yeah, I don't know if it was Alex Jones specifically, I shouldn't say that, but there were right wing activists saying that he was a crisis actor. And so he has really been through the fire in terms of political activism. And you know, I was really impressed with him when I spoke with him last week as well. How much do you. So one of the questions I had for you guys that I think we touched on before and you've kind of touched on here as well is politicians are starting to get the memo of like, oh, I should say I'm not, I'm not going to take APAC money. You saw Gavin Newsom after initially just being like, that's interesting, that's an interesting question saying, no, I'm not going to take any APAC money. Although Ryan feels like he left himself a little wiggle room there. But in any case, he clearly wanted to give the impression exactly that that was his answer. Seth Moulton came out, oh no. Even after he had asked AIPAC to support him, he's like, oh, I don't want anything to do with these people.

Casey Kennedy (63:58)

Right.

Saagar Enjeti (63:58)

So what are the follow up questions that people should be asking as it increasingly becomes clear that this is a politically toxic position? But you know, you're going to have politicians who want to have their cake and eat it too, who want to signal to the base like, oh yeah, totally, I'm with you guys, I'm against, I'm not going to say it's a genocide, but I'm against bad things. But at the same time they still want to be able to get that, that money and that support from the Israel lobby. So what are the follow up questions that people should be asking and can.

Krystal Ball (64:26)

I just tack on to that quickly to Ask, are there new other than like Newsom doing? I don't know if anyone could pull off what Newsom did quite like Newsom did. But are there new lines that we're seeing be rolled out, you know, kind of to either mask or hedge? Is there anything people should be paying attention to specifically?

Saagar Enjeti (64:45)

Yeah, great question.

Corey Archibald (64:47)

Yeah, I think. Casey, do you want to go first or I can just.

Casey Kennedy (64:51)

I'll jump on Emily's point real, real quick there. Just while I have it in my mind, I would say standing against sending offensive weapons to Israel is a big one for us. We're. That's. That is what we see as hedging. A weapon is a weapon, a bomb is a bomb. The more bombs that you send to Israel, the more for self defense, the more bombs they have to use for offense. So that's definitely a line that we see as kind of a red flag when we're assessing candidates and we will probe to find out more. Corey, did you want to jump on that other.

Corey Archibald (65:25)

Yeah, I think just to add on to that point, I mean it. Rashida Tlaib has talked about this. She has said the words a weapon is a weapon and others have made the point that even if we take at face value, even if we just accept as truth what is stated, that the weapons that we provide for what are supposed to be defensive purposes are only used in that capacity. Well, certainly it frees up military resources for them to be able to focus on not only committing genocide in Gaza, but also attacking their neighbors and, and creating hostilities in all parts of the region. So I think the only thing that sends a message because so much of the support that goes into the Israeli military comes from US Aid. The only way to send a message that we are no longer on board with what you're doing is to say you're cut off. And that's the line that needs to be drawn. So we're not gonna hedge and split hairs on what's an offensive and what's a defensive weapon either. I mean, there are very clear U.S. laws that state that if someone is receiving U.S. military aid and they are committing war crimes, which Israel very clearly has in multiple ways, then we are supposed to cut off the supply of aid. That's our own laws that we're violating. When we try to split hairs and say what's defensive and what's offensive.

Ryan Grim (66:57)

How do you guys count the money that shows up when, when it says like $40,000 from pro Israel groups like is that a APAC? So this is going to be MFI or is it also people who have previously given to apac? Like, what's the.

Casey Kennedy (67:15)

So up until now it has been money from Pro Israel, any Pro Israel pack. So there's like a whole slate beyond APAC and DMFI of these smaller groups that it within the Israel lobby ecosystem. We've got a full spreadsheet of them on our website, but basically we take those PAC IDs and then just. We run an FEC report. So we pull it from the Federal Election Commission and it just aggregates the data of how much has gone through the pack to the candidate. That can also include, like, contuit contributions. So like APAC will bundle all the donor money through their website or through their portal and then to the candidate. So that's where those numbers. We also track the independent expenditures. So if APAC or any of their allies are spending independently to run ads or any other campaign activity on behalf of the candidate or to attack their opponent, we'll also add that into the candidate's lobby total.

Corey Archibald (68:14)

Yeah, that has a lot to do with why Wesley Bell's and George Latimer's totals are so high. Because a lot of that was the independent expenditures.

Saagar Enjeti (68:20)

Oh my gosh. They have money coming from them.

Corey Archibald (68:23)

But we are expanding on that. So as, as I think we mentioned the last time we, we saw you guys that, you know, APAC is starting to change tactics. They've always kind of done this. They've always created these, these like, secret donation portals where, where, you know, donors can just go straight. They, they get a, you know, a link straight to a person's donation page where they can donate without having to, like, have the label APAC attached to it. But we see, you know, there's been reporting recently about how they are increasing use of that tactic, and we expect that they will. And so one of the things that we're doing with, as we ramp up and we're working to expand our team is we're going to be expanding our data capabilities so that we can more carefully track these large donors that are, you know, very closely affiliated with apac. They're consistent APAC donors and they're also funneling, like, you'll see like, big money drops that happen, you know, in a coordinated fashion. And so we want to be able to track and report on that more accurately so that we can reflect the, the genuine total that's coming into these. These reports.

Ryan Grim (69:26)

Yeah, you would think it would be something that, that LLMs could even help with. You know, in other words, if you've got. Let's say you've got a donor who has given, you know, more than $5,000 over the last several cycles to a, to AAPAC or to DMFI. So you know that, that's like, that's like an APAC donor and then you see them maxing out, out to a candidate and then on that same day you see 10 other people max out to that candidate. Like.

Corey Archibald (69:56)

Right.

Ryan Grim (69:57)

You couldn't, you couldn't say that's 100% APAC money, but you could be like, this is.

Casey Kennedy (70:01)

Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Grim (70:02)

It's very likely. This was a, this was a coordinated, this was either a fundraiser or an email that went out to this group.

Saagar Enjeti (70:09)

Yeah, yeah, there's the hallmarks of yes, yes, yes.

Ryan Grim (70:12)

Bears the hallmarks of a pro Israel information.

Saagar Enjeti (70:18)

This is actually a good segue to ask you guys how can people support your work because you are continuing to expand and as you said, this is, this is really, you know, crunch time in terms of these Democratic primaries. But also, as I said, it's a relevant issue in increasingly on the Republican side as well.

Corey Archibald (70:34)

Yeah. So for example, if you are interested in supporting any of the races that we just talked about and supporting our work in amplifying those races, a great place to go is to track apac.com endorsement that will take you to a page that has all of our endorsed candidates on it that you, that we just discussed. And each one of them links to a tandem donate page where you can split a contribution between, between our organization and that campaign directly. Those tandem forms really are something like they, they, they can raise a lot. I think we raised, what was it, over $20,000 for Afton Bain on our herd tandem form just in the last few weeks lead up to, to that special election. So, you know, this, this is a really powerful tool to amplify the grassroots effect and it not only puts money directly into those campaigns that could really use those boosts, but it also amplifies the, what, what we're able to do in support of them on the IE side.

Saagar Enjeti (71:32)

Amazing.

Ryan Grim (71:33)

As you guys, as you guys grow, there's going to be more scrutiny on you and because you guys are talking specifically about, about, you know, campaign finance and, and spending, it's, it's going to be increasingly important probably to be way, way more transparent than a normal organization is with the spending. So would you guys commit to some sort of, I know, independent audit or something that, that tracks, track, track apac so that people who are like giving money know, like, because you're going to have people in this World.

Saagar Enjeti (72:06)

World.

Ryan Grim (72:06)

Who are like, no, no, these are just grifters who were, like, cashing in because FEC reports are very confusing. And you see money moving in and moving out, and it's very easy for people to just screenshot and be like, what's going on here? And then it discredits everything that's going on. So have you thought about how you're going to use some level of transparency to counteract what is like. Like, I can guarantee that's coming if it has all.

Corey Archibald (72:31)

So we're already seeing some of that. I mean, there's been some critics from the left that just say, oh, you're just grifting. I mean, as you said, the FEC reports are out there. It's publicly available data. It can be hard to parse. Absolutely. We've always been very conservative in our spending. So, like, we've been building up our war chest to be able to put as much as we can. In fact, until very, very recently, Casey and I weren't even taking a salary from the pac. So, you know, we've been very conservative in that way that we just really wanted to build up our resources, sources. I mean, in terms of transparencies, people can always ask us any question they have about the FEC report. That's, you know, I. I don't think that we've had a discussion about any specific transparency project internally.

Ryan Grim (73:15)

All right. Something to think about.

Corey Archibald (73:17)

Sure.

Krystal Ball (73:17)

Of course.

Saagar Enjeti (73:19)

All right, guys, well, thank you so much for taking the time. I know it is hectic and crazy and you have a lot going on. So really appreciate your work and really appreciate your time with us this morning. Morning.

Casey Kennedy (73:29)

Thank you so much.

Saagar Enjeti (73:30)

Yeah, it's our pleasure.

Casey Kennedy (73:31)

Happy holidays.

Saagar Enjeti (73:33)

You guys, too. That was great. Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys, well, let's go ahead and wrap up the. The Free show here. Got a bunch of interesting stuff we want to get to in the premium half. In particular, this TP USA conference. Ben Shapiro coming at Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson. And Tucker responds, and Tucker's calling out the Islamophobes. So that's a spicy one. And Emily, you mentioned ERICA Kirk endorsed J.D. vance at this. I. That part I missed, actually, last night.

Krystal Ball (74:04)

Yeah, Late last night.

Saagar Enjeti (74:06)

So she's not on board for Trump 2028.

Krystal Ball (74:09)

Not on board. Like Dershowitz.

Saagar Enjeti (74:11)

But also, I was gonna say Miriam Adelson again to the anti Semitic caricature. You guys are doing yourselves no favors.

Krystal Ball (74:18)

And then, so, yeah, so the Erica Kirk endorsement wasn't just her. It was, she said, Turning Point USA is going to work on behalf of JD So already a infrastructure behind him.

Saagar Enjeti (74:31)

Rubio Marco hardest hit when Rubio obviously.

Krystal Ball (74:35)

Was quoted in the Vanity Fair piece this week saying he's not going to run if JD Runs. So Erica Kirk in that endorsement said that. She said, we'll support my husband's friend, J.D. vance. And so it's, it's quite an interesting, quite an interesting development.

Saagar Enjeti (74:51)

Yeah. Especially after that, that photo that people paid a lot of attention to with the hands and the hair and the hands on, on the hips and whatever also makes it, makes it noteworthy. But there's a lot of. Yeah, I mean put it, I don't know, whatever. We don't have to get into Erica Kirk discourse. Not in the free half anyway. If you want more Erica Kirk discourse, you gotta pay for it, people. We also have Vivek wrote an interesting op ed about, you know, what really makes you an American, really pushing back against like the anti Indian hate in particular, but also the sort of like, like, you know, Nick Fuentes Ification of the Republican Party. Curious about you guys thoughts on that. There was a big compact magazine piece about the quote unquote, lost generation of millennial men focusing on the media industry during the woke era that I would think Ryan would have some particular insights into. So bunch of stuff. Also posted it.

Krystal Ball (75:45)

So there's politics behind it too.

Saagar Enjeti (75:47)

Yes, for sure. So a bunch of stuff to get to in the premium portion. If you guys want to join us over there. There. Join us@breaking points.com Become a premium subscriber. We will probably end up doing a breaking news segment tomorrow about whatever comes out from the Epstein files. We have some great content that all of us put together, you know, over the past week or two to be posting over the holiday break. We'll also, you know, if there's big breaking news, will one or the other of us will get it together and get to a camera and break down what's going on to the best of our ability. But outside of that guy, guys, happy holidays to all of you. I hope everybody has a restful, nice time with family, with loved ones and appreciates the, you know, the beauties of, of the season. And certainly I appreciate Ryan and Emily, appreciate you guys, appreciate what we're able to do here as well.

Krystal Ball (76:36)

Yeah, love all you guys. Love all of the viewers. Appreciate it so much.

Saagar Enjeti (76:41)

All right, y', all, see you in the premium half.

Ryan Grim (76:44)

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