12/2/25: Trump Approval Sinks, Epstein Admits Guilt In Emails, FBI Agents Flip On Kash Patel

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode: 12/2/25 – Trump Approval Sinks, Epstein Admits Guilt In Emails, FBI Agents Flip On Kash Patel
Date: December 2, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Krystal and Saagar tackle a tumultuous news week, with deep dives into a heated special election in Tennessee, Donald Trump’s plummeting approval rates and apparent signs of decline, a bombshell set of Epstein emails showing self-acknowledged guilt, and infighting within the FBI under Trump’s controversial appointee Kash Patel. The show’s hallmark—sharp, insider commentary from both the populist left and right—frames each topic with balanced skepticism toward power and establishment narratives.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

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1. Tennessee Special Election: A Deep Red District on the Brink

[02:13–18:22]

• Why Focus on This Special Election?

• Special elections can be “the biggest precursor to the 2025 elections,” providing real turnout data, not just vibes/polls.
  (Krystal Ball, 03:08)

• The Stakes and Candidates

• GOP’s majority in the House is razor thin; every seat matters.
• District: Trump +22 margin; should be a “gimme” for Republicans, but they’re nervous.
• Democrat Afton Bain: State representative, left-flank, DSA-endorsed, focuses on affordability. Podcaster, with her own words cut into opposition ads.
• Republican Matt Van Epps: Standard conservative, leans hard on “radical” attacks; notably, doesn’t campaign on Trump connection.

“The fact that they’re even nervous about it is really quite wild actually and quite indicative of the political predicament.”
— Saagar Enjeti [11:29]

• Millions Pouring In, Negative Ads Dominate (Sample Played 07:12–09:12)

• Campaign spending “millions of dollars” in a state House race, with TV ads even airing during NFL games.
• GOP ads aggressively label Bain a “radical,” focus on culture war, trans rights, “Defund the Police,” tax hikes.
• Bain’s messaging hones in on economic pain—tariffs, rising costs, and, interestingly, mentions the Epstein case as a symbol of elite corruption.

• Polls and Implications

• Independent polls showed Van Epps up just 2 pts—effectively tied in margin of error.
• If Bain came close, “already a tremendous victory for the Dems” and a sign the GOP brand (and Trump drag) is a liability even in deep-red territory.
• Notably, no ads overtly promote Trump:

  “Trump was actually underwater in approval rating even in this district... The only way for Rs to win is convince Dem voters candidate is worse.”
  — Krystal Ball [15:23]

• Themes: Radical is Losing Power as an Epithet

• “Calling someone a ‘radical’ is not the epithet that perhaps it once was.”
  — Saagar Enjeti [24:56]
• Fox contributor quoted on how “socialism” and “radical” labels have faded in sting—even in “heartland” states people now think “Norway, Sweden, Finland” vs “Cuba” when you say socialism.
  (Fox News Contributor, 23:57)

“The destruction of establishment norms, mainstream media... most people are trying to figure stuff out for themselves on their own terms.”
— Krystal Ball [26:38]

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2. Trump’s Plummeting Approval & Hints of Decline

[33:25–49:14]

• Approval Numbers Hit Record Lows

• Harry Enten (CNN) breaks down Gallup poll showing Trump at -24 net—near Nixon’s post-Watergate low.
• Key declines from Independents (down to 25%) and even among GOP voters (down to 84% from a 93% high).

  “Trump is way less popular today than he was last time around.”
  — Krystal Ball [39:29]

• Analysis: Bubble Mentality & Isolation

• Trump now operates largely from Mar-a-Lago, surrounded by “enablers not advisers,” cuts off critical voices.
• Relies on sycophants, “business titans and billionaires who want something from him and tell him what he wants to hear.”
  (Saagar Enjeti reading from Jonathan Lemire, The Atlantic, 42:37)

• Health and Age Becoming Major Issues

• Recent MRI for “preventative” reasons (per WH), speculation about purpose and whether his medical fitness is failing.
• “When voters... see an aging president... it also contributes to a general vibe of malaise and the administration being adrift.”
  — Saagar Enjeti [45:56]
• Both hosts draw parallels to the late Bush and Biden administrations—disconnected, tired, old.

• Political Implications

• Weak approval + lack of energy = bad midterms for GOP.
• “He can't allow any breakage, he'll drag it down if he wants to.”
  — Krystal Ball [47:44]

Notable Quotes:

“What we get for putting influencers in positions of power.”
— Saagar Enjeti, referring to Kasch Patel’s performance [77:38]

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3. Epstein Email Dump: Admissions, Elite Cover-Up, and the Lolita Revelation

[51:48–71:25]

• The Scoop: Epstein’s Own Words

• Krystal reviews exclusive email access (courtesy Dropsite and Ryan Grim):

  • Epstein wrote to himself as feds closed in (April 2007):

    “Though I required girls over 18, the results don’t reflect it. The feds have spoken to or know of girls between the ages of 16 to 18. If we extrapolate, we should assume there are 20 girls in that age range...”
    — Jeffrey Epstein, quoted [52:12]

• Krystal: “This guy basically admitted to the crime in his own email inbox.” [53:09]

• Legal Team & Coverup

• Internal memos show Dershowitz’s assistant warning Epstein is exposed to federal “prostituting minors in interstate commerce” charges.

• Letters from Kenneth Starr to authorities try to downplay the federal case, victim-blame, and prevent federal prosecution.

• Palm Beach police invited federal intervention, but Acosta (later, Trump’s labor secretary) signed the sweetheart deal anyway.

• Alan Dershowitz responds (to Krystal):

  “It would be difficult. The prosecutors apparently agreed with me, so in order to minimize the risk to them, they agreed to a state deal. That’s how plea bargains are reached. Nothing unusual here.”
  — Alan Dershowitz, via email [56:50]

• Elite Protection: Emails from Billionaires

• After charges surfaced, Epstein’s inbox filled with “billionaire, billionaire, UK ambassador” type notes of support—“can’t believe this happened to you, what a travesty.”
• Ghislaine Maxwell’s communications revealed further obfuscation and victim-blaming, constant contact (over 680 emails) with Epstein.

• “Lolita” and the Psychology of the Elite

• Epstein purchased (and listened to) “the annotated and revised Lolita” months before his death:

  “Way too on the nose that that’s what he’s ordering months before he goes to prison and ends up killing himself in prison.”
  — Saagar Enjeti [60:25]

• The Insider Code

• Larry Summers quote (told to Yannis Varoufakis):

  “Insiders never turn against other insiders and never talk to outsiders about what insiders say or do... their reward: access to inside information and a chance, though no guarantee, of influencing powerful people and outcomes.”
  — Recited by Krystal Ball [65:22]

• Both hosts: The unspoken code helps explain the long-running, bipartisan, elite cover-up enabling Epstein.

• Krystal: “...it is true. These people are weird... whatever this is that exists in this inbox, I have never been exposed to it. I would be like, you’re crazy. It’s just not true. But no, it’s true, it’s real.” [67:10]

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4. FBI Civil War: Kash Patel Faces the Fire

[73:19–82:02]

• Withering Critique Inside the FBI

• Miranda Devine (NY Post) scoops a critical “report card” by active/retired FBI agents, excoriating Director Kash Patel (Trump appointee) for being “in over his head.”
• “Rudderless ship... all fucked up,” “inexperienced,” “lacks requisite self-confidence” —accusations come from MAGA–friendly FBI faction.
• Dan Bongino, his deputy, called “something of a clown.”

• Farce in the Field

• Incident after Charlie Kirk assassination: Patel allegedly refused to disembark from the FBI jet until given a perfectly fitted raid jacket with Velcro patches (!), which delayed the briefing.

• “Comedy of errors” in Kirk investigation, misinformation at press conferences, and “obsession with social media” cited as major flaws.

  “This is what we get for putting influencers in positions of power.”
  — Saagar Enjeti [77:38]

• Bongino and Patel both seen as thin-skinned, with Bongino (after being offended by reporting) calling journalist Miranda Devine “Deep State Miranda.”

• Larger Implication:

• Even pro-Trump, anti-DEI FBI agents now see the MAGA management team as clownish and dangerous to Bureau credibility.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Calling someone a radical is not the epithet that perhaps it once was.” —Saagar Enjeti [24:56]
• “Trump is way less popular today than he was last time around.” —Krystal Ball [39:29]
• “This guy basically admitted to the crime in his own email inbox.” —Krystal Ball [53:09]
• “Way too on the nose that that’s what he’s ordering—‘Lolita’—months before he goes to prison and ends up killing himself in prison.” —Saagar Enjeti [60:25]
• “This is what we get for putting influencers in positions of power.” —Saagar Enjeti [77:38]

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Timestamps and Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-------------|------------------------------------------------------| | 02:13–18:22 | Tennessee special election analysis | | 23:57 | Fox News contributor: socialism label losing sting | | 33:25–49:14 | Trump approval sinking, age/health, isolation | | 51:48–71:25 | Epstein email bombshells, elite coverups | | 73:19–82:02 | Kash Patel and internal FBI blowback |

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Tone

The hosts’ signature style blends policy wonkiness and sharp, populist skepticism. Krystal’s dry wit and Saagar’s pragmatic realism guide the narrative, with both showing disdain for elite gamesmanship and insider codes—on both sides of the aisle. The language is direct, plainspoken, and often irreverent.

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Summary

This episode delivers incisive analysis about the unraveling of political and elite power structures: from a supposedly safe red seat suddenly in play, to Trump’s growing isolation and unpopularity, to the Epstein revelations exposing raw corruption and elite impunity, and the chaos inside the FBI under MAGA “influencer” control. Throughout, Krystal and Saagar reinforce the importance of independent, adversarial journalism in an era where establishment norms are being annihilated—in both alarming and unexpectedly hopeful ways.

Transcript

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[Krystal Ball]

Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal 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]

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

[Saagar Enjeti]

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

[Krystal Ball]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail] Good morning everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have? Crystal?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Indeed we do. Shout out to the crew for flipping us over to the holiday set. Look here as well. Enjoying it. A little snowflakes on the monitors and all that good stuff. Lots of interesting stuff in the show. It is election Day in Tennessee in that Trump +22 district that the Republicans are nervous about. So can Afton Bain pull off the big upset we will dig into what we know. Trump's approval is in the toilet. Looking pretty rough amid some health concerns. Biden vibes there. Major Biden vibes. Sager has a big Epstein scoop. You definitely don't want to miss that one. We are asking the question, taking a look at how much money you actually need in America to make it the poverty line that is officially set by the government. Wildly out of date. Trump is pardoning a Ponzi scheme fraudster. That's the story we tried and failed to get to yesterday. We'll pick that one up today. And Pete Hegseth throwing an admiral on under the Bus for that double tap strike on the alleged drug traffickers. So lot going on with that one.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, that's right. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribing breakingpoints.com I literally probably spent 1012 hours yesterday in collaboration with Dropsite who have accessed some 18,000 Epstein emails which are provided to them by a group. These are not public emails. I've actually been going through them with Ryan Grimm and others. So if you can help Support our work, BreakingPoints.com, we do have an exclusive story we can drop to all of you. Just a little bit of a tease about. What it is is that Jeffrey Epstein actually did admit, at least in some form, guilt and underage girls, specifically in an email that I was able to find which has previously been unreported, as well as his legal team actually advising him in 2006 that he was vulnerable to federal sex charges. And so that has not been previously yet reported showing his own legal team and in fact he himself were admitting guilt even though they did end up getting that sweetheart deal. I did get a comment from Alan Dershowitz and from others on his legal team as well. So stick around for that story if you can't afford it, please. No worries. Just go ahead and subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you're listening to the this on a podcast, just please rate us five stars and share with a friend. It really helps other people find the show. But let's check in with Tennessee Big election here. You know, I mean maybe just to set the table, why do special elections matter? You know, why is a national politics show focusing on this? Like I think, you know, they were the biggest precursor to the 2025 elections. And also if we think back to 2022, a lot of those special elections crystals were so important in actually showing the end up democratic strength that was there because we always get questions. Why are you focusing on this? I'm like, because I. We don't have a full election day, I think it's important to note, like when the voters turn out, that's the only time shit's real. Yeah, like not polls.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The other pieces that Mike Johnson is narrowly hanging on to a Republican majority. Majority. We're getting more retirements coming out of the Republican side. So these sorts of seats, when you have, you know, a three vote margin in the House, really matter in terms of who actually even controls the House. So it matters from that perspective as well. But your point about the midterms and the warning signs there, you know, all the polls and all the vibes we're saying, and you know, Biden's approval rating, the Democratic Party approval rating were saying, oh, this is gonna be a bloodbath for Democrats. And then it wasn't. The one indicator that went in the other direction was all of the special elections something that we covered and mentioned at the time, you know, leading into that. That was the one indicator that actually would have given you a sense this may go differently than how the polls are indicating. In any case, there are a number of elections today. We'll get to some of the other ones that are just sort of like interesting, you know, side notes that we'll be paying attention to tonight. A lot of kind of intra Democratic Party fighting, which to me is always very interesting. But in any case, the big main event here Today is this 10 that encompasses part of Nashville and then some of the surrounding suburbs and exurbs and rural areas. You have a candidate for the Democratic Party named Afton Baines. She is a state representative. She was endorsed for her state House seat by dsa. She very much is sort of in the zoron model, really has put affordability front and center. She also was a podcaster and said some things on her podcast that Republicans have been using in their ads against her. Her opponent, Van Epps is seems to be sort of standard run of the mill Republican going after Afton, calling her radical and really trying to portray her as out of touch with the district. Interestingly, in his ads he's not mentioning President Trump. This is a district that Donald Trump won by some 22 points. And you know that the Republicans are at the very least nervous about it because number one, the amount of money that is being spent and number two, Donald Trump himself has made multiple posts about this specific House seat and they've sent all kinds of people to the district. J.D. vance has been in the district. Mike Johnson has come to do a rally to try to gin up support for their guy. Let's go ahead and take a listen to. This is actually interesting just to give you a sense of how much money is in the race. In the NFL game on Sunday, it was the Jaguars versus somebody. In the commercial break, there was at least one break that was wall to wall, just Van Epps versus Bain campaign ads. So this is the entirety of that ad break just to give you a sense of the messaging that is going straight into the district and what each candidate thinks is their strongest case.

[Political Ad Voice]

Tennessee's choice, Matt Van Epps versus Afton Bain. Van Epps wants three things. Cuts to health care benefits, more tariffs, driving up costs. Tax breaks for billionaires. Afton Bain wants one thing to lower your costs. She fought to end the grocery tax in Congress. She'll stand up to both parties to make life more affordable. Want more of the same. That's Matt Van Epps. Want someone who'll fight for you for a change. That's Afton Bain. HMP is responsible for the content of this ad.

[Krystal Ball]

In Afghanistan, the radical shot at us. So these radical attacks now, piece of cake.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm a very radical person. On December 2, you can stop this radical disaster.

[Krystal Ball]

The Democrats radical agenda opposing tax cuts, pushing higher taxes and higher prices and new taxes that would crush working families.

[Knix Ad Announcer]

Tennessee can't afford their radical agenda.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm Matt Van Epps and I approve this message because I'll fight for America. Always have, always will.

[Political Ad Voice]

Meet liberal Afton Bain.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm a very radical person.

[Political Ad Voice]

Bain not only joined and praised Defund the police liberals Afton Bain bragged about harassing law enforcement.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We're bullying the ICE vehicles and state troopers.

[Krystal Ball]

Worse.

[Political Ad Voice]

Afton Bain support permanent sex changes for minors.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I ran on protecting trans children.

[Political Ad Voice]

If we don't vote, they win.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm a very Radical person.

[Political Ad Voice]

Vote December 2nd to stop radical liberal Afton Bain. Conservatives for American Excellence is responsible for the content of this ad.

[Krystal Ball]

Last year, with prices soaring, politician Afton Bain voted against the largest tax cut in state history.

[Fox News Contributor]

Liberal Afton Bain voted for higher taxes.

[Krystal Ball]

On top of higher prices.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm a very radical person.

[Krystal Ball]

That's not just radical, it's stupid. And this year, Afton Bain backed more tax hikes that would cost Tennessee families thousands more.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm a very radical person.

[Krystal Ball]

We can't afford radical liberal Afton vain. So vote by Tuesday, December 2nd. Maga Inc. Is responsible for the content of this advertising.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm Afton Bain.

[Afton Bain (Candidate)]

We all know the system is rigged in Washington.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Here's how it works.

[Afton Bain (Candidate)]

Politicians make it easy for their rich donors, tax cuts for billionaires, and burying.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The Epstein files while hard working Tennessee Tennesseeans get a rough ride by cutting health care for Tennessee families, doubling health insurance premiums and tariffs that hurt our economy. I'm Afton Bain and I approve this message vote December 2nd to shake up Washington. So there you go. There's a taste of what the voters there in that district and of course it was obviously the Tennessee, those poor voters, more NFL savvy. I would have known that that would be who the game was with.

[Krystal Ball]

But anyway, it's poor voters. Man, I hate election season whenever you have to see stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, look, you know, what's interest about that is you could distill it down to 2024 versus 2025. So what I mean by that is all of those ads against her are very 2024 coded. And those were a lot of the ones that they ran against Kamala Harris. The famous, you know, Kamala's for they, not for you. You know, a lot of the culture stuff that was very, very influential. The radical attack. I've always been a bit skeptical of it. I don't actually think it works all that well. But the point was to try and code with like this part of the resurgent left which they thought was gonna be part of the Kamala campaign. Afton's ad is much more 2025 coded. And that's actually, I think why she has a little bit of success is if you watch that ad, you're talking about taxes, you're talking about tariffs and Epstein. So you have like a little bit of a flavor for the Epstein stuff that really obviously gets people ginned up talking about the tax bill and also the tariffs, so coming to inflation. So I'm actually very curious to see what the results of this are. This is a long time kind of Republican playbook and the question is about whether it still hits. Also, of course we're dealing with a special election. Part of the difficulty, part of the reason I'm a little skeptical there of the Republican strategy that might work in a general election like 2024. But you have to drive out like people to come and vote who are enthusiastic. Like think about it, how many people really even know or go and vote in special elections? A very small sample size of the overall voting electorate. And so the Democratic base is energized right now. And I think that's why she's got some momentum.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, listen, I think she still is very much the long shot here.

[Krystal Ball]

I didn't Say she was gonna win?

[Saagar Enjeti]

No, no, no. I just want people to be, you know, clear that we're not saying like she's gonna win. I think it's going to be. It will be very. Just the composition of this district makes it brutally difficult. In a normal year, you wouldn't even. We wouldn't be paying attention to this. It would be a gimme Trump plus 22 district. I mean, that is a huge, huge margin to overcome. The fact that they're even nervous about it is really quite wild actually and quite indicative of the political predicament that they find themselves in in terms of the ad landscape. It reminds very much of what Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger were doing in their districts. Spanberger in particular, you know, leaned into her like CIA, national security, Dem bio as well, to project more of a moderate image. But outside of that, you know, they were talking about affordability, they're talking about tariffs. I think Afton, you know, threw in the Epstein piece, which I think is really smart, especially in a more Republican district, to signal like I'm going to be the one who is actually going to get that done. And they've effectively betrayed you on that issue. I'm not sure that I saw other candidates in this election cycle do that. So that was interesting to me. And then on the other side, you know, here in Virginia, all the anti Spanberger ads coming from Winsomerle Sears, they focused a lot on transgender issues in particular, cultural issues more broadly, and obviously did not work out for her. Now, Virginia had some special things going on with the government shutdown, et cetera. It's a much more Democratic friendly area. So even if Afton was able to achieve the swing that Abigail Spanberger did in Virginia, which was extraordinary, she would still lose because that is the nature of how Republican this district is. But in any case, let's put a 3 up on the screen just so you can get a sense of the amount of money that is flowing into this district. I saw people saying this is going to be, you know, one of the most expensive House races in Tennessee that we've seen in years and years. Millions of dollars. This is just for the sort of like, you know, the, the last week, let's say, of the, of the campaign here you can see there were outside PACs coming in to benefit both candidates. Let's put a 4 up on the screen. This was the most recent public poll and from a non aligned pollster and it has Matt Van Epps, the Republican, up by two points, which is in. Within. Within the Margin of error, by the way, so effectively tied in this poll. 48, 46. And that caught a lot of people's attention that she would be this close. Now polls can be extremely wrong. They could be wrong in either direction, actually. But you know that you would have this result and anything approximating a close race here is already a tremendous victory for, for the Democrats. I think you have to say I wanted to give you a taste a little bit of, well, let's put a 5 up on the screen again. That' indication of the nervousness here around this district. Amy Walter says how much of a drag is Trump for House GOPers? Even in Tennessee 7 a Trump +22 congressional district, none of the GOP ads have mentioned Trump or electing a Republican to keep his agenda going. Instead, they all attack the Dem. Why does this matter? And I, I think based on the Emerson poll that had Afton just down by two, Trump was actually underwater in approval rating even in this district. So it shows you even in somewhere. So Republican. Yes, Matt Van Epps on his ads said Trump endorsed, but they're not leaning into I will serve the President. I will work with Trump. Trump loves me. Trump did not go to the district. He did tweet a couple times or post truths a couple times to try to get people his base excited to come out and vote. But we've also seen in the past Sagar, that doesn't really translate. Trump's sort of like Obama. If it's not him on the ballot. There just is not the level of excitement more broadly for sort of a generic Republican, which is effectively what this 100%.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, absolutely. And you know what it says as what Amy says is that ours were going to 26 in a purely defensive posture. Rebranding the big beautiful bill isn't happening. Tariffs are unpopular. The only way for ours to win is convince Dem voters candidates is worse. And so this is basically, if you think back to 2010, you ran for Congress in that election. Why the Democrats got so decimated is people were not jazzed about Obamacare. And you know, even the Democrats who were healthcare first voters, they were like, well, I don't like Obamacare. Republicans hated Obamacare. There was no enthusiasm and a lot.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Of the Democratic economy was shit and.

[Krystal Ball]

The economy was bad. Right. And so I mean if you remember the Democratic ads at that point, it's so crazy. Like I went, I my congressman, his name was Chad Edwards. He was the Republican who lost by the biggest or the Democrat who lost by the biggest margin. But he had held on in, like, an R&20 district for 18 years. And the thing was, is that even his ads were like, I stood up to Nancy Pelosi.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Like, that's how you balance the budget things.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, exactly. Like, it got that bad. But I remember Democratic ads at that time were all trying to gin up Obamacare into something that's just not there. And there's a reason Republicans, when they're campaigning, are not campaigning on the big, beautiful bill, and they're not even campaigning on standing up for President Trump, because Trump is not all that popular, which we're about to do a whole segment on. You're really in a tough, tough position. You don't have something affirmative that you can run on. And that defensive posture already puts you in a very difficult place. Now, all the caveats remain. This guy, I would say, probably gonna win, I think.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

You know. Yeah, right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, I have to say that. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

But it's one of those where if you win by two, if you win by three, that's a big problem. And actually, that's where the gerrymandering becomes a existential threat to the Republicans, in my opinion, because what that means is that they are going to put themselves in a place where they have 52, 48 districts, which they just long presumed were going to be Republican and could very easily go plus five, plus six Democrat, as we've seen over and over again. And in some of those states where they've been able to hang on the Susan Collins of the world in Ohio, for example. Vivek. Vivek. Amy Acton and Sherrod Brown. Like, I'm not saying I would bet on them, but, like, I'm not counting them out just yet. Another listen.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Especially shared a year to go, you know. Yeah, yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, shared what? He lost by six. Something like that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

No, I think.

[Krystal Ball]

Was it closer than that? I don't remember. Yes. Let me know what the margin was. Because he definitely always outran his Republicans, you know, allies there. He kind of fell victim, I think, to the same thing where he.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Three and a half points.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay. Wow. Right. So that was. And that was in a Republican kind of wave election, if you will. So if you then think back to now, like, you're only talking a couple of points, you have decent amount of approval rating. We'll see. I just. I wouldn't want to be any of these guys. And it is. No matter what, it's embarrassing if you win only by one or two or if it goes to a recount or something.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Oh, yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And it's just it's it's embarrassing, humiliating.

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

It is actually kind of a political earthquake if they lose. I was just looking at the poly market odds. They have Van EPPS at a 90% chance of winning. So we're clear about, you know, where the betting markets are and whatever. But yeah, I mean personally given the poll numbers, I'm not sure that, you know, I might be worth placing a little bit on on Afton.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, that's good value.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's good odds there.

[Krystal Ball]

That's good value.

[Saagar Enjeti]

In any case, the other reason that this is that of course I'm very interested in this Race is because Afton is like. She's a lefty. You know, she. She's a Breaking Points fan, by the way. We had her on the show, you guys, and watch that interview. We got a lot of interesting stuff out of her, including getting her to respond to her comments that she hates Nashville and country music, which, you know, they've made a lot about, of course, in the race.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm with you. All right. Sorry. I'll say it, all right, But I ain't running for office down there.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It was very relatable, too, because she was like the Bachelorettes, the pedal puff.

[Krystal Ball]

She's right. She's right. I will say, though, I did the pedal thing. It's kind of fun.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Is it fun?

[Krystal Ball]

It's a little fun.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But in any case, she was, you know, sort of like these tourists. They're always in the way. Relatable if you've lived in a city with a lot of tourism. I lived in New York City. It's Times Square. Like, get the fuck out of my way. I'm trying to.

[Krystal Ball]

I cannot imagine if that. What's Broadway or whatever. I'd be like, I'm getting the hell away from if I lived in Nashville. I'm sure most of you don't even go there. So I'm just talking about.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But in any case, you know, the narrative about the left that the centrists and the Iglesiases of the world, Ezra Klein, you know, Third Way or no Labels or whoever are trying to push is like, sure, Zorin can win in New York City, but this politics really doesn't apply outside of a deep blue area. And here you have a candidate whose politics are pretty indistinguishable from Zorans, who is in striking distance in a Trump +22 district. So it's gonna blow up. It's gonna be very, very interesting and blow up a lot of narratives if she's able to pull it off or even if she comes close. So that's the other reason to watch this. I wanted to play this Fox News clip that I thought was kind of interesting of one of their contributors saying, you know, you guys think this, like, their socialist thing is really working for you, And I'm just not sure that it lands the way that it maybe once landed. This is a six. Let's go ahead and take a listen to this.

[Krystal Ball]

Mamdani is gonna be the next mayor of New York.

[Political Ad Voice]

He's obviously a Democratic socialist.

[Krystal Ball]

And a lot of Republicans have kind of said, oh, watch and see what happens to New York that's gonna be the death of socialism. You don't necessarily think that's the case? Case?

[Fox News Contributor]

No, I don't. And thanks for having me, John. Also, you know, the conventional wisdom regarding Mamdani was that his victory was going to be a boon for Republicans in the midterms because they could just point at socialism and say, you know, there's the boogeyman. I don't think that this is going to work. I think there is a real misreading of the ground in middle America, the heartland. Call it whatever you want. I spend most of my time there talking to voters, and they're not terrified of socialism and they're not the conservative, what we used to call blue dog Democrat types that you expect to find there. One quick example, two thirty somethings that I met in Dallas. These guys were Democrats, but not hardcore socialism came up. I asked the question that we hear a lot on this channel. Where has it ever worked without missing a beat? The first guy said Norway. Second guy chimes in and says Sweden and Finland. Now, now look, we can debate that. And we kind of did those models. But the takeaway here is that when I said socialism, their mental image was not breadlines in Cuba or the former Soviet Union. It was free health care and generous vacation packages in Scandinavia. So I think Republicans have to understand the ground is a little different than they think it is.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And this reminded me, Sara, I saw a poll recently, kind of one poll, who knows, that was asking people about, like, how do you feel about socialism? And even in the Republicans, it was not like the 90% or 99%, like, oh, my God, this is terrible. There was some. A third of the Republican base that was like, maybe. I mean, we're in an era of radical politics.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

People are disgusted and they're fed up with the mainstream. And, you know, a label like socialism is still definitely carries a stigma in the country, but it's breaking down in a way because it's also a way to signal I'm not like these Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi people that you hate. So it is also a way of signaling that you are in some ways oppositional to the existing Democratic Party. And, you know, at a time when people are feeling like they're screwed and they don't have hope for the future and they don't have hope for their kids. Yeah. Calling someone a radical is not the epithet that perhaps it once was.

[Krystal Ball]

I totally agree. I mean, the structural kind of like stew for this has existed for a long time. It happened with Donald Trump. I mean, we talked about this. The norms, you know, even on immigration, they're like, it's Nazi. And they're like, yeah, a lot of people still voted for him. Okay, you could say it now if you want to. I still don't think it's gonna be all that effective. But the point is, is like, like, Trump won the popular vote in 2024 despite breaking all the norms and saying whenever he wanted, yes, we live in a radical age. And that's why I also think the socialism thing. Let's also just consider very briefly, like, the long history of the attacks. In the same way, if you've called every Democrat a socialist since 1980, basically, what is it, 1984. I wanna say something like that. Mondale ON well, at a certain point, people my age who weren't even alive at that time, it was a tired trope by 2000s. So now it's 2025. So you're at this point where you're like, yeah, I don't know, man. And I think that's one of those where, if anything is good, of the destruction of establishment norms, mainstream media and all of that. It's that most people, in my opinion these days are trying to figure out stuff for themselves on their own terms. So for example, when you call someone a radical, we're like, well, what do you mean by that? Exactly. Right. And so if you say, I don't know about health care, you're like, well, okay, I mean, that seems kind of reasonable to me. Might disagree on the implementation or whatever, but the idea, I'm not opposed. Same whenever it comes to, I don't know, like even tariffs or any. Trump ran on tariffs in 2016. Everyone said it's going to nuke the economy. It's the worst idea in the world. Even the idea of tariffs, not the current tariffs, it won because people were like, oh, kind of makes sense to me.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

So I think it's one of those where people need to understand that with the destruction of norms, it doesn't just apply to the right, it applies to the entire Overton window of political discourse. So that's kind of why I think.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It'S a good thing Medicare for all has majority support in the Republican Party now.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, that's where we've discussed this. I think that sometimes taking these polls to the bank is not exactly the correct thing.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay. But directionally, the fact that you even have a poll that is credible at all, that has a majority of Republicans were like, eh, I guess so.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I think the idea is everyone should have health care. Now, you know, if we're gonna say should we have a single payer government control healthcare? No, I actually don't think that they'll be there. I mean look, everyone always says about Obamacare, like well technically on paper it polls well, like no, it doesn't.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, I will just say your caveats about polling. I totally take, I think people are bad at like anticipating what they will actually support and what the whatever. But the language of the poll did say that would mean most private health insurance would go away and it still garnered majority Republicans support. It's a different day. And in some ways Trump has opened the door to this because you know, he, he used the language about the working class and about even about health care that sort of co opted the left. So it took some of the sting out of the attacks on left wing positions. When you have the president, I mean he doesn't follow through on any of this shit. But using some of the language and signaling like he's interested in moving in a similar direction. I did wanna flag there a couple other of races that are gonna be interesting tonight. Let's put a 7 up on the screen, guys. Go check out Boltz magazine. Daniel Nishanian is unmatched in terms of literally following every ballot initiative, every down ballot race down to the school board and local prosecutor, everything. Right. But in any case, he flags a few different things that are happening today. Like I said before, there's a number of kind of intra Democratic party fights on the Atlanta Georgia City council. There are some DSA candidates versus some more traditional Democratic candidates. So that's an interesting one, this one. Sagar, I think you'll appreciate there's an at large school board race in Atlanta where you have a young person running for the seat who in 2016 went viral when as a 14 year old high school student he recited a poem titled white boy privilege in a slam poetry competition in his school.

[Krystal Ball]

I love that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And he's now running for the local school board. I don't remember that particular.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't remember that at all.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But you don't remember it? No, I've been on my.

[Krystal Ball]

It's one of the. I've been online for a long time. If I haven't heard of it. I'm just, I'm a little skeptical.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You're skeptical of the virality of this particular thing. There's also some interesting Jersey City and other New Jersey races, but in particular in Jersey City. Do you guys remember Jim McGreevey? He was the governor of New Jersey Democrat just had to resign. A disgrace over like corruption. I think he may have even served time in person. I'm not 100% sure about that. But he also, he was. He came out as gay because he like these, I think affair allegations with a man came out. So he came out as gay and he's married to a woman. Anyway, he's trying to make his comeback. He's like a more like centristy establishment Dem and he's running against a candidate who is backed by Working Families Party. So more of a like lefty candidate. And there are also city council members who are kind of the McGreevey people and then the working families people. So that's playing out in the New Jersey mayoral and City council races as well. So that'll be kind of interesting to watch in terms of a bellwether of where the Democrats product party base is at this point. So take a look at that one as well.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I think I'm interested to see. We're always going to look at these. The Tennessee one in particular. Like we said. I would probably put my. I don't know at the same time, 90, 10 with those odds I would actually take. I mean, I wouldn't put a big bet on it, but. Yeah, but this is not financial advice. You shouldn't do it. Betting is bad and it's degenerate. Purely from a mathematical perspective though, you know, there's good value there. There's good value. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. If you were a betting man, they would look at that and say, hey, you know, what's the worst that could happen? Yeah, nine to ten odds. That's pretty good.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, but I knew how to bet on Polymarket. I might do it, but it's actually not that hard.

[Krystal Ball]

But yeah, I'm not going to give a tutorial for everybody who is here. Okay.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm sure Google could help us out with that.

[Krystal Ball]

It's really not that difficult. I think it's legal now here.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Oh, is it?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that they reach some settlement or whatever with the CFTC so that you can do it. Not that you should and definitely not that they should continue down their sports betting, their sports betting turn, which they and all the other prediction markets are now going down. Shocker. It's so interesting, isn't it? They went from very predictive in politics to chasing the most degenerate big market that exists. But that's a segment for another day.

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[Krystal Ball]

Pets age 0 to 10 the wait is over.

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[Krystal Ball]

All right, should we get to Trump?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, let's get to Trump. He kind of hangs over all these elections, of course, and over everything that's happening. Harry Enton had a good breakdown of the latest. I believe this is a Gallup poll that came out that had his approval rating almost matching his low after January 6th. So really, you know, pretty, pretty grim numbers here coming out for Trump. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what Harry Anton had to say.

[Harry Enten]

Say, look at this. In January, Donald Trump's not approving. Not too Bad, not too great. It was at minus one point, right within the margin of error. Breaking even. But look at this now. Negative 24 points. Way, way down. We're talking about a drop of over 20 points in the wrong direction for the president. United States minus 24 points. That's a 23 point move in the incorrect direction if you're the president. And of course, what's so important here, Sarah Seidner, is it matches the trend that we've seen with other polls. That is Donald Trump hitting his low for the second term. I was doing the count last night. I think we're up to 10 polls in sort of the last 40 days. 10 different pollsters who have said that Trump is at the lowest point. He is in his second term. I run out of room on the side. So I just put up the, put up the Republican presidents. But look, the only one who's worse for me, either among Republicans or Democrats at this point, a second term, is Richard Nixon. Of course, Richard Nixon, and had to wave adios, amigos goodbye. Less than a year after this poll was taken, he was at minus 36 points. Trump at minus 24 points. That beats, or his worst, I should say beats, in the wrong direction. George W. Bush, -19 points. His Republican Party, of course, suffered major losses in the 2006 midterm elections. Dwight Eisenhower, plus 31 points. Donald Trump has never smelt that at all. I had to go into the archives to pick up that photo. And Ronald Reagan at plus 41 points. But again, it also is worse than Harry S. Truman.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Truman.

[Harry Enten]

It's worse than Lyndon Baines Johnson. It's worse than Barack Obama. It's worse than Bill Clinton. Anywhere you look. This is the second worst for a president of either party at this point in their second term. Dating all the way back since the 1940s. Were there any presidents who saw their net approval ratings rise by more than five points? Well, guess what, Sarah Sider, you go all the way back. Since Harry S. Truman, 0 out of 8 times that, the president's net approval rating rise by over five point.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So there you go. In terms of the midterms impact, you can put the next tear sheet up on the screen. This is the actual Gallup numbers here. You can see, you know, pretty clear trend. Disapproval rising and rising. Approval rating falling and falling. Lowest point yet in this term. So the trend is not good. And if you dig into this numbers, what's actually interesting is, you know, there was no really lower that Democrats could go in terms of their approval rating of Trump. They basically been at 3% approval rating for him from the beginning, you know, with a little bit of ups and downs. The movement really comes from two places. It comes from independents who from the last reading dropped from a 33% approval to a 25% approval. But some of the movement also comes from Republicans. At the last reading, they were at 91% approval, and now they're down at 84% approval. Now, those still vary. You know, 84% overwhelmingly favorable towards Trump. Trump, but he's kind of famous for having this absolute lock on the Republican base. And he had a recent high of 93% support among Republicans. So that number has dropped almost 10 points. And that's part of what is contributing to this overall decline.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, well, I say this all the time for all of these Republicans. They're like, maga doesn't care. I go, is MAGA the whole Republican Party? No, it's not. Or we can say, this is maga. Everybody who voted for Donald Trump, they just don't get it. Is that MAGA is a distinct. Maybe 25, 30% of the U.S. population. How many. And let's say of voters. 25, 35% of voters, because it's a little bit higher for people who voted. Okay, so where does the rest of it all come from? Because how did you get to 50 plus one? Whenever you came to winning the election? That is how you win. That's what the whole ballgame game is about. And they don't seem to understand how. I mean, in a way, I think we're probably perfectly poised. That's our audience, that's our bread and butter. Our people who are more undecided, a little bit more different. They're not deeply partisan. So I understand these people. We swim in these waters. It's just so obvious now for over a year that things have dramatically shifted, I think, against their momentum. I said this before. I think March really was a demarcation point for the Trump administration. That was the height of doge idiocy. That's when it became pretty clear that was also the Mike Waltz scandal. The whole signal thing. I mean, it was kind of just like. It was like, oh, okay, so, like, this is the movie. Anybody who thought the movie was gonna be different, we're in the second act. It's on like, it's bad now. And we could all kind of see where things were beginning to go. And I think a lot of the American people, Liberation Day in particular, that's when they really saw where all things. Things. Where things gonna go. And the way that that was handled, they just never recovered from it. And this is part of the problem with their understanding of the general electorate is that they still believe a lot of these Republicans that if they just continue to suck up and kiss Trump's ass in the most, like, you know, fawning ways, that that will keep their power base in Washington. But that has the electoral dynamics that enable that, that last time around, they don't exist anymore. Trump is way less popular today than he was last time around. A friend of mine, Kurt Mills, shared an article with me about how we're talking about like George W. Bush, December 2005 Territory. And I mean, if you weren't alive at that time, it was crazy. It was like that's what led to Nancy Pelosi and this huge Democratic wave. It was a precursor to Barack Obama. Barack Obama's never president. If that 2005, 2000, if that 2006 Democratic wave doesn't happen, that's literally what enables him to run for, for the White House. And all kinds of people were winning at that time who were Democrats, who had no business even being in there. And then think about the course of history that that eventually ended up happening. These have ripple effects for a long, long time and especially on the economy. We're right back to where we were 2018, except this time Trump is actually more unpopular than he was at that time. He actually still had, I think, quite a bit going for him, but this time it's just like, I don't know, in a ways it's all Trump's fault. He has surrounded him, he's not campaigning very much. I think he lives in an information bubble purely of Mar a Lago and of his advisors who just tell him what they want to hear. I mean, one of the things that he actually was always good at is he did so many rallies, I covered them, I was at so many of these. He actually was, quote, in touch with people by just constantly field testing stuff.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

When's the last rally? Can anybody even. Doesn't even know. He's not interested. He only cares about, about getting himself elected. So he's not out there even with the voters. This is a problem always for presidents, particularly second term presidents. They don't have the intention. 80 year old president, especially an 80 year old. Right, Exactly. You could just keep, think about all the structural things where even the good ones, they have big problems being out of touch, not being in touch with the voters, trying to keep their pulse on where things are and then think about the information environment that they're swimming in. Apparently he was truthing over two or three hundred things in the middle of the night last night. Right. Just literally just true social stuff. Like that's the, that's the world that you're living in, so you have no idea what's going on.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right, right. I mean, the information ecosystem, it's not just about who physically he's surrounding himself with, but during the first term he was on Twitter and Twitter had a lot of, I mean, especially that was pre Elon. So there were a lot of liberals, there was a lot of opposition on Twitter that he would have to at least, you know, see and deal with with. And now he's largely on truth social. And so even that is an information cocoon. Atlantic wrote a pretty good piece with some reporting about exactly the dynamic that you're talking about. And this is Jonathan Lemire. Let me read this portion. They talk about truth social, talk about the fact, like you said, that they compared, he went and compared the first term schedule versus this term. The difference was incredibly dramatic. Talked about how there's no more rallies. He's either at the White House or closeted at Mar a Lago or when he's traveled, it's been overseas, it's been to do to end another war, attempted diplomacy here or there and try to get his Nobel Prize. And the other thing he's fixated on is frickin ballroom. But he says this term there are very few voices inside the White House to tell Trump no or get him back on track. And that's by design. At the start of his first term, Trump filled his team with a mix of veterans of past Republican administrations and figures from the GOP establishment who moderated some of his more extreme impulses. But Trump chafed at those roadblocks in 2025. He surrounded himself with enablers, not figures such as John Kelly, Rex Tillerson and James Mattis. Trump trusts his own instincts and points to his historic reelection as proof that he provides his own best counsel. His chief of staff, Suzie Wiles, has been clear she does not see her role as constraining the president. Moreover, there is not a Republican leader on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue to play the role of Mitch McConnell and check Trump's power. And although Trump still calls his old friends back in New York, and this part I found really interesting, he does it less frequently than during his first term, someone familiar with the calls told me, depriving the president of candid feedback from people who have known him for decades and may not agree with him on every issue. Instead, his focus has been on the business titans and billionaires with whom he has frequently dined at the White House and at Mar a Lago who want something from him and tell him what he wants to hear. So instead of the, I mean, largely conservative, certainly on economic issues, business guys that he used to chat with on the phone in his first term, now he's got Mark Zuckerberg there kissing his ass and Sam Altman and Elon and whoever, right? All these tech oligarchs who are just there to bring him gold bars and kiss his feet and beg for their tariff carve outs or their goodies or whatever it is that they want from him. That's what he's surrounded with now. And then the other piece is like, this is an old man. He has never really given a shit about the Republican Party and I'm not sure he cares that much that his policies are wildly out of step with the American public and he's increasingly sort of disengaged. And then this is the other part is outside of the individual policies where people are very sour on the economy, they've soured on the immigration cruelty. Sager was talking about some of the chaos and the scandals which are always exhausting to people and people do not enjoy. In addition to that, now you're also, Trump is really finally starting to show his age. You know, he's visibly falling asleep in meetings. And they're increasingly health questions, especially around. He kind of accidentally revealed that he had this MRI recently. And so there have been a lot of questions about, well, what was the MRI for? Can we see the results, et cetera. Caroline Levitt had to field a question about this Yesterday. This is B3. Let's take a listen.

[Afton Bain (Candidate)]

As part of President Trump's comprehensive executive physical, advanced imaging was performed because men in his age group benefit from a thorough evaluation of cardiovascular and abdominal health. The purpose of this imaging is preventative, to identify any issues early, confirm overall health and ensure the President maintains long term vitality and function. Everything evaluated is functioning within normal limits, limits with no acute or chronic concerns. In summary, this level of detailed assessment is standard for an executive physical at President Trump's age and confirms that he remains in excellent overall health.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And let's put before up on the screen as well. They felt like they needed to release this memo from the, you know, the White House's doctor, of course. It says, oh, his cardiovascular imaging is perfectly normal. There's no evidence of arterial narrowing, impairing blood flow or abnormalities. Overall, his cardiovascular system Shows excellent health. His abdominal imaging is also perfectly normal. So in any case, they at least feel enough pressure to have to put out something from the White House physician for Caroline Levitt to have to address it from the podium. And when voters start getting these questions in their mind and they see an aging president who increasingly photos are coming out where it really doesn't look too great and where he's sleepy at the meetings and all of those sorts of things. Things. It also contributes to a general vibe of malaise and the administration being adrift, which is very similar dynamic to what we saw in the Biden administration as well.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. Yeah, I mean, that's the same problem. Seems the only way to counteract it. How did Trump counteract the age thing in the 2024 campaign?

[Saagar Enjeti]

He was everywhere all the time, being very vigorous out there at the rallies.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, I haven't heard anything in particular. Yeah, he's like falling asleep. I've seen. Seen a few times. He did do that in the first term too. I remember a few of those hilarious incidents that said the only way to counteract it is what Biden and Trump apparently didn't want to do is appear out in public all the time. I mean, he is, you know, mostly in public, I would say at the Oval Office or others. It's not really Biden territory. But the fact is, is like this stuff, it gains currency and in particular when people. There's something about the elderly thing, I think for me too is when you feel as if things are slipping away and you don't have much of a voice and then you add the like elderly component of like these 80, 90 year olds or whatever who are in power who truly don't care about you. It makes you feel very abandoned and have no investment and have no investment in your future.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Not going to be around.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He doesn't really give a shit. You know, I mean, I think that that is part of the vibe and I don't want to make it like, I mean, the deterioration on Biden was. Was something else. Right. It's not the same. I'm not saying it's the same. And Trump has always been like incoherent in his ramblings. So he's still obviously a much more effective communicator than Biden was during his term. But I think there's this sense of decline and having this visibly aging, declining leader heading up the country contributes to that sense of the country is a dream drift and we're not getting things back on track. So anyway, not a great Picture. And like I said, obviously has major impact on how this election, these elections today are going to go, how the midterms are going to go, and what's going to come next after this term of Trumpism.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I think it's. Look, it sets the Republican Party up for a very difficult fight because you have to. Bill, it's the same thing. Trump, remember, Trump will not. He will not allow anything new to come because that would be offensive to him. He can't allow any breakage. He'll drag it down if he wants to. Most Republican, you know, look, you're not never gonna hear me say anything nice about Bush, but I do remember that at one point, he even told McCain. He's like, just say whatever you want about me if you need to get elected.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, in 2020, she would do the same thing.

[Krystal Ball]

She's like, look, you need to attack me to win. Who gives a shit?

[Saagar Enjeti]

He does not think about that at all. That is not his vibe.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, it's not. It's not that necessarily something that he. He is gonna be crazy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, look at Marjorie Taylor Greene. She was his fiercest critic, and she felt enough pressure in whatever way that she decided she had to resign, even though no one has more sort of credibility with the MAGA base separate and apart from Trump than she does. So it shows you that even as Republicans see, like, we're gonna have to do something different. I'm not super happy about this. You see some. We're gonna talk more about the Pete Hegseth thing. There actually is some breakage with the White House over that, although that's different than being directly against Trump. But it's still an indication of, like, you know, the power and the control slipping a little bit. But we shouldn't fool ourselves. Like, he still remains, you know, an incredibly powerful leader of the Republican Party who can exact pain on his adversaries within that party. And so, you know, that's still the overall dynamic within the coalition.

[Krystal Ball]

That's right. All right, let's get to Epstein.

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[Krystal Ball]

Turning out to Jeffrey Epstein. This is some exclusive reporting I can offer. Worked with our friends over at Dropsite. Shout out to Ryan Grimm in particular sharing some of these emails with me. Been spending many hours going through them. This is the first one that we can put up there on the screen. So my headline here is quote Epstein Emails is that as things started to circle the drain here with Jeffrey Epstein there was a very interesting email that I found inside of his own sent inbox that he sent to himself and the headline here is Epstein Emails show concerns over roughly 20 underage girls as the feds close in. So I'm gonna read directly from this email that Epstein sent to himself in April of 2007. He says, quote, in an email tied him to himself that was titled privilege and confidential, spelled incorrectly. As I see it. A following is the summary of the situation. Though I required girls over 18, the results don't reflect it. The feds have spoken to or know of girls between the ages of 16 to 18. If we are to extrapolate, we should assume there are 20 girls in that age range, adding they will all claim topless massage plus dot. That's the bad news. Now, the reason why I think that's very important is it corroborates the federal investigation that came out at the time, which they said that they had some confirmed 34 minors that they had spoken to. But for me, what's really important about this email is basically the admission of guilt, saying that was not always the case. And in fact, in his plea agreement, the sweetheart deal, he had to plea to only one minor who was listed at the oldest one, none of the women who were girls really between 13 and 17. So actually admitting basically to dozens, effectively in his own private email communication. So that's kind of one where I thought I said, wow. I mean, this guy basically admitted to the crime in his own email inbox.

[Saagar Enjeti]

In an email to himself, in an email to.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, it was intended for, I think for his legal team, but he's like. As I see it, it's a following summary of the situation. Jason Leopold over at Bloomberg News has done a lot of the legal work in terms of publishing his legal comms already. So I won't go fully into that. But one thing I just wanted to highlight for everybody is this memo I found, which is fascinating. It's from 2006. And this is the earlier side of the federal investigation into Epstein. So what Epstein has done is he's hired Alan Dershowitz over at Harvard. And Alan Dershowitz has as this research assistant named Mitch Weber. Mitch Weber went on to work at the White House. He's a very high profile reporter here or a lawyer here in Washington. Now, this was when, at the early part of his career back in 06, Weber wrote a memo for Epstein which was titled Possible violations, Worst case scenario. He wrote that, quote, it is likely in some way or another, Epstein's communications with his masseuses in Palm beach triggered jurisdiction under 18 USC 1591. The relevant section of that federal law is, quote, prostituting minors in interstate commerce. And specifically from section 1591. The long legal memo is basically. And by the way, there's so many different emails back and forth which Jason has already reported, where Epstein's like, look into federal sex tourism laws. And he's like, well, what if I brought a girl who was 16 to a state where the age of consent was below 18? Why would that go? So they're constantly workshopping various different legal theories for why ultimately he's not culpable in this entire thing. And what's also very interesting is that inside of those emails was this 2007 letter which was sent to the attorney, U.S. attorney Alex Acosta, the U.S. attorney who gave Epstein that sweetheart deal. This was a letter which was actually written by Kenneth Starr. So the former, former. The guy who led the impeachment stuff, very powerful. Remember, the Bush White House is in power here at the time. And their entire argument focuses not really on Epstein himself. They're like, this is a local matter. This is. No local crime has been committed. But if it was, it wasn't that big of a deal. The feds have no interest in this case. These girls, it's all victim blaming. They lied to Epstein about their age. There's a lot of like attacking the victim. And thus, this is what they were. This case is at heart a local matter that is being fully addressed by the state criminal justice system. Not true. Remember that the Palm beach police are the ones who called the FBI. They said, hey, we can't get this done. We need you to step in here. They continue, there's every reason to believe that the state process will result in appropriate resolution of this matter may vindicate any conceivable federal interest. Thus, there is no federal interest that could justify a federal prosecution. And consequently, under the petite policy, any federal involvement in this case case must be discontinued. Eventually, Alex Acosta signs a non prosecution agreement despite some 34 confirmed minors that were there. Again, Epstein even admitting basically to this in his own emails. And I think, more importantly though is that you had this memo where originally they were like, hey, this is. This could be a real problem. And then they eventually move away from it. So I did reach out to Mitch Weber did not respond to any of my requests for comment.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Comment.

[Krystal Ball]

Here's what Alan Dershowitz told me. He says, quote, this was a lawyer and client confidential communication from a research assistant. My more experienced judgment is that it would be difficult. The prosecutors apparently agreed with me, so in order to minimize the risk to them, they agreed to a state deal. That's how plea bargains are reached. Both sides Seek to minimize risk. Nothing unusual here. That's what Alan Dershowitz told me in an email. But I mean, I do think it is important that his own legal team at that time or Mitch Weber, the research assistant here for Alan Dershowitz was like, hey, you know, it's actually, I mean, to be fair, it was titled Worst Case Scenario and all of that and they eventually were able to move past it. But the admission of guilt, the fact that Epstein, I mean in these back and forth, it's just literally constant. And again, you can go and read some of this from Jason Leopold where he's asking about federal tax sex term laws and constantly playing with the age of consent, about 16 to 18. What if I did this and that. He's coaching Kenneth Star, you guys. I mean it's incomprehensible the way that he writes, but when you are start to bring it together, he starts writing these long narratives and memos for Kenneth Starr to explain why he's now involved in the case. And it's not about Jeffrey and he's writing letters. I found multiple letters from Epstein which he's writing for other people about my friend Jeffrey. He's editing them about how great of a guy he is and he wants other people to send them to him. It's all character witness stuff. But I'll tell you the creepiest part, part is right around the time that it comes public is all these emails. And again Jason's reported this stuff is all these emails in the inbox from all of these rich and powerful people. Can't believe this happened to you. What a travesty of justice. I'm like billionaire, billionaire, billionaire, former UK ambassador. They're like, what? This is so horrible. It would never happen to you. I can't believe this. You know, Ghislaine, oh my God, my love, I'm so sorry. I mean, yeah. By the way, Ghislaine, in terms of what she told Todd Blanche, I mean just from what I've read, some 680 emails eventually that they exchange between the two of them. The number of things that she obfuscated in her testimony, it's unbelievable. Again, Jason has reported some of this stuff which just goes into their relationship, but I've now had a chance to read a lot of it for myself and it's shocking. And finally, the one thing remember I sent to the group chat yesterday, Lolita in the months before he died, I'm going through. So Epstein did that classic thing where he linked his old email to Amazon. And so all of His Amazon orders are in there. Really? Creep. Sec shit is there. But also, three months before his death, the annotated and revised Lolita. So he needed the annotated Lolita copy. He also bought it on auto so he could listen to it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Oh, yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

So there's two separate purchase orders.

[Saagar Enjeti]

What was that like? It's just too on the nose.

[Krystal Ball]

It's creepy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The, you know, best known novel about pedophilia. And here the best known.

[Krystal Ball]

So I haven't read the book. My wife read the book. She was like, you do know that the book is like, he's the villain, right? You know, like. Yeah, it's like the whole book is about how the pedophile is the villain.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

And so it's like, so were people reading this book and they just didn't get the book?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Like it's written from his perspective in prison. No, not. Well, maybe he's in. I don't remember. But it's written from his persp of how he's trying to lure in this young girl named Lolita who's like a child.

[Krystal Ball]

He was like her stepfather or something.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, something. He had some sort of a relationship with her that brought him into contact with her. I don't remember the details. It's been like over a decade since I read it. But that's the general vibe. It's disgusting. I mean, it's deeply disturbing. But in any case, way too on the nose that that's what he's ordering months before he goes to prison and ends up killing himself in prison.

[Krystal Ball]

Ends up dying, let's put it that way.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You know, I want you to just reiterate for the timeline here because I think this is really important. So I think we already knew. But again, this is important to emphasize because I don't think a lot of people realize this, that the feds knew about. He thinks 20 underage.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, they made to 34. We eventually find an email. An email is released in 2015 which says, from the feds, we knew about 34 victims. That was never reported before that time. So that gets to how ridiculous that whole sweetheart deal was.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

But the thing is, is he's admitting to himself in his private communications. That was not all. Always the case. I do think it's extraordinary. I mean, basically found the email. He admitted guilty. He admitted his guilt.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So. And he's trying to grapple with, okay, well, how much do they have on me? Let's assume that they've got probably 20. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

He goes, well, if we can extrapolate.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It underage and of course I didn't, I was, that's not what I was targeting. But you know, some of them are rally underage and accidental and I'm sure that they have that. And then they go, and this is also where power and privilege and position makes a difference. This incredibly high powered legal team. Oh, millions of dollars, incredibly connected. I mean the most connected people you can imagine.

[Krystal Ball]

He had a crisis PR firm who was advising him. I've read his memos again, Jason has published that. You can, you can read the memos. Crisis PR firm, different words to use. I mean he threw, I would estimate something like $10 million at this case.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And this is the Bush administration at the time. And they're able to go to straight to whoever the decision maker is, you really want to deal with this. Like, and also I'm sure there was lots of like, look at how messy they look at all the people who support him and are friends with him and maybe you should just leave this to the state level. And that argument from them won the day and that's what enables Alex Acosta to be in the position to craft this sweetheart deal. So I think it's really revealing from that perspective as well, just of how they were approaching all of this where they thought their risks were and the way they were able to work the system so that he gets barely a slap on the right wrist and you still, because he gets barely a slap on the wrist, you still have Alan Dershowitz to this day going out and say, oh well, he was only convicted of these very minor offenses. I don't know what people are making such a big deal of. Right.

[Krystal Ball]

See that's the thing about Dersh is, dude, you're on these. I'm assuming I cannot prove this, but like that email that he sent himself about privilege and confidential, I'm assuming he's forwarded that to his legal team.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's why I said or is having conversations or he's having conversations, you know, oral conversations with him to that effect.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. So I mean, as Allen basically coming out and be like, he wasn't a pedophile, he was only convicted of a 17 year old girl or whatever. It's like, well, they had 34 confirmed minors from the feds and here he is, he said it to himself, I did it. Not always the case. We should extrapolate 16 to 20. It ended up being more than that from what the feds have. I mean again, the nexus of power and all this stuff in the emails, most of this has been reported, but like Doug Band, this guy's Clinton's body man. At one point, he's like, hey, guys, I can't get a commercial flight. I need to get so and so. I want to go watch a basketball game. Is Air Force GMAX available? That's what he wrote to Ghislaine Maxwell. And Ghislaine forwards it to Epstein. She's like, what do you want me to do here? And he was like, yeah, just go ahead and pay for him. He's like, he's willing to cover the private jet costs. Now. Doug Band says he never took the flight, to be fair. But, you know, this is Clinton's body man. That they're constantly in connection here. They were, like, trying to buy some watch off of each other. So like some Audemars Piguet, super expensive watch. You can see, like, his degeneracy, not just the sexual stuff, all within. He's constantly inquiring about Sikorsky helicopters and yachts. And that's also kind of noteworthy to me. Little St. James. Oh, my God, the number of emails I've read of him, him micromanaging the Little St. James property and like this, each specific construction, it was like his little, you know, paradise that really. That he crafted intimately from the gardens to the walls and others. And you can see how he's constantly using Little St. James as this nexus to like, try and get people, people to come visit him.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And the Virgin island government, right, covered for him, protected him, covered for him.

[Krystal Ball]

I'll hopefully have a story about the Virgin island government. So I can't. I'm still digging down on it. But he was, he was involved in the gubernatorial races down there. I mean, look, this time period from which we have access to is like 2005 to roughly like 2008. So that's why it's important, is we have a lot of the legal communications. But frankly, one of the reasons why he starts this new email, in my opinion, opinion is that this email was after the Palm Beach PD had started looking into him. So the real stuff, I think is in the pre 05, but I think he deleted his inbox or something because we haven't been able to gain access. If you're listening, you have access.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Said, yeah, Ryan said that there was evidence that some things had been deleted.

[Krystal Ball]

And, you know, you can see there's. There's big chunks of months that are missing. He was covering his tracks. Glayne did the same thing in a lot of her emails. She said, this is my new email. If you're emailing My old one, please don't do that anymore. They were starting to change up kind of their opsecker realized they had, if you will, right around 2005. Well, that's when the Palm Beach PD starts to investigate.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, I, I. People have been sharing, resharing. This quote from Larry Summers, who of course was very close Jeffrey Epstein confidant and asking him for girl advice and, you know, his called him his, his wingman and whatever, just to give you a sense of the mindset of these people. So this is something that he said to Giannis, verified, the former Greek finance minister who wrote about this in his memoir, Adults in the Room. Varoufakis was talking to Summers and Summers said that he needed to choose between being an insider or an outsider. And he said, quote, this is Summers. The outsiders prioritize their freedom to speak their version of the truth. The price of their freedom is that they are ignored by the insiders who make the important decisions. The insiders, for their part, follow a sacrosanct rule. Rule. Never turn against other insiders and never talk to outsiders about what insiders say or do. Their reward, question mark. Access to inside information and a chance, though no guarantee, of influencing powerful people and outcomes. So someone who was deeply enmeshed in this circle, Larry Summers, who is an ultimate consummate insider, he's explaining to Yannis Varoufakis that if you want to be an insider and you want to have a chance to impact powerful people and make policy, the rule is you can't snitch on us. You gotta keep your mouth silent shut about anything to do with us. You never turn against other insiders. And that seems to be the code more than anything, that kept this whole depraved, sociopathic pedophile ring of elites going for years and years and years.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. I mean, by the way, on the Larry Summers thing, you know who told Epstein he should read Lolita? Larry Summers wife. Just saying. Who is recommending this book?

[Saagar Enjeti]

You can't have been the first to recommend it to me. It's just one of those where.

[Krystal Ball]

That's why the Eyes Wide Shut piece that we covered the last time we were talking about this, it is true. These people are weird. Again, I know a decent amount of people, even some who are powerful. It's just whatever this is that exists in this inbox, I have never been exposed to it. I honestly, honestly, if you had told me before I ever got into the Epstein story, I would be like, you're crazy. It's just not true. But, like, no, it's true, it's real. I mean, the, like, there actually is.

[Saagar Enjeti]

A cabal for me was that eye opening moment of like, holy shit. Because this is this man's 50th birthday present. It's being compiled from all these different friends and, you know, associates and acquaintances and former presidents and, you know, all Larry Summers is in there, Trump's in there, Bill Clinton's in there. Like, they're all in there and almost all of them are weird and creepy and sexual and these weird like child drawings and all this. I'm like, what the fuck is this? What is this? This is not anything that any normal person would have seen. And yet somehow all of these people knew that this was like the weird, creepy style that would be expected in this birthday book. That, to me was incredibly eye opening about what is going on here.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, there's this, the only Trump. There's not a lot on Trump Trump in here. The one crazy mention is there's this list that Ghislaine sends him and it's like, please review this list. Add or remove people. It's like Larry Summers, who else? Like Jean Luc, you know, all of his friends. Ace Greenberg, the former CEO, Senator George Mitchell, Michael Ovitz, the Hollywood superstar Donald Trump, Les Wexner, Jess Staley, the former, the JP Morgan guy at the time. Later on, the CEO of Barclays. Like just Duke of York. Duke of York. These are General Wesley Clark. Like, there's a lot of very famous people who are on this list. And Epstein replied to this list and he said, remove Trump Lee, add Earl Mack, David Gergen, Mort Zuckerman, you know, and all these. But my thing is I'm like, I still don't know what this list is. And what's also crazy throughout the emails, like the amount of Hollywood invites this guy was getting was crazy. Like he was invited to like, like that. What was that George Clooney movie? No, Michael Clayton. They're like, hey, do you want to come to the premiere of Michael Private screening? Like, hey, do you want to come to the Sopranos, the final episode? He was like, do you want to come to a special screening of this? The level of. Yeah, again, just, just to really see it up close. I, you know, you have some inkling of the way the world works, even getting to know, you know, relative power circles. But this was a whole episode other level. And so, yeah, we'll have more stories, by the way, shout out again, I want to give the real shout out. Ryan Grimm, Mortaza, those guys, they did all the Israel Reporting they got their first incredible stuff going through it. Also, final shout out, Jason Leopold over at Bloomberg.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Let's put C2 up on the screen because I think this is his.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, he also has this. He's great.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This was also, you know, he. He did a FOIA request to say, hey, see, hey, what's going on with this, you know, effort to redact the Epstein files. And he was able to get his hands on some internal government correspondence and basically found the amount of overtime hours that were spent between March 17 and March 22, FBI personnel clocked in a total of 4,737 hours of overtime. Actually, sorry, that was between January and July. Of that, more than 70% occurred during the month of March alone while personnel were reviewing the Epstein files at a total taxpayer dollar amount of, you know, over a million dollars. And so you've got. Yeah, I mean, it's important to see what's going on here behind the scenes where they're going through. We don't know what the nature of these redactions were. I don't think that he's been able to get his hands on exactly what they were looking for and the ways that they were trying to scrub these files. But, you know, this is leading up to them being, oh, there's nothing to see here. And you know, let's case close, let's move on. Going from I have the files on my desk. They're being reviewed to he killed himself. And there's really nothing going on here. Anyway, we're all moving on. So he gets a little bit of the backstory here of what was happening behind closed doors.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, the redactions and the review process, you can just see, like, how crazed that they are to try and to do this. The FOIA that he was able to get basically gets to all of the. He said, the number of hours, as you said, said, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they clocked, 4700 hours of overtime. So, yes, shout out to Jason. People really should go subscribe to him on Twitter and stuff. He calls himself a FOIA terrorist, and he really is. He's one of the goats here. I want to give him a lot of credit for breaking some of this stuff wide open. Because what he did, I think also with the initial Bloomberg story is he broke a lot of these emails. Cause he was the person who got first access to. To them, who broke some of this stuff out into the open that revealed this power nexus. These. A lot of these people, these billionaires and others, they're not responding to me for comment. But they did respond to Jason. And so they had. Right, it's Bloomberg fucking News, right? So they had to come forward and offer an explanation or any of that. He broke it down. Their team did a very digestible job. So, yeah, we're just going to continue to try and add on to some of the stuff that we know, some of the intelligence connections, Israel stuff and others. But this email set has been shared with a variety of. Variety of different journalists. And, And I think that's great. That's what it. That's how it needs to be. And anybody out there, if you have more, send it along, especially anything pre 05 and post 2013, I would love to read it. Not the stuff that the House of Representatives has. The real stuff is actual email stuff that hasn't been vetted or any of that. We, you know, obviously we're not releasing everything because that has names of victims and private information, financial information, all kinds of stuff. We're doing a lot of work behind the scenes just to make sure everything we put out verified, vetted, ask for comment and all that. It takes a lot of work. So there you go. Thank you all very much for that. All right, let's get to Cash Patel, shall we? Put this up here on the screen just to. This one's too good. All right, so this is, this is.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Interesting that this is in the New York Post too. Oh, yeah, Miranda Devine, she had a bunch of scoops with regard to the Charlie Kirk investigation as well. So she, she is plugged in here with the FBI and she's plugged in with some people who are really not super psyched about Cash Patel.

[Krystal Ball]

Not just the FBI, quote, unquote leadership, the MAGA contingent of the FBI that doesn't include Cash Patel. Okay, so she says FBI Director Kash Patel is facing withering criticism from an alliance of active duty and retired agents days after the White House denied media reports the President's going to fire him. A troubling new report card on the first six months of Patel's leadership concludes he is in over his head. And his, quote, deputy Dan Bongino, is something of a clown, which in pre previous reports warned about crippling DEI and politicization. So these are people who have warned about DEI and politicization of the FBI under Biden. All right, so can we just say that they're not libs? They're not libs. All right. She says the FBI under Patel is described as a, quote, rudderless ship and all fucked up. Patel is described by the multiple as inexperienced. One source saying he has neither the breadth of experience nor the bearing an FBI director should be successful. Another self professed Trump supporter said Patel is not good, may be insecure, lacks a requisite experience and a measured self confidence to be the FBI director. Some of the heavy criticism stems from Patel's behavior in Salt Lake City after the Charlie Kirk assassination. He was accused of giving premature public remarks that jeopardized the investigation, taking credit for the work of other agencies, yelling and swearing at the agent in charge. Both he and Bongino were criticized for arrogance and an unfortunate obsession with social media. One source said he needed to stop talking, stop posing, just be professional. Another said he is spending too much time on social media and public relations, too often concerned with building their own personal resumes. This was all written in the style of a an official FBI intelligence assessment, analyzing reports from sources and sub forces and using anecdotes to illustrate troubling themes. Now this is my personal favorite one. On September 11, 2025, the day after Kirk was assassinated, Patel flew into Provo, Utah. This by the way is according to this report. Just so we're all clear, Patel flew into Provo, Utah on the FBI jet, quote, would not disembark from the plane without an FBI raid jacket. According to a highly respected source who has served in the FBI for decades. Quote, Patel did not have his own FBI jacket with him and refused to step from the plane without wearing one. Agents at Salt Lake City busy working on the Kirk case had to stop and ask around to find an FBI ray jacket, a quote, medium sized one that would fit that one hurts cash. When a jacket belonging to to a female agent was delivered to Patel on the plane, he complained that two areas on the upper sleeves did not have Velcro patches attached. Let's put those images up here on the screen please. Patel would not leave the plane until he had two patches to cover those areas. So members of an FBI SWAT team took patches off their own uniforms, ran those patches over to Patel at the airport. The patches were then attached to the loner FBI raid jacket. Patel disembarked from the plane. Patel did not have a positive impression the director was, quote, not happy with the way the investigation was going, yelled at. The special agent in charge directed an expletive laden tirade over perceived blunders in the case. Bongino later called him and apologized for his tirade, saying that should never have happened. They say Patel did a disservice to the FBI by breaking with Bureau tradition and then Taking credit for good work by other agencies and seemingly to imply results that would not have been possible without Patel's involvement. In another situation, he was said to be so upset that a discussion took place among a few FBI personnel that his request that he issued an FBI firearm and was very upset that people had learned about that. When details of the discussion leaked, he ordered everyone to get polygraphed to find out who had criticized him described.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And this is what we get for putting influencers in positions of power.

[Krystal Ball]

And yeah, so I think those are my two personal favorite ones that we can stick with. This doesn't even get to the whole private jet thing that we had talked about. Visiting his romantic interest, our friends.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

Who has, quote, what did he say? Has done more for this country than most people have done in 10 lifetimes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Oh, he's great. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Country music sensation.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I don't know if, I mean, I don't know if you guys remember all the details, but he was a mess.

[Krystal Ball]

No, he was a huge guy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He was a mess because he was tweeting things. And that's part of what they're saying in this report is like, dude, stop posting and like focus on your fricking job and stop worrying so much about what people are saying on Twitter. Like actually do what you're supposed to do. Cuz he was posting inaccurate information. Oh, we got the guy. And then turns out, oh, no, you don't got the guy. And then I remember too, we were waiting. They had announced they were gonna do this press conference. Yes, we were waiting for it. It's like, what is going on? What is happening with this press conference? It was hours and hours. And now we know what the hangup was. Cash was waiting to get his female sized medium jacket so that he could, you know, look, you know, have the FBI jacket. Look, not that it helps him, because people also still commented during that press conference how he looked totally lost and out of his depths. So the FBI jacket did not save him from the public judgment. And then, you know, you've had, of course, all the stuff about the girlfriend, of course, all of the, like, you know, Epstein files disaster. That disastrous appearance with Joe Rogan also, you know, was a major problem for him. And look, that's the one field where he should be expert. I mean, he's a podcaster, he should be expert at that. And he couldn't even nail that one with Joe Rogan. And then you also had, in this investigation, at the press conference right after these two National Guardsmen were shot, he says, we're gonna. We're looking for who did this. And they're like, dude, we've got the guy. Like, he's in custody. What are you talking about? So it's just a comedy of errors. There was a report, I think, from msnow about how he was on the outs and Trump may fire him. He may be letting go. They are denying that. I have no idea whether there's any veracity to that or not. I have a feeling that in some ways, having especially the liberal press being msnbc, the liberal press reporting on that probably hardened Trump. Like, he wouldn't want us to be seen to giving in to them. New York Post is a different matter, though. I mean, this is aligned media, more or less. And so that's part of why having this report from Miranda Devine in the New York Post is pretty devastating. Much more devastating than something that would come out of CNN or obviously.

[Krystal Ball]

And do you know what Dan Bongino called her? He called her Deep State. Miranda or Deep State.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Oh, my God.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, they're just shamelessness. Shamelessness.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Dan Bongino, I don't remember the day he threw some whole fit over the Epstein thing, like, went home and he was gonna resign, and then he came back with his tail between his legs and he's basically been sidelined. Now they're putting somebody else. They put somebody else, like, in his position. Deep State has been equally embarrassing, but he's already sort of, sort of been demoted inside lines.

[Krystal Ball]

Miranda Devine is, I mean, as Trump friendly as you get. I mean, but she's also just, look, I mean, honestly, props to her because what it shows is she's not a complete sycophant. She did that podcast. She's interviewed a bunch of different Trump officials. I remember she asked the JD a couple of UFO questions, but, yeah, his response was Deep State. Divine strikes again. Miranda. Ridiculous. Miranda loves attacking our reform agenda with gossipy anecdotes, disgruntled former employees, a reform.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Agenda of covering up the Epstein files.

[Krystal Ball]

She's upset. Her reporting keeps falling under scrutiny. You can always count on Miranda for a timed hit piece when the director and I make big changes. She prefers the old guard. I don't. Again, these are people who. These are FBI agents who are sounding the alarm under Biden, who are MAGA friendly and their Deep State. Okay.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, I'm also. I'm so sick of these people trying to post. Like, they're talking Trump.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, I know.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Like the nicknames and the, like the whole stylistic, like, it's so. It's so pathetic. It's just so sad and tired at this point. Like, we can all see what you're doing. You don't have your own identity. You have to try to channel the big man and it doesn't work for anyone other than Donald Trump. So anyway, just, you know, just really sad stuff all the way around. Really sad stuff.

[Krystal Ball]

Pathetic. All right.

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

The big thing about working at tech is that it's ever evolving, ever changing. Everyone's a rookie. That's how fast the industry is changing. So what I'm really excited about is to be part of that change. So listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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