← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
12/4/25: Israeli Conference Off The Rails, CNN Partners With Kalshi, Hegseth Flails On Boat Strikes
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- [00:00]
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Krystal Ball
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- [01:35]
Krystal Ball
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:37]
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.
- [01:44]
Krystal Ball
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [01:50]
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.
- [02:01]
Krystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com.
- [02:09]
Saagar Enjeti
Let'S get to Israel. I know Ryan and Emily covered this, but we wanted to I think it's worth playing twice here. We had Hillary Clinton at this event for Israel Heym It's Israel's most read newspaper. Run them reading from Prem Talker here run by Israeli American billionaire and Trump donor Miriam Adelson, joined by John Fetterman, Eric Adams, Trump UN Ambassador Mike Waltz, Biden official Amos Hochstein and various Israeli officials. So quite a lineup at this event. And she had some very noteworthy things to say about what she thinks is going on and why, you know, why people's views on Israel have changed. Let's take a listen to that.
- [02:43]
Hillary Clinton (clip)
That our students, smart, well educated young people from our own country, from around the world, where were they getting their information? They were getting their information from social media, particularly TikTok. That is where they were learning about what happened on October 7, what happened in the days, weeks and months to follow. That's a serious problem. It's a serious problem for democracy, whether it's Israel or the United States, and it's a serious problem for our young people. And it was frankly shocking to me how little the students we were encountering, not only in this class we teach, which is a very large class, international relations about crisis decision making, but students more generally. And that's why I mentioned the social media piece of it. Because when you would try to talk to them to engage in some kind of reasonable discussion, it was very difficult because they did not know history, they had very little context. And what they were being told on social media was not just one sided, it was pure propaganda. And so when you think about how to tell Israel's story, and it's important, it's not just looking internally, it's looking externally and particularly looking at young people because, you know, it's not just the usual suspects. It is a lot of young Jewish Americans who don't know the history and don't understand.
- [04:19]
Eric, I was talking to Condi Rice and you know, she said in an interview that I did after the.
- [04:27]
20 point plan came out, she and I were on CBS and she said, you know, when people were chanting from the river to the sea, she would ask the students, what river, what sea? They didn't know. I had the same experience. A lot of the challenge is with younger people. More than 50% of young people in America get their news from social media.
- [04:54]
So just pause on that for a second. They are seeing short form videos, some of them totally made up in case.
- [05:04]
Saagar Enjeti
You had any doubt about why they had to take over TikTok and make it much more censorious. This is why. But just imagine thinking that the problem here for Israel isn't the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands. I mean, we have to be real about the actual death toll here of Palestinians and seeing in your feed every day the worst atrocities you could possibly imagine. Starving an entire population, turning all of the Gaza Strip into rubble, attacking hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, everything you can think of. No, that's not the problem. They just don't understand the history saga. They just don't get it. And I mean this is like the peak liberal Zionist view that worked for so long to keep people shut up, which was, yes, it looks bad, but there's lots of.
- [06:00]
Krystal Ball
It's complicated.
- [06:01]
Saagar Enjeti
It's complicated. You just don't understand. Do you know what happened in this summit or that summer? Do you understand the details of when Clinton was negotiating that you just don't understand enough. And this has been so horrific that people looked at this and said, you know what? I don't need to understand every little nuance and detail to know that this is wrong, to know that it is disgusting that my tax dollars are going to fund this, that my government is going to support this, that Democrats like Joe Biden are running cover for it and have embraced Bibi Netanyahu and are letting him do whatever he wants. It did not take an understanding of history to know that this was wrong. But guess what? Also many, many young people have actually become quite educated about this conflict and what led up to it. And let me tell you, the more they learn, the worse the Israeli side looks. That's the bottom line. And it is so wild to me that people like her still truly believe that the real problem here is a failure of Israeli propaganda and the quote unquote propaganda that young people are getting on TikTok and not the reality of the genocide that Israel has actually been committing.
- [07:18]
Krystal Ball
I just think it's pretty. I mean, I think that argument worked because there was kind of something to it. I'm not saying there wasn't a lot of injustice and all that, but like this mass slaughter live had not happened. Correct. And I would say their most like barbaric actions for fully had not taken over. And you know, even in terms of their society, most of the like truly heinous rhetoric, they would say it in Hebrew. It wasn't as publicized. It also wasn't as powerful and didn't enact into actual government policy. But when the Bengavirs and the Smotrishes of the world and the west bank all combines with Gaza, people are like, yeah, I'm done learning about Camp David or anything and thinking that there's some problem here, right? Like at the end of the day we're funding this, we're propping it up. And it's also causing us all kinds of problems. Like, not even in terms of domestic. But we're spending billions and billions of dollars, and our own domestic politics are revolving around this, and our government is actively deporting people who are against it. You're like, whoa, whoa, right? It's like that's what takes it to a whole other level. And that's where, look, I mean, I'll just say, thank God she lost. Okay? I mean, this woman from every time that we put her back on the screen, it's been almost 10 years. She was horrible. Like, truly. And that mindset, by the way, it's still pretty prevalent in permanent Washington today. Like in the elite Democratic Party circles. You're not that far off. Maybe the voters may be different, but we also wanted to give voice to some of the other people at this conference. By the way, why is it even important to play this conference? It's like, not only is it the large newspaper, but this is Miriam Adelson, who is one of the biggest donors to Donald Trump and one of the most powerful mega donors in the Republican Party, who, by the way, according to Donald Trump, at one point he asked whether she loves Israel or America more and, quote, she didn't answer. And he suspected that it was Israel, according to him, not me. So just to clear all that up. So let's take a listen. Our producers have put together a mashup from the conference. Let me be as clear as I can be. When someone chants from the river to the sea, they are calling for the elimination of the Jewish state. When people.
- [09:31]
Have no right to safety, no right to sovereignty, no right to exist. History tells us exactly what happens. Just to pick up on that, what I'll tell everybody is skip Miami. If you're leaving New York, just come straight to Israel. There's no reason to make a stop in Florida before you need to come. And you can decide. You can stay here in New York in a declining empire, or you can come to Israel, which is part of the rising middle of the world, which is moving south and east. That's what I encourage you to do. Yeah, I did it due to our enemies here, what Israel did to its enemies there. And on that, the IAC is focused. The challenge for us here is to leverage Israel's successes into our successes. Israel's weakness is ours, and Israel's strength is ours. Our job in the Diaspora is to leverage those wins and win here. 40% of New York Jews voted for Mamdani. Large parts of our community have Lost their. I'll just say it. Tribal instinct, their Jewish solidary instinct in a way that allowed them to vote for us. Open enemy of Israel, in my opinion, the Jews.
- [10:46]
Miriam Adelson (clip)
Great honor to have you here on the stage. On behalf of myself and the entire team of Israel, iom, it's great honor.
- [10:53]
Krystal Ball
Again to have you here. I think if I speak for many of here, if Dr. Adelson reaches out, then we figure out a way to get here.
- [11:04]
Miriam Adelson (clip)
Great.
- [11:08]
Krystal Ball
She reaches out. She's got to figure out how to get here. I mean, every one of those clips is like a conspiracy theory come true. For real, though, you know, I need.
- [11:19]
Saagar Enjeti
Them to keep having these conferences and keep talking. Just keep telling us exactly what you think the problem is. They've lost their tribal instinct. You're like, isn't that a positive thing?
- [11:31]
Krystal Ball
Yes.
- [11:31]
Saagar Enjeti
That they evaluate. Like, okay, I'm voting for mayor of New York, and let me evaluate the various candidates on how it's gonna affect my life here. And, oh, by the way, as an added bonus, this guy actually supports equal rights for everyone. That seems like something I might be on board with. Like, losing the tribal instinct is a positive. And then the guy who was like, we need to do to our enemies here what we did to them in Gaza. Like, you're threatening us with genocide now. Like, that's where we're at, like, openly on this conference to applause. It's backed by one of Trump's largest donors. That is wild.
- [12:08]
Krystal Ball
Well, let's take the tribal thing, right? Like, what's the whole critique around this whole Somali fraud story in Minnesota that Ryan and Emily covered yesterday? It's like, oh, well, they're barbaric, ethnic, tribal, and they defraud the government. You're like, say that again. What? So they're acting tribally and leaving. They refuse to leave behind the values of the old world. And you're like, well, the problem here in America is that people are acting more like individuals. I mean, that stuff really offends me also because I get this sometimes from the Indian diaspora, particularly people in India. They'll be like, sagar, some politician in California said something very mean about India. I go, oh, why should I give a fuck? I'm not from India. Okay, fuck off. That's your problem. It's one of those where, like, they try to claim you, right, because your parents happen to be from somewhere. I mean, look, if it's interesting, you know, from a American perspective, yeah, maybe I'll pay attention. But they're like, oh, this is very. Sometimes they even Try and drag me into, like, cast fights. They're like, did you see what so and so said about. I go, yo, we live in America. We don't have castes here, okay? And by the way, according to your own laws, you're not supposed to have them either. I don't care. And so, but they, they're literally trying to cling to that. I mean, the most offensive one was the guy that clearly I'm presuming who grew up in America is. He was like, you can't succeed here. Don't make a pit stop in Miami. It's like, that's like an anti Semitic conspiracy, is that you can never truly be American. Right? Yeah, that's what he's saying. He's literally saying that. That's literally the shit the neo Nazis say. They're like, yeah, they're always loyal to Israel. I'm like, dude, I mean, you know, you can't just say stuff like this out in the or. I guess you can, but you know, it's going to come with blowback. So it's just, I don't know, for me, like, at the very same time, this Randy Fines on tv, he's like, every Somali should be deported and all this. I'm like, dude, you're exactly the same. Like, you're actually, you're actually. Look, I mean, I don't know a lot. I read the New York Times story, obviously bad and all that for the whole Somalian thing. But you're like, you are the mirror image of what you're critiquing. You're like saying, you came to our country. You're literally using your citizenship and your power in order to try and exercise our government on behalf of a foreign power. Like, that's as, as clear, clear cut as it gets in terms of treason, conspiracy, tribal, whatever. And I don't believe that about all Jews, obviously. I don't think anybody should believe that because I don't think it's true as they are saying themselves.
- [14:27]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, clearly they're very upset that it's not true. Yeah, you know, I mean, they're, you.
- [14:31]
Krystal Ball
Know, and yeah, they, they want it to be true, which is crazy. Like, it's. That's the part which drives me nuts.
- [14:36]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. And you know, one of the people who I think has been a thoughtful writer and thinker on the increasing divide in the Jewish community around sentiment around Israel is Peter Beinart, who's talking about.
- [14:47]
Krystal Ball
How they hate him, though.
- [14:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, absolutely, they hate him, no doubt about it. But, you know, he really took a Major risk, like personal political risk. When he came out a while ago and said, you know what, this two state stuff, this is bullshit. Like it's gotta, like we're past that. They've annexed so much of the territory. There is no realistic solution. That's not a one state with equal rights and that's what we should be getting behind. And you know, he's been, I think, a very courageous voice in a lot of ways on this. But you know, he really amplifies how support for Israel was just sort of taken as this article of faith in the, you know, in, in the broader Jewish community. And you know, you, you grow up learning about it and thinking about it. It's very tied into all of your religious school and you know, it's just taken for granted. And this genocide has broken that and you're not putting it back together. You know, the majority of young Jews see this very differently. They're disgusted to be, it's like, not in my name. They're disgusted that they would be implicated in what this state is doing. So you have the double insult of not only are my taxpayer dollars, here's an American going to that, but now you're wanting to make me complicit in these crimes and say that this is somehow being done on my behalf. No, absolutely not. So there is this major reckoning and split that is happening in the Jewish community that has been very significant. And so Zoran's election obviously is incredibly emblematic of that because here he is now mayor elect of the most Jewish city in America, one of the most Jewish cities in the entire world. And as an avowed anti Zionist, that is an earth shattering event. It also completely reshapes our politics because it changes what most of these politicians think, old political calculation. It changes what they understand the political landscape to be, which is also why it's so consequential. But yeah, I fully support them doing these conferences on camera. Put it on Twitter. Just keep talking guys. Keep telling us all your thoughts about this because it is very educational to hear from you about the way that you are seeing the world. And wanted to get into a couple of very significant news pieces as well. Just as a reminder of the genocide is not over, the ceasefire, you know, continues to be broken by Israel and we now have new shenanigans which are being played here. I can put this up on the screen. Israel is saying they're going to. So they agreed in the ceasefire deal, they're going to open this crossing, the Rafah crossing at the border with Gaza. And Egypt, that was one of the provisions of the ceasefire deal. Now Israel is saying, well, we're going to reopen it, but only to allow people to leave. So obviously Israel, their longtime goal, led by Netanyahu, but this is pretty society wide is how many Palestinians can we get out of this area? Because they are so fixated on their demographic problem. And so the more Palestinians that are there, the more of a risk they are to being Palestinians. If you look at all of Israel and Palestine and the majority of the population. So they want people to be forced to leave and to put pressure on them, make life so miserable that they want to leave and not allow them back in. And what Israel is claiming is they're saying, oh well, you didn't give us all the bodies of the dead hostages. Of course, this was also contemplated in that ceasefire jail, that this would be very difficult. Why? Because many are buried, you know, many people are buried under the rubble. Israel's made it very difficult to even bring in the earth moving equipment that would be acquired, et cetera. So in any case, they're using this as an excuse to keep that border for re entry closed. Egypt is objecting to this. So this is an unsettled, we'll see what happens with all of this. And then I also wanted to put up on the screen this reporting which confirms what we, you know, very, which there was already some reporting to this effect. But you know, it's always significant when the mainstream media catches on to things that we've been talking about for a while here. This was an in depth report about the way that Israel killed murdered aid seekers and then would just bulldoze over their bodies and leave them in these mass, shallow, unmarked graves. So this was an important piece of reporting here from cnn. They used eyewitness testimony, they used on the ground video and they used satellite imagery to see. And you know, I was talking earlier about the death toll. Like these people who were murdered seeking aid and then had their bodies just left there and bulldozed over. They're not counted in the official death toll. You know, officially they're still just, they're still missing. And many of them, their families are still holding onto hope that they exist somewhere. Maybe they were detained by Israel, maybe they're in some prison camp, maybe they're in some other part of Gaza that we can't get to and communications are very limited. Like they're still holding onto hope. And the reality is because of this indiscriminate killing and this was all around, by the way, GHF sites is where this mass slaughter was occurring by and large, and where CNN focused their investigation. But just the most grisly details imaginable here. And I also want to say some of the reporting comes directly from IDF soldiers who are turned whistleblowers and have been, you know, in contact with this Israeli nonprofit organization that serves as a sort of nexus for IDF soldiers who can come forward and, you know, report on these war crimes that occurred. But they said, you know, there was no process or procedure for dealing with the dead. We just bulldozed them over and left them there and kept going. So just so disgusting.
- [20:28]
Krystal Ball
And there's still no real media in there, right?
- [20:31]
Saagar Enjeti
That's right.
- [20:31]
Krystal Ball
So like that. Remember that? And I've said that before. I go when someday, eventually, I don't know, maybe a year, two years, somebody's actually going to go in there, like tens of thousands of people. And who even knows?
- [20:44]
Saagar Enjeti
And then Hillary Clinton has the gall to say the problem is TikTok. Yeah, unreal. Unreal.
- [20:49]
Krystal Ball
Let's get to cnn, shall we?
- [20:53]
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Saagar Enjeti
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Krystal Ball
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- [22:55]
Turning now to CNN and genuinely what is one of the grimmest developments in news that I have have ever seen? Something literally to the stuff of my nightmares. They have announced a partnership with Kalshi, a prediction market much like polymarket, where they will be officially collaborating together to promote Kalshi betting odds and others in CNN and incorporate it into their live coverage. Just to give you a taste of Kalshi. What is it? Here is their co founder Tariq Mansour talking about his vision for the betting platform. Let's take a listen. You've mentioned multiple times that you think prediction markets will be bigger than the stock market. What is, what is it going to take to become a trillion dollar asset class?
- [23:37]
Miriam Adelson (clip)
It's pretty much already like close to 100 billion a year of asset class. Right. Like it's pretty easy to imagine a 10x from here.
- [23:46]
Like we haven't even started. It's been a year. I think a very large number of people care, much larger than traditional markets. And I think retail as a pie, it's just been growing in the US And I think it's going to keep growing. It's growing in the stock market, it's growing outside of stock market. The long term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion. And I think if you do build a general purpose exchange that can resolve differences of opinions on anything. Like the TAM is quite massive, quite a bit bigger than the current TAM of the stock market. I think putting aside the retail trading and the institutional trading product, there's sort of this separate product which is like we are living in a world where like we, we have an abundance of information but there's a lot of noise and like we don't really understand what's real from what's not. And prediction markets are an antidote to that. They do a very, very good job at distilling information and surfacing truth to people. And you're seeing this sort of massive shift where like people are using them whenever they think about questions about the future, you know, whenever they're debating about anything. And I think that trajectory is going to keep going. That's a new consumer habit that I don't think is going to be on.
- [24:47]
Krystal Ball
If you missed that in the middle of tam, by the way, is total addressable market. For those of you who don't speak bullshit. But Kalshee, if you missed this quote, the long term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion. So that means anytime we disagree, anything may happen that that can turn into a commercially tradable asset that anybody across the world can just simply place minor bets on. Now I could just never imagine a world where this might corrupt said news influence or influence outcomes or not highly regulated or, you know, I mean this idea where you want to turn literally everything from sports to entertainment to news to. I mean, I mean he literally said everything. We're going to get to this later in 60 minutes. You have amateur betters out there trading on whether Taylor Swift is going to be pregnant in the year 2020. And he goes, oh, this better. He's like, oh, that would never happen. He's like, I've analyzed her character. That's sick. Okay? It's sick that that is even I'm not talking about defending her integrity or whatever. It's like people should not be betting on that, period. Okay? That is a total violation of the social contract.
- [26:00]
Saagar Enjeti
We already know what this looks like because of sports. Yes, we know what it looks like. It is deeply compromised the integrity of sports and not that sport has ever been perfect, blah, blah, blah. But now it's like, okay, who's on the take? Right? Which is it? The referees? What players on the take? You know, these individual one off bets that, you know they're going to, you know, they're going to make this many points or this many free throws or this many rebounds or whatever. Like those are so easy to rig. Which is why players increasingly are getting caught up in these scandals where lo and behold, they are on the take and it is corrupt. And so your whole sense of what is going on in the sport gets completely undermined. Where no longer do you feel like there's some cheating occasionally around the margin, but by and large it's a contest of merit. And what I'm seeing is real. No, increasingly your sense is this is more like wwe. This is more like fake and rigged and everybody's in on it. And if you're not in on it, you're a sucker or you have a situation. You can see this with news as well, how this, you could see very easily how this would happen. You could bet on what color dildo is gonna get thrown at a WNBA game. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone could bet on it being a purple dildo and then throw it. Show up the game with the purple dildo and throw the frickin dildo. I mean it's just so disgusting. And then broadening out here even further. I thought Arnaud, who's very thoughtful and insightful on these things, had a great post. Thinking about the bigger meta implications here. He says, I cannot think of a single way in which this makes society better. You're now gonna have people financially on top of emotionally invested in their opinions, which can only create further polarization. Societies need consensus. Hard to see how you help achieve this when compromises become financial losses. So if I'm betting on my opinion now, not only am I like emotionally like I want to be, right, but now I also have money writing on whether or not this is correct or not. You can see how this would spin out of control. He goes on to say, also it literally disincentivizes truth seeking. Markets work based on anticipating what others will believe, not on discovering what is actually true. It's the meme stock phenomenon. Those stocks don't rise because the company is valuable. They rise because enough people believe others will keep buying. You'll have the same thing with opinions. People are rewarded not for being correct, but for anticipating what others will believe. And incentivized, literally financially incentivized to manipulate narratives so that their bets pay off. Truth becomes not only irrelevant, but in many cases will be actively fought against because it becomes a direct financial threat. Like if this is not the end, end, end, end end stage of capitalism, I don't know what is. It is so incredibly dystopian. We have got to revolt against this complete financialization and the absolute takeover of every aspect of our lives by these bottom feeding financial. These, you know, gambling.
- [29:03]
Krystal Ball
These guys are billionaires by the way, just so you know. They're literally billionaires.
- [29:07]
Saagar Enjeti
And not only do you have the first level of like, okay, people placing bets, you also have an increasing ecosystem being funded of startups around this that will then take those bets and bundle them and package them as securities and you can borrow against them. And the whole disgusting ecosystem of our, like casino capitalism that we have is also built, being built up to create these bets into separate markets that can be traded secondarily as well. Just, you know, putting this whole thing like absolute predation on the people who are at the bottom and putting this throughout Our entire economy at every level.
- [29:47]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, let's put C2 or sorry, F2 up on the screen. This is about CNN and their data partnership. Basically what they're saying is they'll only use Kalshi data and there'll be the exclusive prediction data. And I have been thinking about this in the context of our own coverage because it's tough, right? It is newsworthy to cover the poly market odds on a race. They had a decent track record in 2024. But to me there is just something fundamentally different about either money exchanging hands, like in the way of a sponsorship. Like with espn, right. When they had ESPN bet, they actively were making money from sports betting and then covering sports. There has to be a literal firewall. Or here in this case they say that there's no money exchanging hands. I don't know. I find that hard to believe. But more importantly, it's like an actual endorsement. So you and I talking, it's just different to me. And maybe that's semantics, but like it is fundamentally different saying look, we don't take money from these people, we don't want any money from these people. I think these are degenerate, they're bad and I would ban them if they could while they exist. I will talk about it, but that's not the same as a flat out endorsement and saying that this is an official thing that will be incorporated. And again the, the ability for manipulation and for insider trading and just like for the show people. What, how easily this can all happen. Can we put F6 on the screen? I checked. This is a real market, by the way, that happened yesterday. F6. What will Anderson Cooper say during his show? Anderson Cooper is a CNN host. So you have people who are live betting the individual words that he might say. This was an $80,000 market with huge odds, 1%. Right. I mean the payout on that is massive. Well, if you're a producer at cnn, a low level producer, that's probably, I don't know, how many would you say 50 people work on the Anderson Cooper show? Roughly, right. And you're a guy, pull in 33,000. You might be the sound guy, you might literally just be a contractor, but you happen to be in the editorial meeting, just power it up, hit something like this, cuz you know it's coming, get a nice 66 to 1 payout. Is that technically fraud? I don't know. I mean is there any governing authority over that? If you can do this all in.
- [32:01]
Saagar Enjeti
The Trump administration certainly doesn't give a shit.
- [32:03]
Krystal Ball
But not Even that crystal. If this is all in crypto, then you don't even know, right? If this is not even in the US dollar market, then nobody knows anything. And look, does that really matter? Not really. But let's, let's make that bigger. Pardon power. Let's say you're a lawyer and you happen to bet on a pardon market. I mean think about it. Taylor Swift, people are gambling on whether she's going to get pregnant. Honestly, if I were her, if you're. What's the term? Trying to conceive, I would bet it and then I would go do it. Just go. I mean look, that's sick. It's crazy. And this is. I've been trying to warn about this with sports. Everybody says you're a prude. Sports fitting. Been around forever. Sagar. No, prop bets like this have never been around. And actually especially in a widespread market.
- [32:45]
Miriam Adelson (clip)
Why?
- [32:45]
Krystal Ball
Do you know how many of my friends know the over under on fucking AJ Brown's number of yards in the next game. This is not a thing, all right? This never existed. And that's like one minor one or oh, the defense to score a touchdown. Now imagine that at every facet of our lives what you and I are going to do our next monologue on or the topic and that's just you or me. CNN Trump the words out of his mouth. The Federal Reserve, they're doing already derivative contracts and futures contracts in cryptocurrencies in various different ones. Who the next Pope is gonna be, who the next James Bond is gonna be. I mean, same thing on the James Bond question. If you are a executive at, I forget the estate of who owns the James Bond, the Fleming. Right. If you're a Fleming person and you have influence over what you know, you could easily be doing that. Is this technically corruption again? I mean, to what extent? But the point is not even about regulation. The point is this. Is this financialization betting. We had long standing taboos on this for a reason. We understood that betting and gambling is the most, literally one of the most degenerate and horrible activities that you can be into. It has one of the highest suicide rates of any addiction.
- [33:57]
Saagar Enjeti
Very addictive.
- [33:58]
Krystal Ball
And when it consumes people, people think I'm a prude. It's because I see the results. I mean seriously. And this is why I'm not even saying it should be totally illegal. Regulate it to the casino. I really believe people should be required to go to a casino. When you see somebody with fucking emphysema smoking cigarettes, sitting there blowing their life savings away on a slot machine, you're gonna go, yo, this shit is evil. And you need to see that stuff like for your own eyes behind a screen and all that.
- [34:26]
Saagar Enjeti
You don't.
- [34:26]
Krystal Ball
It doesn't seep into you. Like you need to see the type of people who you were around. And I've seen people break down and cry at casinos. Like cry, tears, slam. You know how many people commit suicides in Las Vegas? They literally cover them up. The reason why you should see that is because you need to understand the socialization of what it means for this shit to be legal. But whenever it's all behind a screen, you can be sitting there and just gamble your life savings away. And I've covered those stories, remember from my monologue and about that guy, he literally never placed a bet in 2021, gambled away millions of dollars, gamble away his children's christening funds. Like it's sick. And of course DraftKings allegedly violated their own internal policy. According to their lawsuit, they deny all wrongdoing. But this could happen at the highest level across all society. And that's why the CNN for me, I mean according to them, the most trusted name in news. No, ridiculous. But the point is, is like this is a major fucking brand. And also turning the news. I've watched this happen with sports is so many people only pay for sports media now for gambling stuff. The reason that the Adam Schefters and all these other people have so many followers, they make so much money, especially now these days, is cause they're the first to report injuries or insight. Well, what do you think is gonna affect the Vegas odds? Right? If so and so is injured, that means the line can move. That's why these people all pay attention. Even NFL Sunday ticket like the ability to watch all the games. The only reason that people are paying so much, like their subscriptions have massive gone up. You know why? Because people are gambling on more games. Don't give a shit about the Los Angeles Rams or the Titans. If they live in Philadelphia, they're betting like that's what it's all about. So that's what the news would turn into. I mean, I guess maybe it'd be good for us, right? But I'm speaking purely out of societal interests, is that I don't want people to want to be more informed because they're gambling on everything. If anything, it'll distort all of the outcomes. So look, long winded rant. But I mean I've been trying to warn about this and I can see it Coming from a mile away, it's getting so much worse. F5 please. Just so we all know, is that the prediction markets, fanatics, if you know what that is. Fanatics is the fan company. I think Tom Brady and all those people are involved with it. And polymarket are set to go live early this week. This is F5, please. Are set to go live as early as this week with FanDuel later in the month and DraftKings by January. Fanatics. FanDuel and DraftKings are launching in states where they don't even offer mobile sportsbooks. So this is also, by the way, a de facto way to legalize sports betting in the entire nation. That's what this whole thing is about. Soon look, it's all 50. Just so everybody understands, like when I rant and rave, the sports betting companies are now bigger than Hollywood. They make more money than the box office of the entire United States. Like theater industry. That is how big an overnight thing happened. Nobody consented to it. The Ohio governor, Mike DeWine very recently said that if he could go back because he signed the bill legalizing sports betting, he said, if I could go back, I would never do it. He's like, it's one of the biggest mistakes that I ever made. And look, I mean, we have the power if we want to, but you know, how many people. Are we gonna watch people's lives get destroyed in the interim? We are going to have millions of gambling addicts in the next five years. Millions and millions of people. You make this accessible to everybody, people are going to blow tons of money. And yeah, these people are all just going to get filthy rich. But the two people on that stage, they're already billionaires. They're already touting the woman. They're like, she's the youngest self made woman billionaire ever. More than I'm like, oh great, what a fucking accomplishment.
- [38:00]
Saagar Enjeti
Way to go.
- [38:01]
Krystal Ball
Thank you for showing that women can also be.
- [38:05]
Can also become very rich by exploiting degenerate impulses.
- [38:10]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, no, it's, it's overall, it's degrading to society. Yeah, it, it's just, it's wrong. I mean, there's no other way to put it. It's just wrong. It degrades society. It creates a level of artifice around absolutely everything. It creates increased polarization. It's disgusting. And the vast majority of people are going to lose. Like when you bet, you are much more likely to lose your money and end up much more in the hole. And guess what? That's more and more riches flowing to the top flowing to those people that were there on that stage saying they want to financialize absolutely everything. Very disturbing. And I think it's disgusting CNN is doing this. I think people should revolt against it. Don't watch cnn. Let them know what you think.
- [38:51]
Krystal Ball
I agree.
- [38:51]
Saagar Enjeti
I mean, it's. Yeah, there's the answer. Don't watch any product that's brought to you by these people or that, you know, endorses any of the these products.
- [38:59]
Krystal Ball
I mean, it's going to be tough. I like hearing Anthony. Right.
- [39:01]
Saagar Enjeti
It's incredibly degrading.
- [39:02]
Krystal Ball
We use his clips.
- [39:03]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, we just covered Jeremy Dimon's report on the, you know, the bulldozing of the corpse.
- [39:08]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [39:08]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [39:09]
Krystal Ball
I mean, I don't take it out on these guys personally. Like, I understand the utility of the data while it is legal, but like that's kind of more of a meta point is when the executives themselves are like, hey, let's. And they're again, look at the sports. Sports is bigger than NFL. 57 million people watched the Chiefs Cowboys game on Thanksgiving. It's the most watched regular season NFL game in history. I am absolutely convinced it's because of gambling. That's, I'm telling you, like 100%. If you go on TikTok and all these other places, all of the memes are about like trying to hold it together with my family while my Thanksgiving parlay falls apart. Like it's, it's like part of the culture at this point. This is all gonna happen now with the news. I guarantee you next election, the number of people who are gonna be betting on the next election, it's gonna be crazy. And Robin Hood and all these other people, it's gonna be fully normalized. And I mean, just think there's gonna. How many. If you thought voter fraud, if you're one of those election fraudsters from 2020, how many people are gonna be trying to influence the events of the votes? Especially when it comes down to the states. Like in Pennsylvania. Right. I mean, can you. What would you do for millions of dollars? People will do a lot of shit. Look at the federal prison system. So think about it. You're going to place a bet. I'm going to bet that J.D. vance is going to lose Arizona. It's like, well then what do you think? People in Arizona.
- [40:32]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. What are you willing to do to make that happen?
- [40:33]
Krystal Ball
What are you willing to do if you're a low. Let's say you are a low level county secretary of state pulling 25 GS a year in Yuma Arizona or someplace like that, you're not going to fudge things a little bit, you know, who wouldn't? So you could, you could see exactly how this could. There's so much potential for fraud and whatever. I mean, I already know it's gonna. We are gonna find out the hardest way possible.
- [40:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, it's very unfortunate. It's so many. It's like so many things in our, like, you know, it's one thing when you have to go to the casino and there's like a physical action. Okay, yes, this is the thing we do. It's not exactly like, it's sort of frowned upon and society, but it's there, you know, and you can have access to and you're an adult and okay, you gotta go there and do the thing. And still it was bad for some number of people. But yes, there was some. It was sort of walled off and now it's just shot throughout our entire lives. And I feel like that with technology too, of course. Like, it was one thing when you had the flip phone and, you know, you could text on it and you could, you know, you could have it with you and coordinate and that was great, right? And then it was kind of cool when you got your first smartphone and now it's just like, you know, it's just taken. They've colonized our entire lives. They've colonized our entire brains. You know, what was good in a small dose is now incredibly damaging and deleterious. So anyway, that's where we are.
- [41:52]
Krystal Ball
That's where we live now.
- [41:53]
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We're having another.
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Saagar Enjeti
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- [43:57]
We wanted to give some updates here.
- [44:00]
And probably we'll cover this more on the Friday show. But there are some developments with regard to these boat strikes and the illegality of them and some some breaking news. The Wall Street Journal with this scoop confirming what we already, of course, very strongly suspected. You remember that top admiral who resigned around the time that the boat strikes were starting? Well, it turns out that this was pretty directly related to him questioning the legality of the boat strikes overall. And I'm not just talking about the second the double tap. I'm talking about the overall program. So this says Hegseth asked top admiral to resign after months of discord. I think that's sort of soft pedaling, actually. The claims in the article, which seem to indicate it was directly as a result of his questioning of the legality. Here it says Hegsest move, which hasn't been previously reported, sheds new light on a brewing controversy over the legality of the military's campaign. Hegseth has dismissed a number of high ranking military leaders since taking over the Pentagon. Having Halsey leave at this particular moment at the height of the what the Pentagon considers to be the central action our hemisphere is just shocking, says Todd Robinson, who served as assistant secretary for international narcotics and Law enforcement affairs until January. They say according to two Pentagon officials, Hegseth asked Admiral Alvin Halsey to step down, a de facto ouster that was the culmination of months of discord began days after Trump's inauguration, intensified months later when Halsey had initial concerns about the legality of lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, according to former officials. So already not on Hegseth's good side. And then he questions the legality, and that's when he is asked to leave. So, again, confirmation of what we all very much strongly suspected and consistent with other concerns from whistleblowers about the. I mean, this is just like claiming that we're at war with these drug boats and then that we can randomly kill them and there's no authority war authorization from Congress. All of this is. It's brazenly illegal. And clearly there are concerns internally. And if you had those concerns, you were pushed out. Let me go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen, which is just a good article from the Washington Post about the way that they have changed their responses on all of this from the beginning. And they just go sort of blow by blow here of what this administration has said and when. So first Trump says, military literally shot out a boat from Venezuela. That was the initial reaction. Then Hegseth says that he watched it live, which would come to be very significant about what he ordered and what he knew about it. A Pentagon spokesman, after the initial reporting from the Washington Post came out saying that there was a double tap strike and that Hegseth had given the kill order. Pentagon spokesman said that, quote, this entire narrative is completely false. So seeming to indicate that even the details of it being a double tap strike was incorrect. Then Trump says Hegseth told him he did not give a spoken order. Then Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes, according to White House press press secretary. So they're saying, first Trump is like, well, I don't think he gave the spoken order. Then they're saying, okay, well, he did, but he authorized Admiral Bradley then to conduct these lethal kinetic strikes. Then Hegseth says, I watched that first strike live, but he didn't stick around for the second strike. So clarification, I guess, on the original claim that he had watched the whole thing live. And then Trump says, I support the decision to knock out whoever is piloting those boats, which is different from his original reaction, which is that he did not like the idea that there was a second strike. So they've been kind of all over the place. And the overall thrust at this point is to claim, well, this was totally legal, and here's why. And their claim now is that, well, the two people who had survived, one of them was trying to call for help. We took that as them still being combatants, and that's why it was legal to do the second strike. But Also, by the way, Hegseth had nothing to do with it and it was all Admiral Bradley here. Let me put the next one up on the screen. This is some new details from the New York Times. This is effectively what I was just saying. Like their US Military's boat strikes planning takes on new significance. They talk here about how in advance they had planned contingencies for if there were survivors. So trying to make this seem like there was more sort of official decision making as well. And then put G4 up on the screen. We've got more Republicans who are concerned and voicing dissent over what was done here and starting to assert some power. And Sagar, this reminds me, the sort of political reaction here reminds me of what we were talking about earlier with Elise Stefanik and how she's now decided to go aggressively after Mike Johnson. She's not going to go after Trump, but she wants to separate herself from the Republican Party overall. And so she's chosen as her target Mike Johnson. Seems to me like Pete Hegseth is filling that role for a number of Republicans as well there. Admiral Bradley is here on the Hill today, taking questions from Congress. They've launched investigations, bipartisan investigations in both the House and the Senate. You've had a number of members. Rand Paul has been very aggressive, talking about how basically they've been lying. And, you know, he's been concerned from the beginning about the illegality here. And so his rhetoric has been pretty forceful. But others as well, not just Rand Paul, who is, you know, more sort of principled on these things in general. So, you know, I think, I think Hegseth is genuinely in a bit of a Emily thinks that they feel like they've sort of nailed it and they're good and they're in the clear. I don't know that I'm convinced about that because he is such a incompetent person to begin with and not really loved and has made all sorts of enemies in the time period that he's been there. It seems to me like he could be a convenient scapegoat for these people.
- [50:04]
Krystal Ball
Oh, Hegseth. Yeah, I mean, I could see that. But the thing is, is that I was talking to you about this before the show. This whole thing drives me nuts. Well, you know, trying to litigate the specifics of naval law about a second strike is the whole point is that this is fucking stupid. Striking drug boats while pardoning the Honduran president who was a narco trafficker. Also, Yoan, you remember Yoen Grillo, who we've had on the show. I mean, he made this great point. If you are a chapito, the son, you just got a sweetheart deal because you kidnapped El Mayo and brought him to America. The Wall Street Journal just did this long story about all of these narco traffickers who were cutting deals with. I'm talking about real narco traffickers, not guys on some fucking boats. Guys who are poor fishermen.
- [50:48]
Saagar Enjeti
Who's desperate. Yeah.
- [50:50]
Krystal Ball
See, this is another thing that drives me crazy. Not just cocaine, fentanyl, like the Mexican drug cartels who are. 90% of the fentanyl that enter the United States are the people who put it in the cocaine and then bring it here to stretch their own profits. We're cutting deals with those guys, like very good deals. So what's the.
- [51:09]
Saagar Enjeti
And those deals we did with Bukele, so that we could put random innocent Venezuelans in sicot, we handed over some drug traffickers, gang leaders to him because he didn't want them testifying about whatever his deals he had cut before.
- [51:22]
Krystal Ball
I'm not even against doing deals with whatever in order to lock up more narco traffickers. I'm not even saying that, but I'm saying if you do that at the same time that you're saying that we need to kill these guys on boats who again, allegedly have cocaine. Not even fentanyl. Almost certainly not fentanyl, because especially the ones in the Caribbean. Not fentanyl. Sorry. I could say that. And if you believe that, release the evidence or prosecute them. I'd be happy to say I'm wrong. I'm talking about purely your own DEA report which says no fentanyl. You guys said that, not me. The Trump Stone DEA. April 2025. I tweeted out the report. You can go read it. It's public if you want to. The point that remains around this whole thing is that Washington seems to be consumed with this whole second strike on the boat. And it's like, no, the strikes are dumb. Now, in a liberal internationalist framework, you can talk about international law and all that. As you guys know, not my thing. I'm just like, why are we even entertaining this? This is a bad idea.
- [52:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [52:18]
Krystal Ball
They just can't. And by the way, America agrees with me. There was this theory that these would be massively popular. They're not. Trump is very underwater on the strikes. They're not buying this bullshit.
- [52:26]
Saagar Enjeti
No, they're not.
- [52:27]
Krystal Ball
And they shouldn't. Because in your lifetime. Have you ever heard about Venezuelan fentanyl before? This whole. No, Everybody knows where the fentanyl comes from everyone. If you're striking Mexico, it actually could be a different story. But again, the geopolitical implications of that would be so insane, considering our trading relationship. This is an ideological war. Their pretext is just like wmd. It was never about WMD at the time. It was about regime change. This time, fentanyl is irrelevant. If it wasn't fentanyl, they would make up some other shit. Yeah, and it's even. Oh, my God. Even with cocaine. It's like we're talking about 10% of the cocaine. So that's instead of 90%. That's not the place that you would go if you really were concerned about doing something. So my only saving grace, most Americans think this is total bullshit. But then in the conduct of the Pentagon, it is so disgraceful the way that Hegseth has threw this guy under the bus. I mean, I don't know. I feel for the admiral.
- [53:28]
Hegseth gives him this order. The southcom commander goes, he's a SEAL team guy. Long history of these counterterror missions. I don't know how closely he looked at the legality. And now all these guys, I mean, look for this admiral. Like, you need to lawyer up. You're already before Congress, dude. I mean, when the Democrats win, you're gonna be testifying, at the very least in private in a classified setting. You could be testified publicly.
- [53:53]
Saagar Enjeti
They're gonna have to be till the demo because there's already a bipartisan investigation, both the House and the Senate. So I think it's coming before even Democrats take control.
- [54:01]
Krystal Ball
And then the drone operator, right? I mean, that guy's going to have to get a lawyer. Like, you know, you're talking about the individual soldier service members, I think. Yeah, sorry, Navy. So individual sailors who are all involved in this. It's like, what? Like what? They're put. Put in an impossible position because Hegseth is telling them you're gone. If you're. You know, you're gone if you disobey orders. Literally fired the South Camp commander.
- [54:23]
Saagar Enjeti
I mean, think of what this does within the military where I think previously there had just been sort of a assumption like, oh, if I'm being asked to do something right through the proper channels, whatever. And now not only are like, no, it's not number one, they're inventing fake secret memos. They're firing or pushing out anybody who disagrees. And by the way, if there are questions about this and it becomes hot, they will happily throw your ass under the bus. So you need to be Thinking about. Any time you get an order now, you better be consulting a lawyer, talking to one of these outside organizations, and thinking hard about what is this going to mean to for me and what kind of jeopardy this puts me in for the future. That is a very different mentality than is typical in these situations. And to your point about how just preposterously insultingly stupid all of this is, take a listen to Kristi Noem talking about how Trump is saving millions of lives with these boat Strikes. This is G5.
- [55:21]
Krystal Ball
You've saved hundreds of millions of lives.
- [55:23]
Saagar Enjeti
With the cocaine you've blown up in the Caribbean. I'm sorry, hundreds of millions of lives. Can you tell me again what the population of America is?
- [55:32]
Krystal Ball
330 million.
- [55:33]
Saagar Enjeti
She saved. He saved all. Literally all. We would all be dead of fental overdose if it wasn't for these boats. I mean, it's so stupid. It's so embarrassing. Pam Bondi has said similar things previously. Trump says similar things all the time. Do you know what the impact on drug trafficking will be of these boat strikes? Zero. It will be literally zero. Everyone knows this. Some of these people, one of the people they murdered, by the way, their families, like, he was literally just an innocent finisher, man, is now going to court over this. So, yes, on every level. It's disgusting, it's immoral, it's murder, it's wrong, it's outrageous, and it does literally accomplishes literally nothing other than helping Marco Rubio in his undying quest to overturn.
- [56:22]
Krystal Ball
To fulfill his father's dream.
- [56:23]
Saagar Enjeti
Fulfill his dreams? Yeah.
- [56:25]
Krystal Ball
No, his father's dream was to free Cuba. They think it's like domino theory. These people are fucking crazy. He writes about it in his own book. I'm not making this up. He literally wrote it in his book. That. That was one of his father's wishes. Okay. You can go read it for yourself if you want to. Yeah. I mean, look, I'll tell you, I said this on Twitter. I was like, look, I can forgive people who fell for WMD, not forgive. I can understand people who fell for WMD. In the wake of 9 11. It was scary mainstream media, but, man.
- [56:54]
Saagar Enjeti
Like, literally, we had just.
- [56:55]
Krystal Ball
We just been attacked.
- [56:56]
Saagar Enjeti
You know, I mean, it's more. I didn't fall for it.
- [56:59]
Krystal Ball
Right, yeah, exactly.
- [57:00]
Saagar Enjeti
It's more understandable.
- [57:01]
Krystal Ball
I can understand. Not forgive. I can understand how a lot of people fell for that, but Venezuelan fentanyl, you're. You're an idiot. You're an imbecile. And, yeah, that's. It makes me question like, like faith in democracy at all, if that's gonna be a real thing. So we'll see. I hope the people are at least paying attention and are listening. And actually, my greatest hope would be an ignition of a real anti war movement that used to exist in the Iraq days. Because what the Blob has long found out is that as long as not that many Americans die, most people will just tolerate stuff. But I do think Israel actually ignited a big anti war sentiment in a lot of people, even though we weren't the ones directly involved, we were funding it. But if we start to, you know, some sort of Libya type campaign again. Yes. Even if hundreds of Americans don't die and it's only special operators and only special operators in CIA and only Air Force drones and all that, it's like the point should be we should not be involved on this under false pretenses. It's ridiculous. It's counter to our own interest. So I do hope that it becomes. I don't know, I hope it ignites some sort of public consciousness. Yeah, because that's something that we really lost from the 2000s. You know, the anti war right was a real thing. The American conservative, the Pat Buchanan, you know, riding and railing against the Iraq War. The anti war left was huge. I mean, it was a potent force. And it really died sometime around 2016, which is really. I mean, it's tragic. And Trump obviously hijacked it for his own purposes and betrayed it simultaneously. So I do want it to come back.
- [58:34]
Saagar Enjeti
I really do. Last thing I want to give. Glenn Greenwald made a good point here that I think is worth worth reading out. As our last item here, he says there's been valid attention paid to how many Americans indoctrinated from birth to love Israel, want the US to serve Israel. There are also people from Latin America or its immigrant communities who want the US Military used to change that region's governments that they dislike. I grew up in South Florida. Many Cubans did not learn English despite being given US Citizenship because they believed it was the US Government's duty to remove Castro, then Chavez so they could go back. Both Rubio and Congresswoman Salazar, whose comments we played here before, come from that milieu. And I think that is an important thing to keep in mind, is that these people who have very powerful government positions, Marco Rubio is one of the most powerful actors in our government right now, deeply ideological and committed to this ideological goal that has nothing to do with benefiting America overall. And so there is a commonality between the you know how perplexed we all are and disgusted with the commitment to Israel over and above. You know what's good for the world, certainly not what's good for Palestinians, let alone what's good for America and the ideological direction and content of the boat bombings and the potential regime change in Venezuela.
- [59:47]
Krystal Ball
That's not a bad point, actually.
- [59:48]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [59:49]
Krystal Ball
All right, thank you guys so much for watching. Appreciate it. Friday show tomorrow. We'll see you all then.
- [60:07]
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- [61:09]
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- [61:38]
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