← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
12/4/25: Mass Job Losses, Trump's Corrupt Pardon, New Epstein Images, Dem Special Elections
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- [00:00]
Ulta Beauty Announcer
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
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- [01:04]
Krystal Ball
This is Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. JBL Tour Pro 3 earbuds are for those who don't conform to the standard. Yeah, I mean if you want to get into some touchscreen technology, how about the smart charging case Clear sound? These are not standard things. You're only going to get them with the JBL Tour Pro 3, baby. And I love the sound of JBL when it goes. These earbuds are packed with innovation because you can't stand out others. Touchscreen Smart charging case for one touch control, instant EQ customization, true adaptive noise cancelling and the one of a kind audio transmitter which can plug and play with everything from game consoles to in flight entertainment. What more could you want? First doesn't follow. Grab a pair@jbl.com hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.
- [01:51]
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.
- [01:59]
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.
- [02:04]
Saagar Enjeti
So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breaking points.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.
- [02:15]
Krystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com.
- [02:24]
Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. We have, Crystal.
- [02:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Indeed we do. We got some new numbers on the economy. They are not looking good. We've also got a new pardon from Trump. This one of a corrupt Democrat. So a little bit of bipartisan corruption, not that that's an unusual thing here in Washington. Take a look at that one. This one impacts the House cause this was a, this is a representative of the House who was indicted. Anyway, lot of potential implications there. We've got new photos and videos released by the House Oversight Committee of Epstein's Island. We will show you that they are also attempting to get more financial records that they could reveal to the public. So some significant developments there. Taking a look at the political fallout after this Tennessee election was closer than comfort, I guess for Republicans in that special and what they are looking at heading into the midterms. There's a lot of Republicans sort of maneuvering. Mike Johnson's getting thrown under the bus. So we'll look at that. Hillary Clinton and others letting it all hang out on Israel. CNN is partnering with Kelshi as we descend further into this capitalist hellscape. And we've got some new details on those boat strikes as Admiral Bradley does head to the Hill today. So significant movement there as well.
- [03:35]
Krystal Ball
That's right. Thank you to everybody who's been signing up BreakingPoints.com if you can support our work over here, become a premium member. By the way, it's been very cool to see all of your Spotify wrapped. If we were in your top. We did record a little video for all of you and so thank you all very much. It is very, very cool to see. And we were looking, we achieved significant growth actually some 130% increase apparently in our podcast. I was looking at the stats that they sent over to us. So thank you all very much. And that was just on the Spotify platform. So if you are listening to this as a podcast, please rate us five star. Share it with a friend. Really helps other people find the show. Apparently a lot of you did that this year. So thank you all very much. Seriously, it does mean a lot and it's very cool to see the numbers and it's also kind of fun to see what other people listen to. We have a very eclectic fan base. People listen to comedy only news. It's kind of amazing.
- [04:21]
Saagar Enjeti
My last few months, it turns out, were very dominated by K Pop demon hunters.
- [04:25]
Krystal Ball
Really?
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Saagar Enjeti
That's very funny. You know, in fairness to me, my 8 year old is also listening on my phone.
- [04:29]
Krystal Ball
So that's the funny thing is all my songs are just songs that the kid will go to sleep to, right? So it's all you're welcome from Moana. One song, I will say the breakdown.
- [04:39]
Saagar Enjeti
Of the Disney age and into the K pop demon hunters era.
- [04:42]
Krystal Ball
So there we go for me. Also, my podcast listening moments went down by 40%. So that's what fatherhood has done. It's destroyed my podcast listening time. It's okay. It's all worth it. Anyway, thank you all very much. Seriously, very gratifying. I know YouTube has its own wrapped function as well. It's also cool to see us on that. So let's go ahead and start with the economy. Some troubling job numbers coming from ADP with an immediate reaction here from CNBC summarizing how this was a major, unexpected actually job loss that hit Wall Street. Let's take a listen.
- [05:12]
CNBC Reporter
Big miss on the ADP payrolls, the private payroll company saying private payroll shed 32,000 workers in November. That's the fourth negative number in the past six months for this series. Take a look here. The estimate was for 40,000. So the street was off on this one. But the big story here, and I'll show you more detail on this, is what's happening with Small business down 120,000. Medium and large business doing okay, up 51 and 39,000 respectively. But take a look at this chart here. Virtually all of the job losses have come from small business, which has been negative in six of seven months since April. Without those losses, ADP numbers would actually be positive. But you can't get rid of or you can't exclude small business, at least according to adp. Additional weakness in the job market and small business getting hammered. And there is some information that some of this may be coming from being hammered by the tariffs.
- [06:06]
Krystal Ball
So there you go. You can see saying some indication in terms of the tariffs. But more Importantly, was the miss in terms of the ADP numbers the fourth negative number in the past six months? And the estimate was for that plus 40,000. Let's go and put a 2 up here on the screen. Some interesting kind of firm by firm data. Actually what you see is that the ADP losses is that most industries are doing layoffs. The only ones still hiring are hospitality and healthcare. Wow. Actually that explains a lot. Right? So healthcare, we have this exploitive, insane, destructive system. Hospitality is entirely dominated by the top 10%. And so that means that the rich can continue to travel every Again, if you're a sucker for this type of lifestyle pornography, the Wall Street Journal every other day is always like, big hotels are booming than ever. Or like, why Ritz Carlton is more in demand than any other. And I always click on them and I always read them because there is just something to this like economy where you've got top 10% who spend 50% of the money and so 90% of people overall not doing either as well and not spending nearly as much. And so that I think it's called K shaped. Right. In terms of the economy. But what you can see very specifically is that those smaller to medium sized firms, really the backbone of American innovation and of community is really hurting. So There was a 1 to 19 employees for something like our company has a reduction of some 46,000 and then the 20 to 49 employees down by 74,000. So these smaller firms are really having trouble. Larger companies are still hiring but quote, a tough year for small business due to tariffs and more selective spending from lower and middle class consumers. And I think that really hits it home is the lower middle class consumer and other. And if you really think about the Amazons of the world, the Googles and even retail that goes after either everybody and, or can selectively make it so that they're very desirable to that high income family, they're going to be fine in something like this in addition to the big business. But if you're a smaller or medium sized firm, maybe you do like services or something like that doesn't necessarily, that goes to everybody, not necessarily to the top 10%. That's exactly who's struggling in this. And that's really, that's, you know, it sucks, right? Because if you think about smaller medium sized, maybe brick and mortar businesses and towns and others where let's say your income is below 150,000 per year in terms of the median, that's. That's gonna be a tough place to do business.
- [08:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, well, it makes sense when you think about the tariff impact. When we first had, quote, unquote Liberation Day, we covered a number of small businesses that were like, I have no idea how we're gonna be able to survive. Because even though they had a profitable business, a lot of these small businesses, like they're living sort of month to month, you know, they don't have a giant cash reserve so that they can wait until Trump figures out what the hell is going on or the courts get involved and he changes the rates and makes it so that you can sustain yourself in that time. You're bleeding, if not completely dying. So it makes sense on that level. It also makes sense on the level that you're not gonna be the one that gets to go to the Mar A Lago dinner or gets to offer your gold bar in the White House, able to be saved by the king. So, you know, I think that's another element of why small businesses are the ones being decimated. In particular, they're also not likely to be the ones participating in the great AI revolution that is propping up so much of the economy at this point. So, you know, we're really starting to see the effects. And the other thing, you know, we normally in the past wouldn't have necessarily covered the ADP jobs report because we would have relied on the government numbers. They don't put the numbers down anymore, number one. I mean, during the shutdown, we didn't get anything and number. I don't think anyone has any confidence in these numbers whatsoever. So that has made the ADP numbers that much more significant. There's another aspect of this, of course, which is the political aspect. How is the administration messaging all of this? Earlier in the week, Trump said that affordability is a Democratic con job. So that's what the language coming from the President of the United States. And you've got Scott Bessant, who has now made this claim, I think a couple of times that the best thing you can do, and we covered this previously on the show. The best thing you can do if you're worried about inflation is move, move to a red. Because inflation is lower in red states. Turns out that is not true whatsoever. And he got called on it live. Let's take a look at that.
- [10:18]
CNBC Reporter
People in her district are having an affordability problem. I should have said, well, she's in a red state, affordability is worse. I mean, in a blue state, affordability is worse than a blue state.
- [10:29]
Mayflower Movers Announcer
We can debate that. But keep.
- [10:31]
CNBC Reporter
There's no debate. The number 50 basis points higher inflation. The, the 10 highest the inflation rates. They are in blue cities.
- [10:44]
Mayflower Movers Announcer
But just, just so you know, because I went to look at this. This is the joint Economic Committee 2000.
- [10:51]
Krystal Ball
Since 2021, the highest inflation of the.
- [10:55]
Mayflower Movers Announcer
Past four years has been in red states, especially Florida.
- [10:59]
CNBC Reporter
I'm talking about current, current, current.
- [11:01]
Mayflower Movers Announcer
Not over the past four years.
- [11:02]
CNBC Reporter
Right today. Okay.
- [11:06]
Mayflower Movers Announcer
I would think four years would be a reasonable.
- [11:10]
Trend line to look at.
- [11:11]
Saagar Enjeti
Just utterly absurd. I mean, the thing is stupid to start with, like, oh, just uproot your whole life and move somewhere. We're not going to do anything but if you're worried about inflation, go ahead and uproot your whole life. Find a new job, sell your house, good luck getting a mortgage at the same rate, and move to a different place that has slightly lower inflation, because we're certainly not doing anything for you. And then even on the merits of. Of that. That he's getting called out that like, well, that's not actually really even true. Unless you have this, like, very slow. Well, in the past 36 days in cities only then. Then this actually works out. Just ridiculous.
- [11:48]
Krystal Ball
It's so stupid.
- [11:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [11:50]
Krystal Ball
Where it's like, dude, I mean, this is why him. And there's what, a few others, Kevin Hassett and others. Like, they are just like the Biden officials who would go out in 2022 and they'd be like, actually, we're tackling inflation Bidenomics. And it was met with, like, you know, it was met with ridicule, I think correctly, by, I mean, not just by Wall street, but by, I think, everyday consumers. And.
- [12:14]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
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Krystal Ball
I mean, fundamentally, what exactly is the message? Like, living in a red state is better? Like, yeah, maybe. I mean, it depends on what you value. Right. I mean, that's the whole point of living in different states. We all have, you know, every. Every state gets to do things a little bit differently. For example, if you're in Florida, you can live in a boomer hell where they want to red taxes. You know, that's your right as Americans. You can do that if you would like. You know, you certainly can. And then, you know, you can also live in. You can also live in what. What's the highest tax state? California. You know, some people, they're like, sunshine is worth it to live with a bunch of fentanyl bums who are living around me. No criminal justice or any of that.
- [12:50]
Saagar Enjeti
That's fine.
- [12:51]
Krystal Ball
You can do that if you want to. That's America. All right. So it's just one of those where it's hard to choose.
- [12:57]
Saagar Enjeti
By the way, after Zoran's election, you know, there was. Oh, the rich people are gonna live in. Leave New York, apparently. Luxury real estate, Sal, actually up in New York. So everybody relax.
- [13:05]
Krystal Ball
I wouldn't say that's necessary.
- [13:06]
Saagar Enjeti
The rich people are staying in New York City, if that was a concern for you.
- [13:10]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I. I mean, it was not. Never a particular guy. I. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the global rich in. In New York City or Los Angeles or any of these other places. But. Yeah, I mean, and this is part of what's so stupid. I think broadly around the thing. And it also just gets to, also the being out of touch, importantly with the economy. Whenever it comes to these officials, affordability is a con job. Just uproot. And if you would like, it also just gets to the point of, you know, what we always talk about with Trump is division, division, division. And he's used that very, very effectively. But the thing is right now is that this idea of like, in terms of the red state versus the blue, trying to pit people against each other, what I think that misunderstands is that on economic questions, people are actually a lot more united than ever before. They're really not in a war in the same way they might be on culture or anything else. Like, they are pretty united in saying that housing and inflation are the two pillar problems. And that's why I think that rhetoric like that really doesn't land. And it actually makes light of a very serious situation, no matter where you live. And that's part of the where the division strategy, which is very effective on culture. I don't think it lands even close on economy or on immigration. Right. It's just not the same issue set.
- [14:26]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, that's an interesting thought because certainly at other times, like, like when Trump was in his initial political rise back in 2015, 2016, there was more of a sense of like, the cities are doing great and the rest of the country is getting screwed.
- [14:40]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [14:41]
Saagar Enjeti
Now the sense is everybody's getting screwed, we're all getting screwed. And you know, the rich people are right in the rules, they're rigging the system, they're sucking up everything. They're doing their AI thing. They're, you know, looking at being trillionaires. And meanwhile, you know, we'll get to CNN now doing deals with Kalshee so that they can, you know, get you further addicted to gambling and exploit and abuse even more. Like we're just at this point of absurdity in terms of where the capitalist system is. So, I mean, all the stress signs are there. People are screaming loud and clear. We do not feel like this economy is going well. We don't think it's going to go well. We are not hopeful about our future. We're not hopeful about our kids future. We don't feel like you're focused on the things that you said you would be in the campaign. Now, whether or not they were right to think he'd really be great on business, I mean, it's reasonable to be. I think it's reasonable for an ordinary person to be like, you Know what? The economy was better under his first administration. He's a business guy. He's gonna be focused on this. It's gonna be better for me and my family. And to feel a genuine sense of disappointment and frankly, betrayal that that has not been his focus. And then the audacity to tell you that affordability is a con job made up by the Democrats while you're looking at him hanging out with Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman and these other characters, giving them the world while they build out their data centers and spike your electricity bills. Yeah, you're gonna be disgusted. And the Republican Party is gonna pay a massive political price for abandoning people at a time when they are increasingly feeling the squeeze. These ADP numbers are just one more sign that there was a lot of hopium from MAGA insiders here that you and Emily both were speaking to that they felt like we're gonna do this tariff thing, there's gonna be some pain, but a year from now, things are gonna be turning around. When we're going into midterms, people are gonna be feeling like things are great. Now it seems like even they've abandoned that to falling back on. Well, just move to a different state if you feel bad about things the way they are or just pretend like none of this is a problem. Affordability is a con job. Just deny the reality that you're living literally every single day on the tariff.
- [16:54]
Krystal Ball
Question, if you think about was paired specifically with it's going to make America richer. It's also going to bring back business that has just simply not been the case. Why? Because as we said a myriad times, there's no problem with tariffs. Tariffs are fine. I support tariffs. You use them as a tool.
- [17:14]
You pair it with a lot. Not just industrial policy, but a concerted bureaucratic strategic effort that says these are the types of things that we want to now actually in some ways they have done that. It's just to the benefit of only the AI industry. But if that bubble pops, that's a big problem. And as I just showed all that's.
- [17:31]
Saagar Enjeti
Not something that really benefits. I mean there's some construction like the construction industry is doing okay because of the data center build out. But in terms of long term jobs, those data centers require like 50 people.
- [17:41]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, minimal job technology is a power law business. The wealth vastly accumulates to the founders and to the employees. That is literally the story of Silicon Valley and of software engineering. That's why it makes them all filthy rich. That's fine. But the point is not to Say that that should be the basis of the entire United States economy. And in fact, if you want industrial policy or something, you want to be able to support the other types of businesses, industries that don't have power, law returns necessarily, but are really important to your overall industrial base. Things like cars, things like, I mean, metals, again, we don't even have to be woke about it. Oil refineries if we want to, nuclear power plants, all of these are high capital intensive businesses. But the returns are much more broad, based across society and they actually help lift everybody up together. We don't have a lot of that. And so that's where I think the big failure is. And I also. Look, it's December 4th. Trump has literally almost been president for what is 11 months now? I think almost exactly to the day. So you've been president for 11 months and the same thing. You know, if you think back to Biden, even Obama, Obama, things very much soured on his term by this point in people's presidencies. Bill Clinton is the same thing. It's very difficult actually to turn around once you're at this point. You can become kind of a manager and just hope things go on the upswing. But like, that's not their style. And so in the absence of that, you're gonna have issues. The last thing I do wanna mention is about this tariff stuff because this could create a new fresh round of craziness. Let's go to the next part, please. This is Bessen, at that same conference, said that the Trump administration will be able to replicate tariffs even if it loses a Supreme Court decision. So as we had said here before, it's pre.
- [19:20]
Saagar Enjeti
Pretty.
- [19:21]
Krystal Ball
It's pretty clear that the Supreme Court is very skeptical of the Trump tariffs and may even require refunds. But there are other longer solutions where they would be able to implement the same tariffs. They just have to go through more of a bureaucratic process which takes a little bit longer. But he's saying that they are committed to doing that. I'm only saying this because it means that you could have similar Liberation Day style craziness in our markets and in our economy. But this would be six to eight months from now, which just happens to be around the time of the November elections.
- [19:51]
Saagar Enjeti
It also means that even if the Supreme Court rules, then there's still no certainty.
- [19:57]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [19:58]
Saagar Enjeti
You know, it's not like, okay, well we can't do that, so we're just not doing this. Maybe they just abandon it, that's possible. Or maybe they try to, you know, go through A different process maybe, oh my God, they could actually work with Congress. But I don't think Congress is going to give them what they want at this point because Republicans, I mean Republicans were never all on board with this direction to begin with. And now Donald Trump is significantly weakened after the off year election losses. One last thing to mention, you're talking about, okay, well, what was promised with the tariffs? What was the argument? The argument as we covered at the time was incoherent and all over the place, right? Sometimes it was about fentanyl, sometimes it was about I'm mad at Brazil over Bolsonaro's treatment. And sometimes the sort of, you know, if you give them the most charitable reading, it was like, we're gonna bring back American manufacturing. We're gonna have these good middle class factory jobs are gonna be back in America. Well, we've now had our ninth straight month of manufacturing decline. So you know, now maybe, I mean, I guess you could say, oh, but over time, but there's just no policy put in place that is going to actually rebuild or encourage us manufacturing. In fact, the fallen has been exactly what we predicted, which is that it's going to create a lot more uncertainty and actually create incentives to move that manufacturing elsewhere or do layoffs, et cetera. And that is what we are seeing. And that's a shame because you know, under the Biden administration got all kinds of gripes with them. We've named them all here on the show. Some of their industrial policy was actually working. There was actually an increase in manufacturing activity. The first time in the modern era that coming out of a recession, you actually had more manufacturing jobs created. You know, the story of the last 30, 40 years has been whenever there's a downturn, manufacturing jobs go away and they don't come back. So they had through this policy. That's why when we say like tariffs can work when they're done, right, when they're targeted, when they're paired with industrial policy. Biden was nibbling around the edges of that and it was showing some results and now all of that has been completely wiped away and we're going in the polar opposite direction and betting the entire economy on this AI future data center build out and inflating this gigantic bubble that is either going to pop and be a disaster or come to fruition and also be a disaster. I mean they're trying to rip up the entire social contract. Again, not exactly what was sold on the presidential campaign to people. And yet here we are cleaning out.
- [22:26]
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Saagar Enjeti
Oh, it's perfect.
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Saagar Enjeti
We're having another.
- [24:11]
Krystal Ball
Another.
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- [24:24]
Saagar Enjeti
Mayflower.Comtrump with another pardon. This one I would say surprising apparently surprising to Mike Johnson and has direct impact on the Republican majority. This is of Representative Henry Cuellari represents a increasingly sort of right trending South Texas district and as I think the most conservative Democrat left in the House at this point has been more hawkish on things like border security and was indicted him and his wife for alleged fraud, money laundering, just taking bribes and then doing the bidding of various companies and various governments. By the way, let's go and take a listen to Trump explaining why he decided to pardon Cuellar. Did you speak with House Republican leadership about your decision to pardon Congressman Henry Cuellar? And are you concerned that you made.
- [25:15]
Krystal Ball
A vulnerable Democrat perhaps less vulnerable with that decision? It didn't matter that he was. He's a Respected person. He was treated very badly because he said that people should not be allowed to pour into our country. And he was right. What happened is he got indicted for speaking the truth.
- [25:36]
Saagar Enjeti
So. Indicted for speaking the truth. Well, in reality, he was indicted because he allegedly funneled over $600,000 through Sham Consulting contracts, took money from a state owned energy company in Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank in particular, and was doing fav. And for them in exchange for that cash. Those are the allegations. He's been indicted. He has not been found guilty. This has obviously directed. I mean, Trump has just been on this, like, pardon spree. He apparently does not think white collar crime is actually crime. We covered earlier in the week some of the other pardons. We have some updates on that as well. But it also has direct political implications because this is a swing district at this point, a difficult one for Democrats to hold. Cuellar has, you know, strong standing in the district. People know him, he's been there a long time, et cetera. And so if you're rescu from his legal troubles, it makes it more likely that Democrats will be able to hold onto this seat. I don't think it's probably gonna matter anyway because it looks certainly like a midterm wave is building where Democrats are gonna take control of the House pretty handily and don't necessarily need this seat in South Texas. But this is not certainly a help to Republicans. On the other hand, I guess it's possible he's saying he's still gonna run as a Democrat. I guess it's possibly flips parties. He did issue a statement thanking Trump. We can put B3 up on the screen with his reaction. He says, I wanna thank President Trump for his tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts. I thank God for standing with my family and I during this difficult time. This decision clears the air, lets us move forward for South Texas. This pardon gives us a clean slate. Noise is gone. Work remains. I intend to meet it head on. Thank you, Mr. President. God bless you and God bless the United States of America. Hakeem Jeffries. We got some bipartisanship here. Sager. Everybody coming together to support the pardoning of this, you know, corruption. Member of Congress who abused his position of power to take cash for him and his wife, allegedly from foreigners, in order to do their bidding. Let's put before up on the screen. He says, this is exactly. Jeffries says this is exactly the right outcome. Listen, the reality is this indictment was very thin to begin with, in my view. Charges were eventually gonna be Dismissed, if not at the trial court level, then by the Supreme Court, as they've repeatedly done in instances just, just like this. Put B5 up on the screen as well. We've got a list here. We've got 12 members of Congress now who've been pardoned by Trump. So, you know, if you're an elite and you say things or do things or give cash to the right person, you can do insider trading, you can take money from foreign governments, you can lie to the FBI, you can obstruct, you can, you know, if you're George Santos, you could steal identities and lie about everything you could possibly imagine. Any of this is just perfectly fine if you're an elite and Trump likes you for some reason. So we have 12 members of Congress pardoned or I guess commuted, and 10, those 10 Republicans and two Democrats. The two Democrats are now Cuellar and Rod Blagojevich. Blast from the past there with that name. So anyway, there you go. Trump just letting white collar criminals go at a pace we have never seen before. And as we've covered before, Sagar, certainly Trump not the first to abuse the pardon power, but the level, the shamelessness and the sheer scope and scale of what he has done is truly without parallel.
- [28:56]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, he, you know, he just takes what is usually the quiet part and then says it out loud. Sometimes his political strength also just rubs it in your face. If you don't remember the details, just. Let's go over them again. Between December 2014, November 2021, Congressman Cuellar and his wife allegedly accepted 600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities. An oil and gas company wholly owned by the government of Azerbaijan and a bank headquartered in Mexico City. The bribe payments were allegedly laundered pursuant to sham consulting contracts through a series of front companies and millmen into shells owned by Imelda Cuellar, who performed little to no legitimate work under the contracts. In exchange for the bribes paid by Azerbaijani oil and gas, Cuellar agreed to use his office to influence US Policy in favor of Azerbaijan. In exchange for the bribes paid by a Mexican bank, Congressman Cuellar agreed to influence legislative activity and pressure High ranking U.S. executive branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the bank. So that's the indictment that was actually leveled there against Mr. Cuellar.
- [29:56]
Saagar Enjeti
I think there should be, to me, there should be elevated sentencing if you are a public official that engages in some of this.
- [30:02]
Krystal Ball
I think there is, there's like a sentencing guideline when it comes to abusing your public trust. But we never even got to trial. Like that's ultimately the problem.
- [30:10]
Saagar Enjeti
And I mean, they are maybe it was gonna be thrown out by the Supreme Court because they have basically made it so that corruption and bribery is like, by and large legal. They have taken such a, like, narrow view of what actually constitutes crimes, you know, criminal acts of bribery and corruption, that maybe it would have been thrown out. But it's so disgusting that these people just get away with this. I mean, what. It's, it truly is an attack on our entire system and the trust and faith that people put in you, it's so grotesque to me. And then for them all to be let off the hook en masse, like, this is, you know, it's, it's, it's beyond a slap in the face. It's really disgusting.
- [30:49]
Krystal Ball
Let's go to B6. Let's show everybody the next particular one. So we covered this previously. This Ponzi schemer, well, the commutation issued to David Gentile actually wipes away all further fines and restitution. He had been sentenced to seven years for the $1.6 billion scheme that had defrauded investors, and prosecutors had been seeking some 15.5 million in forfeiture. So he has wiped away all of that.
- [31:17]
Saagar Enjeti
And so that's money that was meant to go to the over 1000 victims of this man and his Ponzi scheme. And now they get nothing. They get nothing. So he was able to rob them and through this Ponzi scheme bullshit, found guilty. Right. So this is not alleged. Found guilty. And now the victims get nothing because Trump came in and said, oh, I'm good with this guy. Go free. Enjoy your life. Nothing to see here.
- [31:46]
Krystal Ball
That's right. And actually yesterday, he actually commuted or pardoned someone that his own DOJ indicted some five months ago. That's my personal favorite.
- [31:56]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, and you know who had prosecuted this case against Gentile, I think, was that Emil Bovish. He was like his guy. And he was, I think, justifiably, like, proud of putting this guy behind bars. And now he comes in and, oh, nevermind. We think this was, you know, we don't think this was correct. People were asking, okay, why this guy? And we still don't really know. You know, many of these people who have gotten pardoned, they're sort of obvious, either like political or they, you know, they gave money. We covered one of them who got pardoned or had descendants commuted where mom had given billions of dollars and raise money. And right after she goes this dinner with Trump, lo and behold, the guy gets let free. And then I think that was the one that immediately started defrauding people again. And by the way, a number of the people that Trump has pardoned have already gone out and committed other crimes and offenses. So you are literally letting criminals loose on the streets. Mr. Law and Order. But in any case, people were like, it wasn't immediately clear why this particular fraudster got off the hook. He had a partner in crime who did not get let off the hook. So it was eyebrow raising. Like what exactly is going on here? There's one possibility it's been raised with a B7 up on the screen. Apparently he had a bunch of connections that were sort of like 2 degrees removed from Rudy Giuliani was, is close with some of the people that this guy David Gentile was close to. So this is Jacqueline Sweet, did this reporting. She says Trump commuted the prison sentence for financial fraudsters with ties to Russian tycoon allegedly linked to organized crime. This Russian tycoon, by the way, guys, now lives in Israel and is also very close to the entire Israeli government, number of whom were at his daughter's wedding, et cetera, et cetera. So I'll just read you a little bit of this and you guys can make of it what you will. So she says Trump inexplicably commuted the sentence of a billion dollar Ponzi schemer, Scientologist, private equity exec and accountant from Long island just days into his seven year sentence, leading to widespread speculation about why. David Gentile is not just any financial fraudster. However, his business history is long intermingled with former Russian oligarch Michael Czerny, wanted by Interpol for alleged ties to Russian organized crime and Czerny's family and associates. Records reviewed by Disaster Girl reveal Michael Czerny has long worked with another allegedly Russian mafia linked figure, Eric Kislen, whose uncle, Sam Kislyn is one of Rudy Giuliani's oldest friends and supporters, who once reportedly helped Trump stave off bankruptcy. Although it's unknown exactly who advocated for Gentile's release, his business ties bring him within two degrees of some of his Trump's oldest backers in the Ukrainian and Russian American business world and the highest levels of the Israeli government. So could be, could be something going on with that.
- [34:39]
Krystal Ball
That kind of fits with everything I know about some of these. So, for example, the Honduran president, I was finally reading into it.
- [34:45]
Saagar Enjeti
The case was Roger Stone guy, right?
- [34:47]
Krystal Ball
It was. No, but it was also Matt Gates. So it was a Matt Gates, Roger Stone. They kind of bubble up the case, then it gets intertwined with the elections and the State Department starts to see, it's just like a Byzantine network to basically get up to the favor of Trump. I mean, for example, this entertainment lawyer who he just pardoned a couple days ago, it's really crazy. Like, this guy was indicted by Trump's DOJ five months ago, and then he was just pardoned, and nobody really knows why. Like, he was the CEO of this entertainment group, quote, for orchestrating a conspiracy to rig bidding process for an arena at a public university in Austin, Texas. Nobody really understands how he got to Trump. They do know that he was represented by Trey Gowdy. So that's kind of the only, like, connection, really, that anybody knows. Trey Gowdy is the former Republican congressman, the guy who did Benghazi, and now he's on Fox News every once in a while. Like, that seems to basically be the way that this all came about. But, yeah, I mean, the whole. It's totally nuts, right? I mean, this is somebody who was literally indicted by Trump's own doj. So to throw out and say the politicization just seems. I mean, it's a bit crazy, but that's how things are working right now.
- [35:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And then lastly, just to give you a sense of how different this is on a, you know, in terms of the scale versus what other presidents have done. Put V8 up on the screen. CNN compiled this data. So here's the number of pardons by presidents in recent years. So George W. Bush, 189. And that was over his two terms. Obama, 212. Also over his two terms. Trump in the first administration, 144. So sort of in line with what others were doing. Biden, 80 and now Trump, 20, 25, 1500 plus. So, you know, I mean, this is really kind of, I guess, typical of Trump and especially Trump 2.0, where every president has abused this pardon power. It really needs to go away. It has to be reformed. It needs to go away. President should not have the powers of kings. But in any case, bipartisan affair to abuse the pardon power. And yet somehow Trump takes it and puts it on steroids, and it's like, okay, well, we're just gonna do this to an insane degree. It's going to be brazenly obvious, the, like, corrupt ties that these people had to make. It's gonna be, you know, it's just gonna be in your face and constant so that you can't even keep track of all the. All the.
- [37:17]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, we didn't even know about criminals.
- [37:19]
Saagar Enjeti
That were just setting free Yeah, I.
- [37:21]
Krystal Ball
Mean, like this one. He was indicted. The sports thing again. Why I think it's so extraordinary is these are some people in the antitrust division who spearheaded this indictment that went through. And then somehow, through Trey Gowdy or whatever, you can just get a full pardon from. From the United States. It's just like outright corruption. It's totally crazy. But, yeah, I guess that's how the.
- [37:41]
Saagar Enjeti
Government works right now, apparently.
- [37:43]
Krystal Ball
All right, let's get to Epstein.
- [37:45]
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Krystal Ball
So those.
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Saagar Enjeti
Oh, it's perfect.
- [39:24]
Krystal Ball
Perfect.
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Saagar Enjeti
We're having another.
- [39:31]
Krystal Ball
Another.
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- [39:48]
Krystal Ball
Going now to Epstein. Some new images of Epstein's island villa that were released by the House oversight committee. Let's go and put these up here on the screen. Let's just keep this one up here for a while. I just want everybody to sit with this it's like a dental chair and weird creepy masks that are all around. There are some videos and images of.
- [40:09]
Saagar Enjeti
Bedroom, but I mean, it's like faces of old men.
- [40:12]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. You know, there's no.
- [40:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Who doesn't have a room like that.
- [40:17]
Krystal Ball
That there's no innocent explanation. Also. Yeah. Larry Sell. Interesting. I wonder who Larry is there in terms of his speed dial on his phone. These are some images. This is like a bathhouse or it looks like a steam room maybe. Not exactly sure. That was being used for storage purposes. That was on the island. We can continue a little bit here in terms of what we have from the island itself. Let's go to C2. Just a walkthrough video. Walkthrough. I'd watched a little bit of this previously. It's nothing, you know, explicitly groundbreaking. But I guess really what it comes down to is these images and others been released by the House Oversight Committee. Some of these are inside of these. So, you know, the Epstein files, the Epstein estate. And I really just think we should all sit with like, the image themselves of, let's say that, that creepy mask stuff that was there. You have the famous Bill Clinton painting. You have, you know, all of the insane, like, weird sexual artwork throughout the 71st street villa. You have cameras. You have the design, the mansion. Now we have the emails, and we have personally read, like thousands of the man's emails. Like, the level of psychotic disposition this guy had in terms of his arranging massages and constantly, like, requesting photos from his assistance of girls and just like constantly being like, she's too fat or something like that. It's gross. Right? So you put all this stuff together and. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's just. And by the way, like I said, having read through a lot of the guy's emails, he micromanaged this estate to a way like you can barely imagine. Like, he was constantly asking for updates while the compound and the island was being built. And he'd be like, rejecting this and rejecting that. And so like, everything there is his own aesthetic, design and taste as executed by Ghislaine Maxwell. And it's like this empire basically from his own mind that was created, combined with the birthday book. It's just pretty disgusting. Yeah, it's really. I mean, again, I just. I think we all have to sit with like, Eyes Wide Shut was real, like weird masks of old men on the walls. Like, there's. There's no innocent explanation for that. I'm sorry, there's not. Especially when you put in the totality of everything else that was going on. All the houses and the book and the emails and the underage girls. Like, it's open and shut. Okay.
- [42:34]
Saagar Enjeti
There was also another photo that had a blackboard.
- [42:37]
Krystal Ball
Put that up there, you can see. Yeah.
- [42:38]
Saagar Enjeti
There's the blackboard. And it's hard to read those words, but it says power, truth, music, deception, intellectual, political. And then there's presumably names here that are redacted by the committee. So, you know, who among us doesn't have this sort of thing on a blackboard somewhere in our house? I guess it's around the corner from the weird old guy mask and dentist chair room. Yeah. Just normal stuff. Nothing to see here.
- [43:04]
Krystal Ball
Plants, deception.
- [43:07]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [43:08]
Krystal Ball
So.
- [43:08]
Saagar Enjeti
And here's the thing is like, you know, if this was just. If that's it, that's all we knew about upstamp. I mean, okay, he's a little weird, right? Okay. But, you know, this is part of a larger portrait that we have at this point based on, you know, based on the investigations into him, based on what the survivors have said, based on the records that have been released, based on things like what Donald Trump said about how much he likes him young, and based on. On certainly the recent email revelations that have been dug into in particular by Ryan Maaz and Sager and other journalists out there like Jason Leopold. That gives you starting to emerge a more complete picture of what's going on here. And the other thing with this is this continues to put pressure on the government and basically signal, look, we're not gonna. We're not gonna let this go. We pass a law now. You have to release what you have. You have 30 days to do that. And as you're pre. These files, whatever you're going to release, we are continuing to get information from various subpoenas that we've used our power in Congress in order to provide some level of transparency to the American public.
- [44:19]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. What. Let's go ahead and put. So the files thing is very interesting, you know, from the NBC News tear sheet about asking for the status update, because, remember, the law requires them to release it within 30 days. And this was on November 19th that it was enacted. So we really only have 15 more days. Days before this is all supposed to come out. They say that the Justice Department announced their investigation, quote, into numerous figures, including Bill Clinton and Larry Summers. In response to that request, quote, in the interest of transparency and clarity, we request a briefing in a classified or an unclassified setting to discuss the full contents of this new information. But no later than Friday December 5th. So that's tomorrow as of the day that we're all recording this. The new law, remember though, could be thwarted in if they are able to say that they can cite an ongoing investigation and redaction. And overall like just, you know, the process that they've gone about doing this, which is extremely clunky and it makes it seem as if there's a cover up. I also want to say like with the so called Epstein files, like everyone needs to be careful. Like even what Ryan and I and Maz, like what we've all gone through, this is a tiny fraction of what's in the Epstein estate. Okay, that's nothing. We're just looking at email from one particular Gmail and yahoo account from like 05 to 08. By the way, again, as I reiterated in our segment, the 05 email was created after the Feds and or after the police started looking into him. So what's in the pre 05 emails? Right, like what happened to that? And there's a lot of them that have been deleted even inside of this inbox.
- [45:50]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [45:51]
Krystal Ball
And so then what about after, you know, his conviction is jail sentence. Right. So there's a lot of stuff that still hasn't come out.
- [45:57]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, the email you reported on where he's coming up with legal strategies and like you know, drafting this email and he says I have to assume the Feds know about probably 20 underage girls. Well, guess what would be in the government files? What did they actually know? You know, how much information did they have at the time when they were convinced by, you know, Epstein and his legal team, including Alan Dershowitz, that like, you know, guys, this is really not they're gonna handle at the state level. You guys really don't need to worry about this. Like how much information did the government have at that time when they did kick it to the state level and say, okay, you guys down there, Alex Acosta, do your sweetheart deal, do your thing. Just as one example of the sort of things that would be contained in the government records. There's a lot there and we have only gotten a glimpse of a tiny, tiny fraction.
- [46:48]
Krystal Ball
Yes, absolutely correct. And I do wanna put C4 up here on the screen. Just to reiterate this, this is, look, I'm not a financial professional. I have gone through a lot of his stuff, like the financial stuff inside of the deals. I will say none of it seemed all that sophisticated to me. Like, you know, all the claims are about all these sophisticated hedge fund transactions. Maybe there's a different email I'm just saying, from what I saw, it was very standard. Like, hi, Jeffrey, I'm raising money for X, Y and Z, and I could use a few million. Or somebody trying to put. Buy some shitty movie studio. A lot of it also was, like, directing Les Wexner charities. Like, nothing was very. Like, nothing explained. Becoming a billionaire is really what I'm saying. And that's kind of the mystery, right? And so what the Epstein survivors have said is that they are supporting this Ron Wyden bill, which would force treasury to turn over Epstein bank records. And I do want to give credit to Ron Wyden because he's actually been beating this drop now for a while. The banks and the Treasury Departments are sitting on over a billion dollars of suspicious activity reports that they updated after Epstein's death. All of those, like, that is the real stuff here, the wire transfers, because we have a very small slice, which I've cited before. The New York Financial Services Department put out a fine of Deutsche bank years ago, I think, back in 2020. And I did several monologues about it at the time. You can go watch. But it details the exact scheme through which he was wiring money to the Eastern Europeans. But again, this is just one bank, and he had bank accounts at JP Morgan Chase and all of these other, like, high finance institutions where he was moving million billions of dollars. That's literally 1.1 billion or so around in ways that should have triggered, like, investigations by the federal government. So then you're like, okay, well, why the banks not do anything about that? Like, you know, you or I, as anyone. Recently I had to send a wire transfer from our bank account for business purposes.
- [48:46]
Saagar Enjeti
It takes forever.
- [48:47]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. They're like, are you sure you author. You know, it's like. And that's us. Like a small business. You can't just move money around the world. It doesn't work like that.
- [48:56]
Saagar Enjeti
When I try to ride in an Uber in a town I haven't been in for a while.
- [49:01]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, you're like, fraud alert, Right? You know what I'm saying? Like, exactly like everybody. Like, when you interact with the world and the financial system, like, I can't send a wire transfer without having to call the bank and be like, yes, I authorized this purchase. And they're like, well, what's the. Have you been contacted by fraud? And this guy just gets to wire billions now? Maybe that's just par for the course for billionaires. It probably is, if we're being honest. But at the very least, like, when you're moving all this money through these banks, like they have KYC know your customer laws and stuff. They have to determine, they're like, well, where did this money come from? Is a legitimate purpose, right? Are you money laundering? Laundering? And so they clearly violated in many cases because they've been fined for it and they've been sued for it. A lot of their own internal guardrails. So, like that. Again, I know everybody wants to talk about the black book. And you know, this client, there's no client list, any of that. The nexus of it all, it's all in the money. That's the whole story from the intel. That's what made him useful, that's what made him powerful, is the money enabled everything else. Get access to that. And that's when I think you're actually, actually going to. You'll take down some real people.
- [50:03]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, and we may, we may get some progress on that just in the coming days. So in addition to these photos and videos, Robert Garcia, who's the Democratic, the ranking member on the Oversight Committee, says they're going to be releasing financial, more financial records in the days ahead. So we could be getting some more information there today, tomorrow, over the coming week. So that is something to, to keep an eye on. And again, I think it's important to keep the pressure on. Listen, none of us, we're not Pollyanna here. We're not actually expecting the government to completely come clean and release everything. And we know that they've spent lots of time and close to a million dollars, taxpayer dollars, going through these things to redact them and scrub them. I mean, I don't think anyone expects them to release anything that's gonna be incriminating to the President of the United States because they'll be out of a job if they do so. But still, whatever comes out, whatever additional pieces of the puzzle, if they're not about Trump and they're about other people, it's a step forward. And so every time the House Oversight Committee releases more tranches of documents, it keeps the story alive, it keeps the pressure on, and it keeps the public focused on putting pressure on the government to follow the law that has now been passed by Congress and signed into law by the President.
- [51:19]
Krystal Ball
Exactly right. And yeah, everyone's like, oh, why do they release this? It doesn't show anything. I don't know. More the better. Okay. The more you keep it alive, the more that people take an interest in this. That's one thing I have been very heartened by, is that even though Trump and MAGA and all Them want to move on. You know, we came, many of us came to this long before Trump was ever in the picture. It was never about Trump.
- [51:40]
Saagar Enjeti
Long before the Democrats were still on.
- [51:41]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, long before. Yeah. By the way, the whole time when the Dems were all like, it's a conspiracy. It's anti Semitic to say he was connected to. Never cared then, didn't care now. We're just gonna keep on keeping on. And by the way, shout out to Pablo Torre, our friend. He's been doing some sports angles in the Epstein story.
- [51:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, really?
- [51:59]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, he just did a. He just did a segment on it yesterday. It was fascinating, actually. And so he will. Actually, I've been speaking to him a little bit. He should have more stories potentially soon on the sports angle. And so this is the fun part is like, as this goes out, people with different niche areas can look into their own, like, spheres of influence. Hollywood. Hollywood, for example, I. I pointed out this isn't my area of expertise, but I'm reading through and I'm like, yo, Epstein's getting all these invites to all these Hollywood premieres, like Michael Clayton and the Sopranos and all this stuff. I'm not a Variety reporter, but some Hollywood person should probably go dig into that.
- [52:34]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [52:35]
Krystal Ball
So I'm just looking at Israel and Israel intelligence and the actual case.
- [52:39]
Saagar Enjeti
Pablo Torre.
- [52:40]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. Whoever that person is. Yeah. Although I think I feel like Hollywood media is probably more common compromise than anybody else. That's just my opinion.
- [52:46]
Saagar Enjeti
Very possible.
- [52:47]
Krystal Ball
Okay, let's get to 2026.
- [52:49]
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- [54:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, it's perfect.
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To first steps and fixer uppers from starter homes.
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- [54:52]
Saagar Enjeti
So some interesting numbers here from CNN and Harry Enton talking about how it looks very much like a map. Massive blue wave is coming and based in part on the election results from this week in Tennessee. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
- [55:05]
Harry Enten
Republicans should be running for the hills this morning because the blue wave is building. My dear friend. Mr. Berman, what are we talking about here? Well, Van Epps, Matt Van Epps, the Republican candidate, he won it by nine. But this is a district that Donald Trump won by 22 points. 15 points, 17 points. This is a 13 point point gain for the Democrats in terms of the margin and excuse time for Republicans is over because I hear all about these special elections. Oh, the turnout so low, it's not representative of what happened in the midterm election. The turnout last night in Tennessee's 7th district was equal to the turnout in the 2022 midterm election. I love the people in central Tennessee, but central Tennessee is nothing special compared to the rest of the country.
- [55:51]
Krystal Ball
Country.
- [55:52]
Harry Enten
But what we see happening is take a Look here. Okay, 2025 U.S. house special elections. Dems outrunning Kamala Harris. A lot of blue here. A lot of blue, which is what I think the nation might look like a year from now if these results hold. Arizona 7. You see a 17 over performance of Kamala Harris, 23 points in Florida, 116 points in Florida, 6. 13 points in Tennessee, 7. 28 points in Texas, 28 and then 17 points points in Virginia, 11. So we've seen it throughout the nation, whether you go from the suburbs of Washington, D.C. all the way to southwest to the Southwest in Arizona, whether you're looking at Texas, whether you're looking at Tennessee, whether you go down to Florida. We have seen the Democratic outperformance of Kamala Harris happening across the political map. We actually have history to show that what happens in special elections doesn't just stay in special elections, it it spills over to the midterm results, special elections and midterm results. I just keep going to this. When a party outperformed in special elections since 2005, five out of five times they went on to win a majority in the US House of Representatives.
- [56:59]
Saagar Enjeti
So pretty interesting to see those numbers there. Let's put the next element up on the screen. You can see some aggregate and comparisons to prior years. So this has overperformance in special elections. You got 17 and 18 Democrats plus 6, 19 and 20 Democrats plus 2, 21 and 22, Republicans plus 4, 23, 24 Democrats plus 2 this time so far, Democrats plus 11.
- [57:22]
Krystal Ball
I'd like to see the pre Tea Party numbers. I bet you it was similar right somewhere around 09. Yeah, think back to that time. It was very similar to the plus 11.
- [57:31]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, that would be interesting to see. But I think Enten points out what is the most sort of critical component of the Tennessee results, which is, you know, the cope from Republicans special elections. You know, you've got your Democrats have these high propensity voters now. It's not emblematic, it's gonna be different when it comes to the midterms. And no, it's not a presidential year, but midterm turnout is gonna be a lot higher. Well, the turnout in Tennessee was really high and still they moved the margin by 13 points. If you manage to do that across the country, I mean it's a bloodbath that you know, is I think beyond even what we saw in the 2010 Tea Party wave election. If you truly had that result across the country, it would be an extraordinary political reckoning. Now can they pull off 13 points? That's very tall order. But that's the reason why Republicans should be freaking out here is because you didn't have some sort of like Republicans aren't paying attention and only the demo like the white college educated liberal showed up. No, this was a high turnout, midterm level turnout election. You had a literal socialist as the Democrat by the way, and you still had a 13 point shift towards the Democrats. I mean that really is a red alarm.
- [58:52]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, it totally is an alarm. And the reason why is that as you said with that sample is if it was low Turnout, you can cope yourself away. But also the though even with midterm level turnout, if the midterm turnout is going to be still so heavily Democratic and indicate some swing, that's a big problem. Now, obviously it is Tennessee and it is a single election. But these are pre, these are basically midterms, always are about enthusiasm when it comes to voters. Most people don't, at least a lot of voters don't pay as much attention to the midterms. And it's usually an opposition party. Now, let's give the caveat case. Glenn Youngkin wins in Virginia. Right. There's a clear view of a red wave that's coming. Then Roe vs. Wade happens and it changes everything. So, like a lot could still change. It's a whole year, right? I mean, we have no idea. It could be a major international incident. There could be a war in Venezuela. So things could potentially go even more south. Or maybe he would ride some commander in chief of wave. Nobody knows. All right? But a lot of shit can happen in the next 11 months. But as things stand right now, where things also, I think are trending, we can only live in the moment that we are right now. It doesn't look particularly promising. And I also think there will be a lot of accountability at the Republican level for everybody but Trump. No Republican can admit that it's Trump's fault. But already the knife fighting like we're about to show with Stefanik. Yeah, people are already know like they, like everybody knows. And Mike Johnson, he's not long for this world.
- [60:24]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, we'll put D3 up on the screen. So at least Stefanik has taken the knives out pretty aggressively against Mike Johnson. Now she is running. She's, you know, New York representative, she's running for governor. She is down like extraordinarily large amount in the polls. And Trump really screwed her over by embracing Zoron and, you know, taking any sort of heat out of the case she was making against Hochul, being close to Zoran and trying to, trying to make something of that. Not that I thought that was that great of an attack to begin with, but she was really betting a lot on that. And that was sort of undercut by Trump. Anyway, it says here Trump ally Elise Stefanik attacks Speaker Johnson's leadership. She called him an ineffective leader who is losing control over the GOP conference headed into the midterm elections. Quote, he certainly would not have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll call vote tomorrow. The New York lawmaker said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. I believe the majority of Republicans would vote for new leadership. It is that why widespread. And your read of it. Sager is exactly my read of it. She can see things are going south, they're going sideways. She wants to separate herself from the Republican Party and say, I'm not like them, I'm critical of them. I have my own way that I would do things. I'm not like these people that you hate right now. But she can't point the finger at Trump, who is the one who's really to blame. I mean, Mike Johnson is nothing more than Trump's puppet. Like, he's sort of irrelevant to the whole equation. But. So she decides that the person that it's safe for her to go after is Speaker Mike Johnson. And I think you will see other people certainly following in her footsteps and pulling out the knives from Mike Johnson, because it's a similar way. I mean, you see this, saw this thinking back to 2010 with Democrats, when things were going well, they're like, okay, let me go after Pelosi, because that will signal that I'm not like the rest of this Democratic Party that you hate. I'm different from them, but. And they also went after Obama too, at certain times as well. But Trump has this stronghold, he's very, you know, the retribution from him. You don't wanna be on his bad side. You don't want him coming in and messaging against you, et cetera, or screwing you over in your, you know, whatever you're trying to do in your state. So that's the place where she's trained her fire.
- [62:29]
Krystal Ball
And what it will mean is that the race, the race for Republican leader will be fascinating. Like, if they.
- [62:35]
Saagar Enjeti
Who would want.
- [62:36]
Krystal Ball
Oh, yeah, first of all, who would want. I think Steve Scalise would probably get it because he's already the number two. Trump likes him. He's, you know, I mean, he's, he's a little bit different from Mike Johnson, but not all that. But, I mean, there should be enough holdouts. Some people could credibly say, like, hey, you guys were a disaster. Like, you were really bad at your jobs. Like, why would we reward you? And there's enough shit stirs that somebody might actually do something about it. I really don't know actually what's going to happen. But the point I think that stands really with Stefanik and the attack is that this is a preemptive ability to distance yourself from very unpopular Republican Congress. And in some ways, like, look, fundamentally, yeah, they should attack Trump, but they're not Wrong. Like the healthcare thing is a huge problem. It's not even just people like me saying it. Steve Bannon, I was just reading this morning, Matt Boyle, like the Breitbart guys, they're like, yo, we need to do something before December is over and these premiums are locked. I mean, we have what, 20 something days. Most of that's a holiday. Everybody knows the House of representatives. By January 1st, we're all in it. Like, we're in it together. Premiums go up and that's it. Like, that is enough. That's 7 million people just on Obamacare. So, yeah, that's not that many people. But compounded to the private market with overall 25% increase, by the way, that's the other funny thing about our byzantine health insurance system. How many people even know whether their insurance is connected to Obamacare or not? If it goes up because of the headlines, they're gonna be like, this is Trump's fault, right? Yeah, exactly. Regardless of whether it's employer sponsored or not, because of the cycle, they're just gonna blame the administration.
- [64:15]
Saagar Enjeti
It's kind of fair though. I mean, we had a whole shutdown fight over this. They refused to cave. Trump said, remember when he was, oh, we were on the verge of announcing some healthcare plan from what happened with that, that's just gone. We're not talking about that anymore. Right. So it does. I mean, that's fair to blame him for the these specific increases that are coming because you could do something to stop it.
- [64:35]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. I'm just saying, like in terms of. The point though is just, yes, shit, you know, goes uphill whenever you're the president and you are going to suffer the consequences. So nothing right now looks all that good. I do want to say Representative Nancy mace. Let's put D5 on the screen. Here is considering quote, this is from the New York Times. Nancy Mace has told people she is so frustrated with the Louisiana Republican and sick of the way he's run the House, particularly how women are treated there, that she is planning to huddle with MTG next week to discuss following her lead and retiring early from Congress. And so it could mean another early retirement there for the GOP even further, you know, screwing over Mike Johnson, but also just showing how dysfunctional and insane the entire thing is. So I would not. I don't think things are going that way well there for Mike Johnson. And I think he will be one of the shorter lived speakers in history. Like, he's not. I don't think he's going to be long for this world.
- [65:46]
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