← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
12/5/24: Healthcare CEO Assassinated, Crypto Mania Takes Over DC, Obama Aid Gaslights On Mistakes
00:58:49
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- [00:01]
Savannah Guthrie
Hi everyone, it's Savannah Guthrie and Hoda.
- [00:02]
Hoda Kotb
Cotney from the Today Show.
- [00:03]
Crystal Ball
Nobody does the holidays like today. From festive performances and great gift ideas.
- [00:08]
Hoda Kotb
To tips for the perfect holiday feast. Join us every morning on NBC and make TODAY your home for the holidays.
- [00:15]
Crystal Ball
It's better over here.
- [00:17]
Hoda Kotb
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- [00:20]
Crystal Ball
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- [00:22]
Savannah Guthrie
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- [00:24]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [00:27]
Hoda Kotb
Visit t mobile.com CarrierFreedom to switch today.
- [00:31]
Crystal Ball
Pay off our up to $650 via virtual prepaid MasterCard in 15 days. Free phone up to $830 via 24 monthly bill credits plus tax qualifying port and trade in service on Go 5G next and credit required. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue bill credits or credit stop and balance and required finance agreement is due.
- [00:45]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [01:06]
Hoda Kotb
They make every detail look sweet.
- [01:09]
Sagar Enjeti
It's time to bring your TV watching into the future. Welcome to a new era of Samsung AI TV. Discover more at samsung.com upscale Every moment upscaling utilizes AI based algorithms. Viewing experience may vary according to types.
- [01:21]
Crystal Ball
Of content and format. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.
- [01:23]
Savannah Guthrie
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.
- [01:31]
Crystal 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.
- [01:36]
Savannah Guthrie
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.
- [01:47]
Crystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com Good morning everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have? Crystal?
- [02:00]
Savannah Guthrie
Indeed we do. So as you probably know by now, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was murdered in Midtown Manhattan. That manhunt continues, as does of course the online reaction. So we will get into all of that. Trump packing his cabinet with billionaires. We have new details about what that administration may look like and what they are planning. Rahm Emanuel is being rehabbed over on the Democratic side, planning what his future in the Democratic Party may be making some pretty wild comments given his own past history. So we'll dig into all of that. Also, Morning Joe once again in meltdown mode after apparently David Frum now too spicy for them. They had to like apologize after some of his comments.
- [02:36]
Crystal Ball
This is the Iran Iraq war here.
- [02:38]
Savannah Guthrie
Morning Joe Scarborough just this morning had some whole like rant, meltdown, whatever. So we're going to bring you that. I think you guys are going to enjoy and appreciate that. Also some news from overseas. Emmanuel Macron's government has now collapsed, was somewhat predicted, but leaves the French government a lot of uncertainty and chaos. So we'll tell you all of the details there. And Biden is considering pardoning a slew of officials and Democratic politicians and Liz Cheney and all kinds of people who could be targets of Trump's retribution. And the View is reacting and arguing with Charlo about many of these things.
- [03:11]
Crystal Ball
Yes, that's right. That'll be fun. Dr. Fauci apparently needs a pardon. Interesting Carl. Told you he's never did anything wrong. Anyways, before we get to that breakingpoints.com please go ahead and subscribe. Become a premium subscriber, Help out the show. We've had a couple of long form interviews this week which were awesome, which our premium subscribers got first access to. So if you want more like that, you can go ahead and sign up and become a premium subscriber today.
- [03:32]
Savannah Guthrie
Yeah, and thank you guys for the questions you sent in for Jon Favreau. They were really helpful and you guys had some really great questions. So it was very much appreciated. Yeah, I thought that was a very interesting interview. So I hope you guys.
- [03:42]
Crystal Ball
Yes. And if you can't become a premium subscriber, please just go ahead and like subscribe. Share the podcast, the video that you are watching right now, it really helps us out. We just got our Spotify Wrapped yesterday. It's amazing to see which episodes you guys share around and all that. We were in the top 1% video podcasts in the world. So thank you all very much.
- [03:59]
Savannah Guthrie
And apparently people frickin loved the Dave Smith versus Vosh debate.
- [04:04]
Crystal Ball
Our most shared episode of the year on Ukraine.
- [04:06]
Savannah Guthrie
Right.
- [04:06]
Crystal Ball
That's not Ukraine. Shocking. I honestly never would have predicted it. You can't actually see there's not a lot of good metrics for podcasts. Spotify wrapped is is like the one time that we actually get some deep insight into what people do. Also thank you to the 1122 countries that breaking Points was downloaded in last year. I can't even name 122 countries.
- [04:24]
Savannah Guthrie
So anyways, thank you.
- [04:25]
Crystal Ball
We love you. All right, let's get to the United Healthcare CEO murder. This is some shocking stuff. So we have some surveillance video that has emerged of the killing itself. We've gone ahead and edited it so you can't actually see it. But let's go ahead and put this and play this for everybody up on the screen so you can watch here. The United CEO is walking there about 6:45am outside of a midtown hotel in Manhattan. You could see the gunman there. He raised his gun and he shot several times into the CEO. He went forward, walked towards him, apparently to basically make sure that the man was dead, and then begins to flee across the street where he got onto a city bike and went uptown. To this day now, some 24 hours later, he is not currently in police custody, although we have some of the details. The NYPD itself broke down some of the details of the crime. Let's get to it.
- [05:20]
NYPD Spokesperson
The suspect approached from behind and fired several rounds, striking the victim at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf. Many people passed the suspect, but he appeared to wait for his intended target. The suspect fled first on foot, then on an E bike and was last seen in Central park on Center Drive. Early this morning, the victim was removed to Roosevelt Hospital where he was pronounced. We've been in touch with his family, his friends and his colleagues and they are very much in our thoughts and prayers. At this hour, the full investigative efforts of the New York City Police Department are well underway and we will not rest until we identify and apprehend the shooter in this case. The women and men of the NYPD take enormous pride in the work that they do each day and each night to drive down crime and violence in our city. Right now we are asking the public for your help. If you have any information about this case, call crime stoppers at 800-577-TIPS. We have increased the reward in this case to $10,000. I want to be clear at this time, every indication is that this was a premeditated, pre planned targeted attack.
- [06:44]
Crystal Ball
That is really what all the details began to describe. We've seen ballistic experts and other people who have come out just to look at all the circumstances and they are genuinely shocking. I mean, this is one of the busiest areas in all of Midtown Manhattan. 6:45am Full on like pre work traffic and all of that. It Appears that he had either a suppressor or some sort of pistol which was using subsonic ammunition to try and to keep the sound as quiet as possible. From ballistics experts and others that I have read, they just show a couple of things that you can see in the details of the crime. Number one, the photo that's been released of the man so far shows him wearing a face mask and a hood pulled up all over it. Appears he had a change of clothes in the backpack, was able to immediately flee, get onto a bike. Apparently was waiting outside of the hotel some full five minutes before he emerged. This United Healthcare CEO knew he was staying there. He cased it out. It was clearly a very planned assassination, and that's what a lot of the details around this, and professionals as well. So just before we get your reaction, this is the Felipe Rodriguez, former NYPD detective, just talking about this thing. It's one of the most detailed assassinations that he's ever seen. Let's take a listen. Is it possible that police may have to close the bridges or how are they surveilling those areas at this point? You know what's going to end up the CCTV footage. But. But I'm telling you, the way he planned this out. I can see him having a change of clothes, everything hidden somewhere in Central park because he's aware of the cameras. That's why, you know, what, he did have that mask on. That's why he's trying to hide his identity, trying to make sure that we don't have any facial recognition in place. So, once again, this is one of the most detailed assassin assassinations I've ever seen. Yeah, I mean, it's truly shocking. Place downtown in the middle of New York City. It appears the wife says that. That Mr. Thompson had been receiving threats. Can we put that tear sheet, please, up on the screen? Over, quote, insurance woes. In the details that she said, she said something about denied coverage in terms of threats that he had been receiving. And we also have some stuff that broke just very late last night. NYPD detectives have discovered the words, quote, deny, defend, and depose, which were written on shell casings that were found at the scene. Deny, Defend and Depose is the tit of a book which is specifically about how insurance companies deny coverage to patients. So it does appear to be an act of retribution, or appears to be some sort of act of retribution against the United Health Care CEO. The book itself here, I can pull up the COVID in front of me. Yeah, it's delay, deny, defend. Why insurance companies don't pay claims and what you can do about it. Apparently it's a well known kind of moniker and a playbook that people have always talked about these insurance companies. So does appear to be an act of revenge. Crystal. And obviously that alludes also to kind of the reaction around this, which has certainly run the gamut. I guess we could say that.
- [09:53]
Savannah Guthrie
I don't think it has run the gamut. I think by and large, listen, let's all be adults here. Nobody here condones murder in broad daylight, targeted assassinations, et cetera.
- [10:05]
Crystal Ball
It's insane. Yeah.
- [10:06]
Savannah Guthrie
Yes, of course. But we also have at this show made it clear when a powerful person who did great evil in the world, we don't mince words when that person dies, is killed, et cetera. And this is a person who caused great harm, death, bankruptcy, debt and injury to probably millions of Americans. And so there was a lot of like, oh, the left is celebrating this viciously. Let me tell you, it wasn't just the left. We're going to show you later on if you go on Facebook, Facebook, not exactly like the bastion of the socialist revolution. And you look at the reaction there, if you look at the reactions on TikTok, I mean it was across the board. And so I think people should think like political class, executive class, billionaire class, need to think really deeply about how people feel about this disgusting, evil system that this person was a part of. So we can put, you know, up on the screen, you know, you're talking about the motive. Obviously yesterday it was all speculation because obviously there would be many people who would have a motive to do harm to this individual. And quite frankly, you know, again, and this is us being adults here, not condoning, but it's shocking that something like this hasn't happened before given the amount of pain, death and suffering that this industry overall causes. And this was a very powerful person in terms of that industry. We can put a 5 up on the screen in terms of claim denial rates. UnitedHealthcare was apparently the worst 32% of claims denied by this company. We also know that they are being sued right now because they've been using this AI that reportedly, according to the lawsuit rejects, has some 90% error rate to reject people's claims. And you know, I mean, you're hard pressed to find an American family that hasn't been negatively impacted by this disgusting, horrible system. So, you know, if people are shocked by the reaction that has sort of flowed out of the entire nation in response to this killing, I don't think that you should be shocked. Because most people have some sort of story, I mean, in my own family, like Kyle's dad very possibly would still be alive and have been at our wedding if it wasn't for our fucked up health insurance system. So, you know, there's a lot of anger and horror at what this looks like in this country.
- [12:40]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, the deny, defend, depose gets to some patients in terms of denial of coverage in the way that the insurance companies are able to work that system. Yeah, I mean as you just said, let's all be real and adults like murdering people and video vigilante or not even vigilante judge like murdering people in cold blood in the middle of New York City is bad unironically. What we have seen though is honestly I'm even surprised by it. And I've seen a lot of social analysts and others who have reacted to the killing itself in terms of the outcry from a lot of the public where there is some deep seated rage here. We can talk about that just analytically in terms of, look, we just had an election, right? Donald Trump won the White House. People are very angry.
- [13:22]
Savannah Guthrie
A lot of rage there too.
- [13:23]
Crystal Ball
The system. Yeah. And I was thinking, I was like actually thinking back to it. Alex Berenson made the analysis. He's like, I don't think anything like this has happened in the post World War II era. I think he's right in terms of a major targeted assassination of a CEO. But this really harkens back to some of the violence and anarchist violence in the period of like 1900.
- [13:45]
Savannah Guthrie
Like the Gilded Age.
- [13:45]
Crystal Ball
1937. Yeah, it's like post gilded. More like the latter. A age of the Gilded Age. A lot of the violence around labor and the relationship between the major company and the citizen. But also just literal anarchists and others theory of we have to strike back through genuine violence against people who are like this. We saw some of that actually like you said on the comments reacting to this. We can go ahead and put a 10 guys on the screen and this was put out, for example, some of the top comments people are like, I'm sorry, prior authorization. Authorization is required for thoughts and prayers. Sending prior authorization denied claims collections and prayers to the family. Was his trip to the ER really emergent. And it's crazy what my first thought was and that I look at the comments and realize that I am not alone in my thoughts. So clearly there's a lot of people who are out there who are very, very upset with the healthcare system. You know, even bringing it back to just the crime. I Saw some analysis where they're like, this is an insane crime because there are 20 million people who could be potential suspects. That's right. In carrying this. And if you look at some of the. If you look at. Currently, the fact is that when you murder someone in New York City, actually pretty much you can murder someone anywhere. It's not all that difficult to narrow down the range of suspects. And especially New York is one of the most surveilled countries in the world. I mean, in terms of not only police officers. This is midtown Manhattan. Anybody who's been there, there are police everywhere across midtown Manhattan. You also have cameras blanketing the entire place. That surveillance footage is just like Private One in terms of what the NYPD has access to. And the NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau and all of that. That entire city is like, basically wired with cameras. So the fact is, while they have released a photo of the suspect, they are probably able to track some of his movements and others. For now, he has not been apprehended. Well, not a police, which is shocking.
- [15:49]
Savannah Guthrie
They don't even have a person of interest.
- [15:50]
Crystal Ball
They don't have a name, a person of interest that they have.
- [15:52]
Savannah Guthrie
They haven't anything.
- [15:54]
Crystal Ball
They released nothing.
- [15:55]
Savannah Guthrie
The photos they put out, I mean, you can't see anything.
- [15:58]
Crystal Ball
You basically can see. You can see his eye color. Yeah. And his nose. Like, that's. That's about it. And it's like. I mean, he's a white male. That's basically all. That's all, you know, that's all we know. It's really crazy. There was a. Actually analyst who was able to determine that which city bike was actually taken. Can we put a six, please, on the screen? This is an. This looks like there was an analysis, and it says, I'm fairly confident here that United Healthcare assassin was escaped on an electric Citi bike. It remains unclear right now because NYPD told Lyft, which operates Citi Bike, that their bikes don't appear to have been used in the shooting. So it's a little bit up in the air right now as to how exactly he was able to get away, because there was some, at least initially, there appeared like he was using some sort of electric bicycle to get away from the scene. But it's a little bit confusing in terms of whether this was correct or not.
- [16:54]
Savannah Guthrie
Well, it's also like, I mean, if you're planning to do a targeted assassination, you probably have your bike already out of the dock. You know, brought it from another part of the city or whatever. So I don't know if this is really relevant or not, but it does illustrate the point that you were saying, Sagar, that like, there's cameras on every corner, there's police everywhere in especially in Midtown. Like, just so you guys understand if you aren't, you know, New York City, people like, this is very close to town. Times Square, it is the tourist hub. Like I'm sure many people have stayed in that Hilton that, I mean, I know it very well. I used to live very close to there that is really well known and completely centrally located and there's all kinds of police and surveillance and whatever around. And so for him to have been able to do this, you know, it was, yeah, it was kind of early in the morning, but in basically broad daylight and have the skill in the wherewithal to get away and still the police appear to have very little to go on is quite, quite astonishing.
- [17:55]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [18:25]
Hoda Kotb
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- [19:25]
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- [20:30]
Savannah Guthrie
To get back to some of the conversation about the reaction you had that TikTok reaction, I honestly was probably most shocked by if we put a 12 up on the screen. And of course Ken Klippenstein going hard in the paint and stirring in the pot as he often does. But he tweeted out, people loathe our healthcare system. The pearl clutches should ask themselves why. What you're looking at here is the post from UnitedHealth Group, the company that he was the CEO of, on Facebook. Again, not exactly bastion of the socialist revolution. It's a lot of like MAGA grandmas on Facebook, frankly. And this was early on. The bulk of the reaction was the laughing emoji. And it had 5,500 people who had done that. The last I saw was from like eight hours ago. It was like 18,000 people who had posted the laughing emoji. So you know, I know there's like a lot of especially mainstream liberal journalists and politicians. I saw Dean Phillips, I saw Richie Torres, I saw some others who were kind of like, you know, tut tutting this reaction. And okay, fair enough, but, but you all are the people in a position of power to change this truly vile, destructive, damaging, deadly system. And what have you done? Other than many of you being complicit in blocking and quashing the movement that was pushing to totally overturn the system and make sure everybody has healthcare access like every other developed nation in the entire world. I was just looking up the stats just to check my memory. 40% of all bankruptcies are because of medical debt. 40%. You know what bankruptcy does? I mean that is so devastating. Like putting the denial of care and the sickness and the avoidable death to the side. Just that kind of crushing debt destroys people's lives, pushes them to suicide. So, you know, this is a horrible evil. And there's something too, about. There is something about the sort of banality of evil or the fact that this is a system that we've sort of accepted and the harm of it is kind of depersonalized that makes politicians feel like it's unacceptable to pin that blame on this one person. But again, this is someone who was a powerful individual in an industry that has caused unbelievable damage to American lives, health, wellbeing, et cetera. And so Democrats have effectively. But remember, in 2016, Trump ran a low. I'm going to give everybody healthcare. And then he tries to repeal the Affordable Care Act. That doesn't work. He has his own healthcare plan, has like a 10% approval rating or whatever. He just gives up. Republicans gave up completely on healthcare. Now they're trying to pretend like they care about legalizing raw milk or getting the toxins out of the food process, which seems unlikely that they're gonna accomplish that. But they don't really have anything to say about healthcare. The Democrats have collapsed from. They don't even talk about, like a public option anymore. I mean, Joe Biden ran on a public option, and as soon as the primary was over, that gets dropped. He doesn't talk about it at all anymore, never gets brought up during his tenure. And I think partly because of this whole, like, popular theory, they're like, well, if we lower the prescription drug prices on a few drugs for seniors only too, by the way, you can just run on that and that'll be enough. And I think very clearly from this reaction, that is not enough. And so not to turn everything into a frigging political point, but there is a political point to be made here, which is Democrats look at this energy that's out there to upend the system, to have some sort of something that approaches a more just and human first versus profit first healthcare system that is all out there for the taking. So as you wander in the wilderness and wonder what you can do to get back into political power, maybe try actually challenging powerful interests and trying to improve people's lives, maybe try to right the injustices in a disgusting and vile healthcare system. Just a thought there for you as you move forward.
- [24:38]
Crystal Ball
It is, I think it has now passed into the realm of just even interest in the crime, which, by the way, the crime itself is insane.
- [24:44]
Savannah Guthrie
Right.
- [24:44]
Crystal Ball
Is now into like a sociological. I've seen a lot of analysts and others Just be like, hey, look, like, you know, nobody's condoning this, but you gotta go out and take a look at some of the response and just say like, wow, this is pretty crazy. It can tell you a little bit about something.
- [24:56]
Savannah Guthrie
Yeah. And this isn't just like the dirtbag left. This isn't just like the Chapo guys.
- [25:00]
Crystal Ball
I will say there is a lot of like, really annoying. Just. Yeah, there's a lot of cosplay about their. It's like, okay, guys, you know, like, let's keep it down a little bit.
- [25:08]
Savannah Guthrie
Them shitposts, soccer.
- [25:10]
Crystal Ball
Okay, look, you should post what you want, but then people should rightfully just be like, it's really interesting, right? In terms of what selective application of what good violence is or not. Whatever. We can get into that like a little bit later. And then, by the way, how did it all work out? Whenever you were all riot posting during blm, the country was really with you, wasn't they? The point is that clearly, sociologically, the response has been devastating, I would think for the healthcare industry, for the public itself, and even for trying to solve the crime. That will be one where it will, like, I mean, just imagine if they are able to apprehend this person. You could imagine some sort of like trial by trial of the century type, you know, stuff in terms of him. You know, whoever this perpetrator is, let's say he had a relative or he himself was affected by the healthcare system trying to put them on trial. I mean, it could become like a real. If that does happen and if they don't catch him, that's even more insane that somebody was able to get away with this. So we're some 24 hours now post the shooting. NYPD basically has gotten nothing from what we're. As far as we know, the only clue they have right now is that, you know, the carvings that were put on the bullet casing. So we'll keep everybody updated. But certainly, you know, even when. Even when they do catch somebody as well, like, there's going to be a lot.
- [26:29]
Savannah Guthrie
What's the story on this case? What led. What led to this to take this action?
- [26:34]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, this person put a ton of planning and time and know how into executing this. Taking the time to literally etch things on a bullet. That's some stuff out of like peaky blindness for people who watch the show to send them out about it.
- [26:47]
Hoda Kotb
Exactly.
- [26:48]
Crystal Ball
It's like literal joker stuff. That's what this is.
- [26:51]
Savannah Guthrie
That's exactly what this is.
- [26:53]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [27:24]
Hoda Kotb
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- [28:24]
Unknown
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- [29:28]
Savannah Guthrie
All right, let's move on to the latest from Trump, we had actually a pretty positive pick for his cabinet. I'm going to get to some not so positive ones, but let's start with the good news here. Put this up on the screen. He's nominated Gail Slater as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice. This is a position currently held by Jonathan Cantor, who's been a real warrior ally of Lina Khan in terms of the new antitrust movement. He goes on to say Big Tech has run wild for years, stifling competition, our most innovative sector, and as we all know, using its market power to crack down on the rights of so many Americans as well as those of Little Tech. I was proud to fight these abuses in my first term and under our Department of Justice's antitrust team will continue that work under Gail's leadership. Gail previously served at the FTC in my National Economic Council, most recently advising J.D. vance. So this is like a J.D. vance ally, it appears in his Senate office. Gail's also worked in the private sector and media at Fox, in the tech sector at Roku. And her new role, Gail, will help ensure our competition laws are enforced both vigorously and fairly, with clear rules that facilitate rather than stifle the ingenuity of our greatest companies. Congrats, Gail. Together we will make America competitive again. Is this someone that you had familiarity with, previously sacrificed? I personally did Gail.
- [30:42]
Crystal Ball
I know a lot of people who do know her. They speak very, very highly of her. She's kind of been in big conservative antitrust movement. Not a surprise, by the way, that hated desperately by a lot of the Heritage foundation types and others, but has been on the front lines, specifically on Google, Facebook and others. You also should take a look at the text there, which is very important of what Donald Trump actually said in his release and he was specifically talking here about, quote, we will know Big Tech. Big Tech is run wide and using its power, market power to crack down on the rights of many Americans as well of those of Little Tech. So Little Tech has become an acronym, kind of pushed forward by Y Combinator and a few others, which is about the emergence of the startup ecosystem and its inability to compete fairly on grounds. The reason Little Tech is actually so important. I did a monologue about this previously with respect to AI, is that AI itself naturally lends itself to people with a shit ton of money, people like Amazon, Facebook and others, because the server cost is so high. The problem with that is that it means that whatever the next innovation is, is likely to be built in house by These already massive giants. So what you want is actually to create an open source ecosystem which allows the emergence of new players and is not allowed to be totally captured. That is something that little tech has really become an important war in. And actually gets to Marc Andreessen, who we talked about previously. He's been a big lil tech, quote unquote fighter, but there are a lot of other individuals out there. Gary Tan, who I recommend people follow. He's the head of Y Combinator currently. Luther Low, who currently works for Y Combinator. He previously worked at Yelp. That guy is an absolute antitrust warrior. People should go and follow him on Twitter. There are a lot of people here in D.C. and others who've been involved in this movement. And I would say this is a major victory for them. And it is interesting. It's an ideological fight. It also will show you what the Titanic showdown of the century is, because there's a reason that Mark Zuckerberg has his ass down in Mar a Lago. And that Jeff Bezos yesterday at the New York Times Times deal book conference was like, trump is great. He's really learned about how to quash regulation.
- [32:46]
Savannah Guthrie
Oh, I was wondering what he was gonna say.
- [32:48]
Crystal Ball
These people, they know that this is probably the single largest existential threat to their business. Like, if you really believe that AI is the future, which all of them do, and all of them have poured billions of dollars of their profits into, they don't have to do that. If they didn't think it would be commercially viable, then your inability to capture that future market would both kill your current investment and possibly could put you out of business in the future or at the very least, have to compete. God forbid that they would have to do that. So you have a lot of stuff going on right now. There's a lot of ideas about splitting Google Search away from Google Ads or from the rest of the Alphabet company, Amazon, which Bezos of course used to helm. The idea is you would split AWS away from their retail business. There's a lot of unfair competition that happens in this sector. So anyway, I think it's. I think it will be. It could be one of the most positive developments. And the fact that he picked her is a very, very good sign.
- [33:47]
Savannah Guthrie
I actually think this is a more important development than while you were out. We covered the labor secretary who had, like, voted for the pro act. But then if you look at the rest of her record, she only has a 10% record of voting with the AFL CIO. So, like, backing the pro act was an attempt to win in a swing district. And also so the Labor Secretary is in a lot of ways less powerful than whoever you put in at the nlrb. So that one's still very like, I'm not sure how much we're getting out of this one. This one to me is more significant. You know, I take my cues on antitrust from Matt Stoller, cuz he just knows way more about it than I'll ever dream of. He's probably worked with Gail and he clearly knows who she is, probably has worked directly with her. And it's funny because he had just tweeted like, the Trump administration has studiously avoided putting any economic populace into their administration. And then within minutes they made this pick. So we shouldn't overstate it because there's still very few people you would consider to be like J.D. vance, allies who've been put into the administration. And those tensions you're talking about, I mean, that's not just outside of the Trump world. The Zuckerbergs and the Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook, or Tim Apple as Trump likes to call him, who called Trump and are trying to get in good with him and trying to reassure him and make sure that their companies don't end up being targeted. But you know, obviously he has, and we're about to get to. He has a lot of billionaire, more libertarian minded people who are in his administration or who are influential with his administration who are not interested in going in this particular direction. So, you know, those typical like chamber of commerce business interests still have a lot of sway in the Republican Party in particular and in Washington in general. So this will be quite a battle to see how this all ultimately turns out. And let's get to the next one. Speaking of, you know, some of the ideological indications of this administration, this is zero surprise, but still worth taking note of. So the current SEC commissioner is a guy named Gary Gensler, who, among other things, has believed that cryptocurrencies should be regulated by the sec. And the sec, of the various financial regulatory agencies, is the most aggressive in terms of enforcement. That created all kinds of, you know, conflicts and recriminations. There was a whole fight about, okay, which agency should really be regulating or not really regulating the crypto industry. And to be honest with you, probably whether it was Kamala or Trump, because the crypto industry has spent a lot of money in our electoral system on both sides of the aisle, you were going to get an ESER who was going to be, you know, much more crypto friendly. And that is exactly What Trump has picked here, picked Paul Atkins to run the sec. They describe him as a pro business conservative. He'd previously been an SEC commissioner under George W. Bush. And what he is known for is he's on the advisory board of securitized digital asset firm that promotes the use of digital tokens. He's considered to be very friendly to the crypto industry. Will probably push the regulation of this over to one of the other bodies that will do a lot less in terms of enforcement. And then one of the other big things they'll have to decide right away that's pointed out in this article is the SEC had filed charges against Coinbase, which is obviously a massive crypto exchange. They charged the company with violating securities law. We had covered this here by failing to register as a broker, allowing unregistered crypto assets to be sold on its platform. So that will be one of the first questions and it's one of the current SEC commissioner Gary Gensler signature cases. Are they going to continue that high profile enforcement action? I would say it is very unlikely.
- [37:26]
Crystal Ball
Oh no. I mean, listen for anybody who's paying attention. Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss and who else? All of the other. The entire crypto industry. The bitcoin conference, they did not give $1 million to Trump for free. Donald Trump did not change his mind on crypto for free. Yeah, I actually remember when he was president because I freaked out about it whenever he tweeted against bitcoin. Bitcoin itself, hilariously, is actually a very counter to Donald Trump. Donald Trump is obsessed with the strong dollar. That's why he loves tariffs and that's why he wants to impose tariffs on the brics countries who are pursuing an alternative currency. But the truth is that the immense amount of wealth in Bitcoin is now basically undeniable. As of this morning, Bitcoin officially crossed the 100,000 threshold. Something I never dreamed in a million years that I would actually get to see this day. I was shitposting memes about bitcoin going to the moon when it was at $9,000. Just for context. I remember that I was talking to you. Should have listened. Should have listened. Bought my first bitcoin, I think in 2015, just for context. And I thought I was late. I was like, there's no way and it's all going to go to zero. So worked out. But the point is that with bitcoin itself, it has now become, look, I mean this is a multi gajillion dollar industry because we're not even talking about bitcoin. We're talking about platforms like Gemini, which are owned by the Winklevi. Then you've got the Coinbase itself with multibillion dollar company. I mean, this is clearly here to say there's just no getting around it. You've got Bitcoin ETFs now that have happened. What the SEC did just. This is nerdy. So stick with me is that they decided crypto should be regulated as a security and that every transaction on the blockchain would have to comply with securities laws. There's a specific test that the Supreme Court has determined, or maybe some other court, I forget, the financial guys can explain it to me. But effectively, there's like a type of regulation which goes into play legally that requires an immense amount of compliance if you want to be able to transact like that under the current SEC regime. It has been the basically B of the crypto industry since that went into place in 2022 under Gary Gensler, to have that guidance reversed. And it was one of the main reasons that a lot of these tech people decided to back Donald Trump. So again, they're gonna get what they paid for.
- [39:51]
Savannah Guthrie
That's right.
- [39:51]
Crystal Ball
And, you know, and they were probably gonna get some of it under Comlin.
- [39:54]
Savannah Guthrie
They were. I mean, you remember Mark Cuban was floating himself for SEC chat.
- [39:59]
Crystal Ball
That's why. Yeah, exactly.
- [40:00]
Savannah Guthrie
And, you know, it was clear, like there was a war on Gary Gensler, and that war had already been won before this election. And one of the seminal moments was because it's crazy, because you have the whole Sam Bankman fried thing, right? This massive fraud is exposed. And how this was just like a house of cards and a total Ponzi scheme, and he goes to prison. And, you know, it's. He's giving all kinds of money publicly to Democrats and more secretly to Republicans. And so you would have thought that that would have dealt a blow to their influence in D.C. but not at all. On the contrary, you know, they sort of got smart from there. They lobby and organize super PACs just like every other major interest. In fact, crypto was one of, if not the largest contributor leader to the 2024 elections by industry in this entire, you know, in this entire election. But one of the seminal moments in this fight was Katie Porter, who had been, you know, adversarial to them. And it's not like they're like, oh, we have to get rid of Bitcoin. It's like we're going to enforce, you know, securities regulations. As Sagar was explaining using the sec. And so they're more adversarial, Elizabeth Warren being part of that wing as well. So in any case, they dropped millions of dollars in Katie Porter's race and they were able to defeat her. And that really sent a chill across any legislator who had been more adversarial to crypto. And since then, they've all just been folding like a deck of cards on both sides of the aisle. So, yeah, even before Trump made was able to win, they had already basically locked in a more friendly regime, whether it was Kamala or whether it was Trump. And of course, we can't force forget Trump himself has his own stupid cryptocurrency at this point as well. And there's a lot that's disturbing about that in terms of the possibility for corruption. Last time in the Trump administration, the way for people to get in good with Trump was to stay at his hotel and very demonstrably and performatively stay at his hotel and secure a large block of rooms and spend lots and lots of money. Now they can just buy a bunch of his crypto coin. Crypto coin. What is it? Is it called? Trump coin? Whatever it's called. Anyway, they can do that. And there's already a lot of indication that that's already happening, by the way. So, yeah, he's all in with them.
- [42:18]
Crystal Ball
Crystal is a hock to a coin.
- [42:20]
Savannah Guthrie
Oh my God.
- [42:21]
Crystal Ball
She apparently was pumping.
- [42:23]
Savannah Guthrie
I don't know.
- [42:24]
Crystal Ball
Look, I am pro.
- [42:25]
Savannah Guthrie
Look, you kind of have to admire this lady for the way she's capitalized on her tennis.
- [42:29]
Crystal Ball
I tweeted about this morning. I've been involved in the sports gambling fight and by the way, I will do a very long about why sports gambling online is very bad. But honestly, I am just resigned at this point. Americans are obsessed with pissing their money away. I just don't know what to do at this point. They love weed, they are addicted to weed. They wanna send it all to onlyfans addicts whenever they eventually win. Onlyfans models when they win, they just want to gamble and to buy meme shitcoins. It's like I don't know what to do at a certain point. It's like, you know, should we stop people from doing what they want at a certain point? I just don't know.
- [43:03]
Savannah Guthrie
But you want to with gambling, right?
- [43:05]
Crystal Ball
No, but that's what I'm, I'm like, what's the point of the fight at this? You know, the token for hock to a hit. $500 million. That's how much People pumped into the.
- [43:13]
Savannah Guthrie
I'm not for.
- [43:14]
Crystal Ball
She didn't force anybody.
- [43:16]
Savannah Guthrie
No, I'm not for, like. But there have been a lot of, like, out and out scam.
- [43:20]
Crystal Ball
I agree, but they want.
- [43:22]
Savannah Guthrie
People want to be scammed. I don't think people want to be scammed.
- [43:25]
Crystal Ball
I think they do.
- [43:25]
Savannah Guthrie
I mean, serious. The promise of crypto was always like, you know, that. What is it? Fortune favors the brave.
- [43:33]
Crystal Ball
Oh, that's crypto.com. that's not to be confused.
- [43:36]
Savannah Guthrie
I know, but I'm just saying that's like the ethos. You have a bunch of people who, you know, we have this society where it's impossible to buy a fucking house. It's impossible to afford healthcare and not, like, you know, die for one of coverage, et cetera. It's impossible to afford an education. All these things take so many more years. Wages don't keep up with inflation. And so this is like, sold as a. To be one of the players, like, to have a shot. It's almost like a lotto ticket, right?
- [44:02]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. Look, I mean, that's what it feels.
- [44:04]
Savannah Guthrie
It is. It is gambling. I mean, it's gambling. It's not any different really, than the sports betting thing. It taps into that same sense of, like, this at least gives me a chance of being able to make it and have the life that I envision for myself and my family. And I think anytime you're tapping into that, you know, it's. I'm not saying I'm, you know, more probably more libertarian on these things than you are Saga. I'm gonna say you should be banned, but it should be regulated. It should definitely be regulated. And obviously we've seen in our lifetimes how when a massive speculatory bubble emerges, how it can be absolutely devastating, not only for the people who are directly implicated, but for the economy.
- [44:39]
Crystal Ball
That's my point, and that's why I get annoyed, is everyone's like, let me gamble on my phone. And it's like, okay, fine, but then don't come crying to me whenever we have to send police officers to your house because you're piss drunk and you're beating up your wife. And by the way, that's been happening tremendously all across the entire nation. Or whenever you. You drink yourself near to death and we have to send EMTs and we have to pay for your healthcare bills, or. I mean, it can go on forever in terms of the social services that all of this stuff is going to cost, but people are addicted to it. I just, honestly, I feel very black pill Today just with the response on online gambling with this hoctua thing and it's like, how many rug poles do we go through? I know through 2020. How many? And people are still doing it? I don't know. Should we save people from themselves at this point? What's the point? They're addicted. It's like whatever. I'm sure someone will clip this out.
- [45:29]
Savannah Guthrie
I think we should protect people from scam artists.
- [45:30]
Crystal Ball
I agree with you, but they don't want to. They don't want it. Of course they don't.
- [45:34]
Savannah Guthrie
Nobody wants to be scammed. No one wants to be scammed. They're being sold live.
- [45:39]
Crystal Ball
Every time you bet a parlay bet on sports gambling, you're getting scammed. Guess what? The number one most profitable and most bet thing on the sports gambling parlay bet. What are we supposed to do? At a certain point? They like it. They think it's fun. It probably is whenever you put a little money into Hawk Tour or whatever. Also to be fair, when I bought bitcoin it was specifically because of the stateless promise. I never thought it would become some ETF like gold speculative asset. I bought into the OG vision around the idea of getting around the state, people in Argentina using it to buy houses.
- [46:08]
Savannah Guthrie
And at this point, I mean that's just that. I mean that is a small percentage.
- [46:13]
Crystal Ball
Of us that keeps being honest.
- [46:16]
Savannah Guthrie
It's just speculative, like, you know. Yeah, it's just, it's just gambling.
- [46:20]
Crystal Ball
I think the promise of it is that now actually now it is so much money that you actually could start to use it. I mean, at this point, I mean a sizable portion of the world's billionaires are now bitcoin billionaires. None of us will ever know who they are. But I mean once you Once Bitcoin crossed 100,000, which it did in the last several hours, that's genuinely like a shocking moment for the world economy. If it ever passes 500,000 or a million, that's when you're. I think the majority of the world's billionaires would be bitcoin billionaires. So I don't know, maybe it will change something. I still believe in some of that.
- [46:51]
Savannah Guthrie
To be honest with you, from the old days. I actually do too. Maybe from a somewhat different, not that different though perspective from you of like, you know, using bitcoin to evade US sanctions regime and things like that.
- [47:02]
Crystal Ball
Not even that, but like banks, like.
- [47:04]
Savannah Guthrie
That part I support, you know.
- [47:06]
Crystal Ball
Oh yeah, but remember the Canadian truckers thing? And like that was a real wake up call whenever they were still able to go down on the exchanges and be able to seize their crypto. There's still a long way to go. The point is, is that guys, now we actually, there's a ton of money out there. If you bought Bitcoin early, you're sitting on some sizable profits. You could actually invest in some of this alternative ecosystem like you were talking about with sanctions. But I mean, there's a million use cases which unironically could be good and I would like to see some of that. But unfortunately a lot of it has evolved into FTX hock to a meme. What was the other one? Safemoon. I think that was another favorite one that people were talking about. So anyways, look, I don't know. This is a long. This is a more psychological thing, but I'm just, I am stunned and amazed at people's want and addiction to want to piss their money away. I don't get it.
- [47:57]
Savannah Guthrie
I do, I do get it. It's because, I mean, it does come out of this like at a certain point. It's like there's a few, I mean, there's a few things. There's like I was saying this sense like I have no other shot. Like, this is my shot. You know, it's the people that you see lined up at the gas station buying the lotto tickets, like, yeah, well, you know, this is my shot. It's that same energy. And then there's a lot of sophisticated scammers out of there is definitely part of it. And yeah, I think that we have a responsibility as society to at the very least try to regulate and protect people from the most overt scams and try to make them whole when they are scammed rather than just being like, oh, well, you're an idiot and you shouldn't have gotten scammed because sometimes these things can be very sophisticated. They can be targeted at any number of vulnerable groups who can be manipulated into thinking that this is their big shot.
- [48:49]
Crystal Ball
But even when it's regulated like lotto, they have to tell you the odds, right? How many people, when I go to 711 to go buy a Big Gulp Diet Coke, by the way, how many people are right next to me buying these scratch off lotto tickets? They know the odds and they still play it. I just don't. If you ever come into Union Station here in dc, they have a DC lotto store, the line is out the door for people who are purchasing these things. I don't know, man.
- [49:12]
Savannah Guthrie
At least those usually go to fund like education in the State or whatever, this is just going to make rich people richer.
- [49:18]
Crystal Ball
But think about how disgusting that is then. Like here in a city of Washington, if you. That line out the door, half the guys are homeless, okay? I mean, they're the ones who are paying for it. So people can go to school.
- [49:28]
Savannah Guthrie
What's your. No, I agree with that. I mean, it is a tax on the poor. And that's why I think there should be a lot of protections in. But I mean, do you have the same. Like, do you think sports gambling should be banned?
- [49:41]
Crystal Ball
No, I think. I don't think sports gambling online should be legal, period.
- [49:43]
Savannah Guthrie
You don't think it's. You don't think it should be legal?
- [49:46]
Crystal Ball
No. Sports gambling online. So, like, the difference is that look for vice. I have come to the terms people are going to do it. There's nothing you can get around. You should have to go to a casino. A lot of the. In the UK and elsewhere, they have like physical shops in people's neighborhoods where you have to go to places your bet. And one of the reasons why is that online, first of all, the actual products that are sold to people online are the most degenerate, like, horrible financial products that exist.
- [50:13]
Savannah Guthrie
But. So you are in favor of some level of protection for people from scams?
- [50:17]
Crystal Ball
Crystal. But they don't want it. If you put that on the ballot, it would go down by 80%. People love gambling on their phone.
- [50:23]
Savannah Guthrie
I mean, but so I mean, I'm just trying to see what if the position is consistent here. So when it comes to sports gambling, you want to have some level of protection. People can't do it on their phone.
- [50:31]
Crystal Ball
All advice I want when it comes.
- [50:33]
Savannah Guthrie
To, like, crypto gambling, which I think is the same.
- [50:36]
Crystal Ball
I'm pro regulation on a lot of this stuff. My point is just that I feel at a complete resignation of the fact is that every single time this comes to a test of the vox populi, people don't want more regulation. They want to be able to do whatever they want.
- [50:52]
Savannah Guthrie
I don't know about that. Zagreb. I don't know about that. Because I don't think people want to just be fed to the wolves. I think they want their shot. I think, yes, they want to be able to have that dream. And then it also gets a deeper, like, you know, social conversation similar to the one we were having before, about how much of our social contract here is centered around, like, consumption and what that means and also how difficult it is here to be able to just like, achieve a basic, you know, stability in like things like healthcare. And that contributes to the sense of desperation that leads you to take what would seemingly be irrational.
- [51:27]
Crystal Ball
Maybe. Yeah, you're certainly right. This is a much deeper thing. I will do my magnum opus. I'm gonna ride it. It's gonna be, like, 30, 40 minutes long at this point. I've been thinking about it a lot, but, you know, just to give you an example. Sorry. To monopolize this, I went on the Matt and Shane podcast, right. And this is the ultimate bro podcast. And I used it intentionally as a platform to speak against the dangers of weed and of gambling. I have never received more hate in my life.
- [51:53]
Savannah Guthrie
Yeah, but that's partly the audience you're talking about.
- [51:54]
Crystal Ball
But that's why I did it. I did it with that purpose, is I wanted to go into the lion's den.
- [51:59]
Savannah Guthrie
Yeah.
- [51:59]
Crystal Ball
And just be like, look, you're never gonna hear this from anybody else, at least in the circles that you people say. Just, oh, this is the fun police. Buzz Killington and all of that. It's like, okay. It's like if your version of fun is coming home from work from an underpaid job, pissing your money away on alcohol, and then getting on your phone to watch the game, and then throwing even more of your money away on parlay, like, what can I do for you? At a certain. And then getting mad by telling you you are losing money, you are wasting it away, you are taking away your chances to build a better life. I don't know. At a certain point, I don't know what to do. The response I got to that, it was shocking. It was hilarious. I mean, it is funny. I'll be fine. You keep doing what you want to do, but it's one of those where, like, I don't know what. At a certain point, how can you help people who actively want to participate in their own destruction?
- [52:50]
Savannah Guthrie
It's so, like. I'm mean, these companies, they spend so much money researching, like, how to tap into these deep human inclinations.
- [53:00]
Crystal Ball
I know.
- [53:00]
Savannah Guthrie
And manipulate you. I mean, it's very similar with, like, you know, the way that everything's gamified and algorithmically generated on the phone and how impossible it feels as a parent to be able to, like, pull your kids away from the constant. It's the same, like, systems of dopamine that are just being manipulated by these companies. So I don't know. I have Eva. Like, I don't really get it myself. Gambling isn't something that, like, has a pull for me, but I know enough people who, for Whom it. It really does have that pull. And I have a lot of empathy for that.
- [53:32]
Crystal Ball
I'm open about it. I like gambling. I like to go to a casino and gamble. I have set limits and all these other things around. But you know what's so important about it? You have to go physically. You have to be around, by the way, other real degenerates. When you see people who haven't showered in three days, seeing that is really important because you're like, oh my God, I don't want to end up like this person. But when you're on your phone, you're the sucker. That's the thing they don't tell you. You have no idea how many other suckers that are out there on top of you. Just talked about the algorithm. It's very true. They use it specifically. Imagine Facebook add ification applied to gambling. I mean, the things that the DraftKings and FanDuel get away with. They dream in Las Vegas of being able to get away with the quote unquote hold of what they do. Except it happens every day on the couch. I mean, I've talked about this before. New Jersey bettors lost 200 million in a single month betting online casino games on their phone. Total, they lost about 500 million in the month of September. Just gambling. New Jersey is not a big state that is. It's like a giant suck hole, like, of wealth, predominantly from the least, you know, what is it from the least affluent part of society? Like, I don't know. You know, at a certain point it just. We could talk about this more in a little bit.
- [54:51]
Savannah Guthrie
Yeah. Well, I just, I just would say I actually think the idea of you have to go to the casino, I don't think that's a bad idea. I'm kind of open. I'm like a little ambivalent because I got to think about it a little bit more, but I'm kind of open to that. I just, you know, I also, I feel a similar way about, like, I don't feel any different about crypto betting and gambling than I do about online sports betting. I think it taps into the exact same thing, which is why I think it was important what Gary Gensler was doing just to bring it back to, well, where we started this conversation.
- [55:19]
Crystal Ball
So let's see.
- [55:20]
Savannah Guthrie
Yeah, indeed. Works out we're going to save the Trump billionaire cabinet conversation for. We'll hold that for one for next. Maybe I'll do a monologue about it. But in any case, case, there's a lot of billionaires in Trump's cabinet, and that's something that we should be thinking about and what their influence is going to be. Elon Musk being the most important example there since he's literally the richest man on earth.
- [55:42]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [56:12]
Hoda Kotb
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- [58:17]
Savannah Guthrie
Let'S go ahead and move over to the Democratic side of the equation though here with Rahm Emanuel, who you know, extremely important in the Obama era, but really with this guy, you can go back to any number of Democratic crimes that were committed against this country, including nafta, was important adviser under Bill Clinton as well. And you can find Rahm Emanuel there. There's all kinds of stories about him during the Obama administration. Apparently he did not want Obama to try to reform healthcare at all. He pushed against that. He famously, he went out and recruited all these quote unquote moderates, neoliberals who were very pro corporate. That was his whole orientation when he was effectively running the party. And so now he's actually ambassador to Japan is where the Biden administration stuck him after being mayor of Chicago, very controversial tenure as mayor of Chicago. And now he has come back out of the wilderness, so to speak. David Axelrod floated him for DNC chair. He's already sort of ruled out. He doesn't want that particular position. But he's clearly trying to position himself as an important voice in the party going forward and probably for some new elected position. So he went on CNN and he made some of the most extraordinary comments given his own complicity in the rage that this country justifiably feels about both the lack of accountability on the Iraq war and the lack of accountability with regard to the financial collapse. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
- [59:53]
Crystal Ball
An Iraq war which American people were deceived, spent trillions of dollars, people, thousands of soldiers lost their lives, people maimed for life, people were deceived and lied into a war and not one person responsible for that deception ever was held accountable. Six years later, the financial industry lies to the American people. People lose their homes, their livelihood and the bankers are screaming for bonuses. Nobody held accountable.
- [60:21]
Savannah Guthrie
He's right. But Rahm, who was going to hold them accountable? You were chief of staff to Barack Obama when the decision to not hold these people accountable, when those all occurred, whether it was the Iraq war or whether it was the scamming, the mass scamming, we were just talking about this on Wall street of ordinary people that led to 10 million homes owners being kicked out of their homes in a near global economic collapse and catastrophe, which we are still recovering from, by the way, and which has created the entire political era that we live in right now. So for him to go on CNN Soccer and just like, you know, be able to correctly identify the problem and absolve himself of any blame or complicity in this is really quite extraordinary. And it's also very clear what he's doing because you have to say some of these things at this point. It's just undeniable. Like you have to say some of.
- [61:16]
Crystal Ball
These things, but it's 15, 20 years too late. But.
- [61:18]
Savannah Guthrie
Well, yes, that. But also it's an attempt to rehab himself and his political project, the very people who made these disastrous and evil ultimately decisions at the time, to rehab them and pretend like they were not themselves the problem.
- [61:35]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, and David Sirota makes a good point. Let's put that one up on the screen from C about Rahm Emanuel saying, quote, it's the corruption, stupid. And you can see here former mayor rahm Emanuel spent $600,000 on send offs for himself weighing, quote, third term. Emanuel relies on campaign donors who get city hall benefits. Emanuel was the quintessential Wall Street Democrat. I actually really recommend people go and read some early histories of the Obama era because Rom is probably one of the most important people in that. And he embodied the Clintonian machine. He worked for Bill Clinton and for Hillary Clinton. He was a bundler. He comes from a very powerful family. His brother Ari Emanuel is like the biggest super agent in Hollywood. He's like a billionaire head of wme, et cetera. But the point is.
- [62:25]
Savannah Guthrie
And his other brother is very involved in healthcare workers.
- [62:27]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, I was gonna say. So his other brother, what's his name? Zeke, I think.
- [62:30]
Savannah Guthrie
Yes, that's right.
- [62:30]
Crystal Ball
Zeke Emmanuel is, I think he was the head of CM or something like that. One of the most powerful people in American healthcare. These people in particular, Rahm, I mean, embodied the Terry McAuliffe ideal of like wheeling and dealing and raising big money. I once saw Big Terry in action at the Palm and I've never seen anybody in more at home in Washington.
- [62:53]
Savannah Guthrie
Let me tell you.
- [62:54]
Crystal Ball
Just glad handing.
- [62:55]
Savannah Guthrie
I've been in many rooms with Terry McAuliffe. He's a fundraising machine, loves to work a room.
- [63:00]
Crystal Ball
Let me tell you, he's a fundraising machine. He lived there. I asked. They're like, oh yeah, this guy, this is regular table here at the Palm here in Washington, which is like a. I don't even know. It's not even that great of a restaurant. It's fine. But anyway, that's the tradition that he comes from. And the background in the 92 campaign and he was built up by the Clintons. So Obama really picked him because he wanted a Wheeler dealer kind of Chicago connection as well to be there. And lo and behold, look at the decisions that were made both in advisory over healthcare, but actually even more importantly is about Bailey outs and about the general political direction of the Obama administration on Iraq as well. I mean, he was the chief of staff to Barack Obama when Obama decided the half assed maneuvers in Afghanistan, the surge and then the non surge. I mean just everything that happened under that administration.
- [63:48]
Savannah Guthrie
If you wanted to pinpoint, if you wanted to blame on one person why Obama goes from running on change and being a different sort of politician to just being a continuation of the Clinton era, like Rahm Emanuel would be a good person to situate that I would.
- [64:02]
Crystal Ball
Just blame Barack Obama.
- [64:03]
Savannah Guthrie
I mean, yes, of course, obviously, ultimately, but you know, this is the guy, he was the chief of staff, so he's involved in all of the staffing decisions, the, you know, direction the administration. Like he is at the scene of the crime on all of the bad decisions that were made in the Obama administration. So for him to come out and be like, you know what? People should have been held accountable. It's like, oh yeah, you think, where were you when people during the Obama administration were not being held accountable? Oh that, that's right. You were in one of the most powerful and influential positions in the entire United States government. I do want to say, in fairness to Ezra Klein, I read the transcript of the entire podcast that he did with Rahm Emanuel and he actually raises a good number of these points with Rahm. And Rahm totally tries to reinvent history for himself and position himself as like, well, I was there behind the scenes saying that we need some quote, Old Testament justice, that that's what we need in this moment. But he goes on to say, not even in the form of there's kind of a sleight of hand here because he says we need some Old Testament justice when it comes to reform. But you know, this was not someone who was for breaking up the big banks. And even in this rehab, he doesn't say that any of these bankers should have gone to prison. He's just saying like, oh, we should have had, we should have been more aggressive about how we messaged about reform, basically is his take here. So I don't know what he has planned. We can put this up on the screen. The Chicago sometimes say he's ruled out being DNC chair, but is far from done with politics. Do you think this man, I think he might have the arrogance to think he could run for president.
- [65:38]
Crystal Ball
Oh, definitely.
- [65:38]
Savannah Guthrie
Because the other logical thing would be governor of Illinois. J.B. pritzker is already in there and I think he can run for reelection again and I think is planning to. And Rahm has already said he'll be 100% behind JB Pritzker were he to run for governor again. But maybe that's what he has in mind, is that Governor C. Maybe JB Is thinking he's going to run for president. I don't know. But you definitely have not heard the last of Rahm Emanuel.
- [66:04]
Crystal Ball
He never gave up. By the way, it's funny, I just came from Japan. He pissed a lot of people off in Japan.
- [66:10]
Savannah Guthrie
Oh, really?
- [66:10]
Crystal Ball
As our ambassador? Yeah. He did some social meddling over there where it's complicated, but basically were they're debating gay marriage in Japan and Rahm Emanuel tried to insert himself and he actually tried to like pursue like a big media profile and actually caused like a major diplomatic incident in the country in general. From what I heard when I was in Tokyo, he's not one of the most well liked ambassadors to ever be in the country. It was actually weird that he decided to go over there at all, especially because maybe it was a decision by Biden to get him out of the country. Very, very possible.
- [66:41]
Savannah Guthrie
Yeah, well, we were all remembered. We were tracking closely at the beginning of the Biden administration, like, oh my God, are they going to bring Rahm Emanuel back? Because he was floated for a lot of like, actually influential position. I mean, not to like downplay ambassador in Japan. I'm sure that's important, blah, blah, blah. But it's not that influential in terms of unfortunately, actual policy setting. So we were all kind of relieved. We're like, all right, fine, send Rom to Japan. Let them deal with him.
- [67:02]
Crystal Ball
I guess it's a side thing, but it's really sad actually. Have you seen that show the Diplomat? I've only watched.
- [67:07]
Savannah Guthrie
No.
- [67:07]
Crystal Ball
Terrible in my, like, realistic. I don't know about the actual plot. I just couldn't get over the differences. But the biggest conceit of the show is the idea that the ambassador matters. And it's like, guys, ambassadors have not mattered since. People can pick up the phone and talk to each other. Like ever since that red line or what was it, the red phone between John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev that killed great ambassadorships. That's why billionaires love it because they get to go over there and just live in the official residence in Gallivant around the country for like four years. But that's an aside. So anyway, the Diplomat Fake show Completely.
- [67:39]
Savannah Guthrie
Fake news.
- [67:51]
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Crystal Ball
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Crystal Ball
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