← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
1/9/26: NEW ICE Shooting Video, 2 More SHOT in Portland, Trump TAKES L ON Venezuela Vote
02:07:03
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- [00:00]
Angie Hicks
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- [00:46]
Crystal Ball
Co founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair done well Kitchen sink install done well Deck upgrades done well Electrical Upgrade done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years. So we know the difference between done and done well. Hire high quality pros@angie.com this message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest.
- [01:27]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
With your guardrails in place with Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores automate allowance and keep.
- [01:33]
Crystal Ball
An eye on what your kids are spending with with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Get started risk free@greenlight.com iheart hey guys.
- [01:45]
Emily
Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:47]
Crystal Ball
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.
- [01:54]
Emily
This is the only place where you.
- [01:55]
Ryan Grim
Can find honest perspectives from the left.
- [01:57]
Emily
And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [02:00]
Crystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:11]
Emily
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com hello everybody.
- [02:17]
Crystal Ball
Good morning. Happy Friday. How's everybody feeling?
- [02:19]
Ryan Grim
Very good. How are you?
- [02:21]
Crystal Ball
Pretty good. We got a whole lot of stuff we want to get into this morning. We've got new info about the killing of that of Renee Goode in Minneapolis. We have new ice shootings in Portland. We don't have a lot of details. But already some of the government's narrative is kind of falling apart. So take a look at that one J.D. vance made new in my opinion, vile comments. So lots to dig into there. But there's other important stories, too. We just got jobs numbers out. We had a war powers resolution passed. We have a health care discharge petition that went through in the House. We've got protests in Iran. We've got Tony decouple just continuing to be the absolute worst over at cbs. And we have two candidates in the show. So I recorded earlier this week a great interview with Milat Kiros, who's running against an incumbent in Denver. It's one of the youngest and one of the most progressive districts in the country. And she actually has a very interesting backstory. She's a lawyer who was fired for her pro Palestine stance. So phenomenal candidate. Looking forward to sharing that interview with you. And also we've got Claire Valdez, who is running in the in a seat in New York City in the Commie Corridor, as it's called. So another very blue district. Going to be a crowded primary. But she has just secured the endorsement of the one and only Zoran Mamdani. So kind of significant there, along with Sean Faint, head of the uaw. So excited to get to speak with her. Ryan, have you met her before? I don't know her personally.
- [03:43]
Ryan Grim
I haven't. But she's been a, an organizer with, with the UAW and specifically with FAIN for years. And she's a status and a state, a state assembly woman and backed Mamdani out of the gate. But I don't, I don't personally know her now.
- [03:58]
Crystal Ball
Gotcha. Well, we will all get to meet her. So. And also, I told you guys, I feel like I'm giving a little bit of Colonel Sanders this morning. It is what it is.
- [04:06]
Emily
I love it.
- [04:07]
Crystal Ball
Never know how these things are going to look before you sit down in front of the zoom camera. All right, let's get to the latest out of Minneapolis in particular. So CNN got their hands on some secure like home security footage from the area that shows a different angle. And it proves pretty conclusively two things that are different from what the government has been saying. Number one, it shows the entirety of the time Renee Good is there in her vehicle and you can see that arrow there pointing at her vehicle. She is at no point blocking traffic. You could say she's partially obstructing the roadway, but vehicles are able to pass by. And then the other thing that you see quite conclusively here Is that the ICE agent who by the way has now been identified actually Iraq war veteran and 10 year veteran. So he is not, you know, one of these new trainees that just came in. In any case, he is not struck by the vehicle. There was another angle that we played on the show yesterday and Sagar and I were both under the impression that he had been bumped by the vehicle in the initial moments. This particular angle shows pretty conclusively that is not the case.
- [05:17]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
And there's also footage here of the moments before. So there's a drop off from the car here where the car pulls over to the side of the road and lets someone out of the car, presumably her wife.
- [05:30]
Crystal Ball
Presumably, we don't really know for sure. Yeah, sure.
- [05:33]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
The identity.
- [05:34]
Ryan Grim
But she has said, she has said she's given other interviews or she, or she was overheard by people saying it's my fault because I'm the one that wanted to stop here so that I could get out and, you know, protest here or see what was going on like that.
- [05:50]
Crystal Ball
Oh, I didn't see.
- [05:50]
Ryan Grim
That's what, that's what she had said. Like. So basically an ICE car like drove off the road and it created this like hullabaloo and, and some traffic and they're coming back from dropping their kid off and she's like, hold on, stop, I want to get out and you know, you know, see what's going on. And may. And I think she was more of a protester than, than the woman who was killed. And so, yeah, so she drops her off and she's kind of just waiting for her to come back. And, but then, you know, she, and she's waving people past and then, and then she gets these contradictory, you know, orders from the police and then gets shot and killed. But so she was only there what, three minutes or something. So because there was this four minutes. I think that's the other thing that this adds to this because there was this kind of claim going out that she'd been blocking traffic for, you know, all day or something. But, and, and there was a lot of missing kind of footage of the lead up to the killing.
- [06:49]
Crystal Ball
Right.
- [06:49]
Ryan Grim
So this, this clears that up. Two things.
- [06:51]
Emily
One of the main reasons people going.
- [06:53]
Ryan Grim
By the whole time, people are, people are able to go by and that, and she was only there for a few minutes.
- [06:59]
Emily
I was just gonna quickly add the. One of the main eyewitnesses who's favorable to Renee Goode said that she was the lead car in the protest. Now in that video, you don't see a Car protest. So it's. That's quite odd, right?
- [07:17]
Ryan Grim
It feels like whatever ICE car couldn't get out of the, out of the snow, like they were the lead obstacle, like they're the idiot.
- [07:25]
Crystal Ball
I mean, I think at this point we have a pretty clear picture of what happened here. Renee Good and her wife dropped their kid off at school. This is their neighborhood. They live blocks away from where she was shot dead. As they come through the neighborhood, Renee's wife, who, as you indicate, Ryan, has said, you know, I'm more of the activist here, saw this situation unfolding with ICE and other people in the neighborhood said they heard the whistles and you know, people trying to alert their neighbors that ICE was coming through. She says, let's pull over. She gets out and we know she was out of the car. And we can see in this film, she gets out of the car. She was recording things, I believe. And then, you know, then ICE comes over and Renee was sitting there. You know, you can see her in the video trying to wave people through. And then ICE comes over. One of them aggressively reaches for her car, which, I mean, me personally, I'd be pretty freaked out by that because I've watched ICE beat a lot of people's asses for no good reason whatsoever. You see that there's eyewitness testimony that says she's getting contradictory information. At one point before this happens, she says, I'm pulling out. So she's trying to, she's trying to exit. She's been told to stop, to get out, to go. She, you know, tries to, tries to move. And that's when, you know, this ICE agent in the front takes three shots at her in the face.
- [08:49]
Ryan Grim
And importantly, the ICE agent in front is not in the same group as the two ICE agents who come over.
- [08:56]
Crystal Ball
To like, yes, that's right.
- [08:59]
Ryan Grim
He is very like erroneously when it comes to your training, walks in front of her vehicle, like all of the.
- [09:08]
Crystal Ball
Different things around the backside of her vehicle where she wouldn't even probably see him, and then comes around the, towards the front. Now, again, one thing that is very significant here because again, I, I thought from that like sort of grainier footage that it did look like he may have been clipped by the vehicle. This. And that was what I think a lot of the self defense narrative was kind of hanging on. This shows very clearly and a New York Times analysis also shows very clearly he was to the side of the car the whole time. Right when he took the first shot, certainly when he took the second and third shot. He's like parallel to her with his hand, with the gun pointed directly at her face, like basically through the car window. So, you know, at this point, I think it's, we have a pretty clear indication of what happened here. And you know, and it, I think anyone who is reasonable, even if you think that a self defense argument could hold up or that he has, you know, the immunity that J.D. vance says he has, quote, unquote, absolute immunity, which is a whole other can of worms that I think is utterly disgusting thing even to say. But in any case, even if you buy there's a self defense, you know, possibility here, there is just no denying that the way the government has portrayed this has been packed full of lies from the very beginning. You know, we've been told there was a riot going on. We've been told the President of the United States said that the ICE officer was lucky that he still has his life and was in the hospital recovering. The Minneapolis State Police chief said, when I arrived on the scene, I asked if anyone else was hurt and they said no, just the woman. That's what they said. Okay, you can see he's not even hit. Nothing happens to this man. Okay? He's perfectly fine. So that comes from the presidency in the United States. And then the other thing that unfolded yesterday, more information that we got is it doesn't look like Trump had even seen the video before he put out his nonsense statement. Because while a lot of this was unfolding, he was in a lengthy interview with the New York Times where he was asserting, you know, oh, he's lucky, you know, left with his life, she tried to run him over. And they're like, have you actually seen the video? Because. And his aide comes over who he's rumored to be having an affair with, whatever, but we'll put that to the side. Anyway, his aide comes over and shows him the video and he can no longer defend his version of events and just basically collapses to. Well, you know, the way I look at it, and this is a terrible thing. So, so that's where we are. And then the last thing that I just can't leave off the table because one thing is this agent who shoots her dad, then he flees, he leaves the scene. Then the other people who are there, the other men that are there, they not only, as far as we can tell, apply no first aid to try to save her life, they block a physician who is there from coming over to try to save her life. And because their vehicles are still obstructing the roadway when an ambulance arrives, some 10 to 15 minutes later, the ambulance cannot get to her and she gets carried out by her limbs like a sack of potatoes. So there was zero interest in trying to save the life of this woman that their fellow agent had just murdered. And we saw them doing a little like growing it up, congratulatory fist bumps in the street after all of this unfolded.
- [12:24]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, Emily, you know, I saw Crystal and Saga talked about this for about an hour plus yesterday. But how do, how is the right handling the second and third shots? Like, if you look at the angle of the first shot, you know, he's at the corner of the car. At that point, it's. We'll, we'll get the autopsy. I would be surprised if that shot was fatal or even hit her. Like, because it's down in the corner, the bottom right corner of the window.
- [12:50]
Emily
Which my impression is that the first shot is the one that goes dead center through the glass.
- [12:56]
Ryan Grim
Right. But down at the corner of the wind, down at the corner of the windows, maybe it, maybe it hit her and killed her. Maybe not. How is the right handling the fact that, that from the side, through the side window, he popped off two shots at her as the car. At that point, nobody is arguing that he's at any risk whatsoever. That is shooting to kill at that point. Like, how, how is, how is anybody on the right, even if you set aside the first shot, justifying these second tubes? I've seen a lot of lawyers who are like, I could argue for, if he was my client, I would do everything I could. I think I would lose, but I would do everything I could on this first shot. But I have nothing on the second and third.
- [13:45]
Emily
I mean, I think what I've seen a lot of the argument be is as soon as you have, and this is just. I like you guys disagree. I'm like, Sagar and I are probably on the same side on this and we probably disagree with you guys on this. But as soon as you have a car backing up and accelerating, you get into lawful but awful territory where you are a law enforcement officer and make a split second decision. I don't think it was the right decision, but I think it's a defense legally defensible split second decision to go and try to stop the vehicle. Why you don't step out of the way, shoot the tires, like, honestly, I have no idea. But he had a split second.
- [14:25]
Crystal Ball
If you shoot the person in the car, as is evidenced in the video, the car does not stop, which is why they're trained to not do this even In a situation where you're legitimately fearing for your life because the car is actually likely to accelerate in that instance and you're creating danger for the other people who are around because now this car is just careening with the dead person at the wheel. So I mean, look, and this is not. Again, this is not some, some new to the job guy. This is someone who's been in the job for 10 years. So you can't blame, you know, you can't blame the poor training. In this case, the 47 day lowered standards, whatever, which something soccer and I talked about, which is a problem, you know, in terms of, you know, the overall ice.
- [15:08]
Ryan Grim
Maybe he uses Iraq war training there. That maybe training was the problem.
- [15:12]
Emily
Did you guys see the report that he, he got dragged and legitimately hospitalized in June during one of these protests, like his arm was mutilated.
- [15:21]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, he. He punched, he punched out a back window because the guy wouldn't open his front door. So he punched out a back window, re. Leaned his arm in to try to unlock the door. Which I would be shocked if there's any training video where they're like, what you should do is smash out the back window and then reach your arm in through the broken window and try to unlock the door. Like that is now that. And then the guy hit the gas and dragged him. Like, that's awful. That's also.
- [15:54]
Crystal Ball
And he was predictable.
- [15:56]
Ryan Grim
That's exactly what's going to happen. He's lucky he didn't sever an artery and like lose his arm. But if he's too traumatized from that incident, he should not be on the street shooting women in. I agree with that with stuffies in the car because he's now having flashbacks from the last decision that he made.
- [16:16]
Crystal Ball
Not to mention he's the one who positions himself in that place. I mean, I sort of look at, like, I'm not defending, you know, the, the guy who dragged him was prosecuted and I think, you know, like that went through the process, apparently appropriate prosecution. He was found guilty. Whatever.
- [16:32]
Ryan Grim
I'm not saying as he should have been.
- [16:33]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Yeah.
- [16:34]
Crystal Ball
But I think you can also look at the actions of this man and say, well, it's not. This is someone who acts recklessly and puts themselves in danger with regard to motor vehicles in a way that is, you know, completely against any sort of training or protocol. And you know, just because he was in that instance, you know, they found, okay, this guy did the wrong thing in a criminal way. Doesn't mean that the situation here is analogous whatsoever.
- [17:03]
Emily
One of the reasons that it's dangerous to shoot at a moving vehicle, obviously, is that it's a. It can be a deadly weapon. Like, cars really can cause significant damage. And that's why I don't know what the law enforcement training is. I wouldn't be surprised if it was to not step immediately in front of the vehicle. But more questions that I have is, what's going. What's going what. What the conversation is. Is he trying to prevent somebody from fleeing the scene of, like, I don't know, but fleeing the scene of a crime? He was wandering around with his.
- [17:34]
Ryan Grim
Like, he. Like, he had his phone.
- [17:37]
Emily
Was she. What was she being like? Was there something that they were trying to prevent her from fleeing? And this is, I think, one of the most.
- [17:44]
Crystal Ball
But, Emily, I think. I think. Sorry to cut you off, but I think that we have that answer now because of that video that we just showed, because we have the entirety of her time on this street where what she does is pulls over, drops. Someone else is waiting there. The street is not obstructed. She's waving people by. That's the entirety of what she did. So the narrative that she was part of a riot, that is something that I think Kristi Noem said. The narrative that she was trying to aggressively run over ICE agents who were pushing their trucks out of the street, out of the snow, complete fabrication. We have now seen the entirety of what she was up to there. And also, by the way, using deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect is also not legal. There are limited circumstances where that would be appropriate. And it would be if, you know, that the person just committed some, you know, usually deadly crime, like they just murdered someone, or it was armed robbery, whatever. In that case, and you have a legitimate fear that they may go on and be a risk to others, then deadly force is appropriate. Someone who was pulled over like this, we're talking about at. At worst, a traffic infraction here is what we're talking about that they wanted to keep her fleeing from. And I also am like, why did they want to pull her out of the car to begin with? I mean, so this is, you know.
- [19:02]
Emily
Well, yeah, I was going to say. So I think one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle for me is. And this, like, actually really could change things. If she is getting, as an eyewitness has said, contradictory instructions from the ICE officers. If one of them is telling her to get the fuck out of the car, which we hear he is on the driver's side door. You can physically see him trying to open it, the door is locked, the window is down, and there's another officer saying get the fuck out of here. Which is again, an eyewitness says there's one person telling her to go. There's one person telling her to get out of the vehicle. I legitimately think that from the perspective of like Sagar and me who disagree with you guys, I do think that is a missing part of the puzzle that could completely change the story. And there is one eyewitness who says that's what, what is happening. So if you are listening to the one officer who tells you to go and you hit the gas and you don't see, I mean, you're still traveling probably like maximum 10 miles per hour, but probably closer to 5 miles per hour, but you don't see that someone has just come to the front of the vehicle because there's a guy on your side. But maybe you're hearing something from the other side. You can see how someone is like enormously confused in that moment and makes a split second decision. So I think that is like a missing piece of the puzzle. There's more information to come on that. I do think that's a possibility.
- [20:18]
Crystal Ball
I put this up just because the question of like what they're trying to do came up. And this is actually leak from a senior DHS official, which I think is just significant in and of itself that you have DHS officials leaking against the sky. ICE officers are trained to never approach a vehicle from the front and instead to approach in a tactical L 90 degree angle to prevent injury or crossfire. Officers are also instructed not to shoot at a moving vehicle and only to use force if there's an immediate risk of serious injury or death. ICE officers are also instructed firing at a vehicle will not make it stop moving in the direction of the officer, which, you know, is what we were talking about before.
- [20:54]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
So.
- [20:55]
Crystal Ball
Right.
- [20:55]
Ryan Grim
Use your time to get out of the way. Don't use your time to shoot at the driver. It's not going to stop the car because the cars.
- [21:01]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Or shoot the tires. You can always shoot the tires, which I hear is a tactic or strategy to stop cars. But I think there's also another missing piece which is now the claims, as sort of the facts are adding up from the Trump administration is that she was part of a sinister left wing movement. I saw a New York Post this morning, they called her a warrior of the left. So it seems like outside of the, the intricate facts that we're kind of debating here, there's this larger sense from the right. That well, the reason that she was killed was because she shouldn't have been there in the first place. That there is a permissive left wing protest culture that puts the protesters themselves in danger. Am I sort of correct on that, Emily?
- [21:45]
Emily
Yeah, I mean I think you that that is a narrative that's definitely emerged and like the administration from Trump to others has not been, I mean it's not like surprising or shocking to anybody. It has not been accurately reflecting the facts every step of the way. There's no question about that. But yeah, I think, and by the way, I do think people have put themselves protest wise in dangerous situations like the Catabugazale video of getting in front of the car. I get wanting to protest ice. I get wanting to block ice, especially if you're opposed to these deportations. I understand that. But that's dangerous.
- [22:23]
Ryan Grim
In that case where Kat and other protesters are in front of the vehicle and the officer is revving and pushing the vehicle into them, would they have been justified in self defense to shoot the officer?
- [22:37]
Emily
To shoot the officer?
- [22:38]
Crystal Ball
The officer because he's in the vehicle.
- [22:40]
Ryan Grim
They put themselves in front of the vehicle. Just like the officer in this case put himself in front of this vehicle. The officer in that video is revving the car and pushing against the protesters, putting them at imminent risk of getting run over and killed.
- [22:53]
Emily
Yeah.
- [22:55]
Ryan Grim
Understand your ground laws, should they be allowed to shoot and kill the officer?
- [22:59]
Emily
I mean, I see what you're saying about that, but the, the difference is when you have an armed officer of the law telling you X, Y and Z, you have to. I mean there are like different legal things that come with the law enforcement. As much as I'm not like a.
- [23:11]
Crystal Ball
Right.
- [23:12]
Emily
But there's a black back, the blue conservative.
- [23:14]
Ryan Grim
You can arrest someone for not following orders, but you can't execute them.
- [23:19]
Emily
No, you can't. Unless you think you're under deadly threat.
- [23:21]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, but anyone who thinks they're under deadly threat can shoot in self defense accordingly.
- [23:29]
Ryan Grim
Right wing states. Yeah.
- [23:30]
Crystal Ball
Any different? Yeah. And I mean, well, if a law.
- [23:33]
Emily
Enforcement officer is giving you instructions and telling you to go do X, Y and Z, then that is a legally different scenario.
- [23:39]
Crystal Ball
I also think it's worth reminding that these are not cops. In fact, until this man was identified yesterday, actually funny enough, because of details that Kristi Noem, J.D. vance provided to the press. But in any case, until he was identified, we didn't even know what agency he was with because they don't wear badges, they don't even identify the agency they're with their face are all masked up. So I mean it's also a very different dynamic than, you know, what, for what again, for what reason are they pulling her out of the car to begin with? Right. And you know, whether or not she's getting conflicting orders, which again very common thing to occur with, you know, with, with cops of any sort. So it would not be surprising if the eyewitness testimony there is correct and we probably have enough audio, you know, somebody will be able to analyze that. But as a woman, like if someone is coming masked thug and I've seen, you know, videos of people getting their ass beat by these people and this mass thug is coming up and pulling, aggressively, pulling on my door to try to pull me out of my car. Yeah, that's going to freak me out. And that's one of the things that really bothers me about, you know, some of the, the discourse here is there is so much expectation put on the untrained civilian who has just dropped her.
- [25:06]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Every mom is supposed to be, every mom is supposed to be John Wick. Now like you have a three second call of duty tactical decision now if you are a mom at drop off, right.
- [25:16]
Crystal Ball
And so she's supposed to act perfectly or else her execution is justified. And there's no like she's not trained for this. Meanwhile, these are people who we pay our tax dollars to who've spent, you know, this man 10 years in, in ice has you know, supposedly gone through whatever training he needs to go through and there's no expectations of him. He's perfectly, it's perfectly fine for him to get freaked out by, you know, a suburban 37 year old mom who just dropped her kid off and is in her, you know, vehicle trying to, trying to get home. Like it's fine for him to get freaked out and shoot her in the face, but it's not okay that she got freaked out by this incredibly scary situation that she's never been in before and try to leave.
- [26:01]
Ryan Grim
Also want to real quickly share a Tucker Carlson observation that I actually thought was useful from his newsletter. He's, he says how come so few conservatives are viewing this story through a human lens and why when something similar like the killing of Charlie Kirk happens on the other side, did many on the left celebrate because they thought his political positions were wrong? We have a guess. Violence around the world is desensitizing Americans to violence at home. And I think that's worth sitting with like you lit watching unchecked violence, absolutely true unfold every day can only erode your, your psyche and your, and your moral core.
- [26:39]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
This whole story could been like a. From the west bank, right? Ambulances blocked, no one was allowed to come help them. Sh. Like, you know, this could have been.
- [26:49]
Crystal Ball
Before and after the fact and the.
- [26:50]
Ryan Grim
Immediate statement from the government lying about it and, and defending it and calling.
- [26:55]
Crystal Ball
Them heroes, saying she's a domestic terrorist, by the way.
- [26:58]
Ryan Grim
Like the whole thing.
- [26:59]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Yeah. We have to move on. Oh, Crystal, do you have one last thing I want to give him?
- [27:04]
Crystal Ball
Do you? Yeah. Do you. Can we just play J.D. vance, the.
- [27:07]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
I got it right here.
- [27:08]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, go ahead. Because I, I think this is a really. I think this is.
- [27:12]
Ryan Grim
I think this hurt him too.
- [27:14]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Yeah, he might have, like, flown a little close. Too close to the sun.
- [27:19]
Crystal Ball
So the head of Minnesota's investigations agency.
- [27:22]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
Says that the U. S. Attorney's office.
- [27:24]
Crystal Ball
Cut off the state investigations agency's assets to the investigation. What is the precedent for that? And why shouldn't the Minnesota officials on the ground have access to work on this investigation?
- [27:35]
Ryan Grim
First of all, I wish the state officials in Minnesota would investigate why you have so many people who are using their vehicles and other means to actually interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation. The precedent here is very simple. You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That's a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job. The idea that Tim Walsh of Radicals in Minneapolis are going to go after and make this guy's life miserable because he was doing the job that he was asked to do is preposterous.
- [28:08]
Crystal Ball
Thank you. Absolute immunity and noteworthy there. You know, originally it had been announced this would be a joint investigation between local officials and the FBI. Now local officials have been blocked out and the FBI has taken over. And you can guess how much confidence that literally anyone has in this FBI handling this in a straightforward and unbiased manner. Like, it's just, it's a, it's a cover up. I mean, there's just no other way to interpret the decision for them to block out the local officials.
- [28:41]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. And if I were the local officials, I'd collect as much evidence as. As I can, but I would wait until Trump is out of office to file my own charges. Because what, what they can do is they can remove it from a state level to a federal level and then pardon the guy and then say, well, you can't prosecute him at the state level either because it's double jeopardy. But if they wait until he's out, even if he has a federal pardon, they can still prosecute him at the state level.
- [29:11]
Emily
I mean, I think it's like very important to have an investigation into this that everybody feels comfortable with and, and can trust. And it's not bad to continue to get more and more video and aud the scenes. I think, you know, even, even things that she may have been saying to the police would be or to the police to the to ice may be a change to these things. I've gotten burned a million times by seeing videos quickly and jumping to conclusions. So I just think that's partially why it's good to have a full investigation that people feel confident in. And we're already not off to a great start when it comes to that.
- [29:45]
Crystal Ball
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Claire Valdez
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Crystal Ball
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- [29:57]
Claire Valdez
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- [29:58]
Emily
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- [31:01]
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- [31:44]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
We also wanted to note that there has been another shooting in Portland that will be still getting more information about. We don't want to dwell too much vehicle again but it was another vehicle related incident that we're still picking up some pieces of. Ryan, I don't know if you want to do like a TLDR real quick thing on it.
- [32:01]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, real quickly. The first, their first statement. So they pulled over a husband and wife and then some chaos ensued. Without video, we can't take the Fed's word for anything. They initially said an officer fired one defensive shot but even when they said that we knew two people had been wounded. So that was a little bit suspicious. Eyewitness later told Oregon Press that roughly five shots were fired. A man was shot twice in his arm. A woman was shot in her chest. Local reports are that their, that they are husband and wife. They got away from the feds and then called 911 several miles away, went to the hospital. DHS is saying that they are illegally here from Venezuela and members of Trend again we're going to need some like how do they know that? What are their names? But again they fired at a moving vehicle which is against, against training. And so now you're seeing protests, you know, breaking out around the country. Interesting and coincidental. Minneapolis and Portland are two of the places that the right has wanted revenge against for the, you know, the most for, for 2020. And so it's I guess not surprising that these are the places we're seeing the biggest kind of violent crackdown.
- [33:23]
Crystal Ball
I would also say, Ryan, that it's also not a surprise that after the Vice President United States comes out and justifies the killing of absolute immunity, saying that the officer has absolute immunity, that others in the field hear that and take to heart what has already been abundantly clear that they don't laws, rules, nothing applies to them. They are in. It's, it's not just the training. It's an intentional culture like this is meant to be happening because they want this level of terror. I mean that is, that is the goal of these operations, to create a level of terror.
- [34:04]
Ryan Grim
There's reporting that they're now looking at invoking the Insurrection act in response to the protests that are emerging in response to the killings or the shootings, which.
- [34:11]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Is exactly what Stephen Miller has been excited for this entire time. All right, so.
- [34:16]
Emily
Well, let me just add one final point. The big picture, the big picture from my perspective is that you also have Minneapolis sanctuary city. I think Portland's also a sanctuary City, which means statistically there are at least dozens of actual criminal migrants in those cities. And so that is the other. I mean I think that is a. Especially even just like on the politics of it, that is I think another important like thing.
- [34:38]
Ryan Grim
Right, but, but the federal government is acting like they've never heard of how to do law enforcement before. Like we have had criminals for thousands of years. We have evolved ways of enforcing laws against criminal behavior. People in those days are blocking, wildly shooting into vehicles. Like it is possible to do law enforcement without shooting into vehicles.
- [35:01]
Emily
Yeah, completely agree. I completely agree with that. I think like even if you are, even if you're somebody who is not supportive of anything like any deportations or whatever, most people don't want criminal non citizens in the neighborhood. And I think part of the problem is that, that when, when you're tracking ice, every single place that it goes, the make that makes the legitimate effort, which most people support like 90% of the country probably supports of like getting at least 90% getting actual criminals out. And I'm not saying that ICE isn't making that job much more difficult itself, but that is a, also a thing that exists as a problem that needs to be solved.
- [35:38]
Crystal Ball
If that is in fact their goal, which is not what Stephen Miller has stated his goal is when he berated ICE agents and told them that they needed to stop doing criminal investigations and start harassing day laborers at Home Depot and 7 11. But if that is in fact their goal, they are failing miserably at it. Barack Obama was much more effective at deporting criminals and you know, earned his reputation as the reporter in chief, which is not something that I support. But if you look at the increase in who is being held in immigration detention centers, it all of that increase comes from non criminals. So they're, they're, you know, if that's the goal of getting the criminal illegals out, they are going about it in the worst possible and least effective way. The largest budget anyone has ever had.
- [36:29]
Emily
And I just want to say, I meant non.
- [36:30]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
We gotta, we gotta move on guys. Unless, unless Ryan, you got lost. One last thought before the last point.
- [36:36]
Ryan Grim
Like yes, I think polling is clear. They do want criminal illegal people here illegally who are criminals. They want them deported. Like that's the polling. And so then Stephen Miller wants to use that and say, well then you should allow us to just go to Home Depot and run roughshot and like do do everything that we're doing. It's like, no, no, no, that's not like the public does not support that. So now you're going up against the public is. That's the, that's the, that's the point there.
- [37:06]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
So Ryan mentioned earlier seeing violence around the world and how it reflects back home. Congress is decid. Have a say a little bit now in that violence that we enact around the world. Emily, can you talk to us about this War Powers Resolution that was just voted on?
- [37:23]
Emily
Yeah. This is huge news. And this is a place that will, I think I'll agree. It's, I'm reading from the ABC News report here, quote. In a rare rebuke to the Trump administration, the Senate on Thursday advanced a War Powers Resolution that would block the President's use of the U.S. armed forces to engage in hostilities within or against Venezuela unless authorized by Congress. A small group of Senate Republicans joined with all Democrats to narrowly advance the resolution by a vote of 52 to 47. It needed 51 votes to move forward. The Republicans who broke with Trump were Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski, Todd Young, Susan Collins, and Josh Hawley. So Tim Kaine, who I literally just saw on my screen on CNN over on the tv, quote, pushed for the resolution to receive a vote immediately after Trump announced U.S. forces carried out that attack in Venezuela. I just want to pull up Josh Hawley's tweet here. I'm just going to read from it. He said in response to what wasn't directly in response to Trump. I mean, Trump predictably went off on these guys. Josh Hawley said with regard to Venezuela, my read of the Constitution, and he is obviously who's the Attorney General of the state of Missouri. He says my read of the Constitution is that if the president feels the need to put boots on the ground there in the future, Congress would need to vote on it. That's why I voted yes on this morning's Senate resolution. Now, he's taking a lot of flack for that, obviously, because most of the people who voted against the president were more moderates, not like people from the MAGA wing. And Rand Paul obviously is a libertarian. So Hawley, I think, you know, there's an argument that's much more broad even than what Hawley's advancing, which is narrowly about boots on the ground. But that's. That said Ryan, you've covered Congress for years. This is if this Venezuela op is what, because people are so angry about Trump, if that's what gets a serious momentum towards narrowing our insane war powers, that's incredible.
- [39:18]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. I'm skeptical that it will in the end, but it is. It is Quite something that it, that it, that it passed so far the backs the context here. I was quickly feeding the cat while you started. See, you may have mentioned this. They had brought this war Powers resolution to the floor where they were about to bring. And the way that the White House defeated it was by flat out lying and saying we are not intending to attack Venezuela and in fact we don't believe that we have a legal argument to do so. If we did so you don't need to put constraints around us. They had already built their, you know, Caracas, mini Caracas in Kentucky and were running drills on how to do the exact thing that they were telling Congress they had no intention of doing and no legal authority to do. So I think the combination of everything, plus the, plus the lying was a bit too much for, for Congress.
- [40:18]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
And here's JD fans responding about the.
- [40:21]
Ryan Grim
War powers technicality than any disagreement in policy. If you look at the people who actually voted, every single one of them have supported the administration's plan. Second of all, as the President, I believe himself has already said, every President, Democrat or Republican, believes the War Powers act is fundamentally a fake and unconstitutional law. It's not going to change anything about how we conduct foreign policy over the next couple of weeks, the next couple of months, and that, that'll continue to be how we.
- [40:46]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
So sorry to burst your bubble, Emily, but it's fake.
- [40:50]
Emily
Oh, shoot.
- [40:50]
Ryan Grim
Which he voted. He voted for the war. He voted for a Nigeria war powers resolution and he voted for. I don't remember the other one. Was it Syria? Maybe it was Yemen. He voted for two war powers resolutions when he was in the United States Senate.
- [41:06]
Emily
Yeah, yeah, he was good on war powers.
- [41:09]
Ryan Grim
So why was he voting for fake war powers resolutions?
- [41:13]
Emily
Yeah, it sucks. I mean, that sucks.
- [41:15]
Ryan Grim
It's boring to point out that JD Vance isn't consistent day to day or week to week or year to year. But worth, worth throwing one more on the, on the bance pile there.
- [41:26]
Emily
Yeah, I mean, the spirit of The Constitution, Article 1 versus Article 2 is like pretty clear when it comes to war powers. Now, legally you can be J.D. vance and you could be a war power scholar and work at West Point or whatever, and you can make these arguments about, you know, just what the government can and can't do, especially post Vietnam, post Iraq. And it's, it's just gotten extremely muddy. But those arguments, even if you can legally make them, they're wildly out of the spirit of the Constitution. And a lot of it comes from like, just being able to do war in different ways. Than we could when the Constitution was written, that it's allowed bad actors to just smudge things over the course of decades. And I think, again, if you go, if you sit down and read Article 1 and Article 2 and then look at what's happening, you realize it's there. These things do not comport.
- [42:21]
Tony Dokoupil
Yeah.
- [42:21]
Ryan Grim
And Trump.
- [42:22]
Crystal Ball
No, I was just gonna say the. The other thing is that they already, you know, should have gone to Congress for what they've already done.
- [42:32]
Claire Valdez
Yeah.
- [42:32]
Crystal Ball
Like, they don't care about following our little rules and laws and constitutions. And in fact, Trump, in that interview with the New York Times, was asked, like, what are the constraints on you? What could hold you back? And he said, the only constraint is me and my head and my morality. So, like, I mean, he literally said that.
- [42:52]
Emily
He. Like that is a direct quote.
- [42:54]
Crystal Ball
Yes. I mean, I. I'm sure he didn't get the words exactly right, but I'm trying to quote him as precisely as I could. That is, by definition, like the mindset of a king. You know, I mean, you know, the, the no kings protest, like, very vindicated here because in his view, there is nothing to stop him. No Congress, no checks and balances, certainly no international law, no War Powers Resolution, no nothing. Nothing to stop him. But what his own mind tells him is the line that he should draw. And, you know, I don't think any of us probably feel very comfortable with where Donald Trump is going to draw the line on these things.
- [43:32]
Emily
Crystal, your paraphrase was almost. It was almost verbatim. So this is the New York Times asking him what limits exist on his powers. Trump says, quote, one thing. My own morality, my own mind, it's the only thing that can stop me. And you will remember him posting, fine, this quote attributed to Napoleon over the summer, where he said, he who saves his country violates no law. This is a recurrent theme, obviously, of the second Trump administration.
- [43:58]
Crystal Ball
This is, again, tired and cliche to say, but imagine if Barack Obama. Oh, imagine if Barack Obama had said anything approaching this, like, we would still be hearing about it to this day. Right. I mean, it's just. It's fundamentally. It's un American, it's authoritarian. I mean, I don't even have to tell you what it is. It's so obvious, it's on its face. So I, I appreciate that you have some Republicans who join in and voting for this War Powers Resolution. I don't want to. You know, it's very sort of like, dark and nihilistic to be like, well, it doesn't but unfortunately, I don't think that it does. I mean, until we have genuine accountability for some of the people who have engaged in unlawful, unconstitutional and criminal acts as part of this administration, there are going to be effectively very little checks. The only check is actually the public. Like we have seen at times when there's been huge public pushback, there has been a bit of reining in of Trump, you know, pulling, pulling back, but there's not a lot of instances of that. And you know, frankly, as he gets older and more unhinged and detached from reality, like he's less able to even discern what the public wants. Which also came out in recent comments when he was talking to the GOP conference and he was like, you have to explain to me what's going on in the mind of the public because our policies are perfect, but they don't like it.
- [45:17]
Emily
Yeah, he'd literally, again, another thing he.
- [45:19]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Actually said, he said that. Well, on that note, we have a guest in the lobby that I'd like to let in here. Let's see if she is here. We have. Hello. We have New York assembly woman Claire Valdez. Welcome to Breaking Points. How are you doing?
- [45:38]
Claire Valdez
I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.
- [45:41]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Absolutely. Now, Claire, we know you are now running for the vacated seat of Nydia Velasquez in Brooklyn and Queens. Tell us a little bit more about why you're running.
- [45:55]
Claire Valdez
Yeah, absolutely. So I am an assembly member representing parts of Queens that are well within New York 7. But before that I was a member of UAW Local 2110. I come out of the labor movement at, at a moment when support for unions in this country has never been higher. We need a federal government that will actually support new organizing that will take on corporate greed and will fight for a real social democracy. And New York 7 is a deeply working class district. Many, many renters, many tenants, artists, families, immigrants. And they deserve a representative who's going to go to D.C. to fight for them.
- [46:31]
Ryan Grim
Right. And so today you rolled out endorsements from Air Mamdani and also from Sean Fain. The head of, the head of the UAW was elected, overthrew the old, old brass with, with your help. Can you talk a little bit about how you, you went from Texas to becoming part of the uaw? Like what, what was that journey?
- [46:53]
Claire Valdez
Yeah. So like many Americans, I worked, you know, low wage customer service jobs in many different places. I've been an independent contractor, have worked unpaid overtime, nights, weekends. The familiar story of a lot of working class people, which chains I Think.
- [47:08]
Ryan Grim
People would probably love to know which.
- [47:10]
Emily
Different ones I'd love to know.
- [47:12]
Claire Valdez
I worked at Trader Joe's. I worked at Pizza and Taco Bell. Really, really grinding, bagging groceries, making food, working with customers. But, you know, and you gotta pay their rent. You gotta do what you have to do to make sure that you're making rent. So I worked those jobs. I moved to New York City to work at a small museum in Long Island City called Sculpture center. And after working there for a few years, went to work at Columbia University, which was organized under the clerical workers were organized under UAW Local 2110 a couple decades ago. So it's an older union, 500 workers, mostly women, people of color, working class folks doing things from administration to call center work, cashiers in the cafeteria. And that was my first introduction to organized labor as a worker. I spent so much of my time not knowing that I had the power to actually fight back against the boss and demand the wages and dignity that I deserved. But the union introduced me to that collective power.
- [48:11]
Ryan Grim
And you, you joined the bargaining committee, is that right? Like what. How did you become kind of more political inside the union?
- [48:20]
Claire Valdez
Yeah, I remember my very first day on the job being told by my boss that it was time for me to take a lunch break and having no idea what to do or where to go. And that was a gift, you know, and that time off, really simple thing that every worker deserves, was fought for by my. My union siblings. And so it took a couple of years for me to get more involved. In the meantime, I had joined New York City dsa and when I joined the bargaining committee, it was because one of my co workers asked me to. Very classic organizing tradition. You're asked to do a thing, you're not sure you can do it. You have the support of your coworkers and your colleagues and you make that change.
- [48:59]
Crystal Ball
Claire, I wanted to get your reaction to some significant news with regard to Mayor Mamdani's agenda, especially since you just earned his endorsem. So this report of the New York Times has big news from Governor Kathy Hochul on childcare. She's going to announce today she's committing to fully fund the first two years of Zoran Mamdani's implementation of free preschool for two year olds. Some of the details are below. She says. Governor, Governor Hochul, State of the State Investments will commit to delivering affordable child care for nearly a hundred thousand more kids. Make pre K truly universal. Statewide partner with New York City to launch the new mayor's signature two care program finally realize the promise of universal 3K across access in New York City, support other counties in building out new child care pilots, expanding and childcare subsidies to tens of thousands of additional families. And I think it's, you know, I'd love for your reflection on the significance of this win and what it means about, you know, how to do politics because when Zoron first started running and even after, you know, he won, wins the primary and even after he wins the general election, I heard a lot of, yeah, but he's not going to be able to get any of this done. This is all pie in the sky. And Kathy Hochul was opposed to, to, you know, significant parts of the agenda. And now she is playing ball and helping him deliver on, you know, one of the more complicated and transformative parts of what he, of the platform he ran on.
- [50:18]
Claire Valdez
No, it's, it's momentous news. It's incredible victory. It's really, really exciting. It's going to transform the lives of so many of our families in New York City and the ability just to be able to stay and grow a family here and one of the most expensive cities in the country. And this victory comes from organizing. Zoran ran a disciplined and thoughtful campaign. He talked to so many millions of New Yorkers. And by advancing a really economic populist agenda that actually touches working class people's lives, he's able to stitch together this really beautiful coalition. And so this victory is because of organizing. And it's something that Zoran's campaign showed us that we can change the conversation around what working people deserve in advance, a populist agenda that serves working people and makes our lives affordable. So I'm so thrilled about the announcement. There's more work to be done to win the rest of Zoran's agenda. And that's the energy I want to take into Congress as well.
- [51:17]
Emily
What have you made of the CO Weaver controversy this week? And where do you stand on the question of rent control and how private property should be viewed when you're also trying to bring down the cost of rent? And I'll also tack on to that just the sort of racialized language that has been really part of that controversy. Do you think that was a distraction? Do you think that's a good way to think about property in New York City? What have you, as a, as a New Yorker, what have you made of the conversation this week?
- [51:48]
Claire Valdez
CU Weaver is an incredible tenant organizer, and I am incredibly proud that she is going to be part of this administration fighting for tenants. She has A long track record of fighting against, you know, bad landlords, corporate landlords, and making sure that people can stay in their homes. So I'm, I'm, I'm very excited to fight alongside her for those goals. Rent control and rent stabilization are the backbone of housing security in New York City. And we want to grow those protections and make sure that people can stay in their homes long term and build lives in the communities that they love.
- [52:22]
Crystal Ball
Claire, how as a local official, you know, we've been covering this morning the, the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, shooting of two more individuals. We don't have a lot of details out of Portland, Oregon. You know, the, obviously New York City has been a major target for ICE operations as well. How do you think local officials should respond? And you know, if you're to make it to Congress, which I think they've got a pretty good chance at, at doing, you know, what sort of actions should be taken at the federal level to garner accountability and rein in the lawless behavior that we've all witnessed.
- [53:00]
Claire Valdez
Yeah, absolutely. And it's, it's a tragedy what happened to, to this, this young mother who I think was doing something that a lot of us have done in the past, you know, months of this administration standing by and witnessing her neighbors be kidnapped and displaced and disappeared from their, their homes and their communities. It's a tragedy and my heart goes out to her family and her community. Yesterday I was at a press conference with our state electeds to talk about state legislation that we've been fighting for, for since the Trump administration took office earlier last year, including protect with spanning protections around sanctuary city cities, sanctuary city protections across New York state, making sure that I agents aren't masked in New York state. But fundamentally, you know, we run into the problem that this is, so much of this is federal jurisdiction. And so at the federal level, the first step would be to abolish ice. This is an agency now that has been funded many, many, many billions of dollars. And that money should be going to make our lives whole toward making sure that we have health care and housing, that we have the protections that working people need to live dignified lives, not to militarize. An agency that is now murdering citizens on U.S. streets in broad daylight and on camera and of course, the ongoing tragedy of their kidnapping our neighbors, taking them to detention centers, sending them to prisons and countries that they've never even lived in. It's an atrocious agency and it is long outlived its purpose and it has to be abolished.
- [54:44]
Ryan Grim
So Antonio Reynoso is the Brooklyn Borough president, as you know, is, and you know, has, you know, kind of a wfp Democrat and progressive in general is also running for the seat. Where would you say the biggest daylight is between you and Reynoso?
- [55:06]
Claire Valdez
Yeah, we're going to be cashing this out during the Democratic primary. I think this is a really good opportunity for us to shape the direction of the Democratic Party. This race is not going to be about. It's a deep blue district, it's one of the most left districts in the country, if not the most left district in the country, voted for Zoramdani by 40 points. And so this race isn't going to be about whether we're flipping a seat. You know, this isn't where the majority is going to be fought for. This is where we're going to decide what that majority is going to fight for. I come into this race as a labor organizer with the experience of defending my colleagues and coworkers in arbitrations, in fighting against the boss and demanding a seat at the table. That's the experience I bring along with my experience and the movement that just helped elect Soran Lambani to be our democratic socialist mayor of New York City. And so I'm looking forward to the campaign and talk to as many voters as possible. We've got a really exciting platform that we're putting together around unions for all, health care for all and Medicare fall.
- [56:08]
Ryan Grim
And Reynoso doesn't seem to have been terribly outspoken when it comes to Gaza. Is that a place where you think there's daylight between the two of you?
- [56:20]
Claire Valdez
I'll say I'm really, I'm very proud of my, my record on standing up against the genocide in Gaza. I was one of the first among the first elected in New York City to, to call for a ceasefire. You know, in the early days we were marching, phone banking, rallying, doing jail supply support and naming it as a genocide. And so I have a consistent record on this issue and it's one that I hope to bring to voters.
- [56:50]
Crystal Ball
Claire, where do you stand on whether, if Democrats take control of the House, whether Hakeem Jeffries should be, would have your vote as Speaker?
- [57:00]
Claire Valdez
Yeah, I'm one campaign at a time. So what I'm really hoping for is that in the coming year we are actually able to take back the House and be in a position, position to even elect the Speaker. What I will say is that, you know, we just had this momentous election in New York City. We elected Zoran Mamdani, by whose campaign centered, working class people and an economic populist agenda. And he confounded expectations and really shook the Democratic Party establishment. And I think that's the energy that people are going to be hungry for in 2026. And hopefully we will take back the house and be in a position to have more conversations about who the leadership should be.
- [57:44]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
What are some of your top priorities now? I used to live in Crown Heights, I'm currently in la. But what are some of your current priorities to improve Brooklyn and Queens? Zoron was really articulate about having some really tangible, you know, things that you could probably just list off in your sleep now. You know, fast and free buses and stuff like that. What do you, what do you want to do to impact specifically Brooklyn and Queens?
- [58:11]
Claire Valdez
Yeah, absolutely. So we talked a little bit about about housing earlier, but 77% of this district are renters. Overwhelming percentage of people pay their have to pay for their housing every single month. A lot of them are night shift tenants, so they live in public housing. NYCHA has been underfunded and gutted for generations now. So fully funding NYCHA to make sure those residents have the dignified and beautiful homes they deserve, building more public housing so even more New York City residents can enjoy that benefit. And Alexandria Ocasio Cortez carries a piece of legislation called the Homes act around social housing. So building social housing that's decommodified, that's permanently affordable and that as many people as possible can live in, that's one of the biggest issues we're going to be fighting for. But of course, Medicare for all is top of mind for so many of my neighbors. As long as private health insurance is able to dictate whether or not you're able to live a long and healthy life, there won't be real justice in any of our communities. And I think we all have a story about a medical emergency that could have meant us losing our homes. So making sure that everyone has health care, everyone has housing, and everyone has the opportunity to join a union. My union completely changed my life. So passing the pro act, talking about a federal jobs guarantee. We have a lot of labor legislation that we're working on and thinking about to make sure that everyone has a dignified life but a seat at the table too. So that, because I really believe that so much power rests in working people and, and that's the power that we have to fork around in these fights.
- [59:52]
Crystal Ball
Last, last question is just a quick yes or no. Are you, do you support Senator Sanders? Pause on data center construction as I think AI is going to be increasingly, you know, front and center, especially in terms of labor issues.
- [60:06]
Claire Valdez
Yes, absolutely. I think this technology is moving at breakneck speed and I think a pause will help us figure out how to respond to the way that's being developed and find ways for the power that AI represents to be with workers and not with tech oligarchs.
- [60:24]
Crystal Ball
All right, Claire, we'll tell people where they can follow you, where they can support you.
- [60:30]
Claire Valdez
Yeah, absolutely. So go to my website, claireville dance4congress.com we're rolling out that campaign now. There'll be lots of opportunities to volunteer, of course, donations always. Welcome to and follow me at clairefornewyork.
- [60:43]
Crystal Ball
Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. It's wonderful to meet you and we wish you the best of luck. And you know, the endorsements you're getting I think are a huge deal for your campaign. So we're excited to see that.
- [60:53]
Claire Valdez
Thank you so much. I'm honored to have the endorsements and honor to speak with you all today. We'll be in touch.
- [60:57]
Crystal Ball
Sounds good.
- [60:58]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Thank you so much. Have a good one.
- [61:00]
Ryan Grim
Thanks for joining us, Claire.
- [61:02]
Claire Valdez
Take care.
- [61:04]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Bye. Bye. All right, where do we go next, folks?
- [61:08]
Crystal Ball
Let's just, let's touch on the, the jobs numbers right quick because we now have, you know, a full year picture here. So jobs added, this is from December was 50,000, which is less than expectations. Pretty low number overall. It means that for the entirety of the year of 2025, it was the worst job creation that we've seen since the COVID since 2020. So the, the COVID recession. We also probably going to get a Supreme Court decision on tariffs today. So pretty significant day in terms of economics. And I saw one reporter, I think it was, I can't remember who it was that was tweeting this, but if it wasn't effectively for like health care and maybe one other service sector, maybe hospitality, you would have had net job loss on the year. So, you know, the, the stated goals of the Trump administration has been, oh, we're going to surge all these, like, blue collar, all these sort of like tough, masculine, manly man jobs for our man folk. And in fact, the economy has shifted even more. We're losing blue collar jobs, we're losing manufacturing jobs. And what we're gaining are, you know, in professions that are typically dominated by women.
- [62:23]
Emily
The other thing I wanted to highlight is a Washington Post report. It's not letting me share it on the screen right now. I'll send it to you, Griffin. But this is from the, this is from yesterday about how more people are relying on part time jobs or people who are in or people are relying on multiple jobs. So those two things. So part time jobs up and people working multiple jobs up. And that's another part, I think of the economy that will be politically for Republicans in 2026. That's just an indicator that there's dissatisfaction with the job picture overall. And I think that's obviously an important reflection of how happy people are with the opportunities available right now.
- [63:05]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, exactly. And yeah, the key thing there, just underline it once again is the lack of hiring. Like we're in this weird situation where there aren't a lot of, there are, there are layoffs but the layoffs are not happening at the cataclysmic rate of like the great financial crisis. The cataclysm is slowly unfolding in the sense that when somebody leaves a job they're not opening up what they call a new wreck. Like they're not. They're doing everything they can and pushing. All managers are being pushed to figure out how can we do this job, how can we automate it and what, what, how can we just push more work onto the existing numbers of people which over the next couple of years because of the way that attrition works and, and people revolve in and out of jobs. That's going to be the, that's going to be where millions of jobs end up being lost. Like anybody that's looking for a job can, can vouch that it's very, very hard to find one. Even though you're not, we're not in a place where people are getting laid off at like an epic scale.
- [64:10]
Emily
Here's, here's some.
- [64:11]
Ryan Grim
And that, that showed up again in these numbers.
- [64:14]
Emily
I was gonna say here's some spin. This is EJ Antoni who I think was, well, he was briefly nominated to head up bls. He says full time jobs exploded in December with the hottest print of 25 rising 890 while part time jobs fell 740,000. Great to see people moving from part time to full time work in such large numbers. Even though this positive shift doesn't appear in headlines job numbers. Well, one of the reasons it's not going to appear in headlines, job numbers because the share of workers with multiple jobs, this is according to the Post analysis is at a 25 year high. A 25 year high. Part of that is obviously because of the gig economy and some of that is actually good people, good for certain people. But you're also looking at a Rising share of people being pushed into part time work according to the PUS analysis. And so when you have the rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence and you have like record numbers, record numbers of unemployment among college graduates in the spring, they're hoping that their tax cut bill picks up and it gets their traction. And there's lots of hiring that comes from that. New manufacturing jobs that comes from that. A gamble when you're also having AI start taking up obviously a lot of those entry level jobs of particularly recent college graduates.
- [65:32]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, and I think it's worth just underscoring the points both of you guys are making. You know, the New York Times, I think got their hands on these leaked memos from. Well, yeah, they were able to get their hands on these memos, internal memos from Amazon about the way that they were planning on shifting work from humans to robots. And Amazon has been sort of leading the charge at the bleeding edge of automation for years at this point. And yeah, the idea is not oh, we're going to do this mass firing, it's they intentionally work their people in the where in their warehouses, which is where the bulk of their workforce is. They work them to the bone until they just crash down and they intentionally do not promote them. I mean this is all reported out and documented in the past and at a certain point your body just can't take it. And so yeah, the idea is we're just going to churn through these human beings and not replace them with other humans, but replace them with, with robots. And you know, over a fairly short amount of time they're planning on replacing something like half a million workers with automation. They've already have a pilot warehouse down somewhere in the south, I want to say Louisiana, where there's very minimal human involvement. So they already sort of have a prototype with this and they're already, they're already trying to figure out how to message to the public what is going to be happening here. Amazon of course being one of the largest employers in the entire economy and a real trendsetter, both in terms of, certainly in terms of logistics, distribution, warehouse work, but really in terms of the economy at large. So if that's the way they're thinking about it, you can guarantee that's the way that businesses across industries are thinking about how they're going to replace these pest human beings with much easier and lower maintenance robots as that technology comes to fruition.
- [67:28]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Yep, that silence means that we all approve and are happy with the state of affairs.
- [67:35]
Emily
So it means that Crystal is brilliant and we are all so we have nothing to add. Couldn't possibly.
- [67:46]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Yeah, it's bad out here, guys, in LA because the entertainment industry is dying. And the entertainment industry, if that's not going well, that also feeds all the restaurants, all the other businesses in la. So everyone is hurting really bad out here in a way that I've really never, never seen before. Restaurants are closing down because no one's making enough TV shows or movies. So those crew people don't have money to go out. And it's a circular kind of death loop happening in Los Angeles right now.
- [68:14]
Emily
Everyone, we need some data centers in la.
- [68:17]
Crystal Ball
There you go. Jobs does the only build it on top of Paramount. I, I have a little local anecdote just to add to that. As you guys know, I just adopted another kitty. We have socks has joined our family. I'll see tell the whole story another time. But in any case, when I was at the shelter, the, the woman who was there, the volunteer who was there, she said, we've never had more surrendered animals in our history. And I said, I said, why? And just. They can't afford it. They can't afford it. And people can't afford to get their pets spayed or neutered, even though, you know, there are services you can figure out to get that done for free. But if you're just showing up the vet, it's going to cost. So they're having more puppies and kittens and then they can't afford the ones that they have and then they all end up at the shelter. And she said it's a higher number than she has ever seen. So, you know, again, just little local indicator, but, you know, it's certainly, certainly indicative of something real that's going.
- [69:15]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
And that's, that's a private equity story too, because during the pandemic and afterwards, private equity took over a massive amount of the veterinary industry. Yeah, I think it's almost like 80% now of vets and clinics are not run by, you know, the mom and pop places they used to. But private equity that now was ratcheting up the prices. And yeah, as someone who volunteers at shelters and stuff, the number one stories are either that apartments don't allow animals anymore, like they're cracking down on that, or just, yeah, cost.
- [69:52]
Crystal Ball
Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home.
- [69:59]
Claire Valdez
And for decades, Angie's helped millions of.
- [70:01]
Crystal Ball
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- [70:22]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
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- [70:26]
Crystal Ball
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- [70:40]
Angie Hicks
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- [71:10]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Ryan, I wanted to throw to you next because we have some protests occurring in Iran. Now I want to put these up on screen and I wanted to get your sense of, of how meaningful this is because I was slightly skeptical of some of this simply because Zionists have been mainly pushing this online and some of the worst kind of liars and fraudsters are very happy about it, which always gives me kind of a moment to like pause and maybe just try to be a little more skeptical. I'll put these up while you talk.
- [71:45]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. So Ayatollah Khomeini spoke today publicly lashed out at Trump throughout, through his, throughout his speech. He said, you know, he, he brought, he brought up the fact that Trump killed more than a thousand Iranians during the, the 12 day war. He quoted Trump saying, I gave the order, I commanded during the war. And then he con, he contrasted that with Trump saying the nation of Iran in his, in the Ayatollah is a, a kind of a character if people haven't followed his like, public pronouncements. So he adds a handful of inexperienced, inattentive and unthinking people believe it, accept it and act according to his desires. So what what the I told is saying there is that he's blaming Trump for like instigating the protests. Now there's been criticism of the coverage of, of these protests or there's been criticism of the, the president distinguishing between quote, rioters and protesters. It's, and it's very interesting because it's coming from the like the, it's like a mirror image of what we have in the United States because the, the right or at least the kind of Anti Iran, anti Iran government segment of the population here loves to debate this idea of who, who's a rioter and who's a protester. But the difference between what's going on in Iran and what happens, you know, here in United States when people were getting upset that they, the protests weren't being called riots is that there was a lot of property damage done. In, you know, 2020, for instance, in Iran, you've seen a significant number of, of cops and other security service people killed in these protests. There's a video circulating just today of, of a, of a cop. And I think in Isfahan, I'm not exactly sure where, just getting absolutely pummeled to death by, by demonstrators. And so you watch, you watch some of that stuff, you're like, wow, this is like, that's beyond, you know, mostly peaceful protesting now, the question of whether the Iran government is going to go down. I don't know everybody, you know, every time this kicks off, people are like, oh, the regime's gonna fall. It's like, what, it's like, what would it be replaced by? Like, even Trump has said that the Shah's kid just is not up to the task. And so if I'm forming a team.
- [74:23]
Emily
It'S Maria Karina Machado. And.
- [74:27]
Ryan Grim
So like the Iranian government is.
- [74:30]
Crystal Ball
Throw Shalabi in there.
- [74:32]
Ryan Grim
The Iranian government is a massive thing. Like it's, it's not, it's not one tin pot dictator like you could, you could kill the ayatollah. You know, I met with the, as with a group of reporters, met with the Iranian president in New York when he was here for the UN and he said at the time that after the 12 day war, they put in place a succession plan that went like 12 people deep. So like, can they kill, can they kill him? Sure they can. They kill the next layer underneath him and next layer under that. But how you go from there to like installing a, an American puppet in Iran that, that, that I don't quite, that I don't quite see.
- [75:13]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
And then Ryan, what do you make of this clip from Trump yesterday who says, and he's been saying this a bunch, that if Iran kills protesters, we're going to hit them very hard of.
- [75:21]
Ryan Grim
That awful 47 year tyranny?
- [75:23]
Tony Dokoupil
Well, I don't want to say it, but I will tell you they're not doing well, as you know, probably better than anybody.
- [75:28]
Claire Valdez
They're doing very poorly.
- [75:30]
Tony Dokoupil
And I have let them know that.
- [75:32]
Crystal Ball
If they start killing people, which they.
- [75:34]
Ryan Grim
Tend to do during their riots, they have lots of riots.
- [75:37]
Crystal Ball
If they do it, we're going to.
- [75:39]
Ryan Grim
Hit them very hard. And so, again, like, the mirror image, like, like trying to think about what's going on there and through the lens of how we understand things going on here. Like, here, if a copy is at the side of a vehicle and pumps bullets into a side window and kills a protest, not even a protester, but a woman in Minnesota, like, that's okay.
- [76:04]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Iran bomber.
- [76:06]
Ryan Grim
Protesters in Iran can kill significant numbers of, you know, police officers. So it's very hard for you for Trump to square, like, why shouldn't he be going after ice? Like, why are. Why are American security forces allowed to kill protesters and non protesters, but protesters in Iran are allowed to kill security forces? And if protesters are killed, then he's going to bomb Iran. Like, it. So there's not a whole lot of consistency going on there.
- [76:38]
Crystal Ball
Shocking, shocking development. We're all really surprised by that.
- [76:42]
Emily
It is.
- [76:42]
Crystal Ball
When I talk to. Go ahead, Em.
- [76:45]
Emily
Well, I was just gonna say it is always very hard to know when you're on the cusp of genuine, like, because it. We go through this, like, when it.
- [76:51]
Ryan Grim
Happens, it happens, like, out of nowhere and quickly.
- [76:55]
Emily
Well, and the people who are saying. Griffin started by saying he was skeptical of, of people who are promoting this, but that's obviously a thing that happens. You have people who are either paid or working for nonprofits where their ideological goal is regime change, and, you know, for better or worse, that is what they want. And so they hype up the narrative to make it seem like Iran is on the cusp of falling, and that makes it more and more likely for intervention. So it is. And sometimes, like, these protests are genuine and that, like, they're real organic uprisings. But it's just always so, so hard to know what's real and what's propaganda.
- [77:31]
Crystal Ball
It's very hard to tell from afar, too, like, how big are they? You know, I mean, you know, just like how conservatives in America will convince you that every American city is like an absolute hellhole war zone by, like, picking out certain clips. It's just very hard to know if you're not there and you're not on the ground. When I talked to Dr. Parsi yesterday, he was making the point that you are, Emily, which is that regardless of whether the regime is actually on the brink of collapse, which he's highly, highly skeptical of, to say the least, this is very much helping make the case to Trump that it will be quick and easy for him to, you know, take consequential action and Make Iran great.
- [78:13]
Emily
Again, as Lindsey Graham said, with his hat.
- [78:15]
Crystal Ball
Exactly, exactly. And Trump signed that hat. So, you know, not only does Dr. Parsi think that Trump greenlit Israel bombing Iran, but he feels that this time, in a, in contrast to last time around, that he thinks the US Will actually take the, you know, the initial step, will sort of lead the way versus how it was done last time, where Israel started, you know, bombing them and then we came in afterwards. So I think, you know, between the fact that you still will always have Israel and their, you know, their allies in the government and Mira Madison and the whole Israel lobby pushing for more bombing of Iran and regime change in Iran, you always have that dynamic going on. Then you also have Trump feeling very, you know, very, I guess, confident in his military abilities. Very. He feels like this was a mission accomplished moment in Venezuela. He feels great and like this was super easy and a big political win for him. So that pushes in the direction of, hey, let's do more military stuff. And then when you add to that the, the visuals of the protest and whatever the reality of the protest are, that also gives him more of a sense of like, oh, yeah, we could totally get in and you know, and do do this and, and make something happen. Now what that something is, given that he's ruled out the, you know, the, the Shah's fail son here, I think that is a bigger question for me. But, you know, a lot of things are pushing in the direction of more direct action in Iran. Whether that's imminent, whether it's later on, I don't know. I think Greenland is also very much, you know, front of mind and on the table here for all of this. And if you're looking for something that's really just quick and easy, Greenland is the obvious target because as. Who was it Stephen Miller, who I think said on cnn like, no one's going to fight us for that. It's true. Europeans aren't going to do about it. So if you just want another quick, you know, quick and dirty victory, like Greenland is the, the easy place to look for that.
- [80:16]
Emily
And they're now apparently offering, they're, they're debating whether or not to offer the people of Greenland a hundred thousand dollars each for the U.S. sagar wanted to.
- [80:28]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Give them 2 million each.
- [80:29]
Emily
2 million each.
- [80:31]
Crystal Ball
Genuinely, how do you think Americans are going to feel about, you know, like, not great? Like, doesn't that, does that not occur to anyone? Like, we're going to rebuild Venezuela's infrastructure, make Venezuela great again, give oil companies a bunch of guarantees by the way, there's a whole long list of oil executives meeting with the administration and with Trump today. And we're going to pay, we're going to do a universal basic income for Greenland. Like what are we talking about here?
- [81:01]
Emily
And I mean two years of salary for the average American.
- [81:04]
Ryan Grim
Right. Can I move to Greenland and get that?
- [81:06]
Crystal Ball
Right. And pick, and pick up that bonus? I mean, yeah, there might be an arbitrage opportunity here. And so like, you know, the other thing that's silly about Greenland is sort of like an echo of the Venezuela thing. Like Maduro was totally willing to sell us oil and for us not to have to own Venezuela and run Venezuela, that was all on the tail, like all the minerals, the resources, the debt, whatever they want for their data cent, all that stuff that was on the table. Same thing with Greenland. Like if we want more military in Greenland, we can put more military in Greenland. We already have insane level of rights that we probably shouldn't have to do what we want in Greenland. Like you want their natural resources, cool. I'm sure they would sell them to you. But there's also this element of some weird like Peter Thiel connection here where they want to set up one of their weird ass crypto cities or something and have looked at Greenland for that. So that may be part of what's going on here. In any case, that's kind of where things stand right now.
- [82:05]
Emily
One more point on Iran is just when Mosaddegh was overthrown and the Shah was restored, that did not end well. That is why we are where we are right now. Yeah. So these, like it actually applies to Venezuela as well that you can feel like if you're a Lindsey Graham, you got this, this win and then you will frame it as a long term win when in fact it's like a short term win that has under the surface has caused all kinds of different problems. That will be tensions that ramp up slowly over the course of years or even a decade plus. And it's a, it's, it's cyclical. It's not solving like some larger problem of making Iran totally friendly to U S interests in the long term. In fact, in the long term it can make that much, much more difficult because people care about their own sovereignty and they remember Iranians remember what happened in these regime change efforts more than Americans do. It weighs heavily on their minds. So this is these things that are pitched as long term solutions are often even by the people who are pitching them short term, by their terms, short term solutions that have Counterproductive. Long term. Long term ramifications.
- [83:21]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. It's just interesting to see us in this odd transitionary time where we still are parroting the language of human rights and insisting that places like Iran follow international law and human rights while we're transitioning to a country that does not even like, pretend to do that ourselves. And that glorifies in like, like this. As Vance said, this officer should be celebrated, that should be thanked for killing this woman.
- [83:53]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, I think it's worth putting those two pieces together, Ryan, because you have ICE now the largest law enforcement agency in history. It has a budget that is larger than all. But I think 13 countries, militaries, including like military, like Canada, like significant sized countries. And you have Trump asking for $1.5 trillion defense budget. So effectively all of the, the taxpayer resources are being funneled into security and police apparatus. And I think that, I think that tells you everything about the direction they're taking things in both domestically and abroad.
- [84:27]
Ryan Grim
And which is wild because we're not that, like, restless of a country. Like, we're not that hard to control. Like, we're just watching football on Sundays, like going to church and like school, putting our kids in schools. Like, we're not, we don't have separatist movements and guerrilla movements and. But I think they time is not that high.
- [84:47]
Crystal Ball
I think they believe what they're saying about AI and how, I mean, if you throw, you know, in short period of time a third of the country out of a job, then, you know, we may not be. So they're, they're not sure we're going to continue to be so docile. And you know, for good reason. I don't think the, you know, the Netflix and the Sunday, Sunday football is going to placate people forever.
- [85:13]
Ryan Grim
If you've got college football Saturdays, regular NFL Sundays, NFL Thursday. Now you got NFL like Friday and Saturday, like, and, and you can bet.
- [85:21]
Crystal Ball
On all of them NBA pretty much any day of the week.
- [85:24]
Emily
So you can bet on them for extra fun. You can bet on the length of the White House press conferences.
- [85:29]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Yes.
- [85:31]
Crystal Ball
Well, they're certainly, if they're trying to, you know, keep the public placated and docile, they're making a big mistake by trying to crack down on drugs. Drugs. So just put that up. Tactical misstep there. But, but no, I mean, I did just to be serious about it. Like, I think in my mind, like all of these tech oligarchs who are effectively running the administration and picked the vice president, they believe that they are they are trying to rip up the social contract. That is what they say. They believe they are going to be displacing, in their words, all of human labor. These are not stupid. In a certain sense, they are stupid people. But in, you know, technical iq, intellectual sense, they are not stupid people. They have studied history. They know what that could mean. So they know what they're doing, you know. Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's an accident then that you end up with this massive federal government operated at the pleasure of the president. Private gestapo, police force, which is what ICE is. I know it's supposed to be centered around immigration. I think we can all see that it's ghost goes far beyond that, who enjoys, according to the vice President, absolute immunity. And we're going to kick up the military budget to 1.5 trillion, which also is not just about abroad. I mean, we have military deployed into American streets. We've had that regularly under the Trump administration. And they're thinking of invoking the Insurrection Act. So put it together. And I think we can all see pretty clearly where they think that things are heading.
- [87:04]
Emily
Well, you know, Elon Musk just posted a couple of weeks ago that we're all going to have universal high income. And it's like they know they're fundamentally re engineering the way society works. Our relationship to labor, our relationship to each other. They don't know. I mean, this is the point about if they're smart or not. Like they don't know what's actually going to happen, but they know that in a macro sense, that's what they're doing.
- [87:27]
Crystal Ball
That's their goal. Yeah, their goal is to rip up the social contract. That's what they want. Again. Panel goes quiet after Crystal drops stunned Panel stunned into silence into a crystal truth bomb.
- [87:44]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Me and Crystal recently read a book separately about by Aaron Bastani. We didn't read it together, but it was about Aaron Bastani called Fully Automated Luxury Communism, which kind of argues that there might be a path forward where this is a good thing that we turn into a post scarcity, post work era. And to a certain extent that this AI technology we're experiencing is akin to an industrial revolution and that the technology is going to be here and exist and shape it. And it's sort of up to us to decide on a policy level if that's going to lead to a more equitable world or a barbaric fascist world.
- [88:26]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, this is, you know, our friend Jaeger Kotkin, our Russian socialist friend.
- [88:32]
Claire Valdez
This is.
- [88:33]
Crystal Ball
He's trying to get me there in my thinking of, like, stop being a doomer and take them up on the offer to rewrite the social contract. And that may be the, you know, the best possible play on the table is like, okay, you guys want to rewrite the social contract, Cool. Here's our demands. That might be, you know, we're gonna.
- [88:50]
Ryan Grim
Have the numbers, that's for sure.
- [88:53]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. So I, I have been trying to reorient my thinking in that direction because while, you know, I. I think we can do some things to slow things down, I think that's essential while the democratic process catches up. You know, if, like, they. They are not going to stop going. There are too many trillions of dollars on the line at this point. I think it would be very, you know, near impossible to actually stop the development of AI further in this direction. So, in any case, yeah, those are. So the. The book is excellent, though. I mean, just to get people thinking bigger about what might be possible and.
- [89:27]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Less doomery, I think, which is. Might be important in this time to have an optimistic view of the future that people.
- [89:33]
Crystal Ball
Which is what the left is supposed to be about. Yeah.
- [89:36]
Emily
Well, I was gonna say a little political point. Ron DeSantis has been railing against AI and big tech recently, which is from the conservative perspective, sort of an obvious, Obvious way to draw daylight between yourself and JD Vance or any kind of Trump administration candidate that would be running in 2028. So that has been fascinating to say.
- [90:00]
Claire Valdez
Hmm.
- [90:02]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Well, we're gonna need someone to lead us into this brave new world. And who better than CBS's new evening anchor, Tony Decouple? Yes, Ryan, for the moment, you've been on a warpath. Ryan, I want. I want to start with you, but first for the audience. If you haven't been tracking or watching CBS Nightly like I have, there's been a little bit of a rocky start with some of Tony is clips here, and they're. They're really making him the face of the network. Now, there's been a few different moments here. This was on his opening night here where we had a little teleprompter flop.
- [90:36]
Tony Dokoupil
That base of power and influence could be out, too. All right, so other news, as you just heard from Jill. Well, as to other news, now to Governor Walls. No, we're gonna do Mark Kelly. First day. First day. Big problems here.
- [90:52]
Emily
What.
- [90:52]
Tony Dokoupil
What are we going to Kelly here? Are we going to go to Jonah Kaplan? We're doing Mark Kelly possibly demoted from his.
- [91:03]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
All right, you know what? This is why we don't do a Show live. You know, I feel like we've been.
- [91:07]
Ryan Grim
In a similar situation.
- [91:09]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
There was a moment also where he went to his hometown of Miami and cried because he said it made him very emotional. That one's a little too long to play, but I think the.
- [91:19]
Crystal Ball
It's too embarrassing to play.
- [91:20]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
It's too embarrassing to play.
- [91:22]
Crystal Ball
It's too uncomfortable.
- [91:24]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
I think the quintessential clip here that kind of also shows Barry Weiss's influence and, and sort of what the new CBS is going to look like is this clip from Tony about Marco Rubio that I just have to play in.
- [91:41]
Tony Dokoupil
Full here and only in America. The many lives and many jobs of Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a former Florida senator. He's now the face of US Foreign policy and President Trump's point man on Venezuela, all in addition to his roles as Secretary of State, interim National Security Adviser, and acting national archivist and USAID chief. Whatever you think of his politics, you got to admit it's an impressive resume. And now AI memes have added to that portfolio. Casting Secretary Rubio as the new governor of Minnesota killed the meme.
- [92:13]
Ryan Grim
The new killed it.
- [92:15]
Tony Dokoupil
Prime Minister of Greenland, the new manager of Manchester United, the head of Hilton hotels, and highest of high honors of all, the new Michelin Man. Now, back in real life, of course, these memes may not add up to much, but for Rubio's hometown fans, which are many around here in Miami, it is a sign of how Florida, once an American punchline, has become a leader on the world stage. Marco Rubio, we salute you. You're the ultimate Florida man.
- [92:43]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Marco Rubio, we salute you.
- [92:47]
Ryan Grim
What do you say? What had become a punchline? America.
- [92:51]
Emily
Florida.
- [92:51]
Crystal Ball
Florida.
- [92:52]
Ryan Grim
Florida had become a punchline. But now Florida, man was a punchline.
- [92:55]
Crystal Ball
It's not because of. Not according to Tony decople.
- [92:58]
Emily
Not according to Tony.
- [93:00]
Ryan Grim
The entire thing was a punchline. What a self refuting piece of propaganda.
- [93:08]
Crystal Ball
I like that. That's Ryan's problem with it is the logical inconsistency. It's like, wait a second.
- [93:15]
Ryan Grim
Still a punchline. Yeah, even a punchline. Even more embarrassing, Even less dignity to it.
- [93:22]
Crystal Ball
I never found this meme amusing even before Tony Decouple killed it. Because I'm like, you know, they. The picture of Rubio makes it look like he's miserable to like be in charge of Venezuela now, but he fucking loves this shit. Like, that's the part about it I was like, this doesn't. It's not funny to me because it doesn't poke fun at reality. It, like, invents some totally different dynamic that doesn't exist. Putting that aside, the obvious point here is that this is some of the most humiliating state propaganda. They have outdone Fox News. Now, I genuinely think that that is the case. And it has to be that, like, it can't be subtle because Trump does not appreciate subtlety. So it has to be the news equivalent of the cabinet meetings where all of the secretaries take turns going, oh, my God, sir, you are the most incredible. Better than Abe Lincoln, better than George Washington. It is an honor to be in your presence. It has to be the news equivalent of that for them to get what they're after, which is like, you know, Trump's blessing for whatever deals the Ellisons want to do.
- [94:25]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Yeah. CBS Newsmax.
- [94:27]
Ryan Grim
What's the Anderson Cooper piece like? She's also sitting on an Anderson Cooper piece about South Africa. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So Anderson Cooper did a piece starting back in November, December, whatever, or it was screened in November December, about the South African refugees from the white genocide unfolding there. And because it's gonna be factual, it's gonna be an embarrassing piece for the administration. And so the reporting is that, Barry, she tried to get Anderson Cooper to be the Tony Doku pill, but Anderson Cooper was like, no, I. That would be an embarrassing move.
- [95:06]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Take the red pill or the Doka pill.
- [95:11]
Emily
He went, CBS Newsmax. And then red pill or dog pill? He's on fire. Yeah.
- [95:15]
Ryan Grim
And so now Barry Weiss, the reporting is. Is heavily intervening in his in edits to his piece on these. These refugees from the South African genocide. And there's no. There's no indication that it actually will ever air that. That she made an anomalous amount of suggestions. I'd love to see her notes. Like, that would be that.
- [95:39]
Emily
I actually would, because to be honest, I'm. I'm all for marking up Anderson Cooper script.
- [95:46]
Ryan Grim
And I'd love to see the notes. What are we missing about the South African story that. That Barry Weiss thinks is important to get in.
- [95:53]
Crystal Ball
Can I play one more piece from Tony Decople? This is just. So. This is the latest hotness of him. His deep reflections on, you know, the killing of Renee Good and what it all means. And people are pointing out on Twitter that this sounds like some word salad bullshit that, like, Kamala Harris would put together. And so go ahead and let's take a listen to this one.
- [96:17]
Tony Dokoupil
There is so much to say about the last 24 hours. But sometimes what matters most is what is yet to be said at all. By now, we've all seen the videos. Renee Good is alive in those videos, behind the wheel of her suv, her three children expecting mom home again soon. And we've seen the freeze frames, too. We've heard the political warfare, the clashing declarations about what happened. And unfortunately, we don't. We know the ending for Renee Goode. Nothing is going to change that yet. What we have not yet heard is one another. I spoke to people today who haven't slept since it happened, who want ice out now, who don't like masked men on their streets, don't want their neighbors arrested, don't want families ripped apart. I've heard, too, not on the streets protesting, but in passionate notes in my inbox from people who want to see our immigration laws enforced legally and peacefully and with safety for all the officers, who in many cases are also parents themselves. These are both deeply American sentiments. But our job now is maybe the most American thing of all. It's to find a way to live with people who are genuinely different from us, to try to be fair to them, and in doing so, to make things better and keep things decent. Because in America, no one else is going to do it for us. It's not my thing about what happened here yesterday, but I can tell you we owe our children a nation that is better than the one we live in today. And I can say that because we all know it's true.
- [97:49]
Crystal Ball
Deep thoughts with tone.
- [97:51]
Ryan Grim
Literally.
- [97:51]
Emily
What the fuck is that?
- [97:54]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, the problem is going to have, is that this. That won't satisfy the. Right.
- [97:58]
Claire Valdez
Right.
- [97:59]
Ryan Grim
And that. So he. His interview with Tom Holman is instructive of the same phenomenon which he. He got Tom Holman to say that the investigation should play out. And he pointed out to Tom Holman, well, that's not what the DHS secretary is saying. That's not what the president is saying. The president is.
- [98:17]
Claire Valdez
They're.
- [98:18]
Ryan Grim
They're saying she was a domestic terrorist and he. He is a hero. Like, they're not waiting for the investigation to play out. And Tom Holman's like, well, well, I'm not gonna. Like, I think the investigation should play out. You. You can ask them about their views. Like, so he got Tom Homan to be the voice of reason, which is like, that's a good friend. Remarkable feat of journalism. But that is going to be. That is going to infuriate the Trump administration. So you can do, you know, 99 out of a hundred pieces of propaganda, and then it's going to be the one or the two where you do real journalism that undermines it all. And then you got to ratchet up the propaganda and get into 11 or he's going to threaten your merger again. So that's why, that's why he's in such a difficult bind because you can't deviate.
- [99:06]
Emily
I just disagree that their goal is to please the administration. I think their goal is to please their billionaire class and that there is a distinction.
- [99:14]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
They like the administration.
- [99:16]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, yeah, that's a green light.
- [99:18]
Emily
But this is like we see like when there's daylight between the administration and the billionaire class is where there, there will be daylight between like these CBS centrist like mushy middle types and then the administration, some of the billionaires that back the administration, like that's where it's, it's such a stupid, stupid strategy to try and revitalize monocultural mass media. But to do it from the sentiment of elites, like first of all, technologically there's no such thing as mass media. There's no such thing as monoculture anymore. It is absolutely dead. It makes no sense to try to revive it in tone, in content. It's not possible. Secondly, to think that these people, because they're anti woke like that Bari Weiss can come in. Someone who agrees with the average American more on like the question of quote wokeness is the person who is going to run the whole news network in a way that makes sense and resonates. I mean it's just a disaster. It's a, it's just the dumb. It's a strategy so stupid only billionaires can come up with it.
- [100:30]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Yeah. Kirsty, got anything to say Left?
- [100:34]
Crystal Ball
I was just looking for the. Did you guys. Yeah, there was, there's one other one. That's the January. Did you see his coverage?
- [100:42]
Emily
I didn't, I didn't have such an issue with the J6 one but the one where he's crying about Miami.
- [100:47]
Crystal Ball
Oh my.
- [100:47]
Emily
Did you see that one?
- [100:48]
Crystal Ball
Oh God, it was so bad. I mean it's just like nobody. That one. No, nobody cares, number one. Number two, like I don't know, like it's so, it's so narcissistic. I mean it really feels like part of this sort of neoliberal ideology where it's like everyone is just a tool for your own self aggrandizement and development. So like the fact that I got this job is like deeply meaningful in some way that you should talk about to the country. Right? And I'm like, like no, we don't care. Like we, we think you suck. We don't. To the Point that we know who you are. We don't like you. You.
- [101:31]
Ryan Grim
It also shows how deeply in his soul he believes that he won that position through merit.
- [101:37]
Emily
Yes.
- [101:37]
Ryan Grim
Rather than DEI for the guy who Barry Weiss was pleased to see attack Ta Nehisi Coats.
- [101:44]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Right.
- [101:45]
Ryan Grim
Like, yeah.
- [101:45]
Crystal Ball
And basically, like, accuse him of being low key a terrorist for calling TNC.
- [101:51]
Ryan Grim
A terrorist and because Anderson Cooper and the other people who are more qualified understood the assignment and rejected it. Like, that's why you got the job. So you. And you just completely misunderstand that clearly. Like, you think you got it because you earned it.
- [102:08]
Crystal Ball
Okay.
- [102:08]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
I think, I think that's wrong. Well, before Chris, before you do that, I'm just, I'm just rebutting Ryan's point. It's actually because he wrote an article called My Adult Circumcision. How I made the cut for my new religion by telling you to go for April 10th.
- [102:22]
Ryan Grim
I mean, well, it probably 2014.
- [102:26]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
I'm not sure. It's a hot. It looks like a churro.
- [102:28]
Crystal Ball
Churro.
- [102:29]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
I'm not sure. I don't know.
- [102:32]
Crystal Ball
Hot dog.
- [102:35]
Emily
Did you guys know he's married to Katie Tur. He's married.
- [102:39]
Ryan Grim
Who is a fish head. So we will not. We will broke. No criticism of Katie turf.
- [102:43]
Emily
All right.
- [102:44]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
I found.
- [102:44]
Crystal Ball
I found the Jan6 clip. I found a Jan6 clip.
- [102:47]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Let me just play it and then we got to go.
- [102:48]
Crystal Ball
Emily and I can fight about it. Go ahead.
- [102:51]
Tony Dokoupil
Also tonight, five years after the January 6th attack, a group of. Of pardoned defendants marched through Washington. President Trump today accused Democrats of failing to prevent the attack on the Capitol, while House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries accused the president of, quote, whitewashing it.
- [103:07]
Claire Valdez
That's it.
- [103:08]
Crystal Ball
That's the whole thing. So Trump says this completely factually bullshit thing while Democrats say this. You got both sides about the pardoned defendants. Like, come on.
- [103:22]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
And.
- [103:22]
Crystal Ball
But to Ryan's point, you're right that this isn't enough. Like, what. What Trump would want them to do is be like, they were wrongfully convicted. These innocent, peaceful tourists who also, to the extent that any of them did anything bad, they were antifa and they were righteous patriots because the election was stolen. Like, that's what he wants to hear. He doesn't want both sides is not enough.
- [103:44]
Emily
I mean, yeah, I definitely agree. Both sides is not going to be enough for the administration. Yeah. But like, it's. He called it an attack which already in and of itself would be a problem for, for Trump. And then it is like that. That is an accurate representation of what Republicans accuse Democrats of doing is not having provided ample security. I actually think there's some evidence, like, actually I, I, I think part of that is legitimate, that there were opportunities for Pelosi to send in more reinforcements. Now, nobody was anticipating what actually happened at the Capitol, and that was an intelligence community mistake. Even though they had informants everywhere, they had social media surveillance and still somehow.
- [104:25]
Crystal Ball
Anyway, your job is not to say, to repeat the press releases of partisan actors. Your job is to provide factual information.
- [104:36]
Emily
The factual information that I thought the 15 second snippet was providing was here's how both parties, like, mark the fifth anniversary of January 6th very late.
- [104:46]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
I think, I think it was both sides. You know, it definitely was.
- [104:50]
Emily
I think both sides stuff is lame.
- [104:53]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Well, to Ryan's point, you know, when people just look at Tony, they feel like there's a level of he didn't get there by his own merit. A lot of people just get this feeling of, why am I watching this guy? Why do I care what this guy has to say? Which is how, what people feel about me on this show? So I salute you, Tony.
- [105:14]
Crystal Ball
Not true.
- [105:15]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Griffin, you are a trailblazer.
- [105:17]
Crystal Ball
Fan favorite, fan favorite.
- [105:18]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
We salute you. And I'm so proud of you representing people like me. I feel seen and keep doing the work that you're doing.
- [105:27]
Emily
Tone, representation.
- [105:29]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Representation matters. Crystal, we have another incredible interview with another incredible candidate in Colorado. Would you like to tee it up for us before we throw it away?
- [105:38]
Crystal Ball
It. Yeah, of course. So I interviewed earlier this week Milat Kiros, who is a fantastic candidate against a Democratic incumbent in, in Denver, Colorado. And you know, she, I mentioned before she was fired from her law firm for actually standing up for other lawyers and young associates who were coming in and were getting fired for their pro Palestinian advocacy. So in any case, you know, she's taken this as an opportunity to, you know, become more engaged in the political process and have the kind of representation that she wants to see the district she's running to represent. She's, by the way, she's backed by justice Democrats, they think, and they, they're very careful with their resources. They think she has a good shot to win this Democratic primary. And part of why is because this is one of the most blue, bluest districts in the country. We obviously interviewed another aspirant for a different, very deep blue district in the country. It's also one of the youngest districts in the country. And obviously in terms of the politics of Palestine, that makes a big difference. So enjoyed my conversation with her and I think you guys will as well. Very excited to speak today with Mela Kiros, who is a Democrat challenging a Democratic incumbent in a Colorado district. She is backed by the Justice Democrats. Let's take a look at a little bit of her campaign launch.
- [106:58]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
Hey, over here.
- [106:59]
Claire Valdez
Come here.
- [107:00]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
These are Congresswoman DeGette's financial disclosures.
- [107:04]
Crystal Ball
Take a look at this.
- [107:05]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
Big pharma, fossil fuels, defense contractors, and yes, even a notorious member of Epstein's inner circle. I'm Meilat Quiros. This is Denver, and I'm running for Congress because it's time for a change. Members of Congress, even Democrats who say they vote the right way, are beholden to the same billionaires who keep our prices high, burn our planet, and profit from a genocide. The good news is that we can change that. And it starts by changing who we send to Congress. We can't afford another 30 years of complacency. We need to fight. When I spoke out against the genocide in Gaza, powerful lawyers told me to stay silent or it would cost me my job.
- [107:51]
Crystal Ball
I didn't back down and I'm going to do the same in Congress. You'll always, always know where I stand.
- [107:56]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
Medicare for all, housing first, an arms embargo. The era of any Democrat will do is over. It's time for a fighter. Today we're announcing our campaign is endorsed by Justice Democrats. They're joining the thousands of grassroots supporters fueling our fight. We already have more donors than to get, and I'm not taking a dime.
- [108:15]
Crystal Ball
From AIPAC or any corporate PACs. Ann Maylotte joins us now. Welcome. Great to meet you.
- [108:21]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
Thank you so much for having me.
- [108:22]
Crystal Ball
Great to be here. Yeah, of course. So you lay out quite a bit there in your campaign launch video about why you're running, but what was the final push that led you to jump into this race?
- [108:32]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
Ultimately, it was Donald Trump winning the election again and witnessing the failure of Democrats to actually acknowledge and understand why working class people were upset with the lack of deliverance by the federal government and not actually understanding that the affordability crisis was massive for them. And to actually address that problem and really gaslight the American people into believing that everything was fine. And that's how we ended up with another Trump administration. And we need Democrats that actually acknowledge the problems and offer the solutions that are gonna make a meaningful difference.
- [109:04]
Crystal Ball
So you referenced this in that video, but you've been outspoken against the genocide in Gaza. You lost your job for it. Just tell people what you said, what you did, and what the personal consequences were been.
- [109:18]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
Ultimately, I was Talking about law students that were losing their job offers because they were protesting the genocide that was happening in Gaza. I spoke out against their firing. I spoke in favor of freedom of speech, and also that there was a genocide happening in Gaza. And to use this geopolitical situation, these human rights crimes, to silence dissent against this genocide was absolutely ridiculous. And so that's what I said. And I got fired after I refused, used to take it down. And immediately after, I was getting messages from other attorneys who wished they could have spoken out saying the same things against the genocide. But they couldn't risk losing their health insurance. They couldn't risk losing their job because their partner just lost their job. And I realized very quickly that this is a coercive market. It's not a free market. And when our employers can use our jobs and our health insurance to crush dissent against the government and its actions for using our tax dollars to fund a genocide, something was deeply wrong with our system. And the only way to really address it was to get to the root cause of this, which I believe is the money in politics issue.
- [110:28]
Crystal Ball
I mean, is that legal to fire you for exercising your first amendment rights.
- [110:32]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
At will employment at the end of the day? It's not a decision that I agreed with, of course, but when we are talking about a genocide that is being waged by Democrats who are taking money from the very folks that. That want this to continue to happen, it makes it incredibly difficult for employees to challenge these decisions in the workplace. And so whether it was at will employment at the end of the day, and so it's something I disagreed with, but ultimately it put me back on the path of actually fighting for everyday working people and getting back to public service and fighting for the kind of policies that would make a meaningful difference for folks.
- [111:12]
Crystal Ball
So you're running to represent a Denver district. So it's relatively blue district. All the action's gonna be in the democr Democratic primary. You're going against a Democratic incumbent, Diana DeGette. Tell us a little bit about her and how you contrast with her.
- [111:26]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
Diana Deget has been in office since 1997. She's been in office longer than I've been alive. And while I have a great deal of respect for the work she might have done in the past, for the last 10 or so years, there's been nothing. It has been nothing but lukewarm leadership. And we are are literally staring down multiple crises with our economy, with our democracy, with the climate. We cannot afford another 30 years of just complacency in all that time she's been in office, she's only passed two bills and she's taken millions of dollars from corporate PACs, including Big Pharma, big energy defense contractors. So it's no wonder that we are continuing to see Democrats enable this kind of behavior in the federal government, whether or not it's a Democrat or Republican in charge, because it is these corporations that are trul influencing these parties. And it has to change by ensuring that we no longer vote in corporate shills into government and are actually making sure it's the people that are holding the politicians accountable.
- [112:28]
Crystal Ball
I see you taken very strong and admirable stance against Trump's illegal actions in Venezuela. You posted this. You said Trump just invaded a foreign country, kidnapped their leader, put all their oil up for sale at the direction of his billionaire backers. And all establishment Democrats have to say, as he didn't ask for permission first, distracting from the Epstein files is just his bonus. I'd love for you to elaborate on that. But also has Diana Deget, has she said anything? What has been her position on Venezuela?
- [112:55]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
The exact same response that a lot of establishment Democrats have had, which is that they didn't ask for Congress's permission first. And ultimately that is ignoring the very real reality for a lot of Americans that have witnessed this already happen. Again, they know that this is not about drugs. We know that this is about oil and money and power. And for the Venezuelans who are rejoicing the removal of Maduro, I can understand where they're, where they're coming from. But ultimately there has never been a case the United States government invading a foreign country and overthrowing that government and leaving the country better off than when we first arrived. Because it's never about bettering that country country. It's about extracting all the resources to feed the insatiable greed of corporations and billionaires here, while everyday working Americans are just left out to dry. And that continues because they're establishment Democrats like Diana Deget, who take money from the defense contractors and the big energy companies that are going to be benefiting from deals like this to allow it to continue while they feign outrage by basically just saying that they didn't ask for permission first. The American people do not want to go to war with Venezuela. They know that this is just the regime war change. This is not about drugs and we deserve better from Democrats to actually fight forcefully against this war.
- [114:13]
Crystal Ball
I saw your governor, Jared Polis put out an absolutely horrific statement saying that now is the time to celebrate the ouster of Maduro. And you know, I mean, I don't even feel like doing the throat clearing at this point ever. I think the American people see very clearly the way that these regime change actions go. And to your point that it doesn't end up benefiting the people who are harmed the most are the people that they're pretending to help at this point. What did you make of his statement and where does this come from?
- [114:40]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
I mean, ultimately we are talking about a governor that is himself extremely wealthy, is largely in the same kind of conversations with the same oil executive, then it's not surprising in the least bit.
- [114:53]
Crystal Ball
Right.
- [114:54]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
And ultimately this is coming from a place where Trump had closed door meetings with these oil executives, asked for their support in the campaign, the millions of dollars that they donated. And this is just Trump, you know, meeting his end of the bargain. And so when we're talking about Democrats who are participating in the style of politics, which is ultimately just bribery by these corporations and these billionaires, this is what ends up happening. It's working class people that get left behind while they just feed their insatiable greed.
- [115:24]
Crystal Ball
Would you vote for Hakeem Jeffries to be speaker of the House if you win and if Democrats can take control of Congress, would you? Which is fairly expected at this point?
- [115:32]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
I refuse to vote for anyone to be speaker of the House that is continuing to take AIPAC money into continuing to aid and abet the genocide that is happening in Gaza. If there's a change of heart by that time, then I might reconsider. But ultimately this has to be about standing on principle and choosing the American people first and choosing human rights first. And right now, Joaquin Jeffries is not meeting that moment.
- [115:55]
Crystal Ball
Maylad, are there any specific sort of Denver or Colorado issues just to give people a sense of anything that may be unique to your race and to the constituents you're looking to serve?
- [116:05]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
Yeah, you know, the first district and Denver is one of the youngest, if not the youngest district in the entire country. One of the bluest districts in the country. This is an incredibly progressive city. We have things like universal pre k. We have term limits. We even have the small donor matching program that helped propel Zohran Mamdani to a win in New York City. And so we are talking about a city that deserves to have a representative that actually refers to reflects those values in Congress. We have very strong anti corruption values here. And to have a representative was taking millions of dollars from the very corporations that are responsible for the affordability crisis that are pushing out young people from this city. It's absolutely absurd. And to have been in office for 30 years, to have been at the helm of power while the affordability crisis has unfolded and to claim that you are the only one who can help get us out of this message mess is absolutely ridiculous. And it insults the intelligence of Denverites who are seeing the affordability crisis, who are trying to not just get by and make ends meet, but to actually thrive and to build some kind of generational wealth, which is impossible under these circumstances. And when you have been in office for that long, you have lost touch with what the needs are of the people in this district. And to be in office for 30 years and it's just absolutely ridiculous. And so Denverites are very excited about the prospect of there being a real, real challenge in this race and to see that there's someone who's actually talking about the affordability crisis and offering solutions that would make a meaningful difference. So Medicare for all, Housing first universal child care, an arms embargo.
- [117:42]
Crystal Ball
Right.
- [117:43]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
We are talking about having an elected official that actually listens to the 80% of Democratic voters that wants an arms embargo in Israel. It's absurd that we even have to talk about it that way. But that's where we're at when it's money and corporations and billionaires that are actually directing and influencing our government. The only way to get rid of that kind of system is to vote all the corporate shills out.
- [118:04]
Crystal Ball
Well, Meilat, I think there are going to be a lot of very interesting things that happen in politics this year. I think there are going to be a lot of Democratic incumbents who are caught a bit unawares. If people want to support your campaign, where can they do that?
- [118:17]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
You can join us at kiros4co.com that's K I R O S F O R C O dot com. You can sign up to volunteer. You can donate. A small dollar donation on a recurring basis is massively helpful to candidates like myself who do not take corporate pacman, who do not take lobbying money. I don't take a dime from apac. This is a people powered campaign and I'm really, really proud to share that. We have 2,000 more individual donors than the incumbent does. This is a campaign that the people are excited about and I hope that you will join us. Whether it's virtually on the ground here in Denver, we're going to start knocking on doors and canvassing all over the city very soon. So I hope to have folks join us.
- [118:53]
Crystal Ball
Amazing. Well, thank you for taking the time with us. I know you're super busy. And also, thank you so much for running. I really appreciate it. As someone who ran for Congress unsuccessfully myself, hopefully you do a little bit better than I ended up doing. But I know what a personal cost is. I know what it requires of you, so I really appreciate you stepping up for this.
- [119:12]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
Thank you, Crystal. That really means a lot. Ultimately, we are talking about our generation facing down the barrel of a future where we own nothing, rent everything, and work until we die. You know, we have no choice but to step up and fight for the kind of future that we really believe in. So I really appreciate that. Thank you.
- [119:27]
Crystal Ball
My pleasure.
- [119:29]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
All right, that was Melat Kuros in Colorado. Now, folks, we are releasing this entire Friday show episode publicly for free near the start of the year, showing you guys what we do here in the second half of the show. So we want to just end here with some rapid fire quick AMA questions, because this episode has run a little bit longer than normal.
- [119:50]
Emily
That's amazing, by the way, because I thought we were behind the paywall for, like, the last hour, so a little.
- [119:55]
Crystal Ball
I'm just gonna let them fly.
- [119:57]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Sorry. Sorry to warn you. All right, so this person, Mr. Christopher, asks what did Ryan mean when he said something like, borders are immoral?
- [120:10]
Ryan Grim
That just the. The right to move about from one place to another is just fundamental to human nature. Like. Like. And I think Americans have a hard time conceiving of that because they have that right. Like, if you were born in Pennsylvania and could never leave Pennsylvania, I think you would quite easily agree with the. With the sentiment. When you drive from Pennsylvania to Maryland and just drive across the border, that feels natural. You could still have nationalities, citizenship and such. You can have. You can enforce laws. That's what I mean. That, like, not being able to move is inconsistent with, like, human dignity and flourishing pushing. Like, I'm. I remember when I was down in Bolivia touring a military base there in the Chapari region, this guard who was with us waiting with Christian Parenti, actually, we're like, waiting to interview a colonel or something. And he's like. He asked us, he's like, how come you guys get to wander around a Bolivian military base and I can't even go out as a tourist to the United States? And Christian said it's called imperialismo, but it's. There's no, like, moral way to answer that question. That. So that's. That's what, that's what I mean by that.
- [121:42]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
All right, we'll move on. We'll keep them fast without any opening of any Debates among the hosts here, this next one from AmberLynn FNP. Have any of you guys ever voted for a member of the opposite party? If so, five.
- [121:55]
Emily
Yeah, I, I mean I don't consider myself like a Republican certainly, but I've definitely voted Democrat in D.C. elections. Lesser two evils.
- [122:06]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Okay.
- [122:07]
Ryan Grim
I voted for Wayne Gilchrist, a Republican for Congress I think as many times as I could. He was, he represented the Eastern Shore. He was a high school teacher at my, at Kent County High School. The high it. He is an awesome guy. I know his kids anti war for the most part environmentalist. Like he, he would definitely be like a liberal Democrat at this point. And then he was, he was, he was ousted by Andy Harris, right wing lunatic Republican in a Tea Party challenge. So. So yes, I also voted for a Republican like state House member because the I, you know, Eastern Shore is very conservative and had one of these blue dog Democrat vibes going into the 90s or whatever. And there was this one Democrat who was this far rightwing Democrat who was very powerful in blocking everything. So my logic was, was be better to have a powerless Republican in that seat than a, than a powerful bad Democrat.
- [123:19]
Crystal Ball
Interesting. So you voted against the Joe Manchin.
- [123:23]
Ryan Grim
That helped me get the marijuana policy job. Because in the interview they asked me if I, if I would be willing to support either, you know, candidates in both parties as long as they're good on weed. And I told this that story and they were like, oh my God, wheels. Like we like actually opposed him because he was bottling up our pot bills in Annapolis. You're dead right. Like that guy sucked. And getting him out was great. I was like, yeah, who care? It's not about party. It's about getting things done for people.
- [123:54]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Crystal, have you ever voted for a Republican?
- [123:56]
Crystal Ball
Never voted for a Republican. Hard to imagine at this point that I ever would. Unless the party completely and dramatically changes or I was in a district like if I lived in Thomas Massey's district and it's going to be a Republican, like I would make sure to vote in the Republic would probably vote affirmatively for Thomas Massie because I do think it's important to have this, you know, iconoclastic Republican voice in Congress and that would be more beneficial than having like, you know, a random like sort of shitty Democrat, which would be the only thing that would have, you know, that would be likely to emerge in that district in Kentucky.
- [124:30]
Ryan Grim
Are you in Tom Perriello's district? Is the one that, where he's running?
- [124:35]
Crystal Ball
No, I'm not. I'm in the. The district. What's the name of the guy?
- [124:39]
Angie Hicks
The.
- [124:39]
Crystal Ball
They were very involved in the whole Ukraine situation.
- [124:43]
Emily
Oh, Vinmin.
- [124:45]
Crystal Ball
Yes. That's the district I'm in. Yeah. Although they may be redrawing the lines, because I'm kind of right between that and one of the still Republican districts that's represented by the guy that I lost to back in 2010, Rob Whitman, who sucks. Sort of like run of the mill Republican sucks.
- [125:02]
Ryan Grim
He was like a Hill staffer. Right, right.
- [125:04]
Crystal Ball
Like, he was a. No, he was an environmental scientist, actually.
- [125:07]
Claire Valdez
Which.
- [125:08]
Crystal Ball
Part of what's disgusting is, like, he completely abandoned any, you know, of his previous principles with regard to conservation and environmentalism and just votes a party line and, like, is completely unremarkable in every way, which is just pathetic.
- [125:24]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Last question from Patrick Mulligan here. He says Nick Shirley is a disgusting propagandist, and I'm glad to see BP take apart his lies. Did you see his Ukraine gain quote unquote coverage? Also, why has BP not talked about Hasan's propaganda pieces and lies now? I love this comic. It's like, oh, we got a guy who's mad at everyone.
- [125:45]
Emily
Hassan's China streams were wild.
- [125:49]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Oh, yeah. Emily, what do you think? Okay. What do you think about Hassan's China streams go off?
- [125:53]
Emily
Well, I mean, it's different than Nick Shirley. Like, Nick Shirley will go to, like, seacot and not act like he's, you know, a simp. Whereas Hassan was in China and was like, yeah, I sent for China. China's awesome. Which I thought was, like, completely insane. Insane and like, self evidently insane as it was happening.
- [126:09]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
And they were Nick Shirley sims for seot.
- [126:11]
Emily
Nick N. He's not honest about it. No, no, I'm saying he's not. That's what I'm saying. Like, he's not. He's not like, yo, I s for China. Like, China rocks and Nick Shirley's out there. Like, I'm telling you the facts from seot. Here's what's happening. Like, I. I am the Rick Steves of fascist tourism.
- [126:32]
Claire Valdez
Mm.
- [126:33]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Yeah. Okay. So I guess we feel that there's propaganda on both sides. Is that. Is that what was that, what we're saying?
- [126:41]
Crystal Ball
Well, I mean, I think with Hassan, you're allowed to offer your opinion of what you think of China. You know, like, I don't know, it's different than going to and, like, demanding to see these kids in a daycare and fabricating some whole fictional storyline. That's just totally. And I mean, there is fraud. Nick Shirley did Not find said fraud. Fraud. So in any case, I would put them as two distinct things. Would not. I would not dump them in the same bucket.
- [127:06]
Ryan Grim
Right. And it's just interesting that this is happening as Trump is pardoning all of these fraudsters who have like.
- [127:13]
Crystal Ball
And who is, whose administration is committing, like, freaking. Caroline Levitt ended her press briefing apparently to like, pay off some polymarket bet is what it looks like. Allegedly is what it looks like. And there was certainly an inside spider trader on the. What was it?
- [127:30]
Claire Valdez
We just.
- [127:30]
Crystal Ball
Oh. On the Venezuela kidnapping.
- [127:34]
Ryan Grim
Why?
- [127:34]
Emily
Did not respond to my request for comment.
- [127:37]
Ryan Grim
The Ponzi scheme guy that he pardoned defrauded, like, thousands of people. Like, this is not. These were not small crimes and these are crimes with real victims rather than, like, the taxpayer getting bilked, which is not good. But, like, these guys are like cops.
- [127:56]
Crystal Ball
And firefighters who had their whole retirement robbed from them, and now we'll never see a penny of it. Because the President of the United States is cool with fraudsters as long as they, like, donate to him or suck up to him.
- [128:06]
Ryan Grim
Yeah.
- [128:09]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Nick, you have your next target. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm launching Release the Shirley. Yeah. Surely also is getting rewarded. And he's like, now, now I'm going to every daycare around the country. Country and so look forward to, I guess, like, every daycare has to submit their children to him or you're just gonna get like a, just an influx of kick and rumble streamers, like, knocking on your door every day after. And I think that's gonna happen with bathrooms too, with, like, trans people in bathrooms. I think, like, the next thing is going to be just going inside bathrooms with the camera is going to be the next, next socially right wing content creation thing that's going to be allowed.
- [128:52]
Ryan Grim
Now.
- [128:52]
Crystal Ball
That sounds. So did you see Nick Shirley, like, wandering around a medical plaza? Like, why are all these healthcare places in the same place?
- [129:01]
Ryan Grim
There's not even a, there's not a Foot Locker to be seen. This is so weird.
- [129:05]
Claire Valdez
Our.
- [129:06]
Ryan Grim
Your, your buddy Hannah Nia had a really funny post. I had missed that. He walked into, like, Shirley walked into a healthcare provider's office, sees a bunch of patients in the waiting room, walks up to the receptionist and asks her what the healthcare rates are.
- [129:24]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
I, I have never seen someone in more need of medical care than Nick Shirley.
- [129:30]
Crystal Ball
Is he like an, I mean, is he an alien? Like, do you not live here?
- [129:34]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Like, he's a moron. He's a virgin.
- [129:37]
Crystal Ball
Okay. It's funny you said Mormon Because I was just gonna say it feels like something Mitt Romney would have done in his campaign. Remember how he was doing? It's like, around the American. Yeah, it's like he was on safari in his own country. That's what that feels like to me. So there is a Mormon connection there, I guess.
- [129:53]
Ryan Grim
On Tuesdays, we have a two for one on casts.
- [129:58]
Crystal Ball
Excuse me, good sir, could you please tell me what your health care rates are?
- [130:01]
Ryan Grim
What are your healthcare rates? And then he walks out and he's like, obvious fraud. They will not engage.
- [130:10]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
It's so good.
- [130:12]
Ryan Grim
And then the whole country's like, like, yep, fraud. Send. Send in. Send in the feds.
- [130:16]
Crystal Ball
That's right. Yeah, that's right. That's where we live. That's cool.
- [130:21]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Well, on that note, folks, that is where we live this week. We'll see where we live next week.
- [130:26]
Emily
Who's a better journalist, Copel or Nick Shirley?
- [130:30]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Oh, it's decopal all day. Oh, well, it's tough because they kind of.
- [130:34]
Ryan Grim
He.
- [130:34]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
It's like the. You know, Nick Shirley's the hammer. He's on the streets, you know, and decouples.
- [130:40]
Ryan Grim
The.
- [130:40]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
The brain, the mind.
- [130:41]
Ryan Grim
Mind.
- [130:42]
Crystal Ball
I mean, if you want a serious answer, you have to go with the Copel, because at least he did get that answer out of Tom Holman. You know, like, that was a real thing he produced, as opposed to, like, a bunch of fabricated slopaganda from Nick Shirley.
- [130:55]
Ryan Grim
The chance that Shirley is in talks with 60 Minutes right now, probably pretty high.
- [131:01]
Emily
Pretty high.
- [131:02]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Imagine Shirley on a teleprompter. That would just be unbelievable. That'd be like something you play at Guantanamo. All right, so Friday, show ending now. Thank you to the candidates that joined us this morning. And anything else before we leave?
- [131:22]
Crystal Ball
Y' all don't think so? Appreciate you guys. If anything crazy happens over the weekend, we'll try to cover it. Otherwise. Actually, Ryan, isn't it you and me on Monday.
- [131:34]
Ryan Grim
That's right. Right.
- [131:35]
Crystal Ball
We do an Akami takeover.
- [131:36]
Ryan Grim
We're gonna have studio.
- [131:38]
Crystal Ball
That's right. Super psyched about that. We'll have to brainstorm questions for him. So if you guys have thoughts, send them our way. We'll take a look at that as well. But definitely want to talk to him about Venezuela for sure. Potential shutdown, ice. Many things to get into with him.
- [131:54]
Ryan Grim
Yes, indeed.
- [131:56]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
All right, we'll see y' all then. Bye. Bye.
- [131:59]
Angie Hicks
At cvs, it matters that we're not just in your community, but that we're part of. Part of it. It matters that we're here for you when you need us, day or night. And we want everyone to feel welcomed and rewarded. It matters that CVS is here to fill your prescriptions and here to fill your craving for a tasty and, yeah, healthy snack. At cvs, we're proud to serve your community because we believe where you get your medicine matters. So Visit us@cvs.com or just come by ourselves. Store we can't wait to meet you. Store hours vary by location.
- [132:34]
Ryan Grim
Live CBS Sunday.
- [132:36]
Tony Dokoupil
Hollywood's biggest party is now bigger than ever.
- [132:40]
Emily
Perfect.
- [132:41]
Crystal Ball
No notes.
- [132:42]
Ryan Grim
The Golden Globes. With more stars, more glamour, more chaos and more host Nikki Glaser.
- [132:50]
Guest Candidate (Melat Kiros)
We're gonna laugh at the celebrities that can take it and completely ignore the ones who can't. I'm just kidding. They're not safe either.
- [132:57]
Ryan Grim
The Golden Globes, live, CBS Sunday, 8 Eastern, 5 Pacific, and streaming on Paramount.
- [133:02]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Plus, it's football season and now you can get anything you need for game day delivered with Uber Eats.
- [133:09]
Crystal Ball
Well, almost.
- [133:10]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Almost anything. You can't get a running back, but baby back ribs.
- [133:14]
Emily
Yes.
- [133:15]
Host (possibly Krystal Ball)
Uber Eats official on demand food delivery.
- [133:17]
Crystal Ball
Partner of the NFL.
- [133:18]
Angie Hicks
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.