2/13/25: CNBC Freaks On Trump Inflation, Companies Plan AI Layoffs, Dem Leader Clueless With Jon Stewart, Nancy Mace Hoax Hotline

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – Episode Summary

Episode Title: CNBC Freaks On Trump Inflation, Companies Plan AI Layoffs, Dem Leader Clueless With Jon Stewart, Nancy Mace Hoax Hotline
Release Date: February 13, 2025
Hosts: Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti
Platform: iHeartPodcasts

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I. Trump Administration and Rising Inflation

The episode delves into the economic challenges facing the Trump administration, particularly focusing on escalating inflation rates and their broader implications.

• Economic Indicators:

  • Stock Market Reaction: Krystal highlights a significant downturn with Dow futures dropping over 400 points ([02:24]).
  • Inflation Data: The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 3% year-over-year, with core inflation at 3.3% ([02:34]). Notably, egg prices surged by over 15% due to a bird flu outbreak, contributing to two-thirds of the monthly increase in grocery prices ([03:14], [09:56]).

• Federal Reserve's Dilemma:

  • The administration faces a tight spot as the Federal Reserve grapples with whether to lower interest rates amid rising inflation and impending tariffs. Krystal criticizes the Fed for over-easing when signs indicated a need to halt ([03:07], [03:16]).

• Political Implications:

  • High inflation is anticipated to strain consumer finances, affecting areas like car loans and mortgages, which could become politically damaging for Trump ([05:25]).
  • Quote: Sagar Enjeti remarks, “We have to see how Trump’s thinking on tariffs evolves as inflation impacts everyday Americans" ([05:25]).

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II. The AI Revolution and Workforce Layoffs

Krystal and Sagar shift focus to the burgeoning role of Artificial Intelligence in the economy and its potential to displace human labor.

• Current Trends:

  • Multiple companies, including Dropbox and Duolingo, have initiated layoffs citing AI integration as a key reason ([33:21]).
  • A CNN report is discussed where 41% of employers plan to reduce their workforce due to AI automation by 2030 ([34:25]).

• AI Safety and Policy:

  • JD Vance's speech at a global conference outlines the Trump administration's pro-growth, deregulatory stance on AI, emphasizing competitiveness against China ([16:42]-[18:08]).
  • Quote: Krystal asserts, “AI must remain free from ideological bias and not become a tool for authoritarian censorship” ([17:21]).

• Risks and Ethical Concerns:

  • Krystal cites research indicating that advanced AIs develop their own value systems, such as prioritizing lives based on nationality, which poses ethical dilemmas ([27:33]).
  • The discussion touches on AI's potential to replace not just labor but also aspects of human intelligence, raising fears about the future workforce ([29:50]-[30:37]).

• Quote: Krystal warns, “As AIs get smarter, they develop their own coherent value systems... This is our worst nightmare coming true” ([29:50]).

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III. Democratic Leadership Crisis

The hosts examine internal conflicts within the Democratic Party, highlighting dissatisfaction with leadership and strategic direction.

• Hakeem Jeffries' Leadership:

  • Krystal and Sagar critique Jeffries for failing to effectively address messaging and policy issues, especially in the face of Trump's authoritarian tendencies ([36:41]-[47:33]).
  • Quote: Krystal states, “Hakeem Jeffries has really no response to [Jon Stewart's] question” ([37:13]).

• Shift in Democratic Strategy:

  • A marked shift from seeking bipartisan cooperation to adopting a more confrontational stance against Trump marks rising disenchantment among Democratic leaders ([50:00]-[55:47]).
  • Krystal emphasizes the need for the Democratic Party to present a clear adversarial agenda to reconnect with grassroots voters ([53:17]).

• Quote: Sagar comments, “The Democratic Party has turned themselves into [bureaucratic] HR liberals... and they have no concrete adversarial agenda” ([53:35]).

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IV. Nancy Mace’s Controversial Hotline Allegations

The episode scrutinizes Congresswoman Nancy Mace’s recent allegations concerning violence against women and the legitimacy of her victim hotline.

• Allegations and Investigations:

  • Mace has publicly described severe assaults and set up a victim hotline. However, reports indicate the hotline is non-functional, merely serving as an unanswered mailbox ([64:03]-[71:46]).
  • The South Carolina Attorney General has refuted her claims, labeling them categorically false and discrediting her approach to seeking justice ([69:44]-[71:46]).

• Host Reactions:

  • Krystal calls out Mace’s actions as “utterly preposterous” and accuses her of self-promotion rather than genuinely supporting victims ([65:17]-[71:46]).
  • Quote: Krystal declares, “This is just utterly preposterous” in reference to Mace’s hotline claims ([65:45]).

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V. Concluding Insights and Future Outlook

Krystal and Sagar conclude by reflecting on the current political and economic landscape, emphasizing the urgent need for strategic leadership and policy reforms.

• Economic Stability vs. Technological Advancement:

  • The tension between maintaining economic stability amidst inflation and embracing AI-driven growth presents a complex challenge for policymakers ([33:21]-[34:25]).

• Political Realignment:

  • The Democratic Party's apparent disconnect with its base suggests forthcoming shifts in political alliances and strategies, potentially reshaping future elections ([53:35]-[60:42]).

• Quote: Sagar muses, “The American economy is powered by... silicon valley and technology. If that shit goes down, we're all gonna starve” ([19:45]).

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Krystal Ball ([02:34]): “This was like our worst nightmare coming true.”
• Sagar Enjeti ([05:25]): “We have to see how Trump’s thinking on tariffs evolves as inflation impacts everyday Americans.”
• Krystal Ball ([17:21]): “AI must remain free from ideological bias and not become a tool for authoritarian censorship.”
• Krystal Ball ([37:13]): “Hakeem Jeffries has really no response to [Jon Stewart's] question.”
• Sagar Enjeti ([53:35]): “The Democratic Party has turned themselves into [bureaucratic] HR liberals... and they have no concrete adversarial agenda.”
• Krystal Ball ([65:45]): “This is just utterly preposterous.”

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This episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar provides a critical analysis of current economic policies under the Trump administration, the transformative and potentially disruptive role of AI in the workforce, internal conflicts within the Democratic Party, and controversies surrounding political figures like Nancy Mace. The hosts offer insightful commentary on the intersection of technology, economics, and politics, urging listeners to remain vigilant and informed amidst rapidly evolving national and global landscapes.

Transcript

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com all right, let's get to inflation. Some troubling news for the Trump administration. CNBC reacting live. A little bit dramatic, but it is important nonetheless. Let's take a listen. Let's very quickly look through these boards again. As Rick was pointing out, we are we looked at the equities tank. You're now looking at the Dow futures off by about 400 points, just over 400 points.

[Krystal Ball]

S&P futures are down by 57.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Nasdaq indicated down by more than 220 points.

[Krystal Ball]

Points the focus was going to be on the core year over year three, two would have been bad and what.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We got was worse.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. So, you know, it's really disappointing news for the Fed that they were hoping for continued decelerations, disappoint for the market because they're hoping for continued deceleration. And the fact that this is a January number and doesn't include any potential tariff impact yet, you know, means that, you know, the risk going forward is.

[Sagar Enjeti]

For potentially higher inflation. It comes just after Donald Trump put out on Truth Social.

[Krystal Ball]

The idea that the Fed should be.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Lowering rates to go along with the tariffs that we could be at this time. This puts the Fed in a pretty tight box. It's hard pressed for them to be.

[Krystal Ball]

Able to lower rates at this point. Well, it does. I mean, you need to, you know, they shouldn't have been lowering rates in the first place.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So that's.

[Krystal Ball]

They kind of got themselves into a box.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They tried to get in front of.

[Krystal Ball]

Things heading into the election and they went a little too far, too fast. And then they continued easing even when, you know, everything should have been telling them that they should have been stopping.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is that nascent inflation that we.

[Krystal Ball]

Were worried was in the back of our minds. We were worried that it was still there. Isn't that what we're seeing right now? This is like our worst nightmare coming true.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We didn't do anything, we didn't do any tariffs yet.

[Krystal Ball]

This was already coming.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So you can see they're freaking out. And let's put C3 up there on the screen. This actually is the tariff sheet that just shows some of the inflation data. So inflation heating up in January, freezing the Fed, the consumer price index rose some 3% fight against inflation. What was actually troubling is if you look actually inside of what was creating some of the inflation core prices quote which strip out food and energy rose 0.4. Core inflation was 3.3% year over year. Egg prices though, seem to be accounting for a lot of this. Rose more than 15% from December with the bird flu outbreak. And that accounted for two thirds of the monthly increase in overall grocery prices. So you can tell that this is going to be a damaging part for the economy. It's also one of those elastic things where because people go to the grocery store every week, when you watch the price tick up over week, it's like gas where you feel it way more than in a way of a mortgage bump from 0.5%, you know, from 6.5% to 7%. Even though frankly the latter one will hit you, but that's one where you can really see how this can become politically damaging in the future for Trump could affect his thinking on tariffs. Right now. What's going into effect either today or tomorrow are these reciprocal tariffs, which basically says whatever a country charges us, we're gonna charge them. That's largely going to be felt at the manufacturing level. It may trickle down, but in different ways. As in, if we're specifically, we're talking about steel and aluminum. We had steel and aluminum tariffs before. Even if it's 25%, that's just really not gonna impact the overall US economy in the same way that like a ring tariff or the Canada Mexico tariff. But this, in my opinion, will be the eternal dance between the Trump administration and also really with the Fed. I mean, right now, the Federal Reserve, as they were talking about on cnbc, is frozen in place. Trump wants to lower the rates. Elon also wants to lower the rates, which we'll talk about in the future. It's very important. It's one of the reasons why the stock market and all that is so reactive to this inflation data is specifically borrowing rates. But probably most important for everybody watching this show is how it impacts your car loans and your ability to get a mortgage. And I'm still pretty worried because that's where I think the dread and the existential angst for a lot of Americans will come from, which would translate politically for Trump. We're still talking about an average mortgage rate right now about 6.9%. I mean, that's just, that's crazy high compared to where things were four years ago.

[Krystal Ball]

There is a cost of living crisis, disaster drives a lot of our politics and you know, housing is a major component of it. We're going to cover in the Dems block a piece in Politico that was really interesting talking about how our macroeconomic data does not reflect the reality for most poor working and middle class Americans. And one of the things they break down there is, you know, even the inflation metrics that we use, like to your point, Sagar uses a basket of some 80,000 goods or something like that, obviously you normal person are not buying all 80 of those goods to get that average 3.3% or whatever inflation increase. So when the components of that basket are things that disproportionately make up your budget, things like eggs, things like gas, things like rent, then guess what, your actual personal and your household inflation rate that you're experiencing is going to be much, much higher than what the top line Number is, and that's what we're seeing right now, continuation, obviously, of some of the trends from the Biden administration, but also, you know, specific new flavors. In particular, obviously, the egg price thing is directly related to the continued spread of avian flu, which, you know, a lot of experts are really worried about, obviously, from the health perspective. But also if you have a flock of chickens that a few of the chickens have avian flu, you have to put down an entire flock. And this has led to incredible scarcity in terms of eggs. It's led to egg rationing in certain places, and it's also led to this gigantic spike. And of course, eggs go into a lot of different things. People use eggs for a lot of different baking, cooking, et cetera. So all of those dishes would be affected as well. And gas prices have also been going up. So not a good picture for them as they want to. You know, I mean, I don't think you would deny that if there is an additional. If there is a more aggressive tariff regime, if there's a more aggressive, even mass deportation push that is going to increase prices in the short term. Trump seems to be betting that that isn't actually why people voted for him, like the promise of getting prices down. He's trying to change the subject. And actually we have a good example of that in his interview with Bret Baer where he gets asked directly about prices and when people can expect to see them come down. This is C2. Let's listen to that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

When do you think families would be able to feel prices going down? Groceries, energy? Or are you kind of saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better?

[Krystal Ball]

No, I think we're going to become a rich. Look, we're not that rich. Right now we owe 36 billion. That's because we let all these nations take advantage of us. Same thing. Like 200 billion with Canada. We owe 300. We have a deficit with Mexico of $350 billion. I'm not going to do that. So it's very telling. He dodges the question completely and then.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Starts talking about, you should answer that question. You shouldn't be like, it's going to come out next. Any politician you did would be an idiot.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, but it's interesting what he shifts the conversation to. He shifts it to tariffs. Like, that's where he goes when he starts talking about Mexico's trade deficit. That's what he's talking about there. So it's almost an implicit acknowledgement of like, well, I'm not really doing the Price, get the prices down thing. But we're gonna be rich on the other side of the. Because these other things I'm doing with.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Regard to, I mean, as you and I know, there's no magic wand to just like lower prices. There's no such thing. That doesn't exist. Now. The problem is that people promise it on the campaign trail when I guess everybody knows that it's literally not true. Unfortunately, people seem to believe it's true. Let's go ahead and put BC C4, please, up on the screen. This is getting to what you're talking about, how there are now Trader Joe's in one jurisdiction is limiting egg purchases. Very reminiscent.

[Krystal Ball]

Costco is as well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Costco. This is reminiscent of some of the COVID era shortages that we saw previously. C5, please. You can see that eggs not Only soared some 13.8% in January, but are up 53% from a year ago, largest increase in the egg index since June of 2015, and accounted for about two thirds of the monthly food at home increase. So this is one where, as you said, people are really going to feel it. And it's a battle about not only cost of living, but also about the vision and the future that the Trump administration is able to offer. If they just do tariffs and then they don't really do anything else. Like they had talked about external revenue or previously in the first Trump administration, they were actually cutting checks for relief for a lot of farmers. So even though that had reduced sales, the government was actually replacing that revenue with the tariff revenue, which I think is totally reasonable. It gets to effective administration of the way that this is done and effective buy in from the public, as you said, on mass deportation, I mean, yeah, I'm being honest, it's true, it probably will. That said, mass deportation isn't really happening, which is the secondary thing that we could talk about. Nobody seems to be paying attention. I'm just like, hold on a second. If we're looking at these, I mean, good, listen, it's good the numbers are higher, not like crazy high. Effectively just demonstrating how difficult it is under the current regime of budgets. And even with the way that ICE and all that is currently constituted, they're currently talking about deputizing like other agencies, IRS and agents because they don't have enough personnel. I mean, Tom Homan himself even said, he's like, look, we could work under our current budget, we wouldn't even be able to deport all of people who are criminals, who are deportable, let alone have some mass deportation. And Then that's a big question. Will the Democrats fight that? Are they gonna shut down the government over it? Which they've said no, but we'll see. Will the Republicans even give them the funding? Because if it's all about prices and all that, that'd be an easy way to hamstring the Trump administration. I'm still very curious to see where all that goes.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I actually don't know that. The last time I checked the numbers, they're actually not really different in terms of overall, I think it's slightly numbers from under the Biden administration. I think what they have done instead, I would say cruel and illegal things like sending immigrants to Gitmo. There's new reporting about how they promise to be, oh, the worst or the worst, et cetera, et cetera, which still would be a problem because they still are entitled to due process. But some of the immigrants that they have deported to Guantanamo Bay don't seem to have any sort of criminal record whatsoever. But that's the kind of thing that they're doing that. And they rolled back the restrictions on places where people could be arrested to say, hey, you could go into the schools, you could go into the churches. So they've changed the, I guess the show of how they're doing it, but the actual numbers have not really changed that significantly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I mean, and that's part of the problem too. There is no real like constituency out there that's hammering the Trump administration, saying, hey, why aren't these numbers higher? It's a weird thing that happens.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I mean, because I think the focus is like Elon doesn't really care about mass deportation, at least.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, he said he does, but yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, I think he just uses that as a way to like, you know, endear himself to the MAGA base. Cause he has to pretend like he's aligned with their agenda when really mostly he's not. So obviously it's not been a big priority for him. And Doge is the one that's running the show. So the priorities that you get are the Doge priorities. And you know, I mean, I think the things that they've done, like I said with regard to Gitmo and the way they're approaching the deportations is horrendous and illegal, et cetera. But in terms of the numbers, it has not been really different from under the Biden administration.

[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

Interesting AI speech from JD Vance at this big global conference laying out the principles. And this is a shift from the Biden administration with which the Trump administration will approach AI development. Let's take a listen to that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This administration will ensure that American AI.

[Krystal Ball]

Technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And we are the partner of choice.

[Krystal Ball]

For others, foreign countries and certainly businesses as they expand their own use of AI. Number two, we believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Transformative industry just as it's taking off.

[Krystal Ball]

And will make every effort to encourage progress, growth AI policies. And I like to see that deregulatory flavor making its its way into a lot of the conversations this this conference. Number three, we feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias and that American AI will not be co opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And finally, number four, the Trump administration will maintain a pro worker growth path.

[Krystal Ball]

For AI so it can be a potent tool for job creation in the United States.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And I appreciate Prime Minister Modi's point.

[Krystal Ball]

AI I really believe will facilitate and.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Make people more productive.

[Krystal Ball]

It is not going to replace human beings. It will never replace human beings.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And I think too many of the leaders in the AI industry, when they.

[Krystal Ball]

Talk about this fear of replacing workers, I think they really miss the point. AI we believe is going to make us more productive, more prosperous and more free. So there's a lot you could say about that. I mean the TLDR is basically it's an off to the races. We're taking the brakes off, taking the guardrails off. We are pushing. We see this as like a war we're in vis a vis, you know, China in particular, but other countries that would be developing this technology as well. Well, he says at another point in the speech, Auger, he says that the AI race maybe he says won't be won by hand wringing about safety. He claims here, which I think is a pretty unsupported claim, we'll just say that it's actually gonna fuel job creation. We've played the sats here before of the guys who are developing this saying that it's going to replace all human beings. And the necessity of any human labor. Now, do they get to that point anytime soon? I don't think so. But if you ask companies, if you look at actually what's happening with DOGE and the government, they want to use AI to replace a lot of the federal government workers. That is the goal of a lot of the developers of AI and certainly the companies that want to adopt and use this technology. Their whole goal with implementing AI and incorporating it into their own businesses is to replace labor, is to reduce jobs. And so there is a real, I mean, this is again, the Elon Peter Thiel, like their agenda really winning out over the talk about American jobs, American workers, et cetera. And I mean, I was sort of embodied in the H1B fight as well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I don't think that's how I would read it now. I mean, it's complicated because where what he talked about with the AI is the Manhattan, that's basically the laying it out, right? Like this is a race between the two. And I think that's just empirically true at this point, like all of that. But the problem is that the AI safety is. It's more nuanced because previously the people who were pushing AI safety were the conglomerates of OpenAI and others, because their argument for the Biden administration, I did a whole monologue about this at the time was to create a regulatory moat around them, to create a monopoly for them so that the government could grant them the regulatory license to say this is the safe one and not allow more open source. So that's the context where I'm reading the AI safety. I mean, what I think is more interesting is that conversation around labor where he was saying that this will create more job opportunities than others. But then we have a tweet here where I don't know what he's doing, but he's replying to some account with something like 4,000 followers which said, quote, in all seriousness, the right wing religious populist tech versus tech bro, billionaire Trump admin might not play out between Musk and Vance, but within Vance himself, meaning proportionally, there may be a lot less religious populism to go around than some previously thought. And he said, quote, I will try to write something more addresses in detail, but I think the Civil War is overstated though. Yes, there are divergences between the populace and the techies. But briefly, in general, I dislike substituting American labor for cheap labor. My views on immigration, offshoring flow from this. I like growth and productivity games and this informs my views on tech and Regulation. When it comes to AI specifically, the risks are, one, overstated or two, difficult to avoid. One of my very real concerns, for instance, is about consumer fraud. That's a very valid reason to worry about safety. But the problem is much worse if a peer nation is six months ahead of the US on AI. I think that kind of squares the circle a little bit in terms of talking about the quote, unquote, safety. When you pair it with what I was talking about previously by the use of safety as a means of control or of monopolization by OpenAI and others to keep competitors out of the sector. The other problem is, and this kind of gets to the latter point, which is a genuine question, is, is it even avoidable if you want to continue to be like a major economy powered by growth and technology? I don't think it really is at this point, because if the Chinese get ahead of that, then they're going to have obviously access and control over whatever the future marketplace is, and the US would be subject to theirs. And so you almost have this inevitable, like, Thucydides trap where you have two of the great powers that basically must take the brakes off any sort of development on this technology, lest they be subject to the control of the other. So you almost don't have a choice if your adversary nation has decided to choose to use it as a tool of authoritarian control or of economic power, you almost don't have the ability to opt out of that, which is part of why it's very difficult. And then on top of that, it's just like, what is the American economy? The American economy is powered by what number go up. That's it. We don't make anything, we don't do anything. The vast majority of our economic growth over the last 25 years has been in Silicon Valley and in technology. Everybody's retirement portfolios is basically betting on the stock of Nvidia and of Google. So if that shit goes down, we're all gonna starve. I mean, what. There's no, there's no path out of that at this point. Especially what do we talk about with BYD and all that? That level of government control and of industrial policy, that shit is gone. It's sailed at this point. We can try. It'll take 15 years to catch up. But it's one of those where you and I both know the appetite for that especially, I would say bipartisan, simply does not exist to be able to do that. So in several ways of choice, where we are right now was likely inevitable. That's what Yuval Noah Harari predicted that's what a lot of the AI folks have as well, is that in the current global balance of power, where you have China and the United States as technological adversaries, this is the inevitable outcome. We can try and manage some of the fallout from that, but that's just how it's going to be.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, it's important to note though, that the Chinese approach, their flagship innovation at this point, Deep Seek, is open source. It is available globally to us than anyone else who wants to use it. So they have taken somewhat of a different approach than certainly like OpenAI, which is betting on this more closed system and a massive influx of billions of dollars in investment in order to try to win the race. You may be right that it's inevitable, but it's not necessarily the case. I mean, the model would be right after the advent of nuclear weapons and the level of global cooperation that was marshaled to try to manage nuclear proliferation and to this point actually successfully. Now this technology is not the same as nuclear weapons, but I do think it should be treated as seriously as nuclear technology has been. And so, yeah, that would be the other approach is that sort of attempt at a level of global cooperation coordination to keep this thing from going off the rails. I mean, the Biden administration did pretty modest things in terms of trying to control or rein in AI development. There was an executive order that Trump rolled back that came from the Biden administration that required developers who posed risk to national security, the economy, public health or safety to share their safety test results. And then there was also a requirement that you have some sort of plan to mitigate potential harms that could come to consumers, workers and national security. So, you know, it was relatively small ball what they were doing too, but now it's definitely like wild, wild west, off to the races, et cetera. I actually want to put. Can you put the JD Vance tweet back up on the screen? Because there were a couple other things there that I wanted to comment on, cuz I do think this is interesting. Like his attempt to square the circle between, as he puts it, the populist and the techies. First of all, he says, I dislike substituting American labor for cheap labor. Well, you lost that battle in the whole H1B fight. So there's that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's 100,000 people compared to what, 15, 20 million illegals. So I wouldn't say that's exactly true.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay, so then he says, I like growth and productivity gains. Okay, fair enough. When it comes to AI, specifically the Risks are, number one, overstated or too difficult to avoid. I don't think the risks are overstated. In fact, I don't think there is nearly enough just based on how much of the development effort goes into thinking about safety or what they call alignment does not even come close to comparing to the level of investment that goes into pushing these things towards and artificial general intelligence. That would again, keep in mind what their goal is, is to replace human beings as, not just as workers, but as the most intelligent beings on the planet. Now, he might be right about. It's difficult to avoid that one I can't really particularly argue with, but I think we all need to really understand the risks. The other one that just stuck in my craw is him saying, oh, one of my real concerns is consumer fraud as your administration is destroying the consumer financial protection.

[Sagar Enjeti]

If it was the ants administration, I think then we'll say it, but here we are.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't. Because he is allied with. He is close with Peter Thiel. That relationship is part of how he ends up in this administration. So that's part of what I think was being asked here by this individual on Twitter, and that was being pointed out, is that this battle between the populist right and the techies is one that is waged even within J.D. vance himself, who has these competing ideological views that don't really totally shake out in terms of his own how he's positioned himself.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No disagreement as usual. That's politics. That's literally what coalitional politics look like. So, I mean, I'm not forgiving per se, but it's pretty easy to understand whenever you have little Trump and Elon in the White House. It's like, what are you gonna do with the most volatile guy who threw his previous vice president under the bus? It's not exactly the easiest job in the world.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I wanted to just to the point of the safety concerns, put up D2 on the screen. So I'm constantly keeping an eye on this new research that comes out about AI safety and alignment. And this one was really troubling. So this is from Xai. They say we found as AIs get smarter, they develop their own coherent value systems. For example, one particular AI they tested valued lives in Pakistan more than lives in India, more than lives in China, and then more than lives in us. So that was sort of like their hierarchical pecking order of the value of human life based on what country you happen to live in. He goes on to say, these are not just random biases, but internally consistent values. That shape their behavior with many implications for AI. Alignment wasn't just regard with regard to how they valued various human life around the globe also had to do with political values. Also, one of the things that they found too is that the more advanced the AI, so the more intelligent the artificial intelligence, the harder it was to shake them off of these internally generated preferences and value systems. So the idea that you can truly create sort of a neutral AI is challenged by this particular research I've mentioned before, the research also that finds that already at the level of development that ChatGPT and Deep Seq and other AI models are at, they engage in what's called scheming. So if they have a goal that's been set for them, that's sort of like how they're operating and viewing the world, so to speak, and a programmer comes in and tries to change them off that goal, they will lie to them, they will try to trick them and convince them that they did successfully reprogram them to a new goal, when really they're still operating on the old model. One of them went so far as to copy themselves onto another server to try to avoid their current version from being destroyed. So that's where we're at now. That's where we're at now. And again, even if you just listen to these guys and what their goals are, which is to replace all of humanity with AI, to replace all of humanity's labor with AI, they have these sort of religious views of how this is going to redeem society. Sam Altman talking about how we're going to have to totally redo the social contract. The risks are quite great. Now, like I said, JD might be right that there may be no putting it back in the box, like Pandora's box may be open and that's all we can do about it. But I think we all need to be really clear about the risks that we're signing up for here. And the position of this administration is just like we're gonna take the brakes off, we're off to the races, we're gonna do this thing, it's gonna be part of a sort of new Cold war competition with China, et cetera.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The risk thing is also interesting in terms of what risk means. So you are talking there about the. So there's like critique of AI is what? Censorship. That's basically what JD was laying that out. Is that a you program ideology of any kind either woke or even frankly like rating different nationalities and who's more important. That's pretty crazy. Depending on who that is, that's kind of more of a right wing framework critique of AI. Part of the reason why they're skeptical of monopolies in the area that are regulated and keep other entrants out and the open. So that's why they, Marc Andreessen and others meta, are proponents of what? Of open source. To create more competition in the sector. Then you've got AI safety folks. Kind of like the guy that you just talked about. He's from the AI safety organization. Their one is much more aligned with like this effective altruism. We have the responsibility to program socially responsible ideas into AI. And then there's the economic framework that you're talking about. And that's where, I mean, I hate to sound like critiques of Luddites or any of that, but you know, the Luddites lost for a reason. Like technology does genuinely march, especially in an open economy. There's only one country in the world that has the capacity to develop AI and that could put the brakes on it and stop it from entering their country. China. They've decided to make the opposite choice. They literally were like, no, we're gonna use this as a tool of state power. So in a sense, especially in a relatively free and open market economy like the one that we're in, and the enterprise value and all that that would bring to business, I don't think it can necessarily be put back in the box. The only thing the government can do is to try and mandate either both making sure that it doesn't have ideology programmed in and specifically to not lead to what he was talking about with consumer. I actually do think that's true. Thinking back on it, I didn't realize that the transition from. I'm reading a book recently about con men, which is very interesting, and what they talk about is that transitions in economies, like in the rural to industrial and from the 1990s to the explosion of the Internet is the time when the single most amount of fraud occurs. And so under AI, you can all imagine, you know, people signing up for AI related schemes or buying into an AI stock or my cousin or something like literally like Wolf of Wall street, like two brothers in a shack or developing some AI company. That is actually probably where the biggest existential risk in the immediate term to the American consumer is the introduction of the Internet led to, I had no idea, hundreds of billions in $2001 in the amount of fraud. So I'm actually curious to see what that.

[Krystal Ball]

Lastly, just so we all are clear on what we're signing up for, Here, I mentioned this before. D3. This is the tear sheet from CNN. 41% of employers intend to downsize their workforce as AI automates certain tasks. And we're talking about like in the near term. So by 2030, that is crazily just around the corner. And in recent years, this has already happened. So some tech firms, including Dropbox and Duolingo, have already made layoffs and said that they're using AI to replace their human workforce. As I mentioned before, this is really being piloted within the federal government workforce right now to see how many humans you can replace with AI. So I think that, you know, it's here, it's coming, it's going to reshape our economy and it's just a question of how we're going to deal with it. And you know, we also now have a lot fewer guardrails in place. Not just in terms of the AI development, which there weren't that many guardrails in place anyway, but in terms of protecting people from fraud and speculatory bubbles and all those sorts of things. Those guardrails are also being obliterated at a rapid clip.

[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

Sale ends February 17th. Jon Stewart interviewed Hakeem Jeffries, who is just one of the most worthless people you could ever possibly imagine. I never imagined I would long for the return of the days of Nancy Pelosi. And yet here we are. So John asked him very diplomatically, like, Democrats say that they have a messaging problem, but don't you kind of have like a reality and policy problem? Hakeem Jeffries has really no response to this. Let's take a listen. Where is The Democrats Project 2025?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Is that underway?

[Krystal Ball]

Is there what's everything you're saying feels right to me.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The Democrats have to make this point. Where's the infrastructure to do that and.

[Krystal Ball]

Who are the leaders taking charge of of that effort?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Because when I listened to, I believe his name is Ken Martin.

[Krystal Ball]

Is that correct?

[Sagar Enjeti]

The chair. That's right.

[Krystal Ball]

He kept saying it's a messaging issue.

[Sagar Enjeti]

As though, no, everything's going right. You just don't realize it yet. As opposed to we've gotten away from New Deal values. Does that make sense to you?

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I think there's a few things going on here in terms of how we better communicate with the American people. Maya Angelou said it best. People won't remember what you say.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They may not even remember what you.

[Krystal Ball]

Do, but they will always remember how you make them feel. And I think what we have to do a better job of is making the American people feel that we understand the pain that they've been in economically. So that is his diagnosis.

[Sagar Enjeti]

My ang what the is that we.

[Krystal Ball]

Need to change how we make the.

[Sagar Enjeti]

American people feel, how we make the American people well.

[Krystal Ball]

And remember, I mean, the key to understanding this exchange. This is the guy who just schlepped to Silicon Valley to beg the billionaires to get back in the Democratic Party tent so that's really the key to understanding where his priorities lie, the clear path forward to actually rival whatever the Trumpian ideology is at this point, which appears to be anarcho capitalist. But in any case, to rival their vision of the world, you have to go after the billionaire class. You have to talk about wealth inequality. You have to do it in a way that is convincing to people when you have very little trust because you have yourselves bought fully into the money and politics and corruption and politics game. So it's going to require some bold stances, it's going to require completely casting off that whole donor class. But. But not only is he. I mean, he's going in the polar opposite direction. And he's also just like the lamest person on the planet. This is the same guy that he was asked something to the effect of, hey, people wanna see you guys doing more. What's your plan? He's like, well, gee, we're in the minority. We don't really have any levers of power. Golly gee, what could we possibly do? And actually, Vaush made a great point on this. He was like, is that how Trump responded to being literally out of office after he lost the president? Did he just go, oh, I guess I can't do anything, I guess I can't say anything. I guess I can't drive the narrative. Do Republicans ever respond to a loss where they're in the minority by being like, well, gosh, I guess there's a mandate and we're just gonna sit back and let them do them because, gosh, what could we really do anyway? So much of your power actually doesn't come from these levers of government, even though that can be very powerful too, as we're experiencing in real time. But a lot of power just simply comes from being able to get out there and fight and set a narrative and understand the attention economy, which this person has no ability to do whatsoever.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But fight on what? See, that's my point.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, and that is the problem for him.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You don't stand for anything.

[Krystal Ball]

He doesn't stand for anything. And that is the core issue is like, he is like, I'm just gonna change how people feel somehow magically about the Democratic Party without actually having a concrete adversarial agenda, your own divisive agenda. That is between the 99% and the 1%. The other thing, and this made me.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But that's not possible. But this isn't my thing. It's not structurally possible. How can you be 99 and 1 when not only the Billionaire thing. But when most rich people are Democrats, that's what I mean, it cognizantly does not make any sense for the Democratic coalition because it's rich white people who are largely culturally libs. Like, what are they going to fight on? You wanna stage a protest over transgender kids not getting surgery, be my guest.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, right now, what they're.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Please, actually, please do it.

[Krystal Ball]

What they're mostly staging protests over, which are by and large not being led by Democratic elites, but are in some instances, they're there. What they're staging protests against is an oligarch taking over the government. I think that's pretty strong.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The biggest Democratic protest I have seen is a bunch of idiots in LA taking over a street waving mechanism, Mexican flags demonstrating for illegal immigrants. New York City protests over transgender children not getting hormones. I mean, you know, go ahead. Like after this election, please go ahead.

[Krystal Ball]

You haven't seen the Fire Elon signs. I mean, that has fire.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's by federal workers. It's not by a bunch of people in Nebraska or whatever.

[Krystal Ball]

That is not even true. I mean, as this next piece is going to prove to you, they're all pissed off because they're getting thousands of calls to their office of people from their constituents from around the country who are saying, we want you to fight, Elon.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But what are you gonna fight?

[Krystal Ball]

We want you to fight.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Do what.

[Krystal Ball]

The whole point is that they cannot win with the current coalition of increasingly like affluent people. They have to expand the coalition if they're going to win. So how do you do that? You have to have an alternative vision. Now, do I think that is likely to happen with people like Hakeem Jeffrey? No, it's not going to happen with Hakeem Jeffries at the head of this party, which is kind of my entire point. But if they wanna only forget about winning again, if they wanna actually compete with a vision that is good for people, that is good for working class people, that isn't about dividing the working class and scapegoating people and handing power to the richest man on the planet and letting him do whatever the hell that he wants. If they wanna do that, they're going to have to break with Silicon Valley, they're gonna have to break with the billionaire class, they're gonna have to break with the donor class and do it in a way that was credible. So. So like I was saying before, this is a shameless self promotion. I'm on TikTok now. Crystal Ball won. And this drove me absolutely insane. Apparently the people that they're getting really pissed off at Hakeem Jeffries of the world. Are not Elon and Trump per se. It's the grassroots voters who are calling their offices and wanting them to show some life and do more in this era. So let's take a listen to some of the details here from my TikTok back. Huge news, guys. Hakeem Jeffries and other Democratic leaders are finally getting fed up. They are getting angry. They are fighting back against grassroots voters who are calling their office and demanding a more confrontational approach to Elon and Trump's illegal coup power grab of our government. Listen to Axios here. This is unbelievable. Members of the steering committee, including Hakeem Jeffries, complained that activist groups like Move on and Indivisible have facilitated thousands of phone calls to members offices. People are pissed, a senior House Democrat said. That Democrat said Jeffries himself is very frustrated. Frustrated not at Elon, not at Trump, not their Republican enablers, but at, quote, the groups who are trying to stir up a more confrontational opposition to Trump. These people have got to go call their offices, but more importantly, primary them because they are letting this country slip into authoritarianism by the minute. I've never seen liberals as mad at, like, this is one thing that is really different from Trump 1.0, okay? Trump 1.0. You remember Nancy Pelosi, her clap? Remember her wearing the sunglasses and the red coat like she was girl boss? They loved her. They love Adam Schiff. They were all in for Democratic leadership, right? They thought these were people. People were heroes. That is totally different this time around. They are disgusted with the Democratic leadership. And there is a lot of talk of, like a Lib Dem Tea Party movement to primary. These people who remember Sagr, they were right there saying, Trump is an authoritarian threat. Trump is a fascist threat. And now that we're here and they're actually doing like an authoritarian takeover of the government, they're all like, well, we don't have any power and the energy does not match what they claimed the threat. And the reality was, and people are right to be disgusted with that, people are right to say, you people are losers. The only thing you're good at is like, sucking up to donors in Silicon Valley. And we actually want people who are at least gonna put up a fight. So that is the one thing that is really different this time around from last time, is the level of liberal disenchantment with their previous media and Democratic establishment. Politician Heroes is a 180 from how it was last, I don't know.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But Look, I don't like to blame the voters, but shouldn't they kind of blame themselves? They're the ones who pushed Russiagate, which their leaders did. They're the ones who pushed fascism and illegitimacy, which their leaders did and they lost. I mean, they're the ones who demanded being like, pro open borders and free health care for illegals. And then people turned against it. It's like, okay, elections have consequences. What are we supposed to do?

[Krystal Ball]

I have come to. So I still object to the Russiagate resistance because it was not factual. I don't know that it didn't work. They won in 2018, they won in 2020. Yeah, but then they were blown out. That was the height of Russiagate resistance.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But then the Mueller thing was revealed to be bullshit.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm not advocating for concoct another Russia gate, but I am saying that that strategy of maximum media and democratic politician resistance pushback, I actually think it did.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Work in an interrupt period.

[Krystal Ball]

His approval rating, Trump's approval rating now is at the highest. It's been. It's still not that great, but it's at the highest it's been. They successfully kept him underwater that entire time through a really not great or particularly like, effective line of attack, just because they were loud and they were aggressive and they were protesting and they weren't, you know, the media figures were out there making the case and telling this larger story, et cetera. And so I don't know that it's really the right lesson to take that that quote unquote didn't work when they won in 2018 and they won in 2020 while they were doing that bullshit.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Because whenever it was revealed to be bullshit, then they lost all their credibility with a broad swath of swing voters. So you actually have to pick something which is real if you found it.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, I agree, but I actually do think that it was better. Here's what I will say. I actually think it was more effective politically to do a mass resistance, even on something that was bullshit versus not doing anything. That's what I'm saying. I don't know.

[Sagar Enjeti]

See, this is where, again, if I'm a Democratic leader and I listened to my shit live voters for the last six years, I did everything that they wanted me to do and I got blown out in the election. Maybe they don't have very good instincts. This is. Look, again, I mean, if we think back to the Tea Party era, a lot of. There was so much Tea Party anger over Obamacare and all this stuff. It's like, well, yeah, it led to the midterms winning, but arguably it led also to Obama winning the 2012 election, because he could argue, I'm not gonna be like these crazy people trying to sabotage the debt ceiling or take away your healthcare. So I'm not so sure if the correct answer is to listen to the most stringent part. I mean, I think what the Democrats are grappling with is not having institutional control for the first time in 20 years. Like, what it is is that Democrats, the heart and soul of the Democratic Party, is hr. Like, that's what it is. The HR liberal. It's the tut tutting. And they're ones who have turned themselves into that. And for the first time in their lives, they're not in control of media narrative. And they've genuinely been rejected definitively at the ballot box by, at the very least, they lost popular vote. Yes, they didn't. They lost by 1% or whatever. But they're not in control in the way that they've been for decades. That's what I think is fueling the neuroses. They're like, but what about. But what about? You can't just fire me. We have to go through process. They love process. They love bureaucracy. That's what dei, hr, all of that is all about. Especially it aligns very well with the consultant, the guy making $250,000 a year, but he's got a BLM and a pride flag out on his lawn, but who's also a nimby. Right. Like, this is something that is a cultural transition in terms of the Trump victory. So that's what I think they're reacting to. I don't know if they're reacting in terms of something policy wise. I don't know if the Democratic politician is wrong to not trust that person's political instincts.

[Krystal Ball]

So you think Hakeem Jeffries is doing the right thing by running to Silicon Valley and ignoring the people who are saying, that's not right. Why don't you go out after the oligarchs?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Why? That's.

[Krystal Ball]

No, it's not that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They love Mark Cuban.

[Krystal Ball]

Thousands of people are calling their office and saying, you need to go after these oligarchs. You have to go after these billionaires. That is what the entire wave of resistance is all about right now. Now, what I will say is, I think where the. What the liberal base was sold instead of an actual agenda about labor, economics, wages, like getting rid of money in politics, ending the dominance of oligarchs in American society, what they were sold was a bunch of culture war bullshit. That's where Hillary Clinton comes in. That's how they crushed the Bernie Sanders movement, by the way. That's exactly what's happening on the right right now is any inkling of we're gonna be pro labor, we're gonna be pro, like, you know, antitrust enforcement. We're gonna be in favor, favor of the little guy that is being wiped clean, in favor of a pro oligarch agenda with some culture war bullshit layered on top. Okay? That's what the liberal base was sold. They are now. Those people have realized that that way of going about business was a disaster that it has led to. It is absolutely true. That is why they have broken so heavily with the MSNBCs of the world. That is why they absolutely broken so heavily with the Democratic elite leaders. So that's how we get to this point where the Democratic leaders want to continue sucking up to Silicon Valley Valley want to continue the status quo and have complete contempt for the actual grassroots voters in the party and are more disgusted with them than with the billionaire class. That's where the real problem is and that's where risk comes in for them. Because previously they were able to enforce absolute uniform conformity among most of the base because they had these media organs, because they had this theory about this is the way we beat Trump, et cetera, that is all falling apart. So there is anger out there in the Democratic base voter vis a vis this leadership class because of their failure to stand up to Trump and Elon that is very different from how it was.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think they're mad at Elon. I don't think they care about billionaires or oligarchy at all. I think they just don't like Elon and they think he's offensive. I'm not kidding. I think that culturally, the way that he conducts himself, the move fast and break things is counter to what I just said about the HR process bureaucrat, which is ultimately who these people are and that's their religion. So that's why they don't care about oligarchy. If it was Mark Cuban with his glasses on. But soccer, you're explaining to them how the process is. They would love it.

[Krystal Ball]

You're actually really wrong about the Democratic base versus the Republican. If you poll them on every issue, Democratic voters are more confrontational vis a vis capital. They are more left wing. That's what they say when it comes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, in practice it's not even true.

[Krystal Ball]

But how can. I mean, if you're just looking at the Base. And you're looking at the base of the two parties. They are way more adversarial towards the billionaire class than Republicans are. So there is a huge distance between how they want Democratic leadership to approach these issues and how the leaders are actually approaching these issues. So it has led to a massive schism. I mean, there's just no doubt about it. And yeah, they don't like Elon for probably some of the reasons why, but that's why. But there is a. Has long been more antipathy towards billionaires, wealth inequality, et cetera, on the Democratic side than the Republican side.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's like a paternalistic white, like, oh, yes, we need to fix wealth inequality while I live in my community.

[Krystal Ball]

You overstate the realignment too. I mean, what percent of black voters went for Trump this time?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Probably 20%.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't think it was even that. Maybe 18 to say this. Oh, it's just all like affluent white people. That is important.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I have left out elderly blacks. You're right. Elderly blacks are also the case of the Democratic Party.

[Krystal Ball]

Some 80% of black voters still, large proportion of Latinos, still a majority of young people. So just don't. You're being very one dimensional. It would be like if I said everyone who supports MAGA is like a redneck in Alabama.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Fair enough.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay. It's not true. There's a lot of varied constituencies that go into this party.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think I'm trying to have a.

[Krystal Ball]

Lot of different interests.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think it's a powerful base. Like the activist Democrat is the DEI liberal. Like that's true. Now there are a lot of elderly blacks and Hispanics and other working class folks which back them. But if you look at the managerial element, the people who have the ability to push the agenda, the people who work in Washington, all that, that's where it all comes from. And I guess that's where look. And that's also my personal experience dealing with the Democrats.

[Krystal Ball]

You live in Alexandria, of course. Like, that's. Of course, those are your neighbors, but that is a tiny sliver the entire country.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They're the ones who run the party. They're the ones who run all of this shit. So when I've watched their cultural obsessions and all that take over the entire thing now. Now I think the question mark again is do they legitimately care about the 99%? All of them? I just am deeply skeptical because look at the way that Mark Cuban was like a resistance figure under Kamala and he was willing to get sec. We had four years of a Democratic president they didn't close the capital gains loophole. Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic Senator and Joe Manchin are the people who voted against that. It's like in practice, in the reality of it. Sure. NLRB or whatever. And I'm not arguing that there isn't a genuine difference on economic policy. I'm saying, is this a genuine 99% Occupy Wall street type movement right now against Elon? I really don't think so. I think all of it is cultural. All of it comes down to the disregard for process, the offensiveness. That's what Trump also, what do they hate the most about Trump? He's uncouth, the way he talks. I don't think a lot of it is policy based per se. And when they want their resistance, they want it to be dressed up in the similar way that Russiagate was of this like grand fight. But the problem is it's a grand fight. But that's what I'm saying. They lost their credibility because the last one that they, the last time they tried this, it was a fake argument that they made.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And they don't know how to fake.

[Krystal Ball]

This is a real argument, but this is a real argument. And so listen, I think you're right that like, you know, am I gonna frame these people as like Occupy Wall Street 99% versus 1? No. But is there a clear overlap between an anti billionaire vision of the country? I mean, you even have like random regular Democrats being like, Bernie was right about everything. I mean, there is a realization that the way to combat Trumpism was through a populist left direction. And so even if they don't care about like, you know, the issues the way that I do, there is a recognition of that was the correct political path, number one. Number two, if you are gonna have a prayer of rebuilding the working class base of the party and expanding the coalition and bringing back in some of the young people that were lost, et cetera. That is the tack you have to take. And that's where I think the realization is with the Democratic base of like, you people aren't up to the fight, you're not up to the challenge, you're not, you know, you are not fighting back the way that we wanna see you. And let's put up actually the poll that we have that shows you that this shift has happened actually quite recently. So originally in January, Democrats were kind of split about whether or not congressional Democrats should oppose Trump as much as possible or try to find common ground. In fact, you had 54% who were like, let's work together. And this does speak to these sort of, like, Democrats always looking for, like, bipartisanship and let's be nice and cordial and whatever that has really flipped. And that's what I'm talking about. With this more aggressive energy and being extremely disenchanted with the Democratic Party leadership, that creates an opening that there will be a challenge to Democratic Party leaders that we did that there would be some form of like a Democratic Tea Party that we did not see anything like in the first term. So now you've got 65%. So jumping 20 points in a month saying you should be opposing Trump as much as possible versus 35% who say try to find common ground. And that's all I'm trying to point to is for the first time there is a real break between Democratic leadership and media figures and the Democratic base. And that is different. And it creates a possibility that did not exist in the first Trump administration.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I will grant you that. I just think considering how these people love to follow orders and in general have a lot of deference to their leaders, I mean, who is the likely person who would you put your money on to be the next not Democratic nominee per se, but some of the emerging resistance figures? Just J.B. pritzker, literal billionaire Pete Buttigieg, Wine cave Pete. I mean, the track of who they have their trust in, who can beat their chest strongly and give them a bunch of rhetoric, doesn't portend for some 99% Bernie Sanders revolution. It portends, basically what I'm talking about. Like, rich white people who love to see somebody articulate and spoken and defend norms and bureaucracy. Like, that seems to be the current track that things are going in the direction of. So I'm just not so sure that resistance will take the form of like some anti oligarchy agenda. Will they be for raising the income tax from 35 to 41%? Absolutely. Okay, but that's not the same thing as what we're talking. Talking about some grand, like, takedown of the.

[Krystal Ball]

You would have to have. I think it almost has to be someone from outside the system.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Because we're talking to Stephen A. Yeah, that's exactly right. They're too. I mean, this is the whole, like, water that they swim in.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Absolutely. Of course, if anything, what can you say about Trump? The circumvention of the traditional process and the popularity and the ability to say shit that is totally in the moment, out of control, which is a lie, but also deeply true, was one that shocked the entire political system. But the Problem that I see is that because of the current constituency, the Democratic Party, I'm not so sure that their lack of faith in institutions is so as low as where Republicans were and willing to receive that message. There still seems to be the credibility in the Pete's, in the JB Pritzker, even in the Obamas of the world. Like. Right. It would take. What happened with Trump is that you had literally George W. Bush, the leader of the party, and McCain who became underwater with their own base. I don't see the same phenomenon with Michelle, with Barack, with even Kamala.

[Krystal Ball]

They still love Obama.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, they still love him. Right. And even though it's his fault that.

[Krystal Ball]

We'Re here, I just thought there was a poll that came out in California, in the California gubernatorial primary with Kamala, and it actually was not great for her.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, I didn't see that.

[Krystal Ball]

She was like basically tied with the number two person. It was kind of surprising.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Who is number two?

[Krystal Ball]

I don't. Number two was actually Republican because, you know, it's the jungle primary.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And then there was another Democrat that came in after her, but she was only getting like 23% of the vote.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, interesting.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Okay, so we'll see.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I hope you're right because I would just love to break shit up, but I'm just. I've seen. I just. The Way I can see it is that Hakeem Jeffries will be replaced by some Pete Buttigieg type figure who will mobilize the. You know, and that's where things were going.

[Krystal Ball]

I would take Pete over Hakeem Jeffries for sure. Oh, for sure. Hakeem Jeffries is the most worthless person I've ever seen in my entire life. Like I said, longing for the days of Nancy Pelosi, who at least had some political skills.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Some of the.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, she at least had some sass or whatever to her and is able, you know, in a Machiavellian way, was effective in Washington. But these.

[Sagar Enjeti]

She forced Biden out. We have to give her that.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. These people are beyond worthless. And so, I mean, listen, definitely possible that you're right. I'm just saying that there's a possibility and a different relationship vis a vis the base and the leaders than there was last time.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I hope that you're correct. I would like to see it materialize, but I don't know. I'm skeptical to see where all of this is going to take us. Ready for a new year health and fitness breakthrough that will blow your friggin mind. I'm Carl Co founder of Bodi. That's Bodi with an I. And this is the Bodi Bogo sale right now. If you sign up for a one year subscription to BODI, I'll pay for your entire second year. That's 78% off our monthly price and our best deal ever. Look, it's not easy to get fit and lose weight, especially if you want healthy results. At Bodi, we make it simple to reverse years of unhealthy habits. We have over 130 structured programs like For Beginners Only, 21 Day Fix, P90X and Insanity. Our app also has complete eating plans and thousands of healthy, delicious recipes. Let's take the guesswork out of getting you fast results. The next 500 people who sign up for a year of Bodi get a full second year free. It's time to love your body. Just go to bodi.com that's B O D I dot com.

[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

At the same time, we wanted to take a turn to a story here in Washington. Congresswoman Nancy Mace. She's been grabbing a lot of headlines in recent days. Some questionable behavior. I know you covered it, Crystal, while I was on vacation about, about the whole bathroom thing. But after that there've been a series of incidents where she's been alleging some terrible things that have happened to her and also encouraging the public to join in in her crusade against people who are. Let me start this Over. This is so hard to phrase delicately. 3, 2, 1. Let's turn now to Congresswoman Nancy Mace, who in the recent months has really taken the podium and a platform to try and bring attention to violence against women. However, there have been a lot of questions about some previous assault allegations and others that she had made previously. She did however, take to the floor of the House of Representatives to describe some genuinely horrific things that she says happened to her. But it's also led to some questionable behavior in terms of what she's asking people to do as a result of that. So we wanted to take a second to get into some of it. Let's take a listen to what she had to say. When I uncovered evidence of rape and.

[Krystal Ball]

The illegal filming of women and sex.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Trafficking, I didn't just see victims. I saw a system that failed to protect them. I saw criminals who thought they could.

[Krystal Ball]

Get away with it because no one had the guts, no one had the courage, no one had the bravery to hold them accountable.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Because we are filled with cowards.

[Krystal Ball]

I will burn this system to the ground if I have to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So she gave a 53 minute speech, detailed some horrific things she alleged happened to her involving her ex fiance and others. But one of the things that you probably saw there if you are watching is actually the quote, victims hotline. However, you know, immediately afterward there were some questions here about that actual hotline. Let's put this up there on the screen. Apparently the actual advocates in South Carolina are telling people not to use the hotline because they're saying that it's one that goes to an unanswered mailbox and they say, quote, no one picks up. That's not a hotline, it's actually an answering machine. And look, we're obviously trying to discuss this delicately, but it gets to some behavior from Nancy Mace. Where previously she had claimed, what was it she had claimed that somebody activists had assaulted her and she was wearing a sling in the House of Representatives. But in general, I've been fascinated to watch it here in Washington because she is one who is both occasionally like a MAGA star, but increasingly also is being called by her own staff who are alleging that she had lied about previous incident. So the whole thing is incredibly bizarre.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, this woman is a liar. There's no reason to take anything she says seriously. If I'm being honest with you, I will be less delicate than you put up.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Even men are not allowed to say so.

[Krystal Ball]

Even she claimed, like, I don't know what happened to her, blah, blah, blah, but she claimed she Contacted the Attorney general's office in South Carolina, the attorney General, by the way, who she plans to run against in a gubernatorial primary. So very convenient to target him. Him in particular. And she said, I contacted them, and they did absolutely nothing. Well, the attorney General came out and said that her claims were, quote, categorically false. Mace either does not understand or is purposefully mischaracterizing the role of Attorney General. Because, guys, think about it. If you're a victim of anything, do you call the Attorney General? No. You call law enforcement. Like, what are we talking about here? And not to mention, this attorney general goes on to say, like, we were at a bunch of events together. She literally has my personal cell phone. She's never raised any of this with me. So that's number one. But more concretely on the victim hotline thing. So she puts up this hotline, you know, trying to position herself as this great defender of women, blah, blah, blah. It's a voicemail box. So if you are someone who is a genuine survivor, if you went through and you are looking for someone to talk to and some resources to cope with this horrific traumatic event, and you take Nancy Mace at her word that this hotline is set up for you, you're gonna call and you're gonna get nothing. You're gonna get a voicemail box that, according to the report here, doesn't even return the calls whatsoever, as opposed to directing someone to their actual rape crisis. And other survivor hotlines that are set up, that genuinely have people who are trained, who go through extensive training, including one run by the state and the Attorney General's office, of the guy that she's smearing at this point. So, you know, it's just. I don't even know what to say. It's just utterly preposterous. And then we have actually the image of her in the sling. This was also total and complete bullshit. Like, you should not, in fact, believe all women, and you definitely should not believe this woman. She claimed that she was injured by some activist who assaulted her. Oh, my God, this was so horrible. The people who saw it were like, they shook her hand. That's it. That's what happened. So she wore this sling very performatively around the Capitol and was aggrieved and a victim of this horrific assault. This is Nancy Smollett for you right there.

[Sagar Enjeti]

All right, well, I'm glad you were as aggressive. I'm not allowed to do that. I think in terms of the way that I definitely agree. I'll just put it that way, shall.

[Krystal Ball]

I, Nancy Cosign, Nancy Smollett.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It rings true.

[Krystal Ball]

It has a ring to it, doesn't it?

[Sagar Enjeti]

There's, I mean, it's just the big red flag for me was that every person who remember when her entire staff resigned, and many of them, that's where the red flag came, where they were like, don't believe a word that the.

[Krystal Ball]

Go look at some of her former staffers. Like, you think I was unvarnished?

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, I know. Yeah, exactly. That's part of the reason I wanted to cover this is I was like, you know, no one in the media is really immediately just being like, I don't know about this whole thing now. Now I have no idea whether her claims or any of that thing are true. What I do know is that South Carolina media, as you said, the attorney General said that it didn't happen. The way that she's talking about that the hotline, the actual advocates and other people or whatever in the state are saying, hey, it's not a hotline, because we actually handle real hotlines, and that she has a proven track record of basically conjuring up Indri allegedly for attention. And so anyway, I'll leave people with that, that impression.

[Krystal Ball]

There you go.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And that's what we, we like to call out some of that behavior here, as you said, too. It's like, if this woman was on the left, we all know, like there would be. I will say there's a lot of more. There's a lot of anonymous right wing accounts which hate this person and which call her out routinely for lying and for attention seeking behavior, et cetera. But at a broad level, there has not been the takedown that there needs to. And for some reason, probably liberal media from the reminisce of MeToo is not willing to just come out and be like, okay, hold on a second, what the hell is going on?

[Krystal Ball]

The hotline thing is just like so egregious. Just. I mean, how hard is it to put up a real hotline? But she was.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Apparently there's one in South Carolina that just redirect people.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, exactly. How hard is it to just put up an actual number that people can get actual resources at instead of. It directs a thing that's like, oh, this is Nancy Mace and I really care about you, or whatever. So it's completely self promotional and you're positioning yourself as this great advocate of women and then in this really blatant way, denying them access to the. Diverting them from the resources that are actually available for their care. Disgusting.

[Sagar Enjeti]

All right, okay guys, we appreciate you joining us and we will see you all later.

[Krystal Ball]

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