2/13/25: Trump Shuts Down Zelensky Demands, Elon Secures $400 Million Contract

Summary

Podcast Summary: Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – February 13, 2025

Introduction

In the February 13, 2025 episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosts Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti delve into the tumultuous developments of the new Trump administration. The episode, titled "Trump Shuts Down Zelensky Demands, Elon Secures $400 Million Contract," scrutinizes President Trump's foreign policy shifts, particularly concerning Ukraine and Russia, the controversial expansion of Elon Musk's influence within government contracts, and the broader implications for U.S. domestic and international policy.

Trump’s Policy Shifts on Ukraine and Russia

Krystal and Sagar begin by analyzing the Trump administration's recent stance on Ukraine amid the ongoing conflict with Russia. They highlight key changes in U.S. policy:

1. Rejection of 2014 Borders: President Trump declared that restoring Ukraine to its pre-2014 borders is "unrealistic," marking a significant departure from previous U.S. commitments.

   Krystal Ball [05:00]: "He said an official declaration that a return to 2014 borders is unrealistic."

2. NATO Membership for Ukraine Off the Table: The administration has dismissed the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO, altering the regional security dynamics.

   Sagar Enjeti [05:34]: "NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table."

3. European Peacekeeping Forces Without Article 5: Only European troops would be considered for peacekeeping in Ukraine, and they would not be covered under NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause.

   Krystal Ball [05:23]: "They should not be covered under Article 5."

These shifts stem from a broader strategy to negotiate with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, aiming to de-escalate the conflict through diplomatic channels rather than sustained military aid.

Trump [06:14]: "We agreed to work together very closely, including visiting each other's nations. We've also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately."

Elon Musk’s $400 Million State Department Contract

A focal point of the episode is Elon Musk securing a substantial $400 million contract with the State Department for armored Cybertrucks. Krystal and Sagar discuss the implications of this deal in the context of regulatory rollbacks under the Trump administration.

Sagar Enjeti [48:31]: "Tesla is set to win the largest State department contract of 2025. They're getting from the State Department $400 million for armored Teslas."

The hosts argue that this lucrative contract exemplifies the administration's favoritism towards billionaires, raising concerns about conflicts of interest and the erosion of regulatory oversight.

Regulatory Rollbacks and Conflicts of Interest

Krystal and Sagar delve into the Trump administration's aggressive deregulation agenda, which includes firing inspector generals and rolling back anti-corruption measures. This approach has dismantled key oversight mechanisms, potentially enabling unchecked corporate influence in government.

Krystal Ball [22:29]: "No wonder the IRS reported tax fraud due to identity theft went up 20% last year."

The discussion extends to the conflicts of interest surrounding Elon Musk, highlighting his significant involvement with multiple government agencies and the lack of transparency in his financial disclosures.

Sagar Enjeti [38:12]: "Elon Musk, as I've confirmed before, is a special government employee. He is filing the proper financial disclosure and he is complying with all applicable federal laws."

Multipolarity and U.S. Foreign Policy Shifts

The conversation shifts to the concept of multipolarity, where the U.S. no longer positions itself as the sole global superpower. Krystal and Sagar argue that this shift emboldens other nations to pursue imperialistic agendas, undermining the post-World War II international order.

Krystal Ball [09:35]: "What now we’re in a much worked situation. Ukrainians have lost. Nobody really knows."

They caution that without strong regulatory frameworks, the global landscape may become more volatile, increasing the risk of large-scale conflicts and economic instability.

Public Opinion on Government Deregulation and DEI

The hosts explore public sentiment towards government deregulation and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. They debate whether measures like DEI are genuinely popular or if they are being overshadowed by the public's frustration with bureaucratic inefficiencies.

Sagar Enjeti [55:43]: "If you look at the polls, DEI is actually more popular than that one."

Krystal counters by expressing skepticism about poll accuracy and suggests that voter behavior during elections may not fully capture underlying opinions.

Implications for Future Elections and Governance

Krystal and Sagar discuss the potential repercussions of the Trump administration's policies on upcoming elections, particularly in states like Virginia, which have significant federal government employment. They predict that continued deregulation and favoritism towards billionaires could alienate voters, leading to shifts in electoral outcomes.

Krystal Ball [72:07]: "I'm curious to see actually how it plays out. ... all those policies are very damaging and create massive risks."

Conclusion

The episode of Breaking Points underscores a critical examination of the Trump administration’s foreign and domestic policies, highlighting the ramifications of reduced regulatory oversight and increased corporate influence. Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti provide a thorough analysis of how these changes may destabilize both U.S. governance and international relations, urging listeners to consider the long-term consequences of such shifts.

Notable Quotes

• Krystal Ball [05:00]: "He said an official declaration that a return to 2014 borders is unrealistic."

• Trump [06:14]: "We agreed to work together very closely, including visiting each other's nations. We've also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately."

• Sagar Enjeti [38:12]: "Elon Musk, as I've confirmed before, is a special government employee. He is filing the proper financial disclosure and he is complying with all applicable federal laws."

• Sagar Enjeti [55:43]: "If you look at the polls, DEI is actually more popular than that one."

Final Thoughts

This episode of Breaking Points presents a compelling narrative on the intersection of politics, corporate power, and international diplomacy. Krystal and Sagar challenge listeners to rethink prevailing narratives and consider the deeper implications of current political maneuvers on both national integrity and global stability.

Transcript

[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]

Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.

[Krystal Ball]

This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad, free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Krystal Ball]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail] Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Indeed we do. Many interesting things going on. So we've got new indications of Trump's plan vis a vis Ukraine. We'll break that down for you. We also have the very latest with regard to Doge and Elon getting a nice new $400 million contract from the State Department. Isn't that great for him? Inflation ticked up. Very worrying sign given that there have been very few tariffs put on at this point. So where is that heading? Egg prices. Sort of leading the way in terms of inflationary items. JD Vance gave an important speech on AI. We want to take a look at that and some other troubling indicators with regard to that tech development. Democrats are getting really mad, Democratic leadership really mad at the activists who are calling their office, demanding that they stop being like, the biggest losers on earth. So we'll get into that. And Nancy Mace is lying to sexual abuse survivors. So kind of a horrific story there. And we'll give you all the details on that as well.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, that's right. We'll talk about it. There's a lot to say. So as Crystal said, before we get to that, thank you, though, to all the premium subscribers. We appreciate you. Breakingpoints.com we just got a very big interview scheduled here for the show. Can we give it away? Should we? What do you think? Let's.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Sure. What the hell. It's not public anyway.

[Krystal Ball]

So Stephen A. Smith took notice of our segment and he has agreed to come on the show. So we're working on that. Thank you to our premium subscribers. You guys are the people who make that type of stuff happen. We're working with his team now, and I guess we'll have him on soon.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's always really surreal when famous people are aware of the show.

[Krystal Ball]

I feel the same way. I cannot. Cause he didn't just post it on Twitter. I also posted it on his Instagram.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, he did. I appreciate it.

[Krystal Ball]

I got so many text messages from people who are not interested in politics at all. They're like, dude, isn't this your show? And I was like, obviously, I'm not even aware of this all happening. So that's how I found out on top of the Twitter thing. So thank you. You guys are the people who make that possible.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. So we haven't locked in a date and a time. So it's never done until it's done. But he said he would do it. We're in touch with his team working on dates and times.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, yeah, like you said, he put it publicly. He said, I'm happy to come on the show, which is fascinating. So there we go. All right, we'll have Stephen A. Smith on. I'm excited to see it. Yay. Before we get to. And now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get to Ukraine because this probably the biggest global news. It is the start of the Munich security conference today, which is usually a big gathering of the transatlantic elite. But there's been a real record Scratch with the election of Donald Trump. JD Vance will be there along with the Secretary of State. And it comes on the heels of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who gave a big speech laying out new US Policy towards Ukraine. Let's take a listen.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine.

[Krystal Ball]

But we must start by recognizing that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Returning to Ukraine's pre2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. The United States does not believe that.

[Krystal Ball]

NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Outcome of a negotiated settlement.

[Krystal Ball]

Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and, and non European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non.

[Sagar Enjeti]

NATO mission and they should not be.

[Krystal Ball]

Covered under Article 5.

[Sagar Enjeti]

There also must be robust international oversight.

[Krystal Ball]

Of the line of contact.

[Sagar Enjeti]

To be clear, as part of any.

[Krystal Ball]

Security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine. So several elements of US policy change here. I'm gonna lead them out. Number one, he said an official declaration that a return to 2014 borders is unrealistic. Two, NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table. Three, only European troops would be considered for peacekeeping forces. And four, those forces will not be covered under Article 5. So if you pair that together with Donald Trump then, and his most recent comments confirming talks both with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, as well as Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. Here's what Trump had to say yesterday in the Oval Office. Just to be clear, do you see any future in which Ukraine returns to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Its pre 2014 borders? Well, I think Pete said today that that's unlikely, right? It certainly would seem to be unlikely. They took a lot of land and.

[Krystal Ball]

They fought for that land and they.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Lost a lot of, they lost a lot of soldiers.

[Krystal Ball]

But it would just seem to me.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And I'm not, I'm not making an opinion on it, but I've read a lot on it, and a lot of people think that that's unlikely.

[Krystal Ball]

Some of it will come back.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think some of it will come back, yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Some of that land will come back. Dealing with President Putin largely on the.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Phone, and we ultimately expect to meet.

[Krystal Ball]

In fact, we expect that he'll come here and I'll go there and we're.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Going to meet also probably in Saudi Arabia. The first time we'll meet in Saudi Arabia, see if we can get something done. But we want to end that war. That war is a disaster.

[Krystal Ball]

So we can also put Trump's truth up there on the screen where he says, I just Had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Putin of Russia. We discussed Ukraine, the Middle east, et cetera. We both reflected on the great history of our nations. We agreed we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in war with Russia and Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong campaign motto of common sense. We both, I think it might mean a little something different depending on who you're talking to. We both believe very strongly. We agreed to work together very closely, including visiting each other's nations. We've also agreed to have our respective team start negotiations immediately. And we will begin by calling President Zelensky of Ukraine to inform him of the conversation. So it does seem crystal that things are moving in that direction. President Zelensky put out a reaction, a muted reaction, considering how many of his demands have now been struck down. Let's go to the next part, please. Just to show here, he just met with the Secretary of Treasury, Scott Besant, where he said, we value our partnership with the United States, are grateful for the support in defending our independence, security matters. Moscow and its allies cannot be allowed to gain control over Ukraine. And that means we must work together across this free world. So things are really aligning against the position that the Biden administration and others took. I mean, this is also, of course, goes without saying, full blown freak out here in Washington. I watched the press secretary's briefing yesterday. I would say 10 out of 20 questions were on Ukraine and it was all like, why have you given up concessions before they've even started? It's like, well, it's not a concession to say that a 2014 border control is unrealistic. That's not a concession. That's reality of where we are right now. It's a tragedy too, because if you think about the amount of territory that Ukraine is inevitably gonna have to give up now, if they had just taken that deal In April of 2000 and 2022, none of this would happen. And an entire generation of Ukrainian men is dead. The country is completely decimated. Their economy and it's going to take hundreds of billions for them to be able to rebuild it. They've basically resorted to being like, hey, United States defense contractors, you can have free reign. You don't have to pay any taxes in for the future. So they have. Their prospects are just devastating right now whether they wanted to continue the fight, which is effectively impossible even if we were to give them the weapons, considering their manpower. But overall, it's a diplomatic resolution and it's one that I'm very happy to See, we're not there yet. And there could still be some Trump idiocy concerning rare earth metals, which we'll mention in a little bit. But overall, I'm happy to see at least things are moving in, in the right direction.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, I think the rare earth minerals part is actually really central because it.

[Krystal Ball]

For Trump.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, exactly. No, and it reflects the very different foreign policy world that we live in now. Whereas previously, you know, the Biden administration, of course, wrapped this conflict in these values about, you know, a fight between authoritarianism and democracy, et cetera, et cetera, they had their own real goals in pushing Ukraine to continue fighting this war even beyond when there was a possibility of coming to some sort of a peaceful resolution because they thought this would be an effective proxy war to weaken Russia, a global adversary. That was what was really going on here. Okay. In the, I would say post Israeli genocide in Gaza, post Donald Trump coming into office and really ushering in this William McKinley style, like, throwback style, colonialism, imperialism. What Russia did in Ukraine is no longer in their worldview, is no longer any kind of a crime. I mean, here we are talking about taking Panama, taking Greenland, taking Canada, it's taking Gaza, et cetera. And so with Trump, everything is very unmasked. So no longer is it, oh, we're going into Iraq because we're, you know, fighters and we're bringing ushering in democracy. Oh, and it just so happens that they sit on top of these gigantic oil reserves, but that has nothing to do with it. Now with Trump, it's all out there on the table like, hey, Putin, you got the arms and the strength to take territory. We're not really going to stand in your way. But on the other side of it, we might back Ukraine because they've got some rare earth minerals that we want to be able to get. And Zelensky being a savvy operator as he is, and we could go ahead and put this is all in a five, that tear sheet, New York from the New York Times, he immediately shifted the way that he was pitching continued support for Ukraine. So when it was the Biden administration, he was pitching it in the terms that they wanted to hear about this global fight between authoritarianism and democracy, blah, blah, blah. Now he's saying, hey, let's make a business deal. You keep supporting us, and we will basically allow you to exploit the significant mineral deposits that we have through your interest in making sure that we can provide that in terms of the development, and this is important for electric vehicles and all kinds of new technology that's coming up. And apparently this idea was floated to him by a billionaire donor who was interested in these mineral deposits, et cetera. And so that's effectively what Zelenskyy has pitched. And it's not an accident that it's the Treasury Secretary who is making the trek over there and visiting with Zelensky, because that is the way Trump is now looking at this conflict. He does not see Russia's invasion of Ukraine as being any sort of problem or violation of international law. He wants to operate in the world in this very same brazenly imperialist manner. But if he can get something out of the deal on the other side and find it to be beneficial, then he may be up for continuing to support Ukraine and provide them with aid. That's basically the pitch that Zelenskyy is making right now.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, that's true. But Zelenskyy is trying to use it as his backdoor to effectively forestall negotiations with Russia and to actually stop any sort of peace process. And look, I don't dispute necessarily anything that you said, but I appreciate its honesty. Because what have the critics of the US Led, international, world led order always said? This is just a fake, guys, for your imperialism. And guess what? I will be honest. They're right. And so what this does is it just lays it out on the table and we're like, listen, we gave you guys 200 billion at this point, 75% of it was probably stolen by their own admission. They've even said that the Ukrainians, they're like, hey, where did all the money go? Amazing, right? We weren't even allowed to ask that Congress, what was that? Rand Paul tried to just have a rider attached to Ukraine aid for an inspector general. And Congress would not even vote for for that because they would not even require scrutiny of this amount of aid. So Trump is like, listen, we're gonna take something from you. I also think that this goes back to Lindsey Graham, if you'll remember, who was one of the reasons that he started pitching MAGA on this on Fox News. He's like, look, they've got all these minerals over there. They tried this with Afghanistan as well, by the way. They're always like, oh, there's $1 trillion in Afghanistan. That's why we need to continue to occupy it forever. So there is a dishonesty in the inverse of it as well, which is, oh, well, we're doing it so that women and girls can go to school in kab. I'm like, oh, so that's worth X amount of billion dollars per year. What's happening right now is that we've seen the inversion of Zelensky, where he's caught between a rock and a hard place. He's trying to play the game. But the reason why I think he ultimately would be the biggest thorn in the side of this deal is based on my conversation with Lex Friedman. I don't think he would mind me saying this. He said a lot of it publicly. In his reflection over this Zelensky interview. I got to spend some time with him during the inauguration. I was like, so, Zelensky, what are your impressions? And he was like, he believes it. He is a strident Churchillian type figure. But Lex's analysis, which he also voiced on his show, was he's like, it's just a mismatch of the moment because it doesn't match the resources, the international mood. The Ukrainian population now, as Trump even alluded to yesterday, has much more mixed feelings about some sort of negotiated peace. And it really came through in his interview with Lex Friedman, which we have some of that. Let's take a listen. To make it clear, let's describe the idea that you are speaking about. I would like to offer you other ideas, too, but right now, your idea is that NATO accepts Ukraine minus the five regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea. Just so you understand the situation, the invitation to NATO is legislatively issued to Ukraine. So to us, all those territories are still Ukraine. But NATO so far can only act in the part that is under Ukrainian control. This can be negotiated. I am sure about that. Yes, this would not be a great success for us. But if we see a diplomatic way to end the war, this is one of the ways. These are our borders, and we must understand what is going on there. Well, the NATO guarantees for Ukraine. Actually, this is also a security guarantee for the Russians. Frankly, I talked about this many times before. So what you took away really from his was about his demands for NATO membership. Basically, every demand that he laid out in his Friedman interview has already been struck down by the Trump administration. And this is actually for return to multipolarity, which is really what you were talking about in that collapse. Part of that is what is that we're the great powers, which is the truth. The United States and Russia will figure this out. And this is part of the fallacy also of the Ukrainian. What was it? Nothing without Ukraine. Nothing for Ukraine. Nothing for Ukraine without Ukraine. This is ludicrous. We are talking about two big nuclear powers, people who like it or not, obviously have an outsized impact on the conflict. You know, we would always talk about this in terms of the European Union. It was like, listen, if you even look at the amount of military aid, this is United States versus Russia. And that was the dishonesty behind so much of the Biden administration. And occasionally they would say the truth, which is like, oh, this is about killing as many Russians as possible. And so what we are watching is really the fall of a lot of concepts around this. Israel obviously complicated this from day one. And Zelenskyy, he even knew that. I mean, I remember in the days after October 7, he was desperately trying to get himself back into the news. But then so many of the, you know, so much of the death toll and so much of his own, so much of the United States posturing around Ukraine while simultaneously backing Israel, it just fell apart to the point where it just went to the back burner. And we basically ignored it for a two year period. And now we're in a much worked situation. Ukrainians have lost. Nobody really knows. Trump said something like 6, 700,000 people have been killed. It could be that number killed or casualties, regardless. I mean, in terms of their population, which was even there, that's devastating. It's a disaster. Yes, it's bad for Russia too, which probably lost an equal number of men, but they have a much larger population and all of the hopes of coups, it didn't work. I mean, Putin seems stronger today than ever before in terms of his control over the Russian oligarchy. And then the economy, their remarkable ability to basically sanction proof themselves, hang on to the Chinese, who have become their financial benefactor, do weapons deals with the North Koreans. They are more insulated from international sanctions than anyone in modern history. Like a state that was aligned with Europe. Something I've been reading too, Crystal, is that the Chinese and other countries have been studying the Russian sanctions regime. And now the adversaries to the United States are much more sanction proof as a result of what happened with Ukraine than ever before. So there have been so many massive failures in US Policy here. My main thing is, look, you know, in Trump wars, I want to stop the dying. And this is the inevitable conclusion that could have been reached earlier. And I think it's devastating that we even had to allow this all to happen in the first place.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, well, we'll see. Because, I mean, when Treasury Secretary Besant presented Zelensky with the economic cooperation plan, he said it would be in exchange for the US Continuing to provide material support for Ukraine. You know, multipolarity has potential benefits and it has potential dangers. I mean the most obvious one is like, you know, we were in a multipolar world when everybody gets dragged into World War I.

[Krystal Ball]

Correct, right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So you can end up in a situation where it is more dangerous, more possibility for larger conflagrations, et cetera. So there's, there's that. It's also important to understand, you know, some of the, like Peter Thiel's of the world, who are these like this idea of the quote unquote network state where they can effectively, instead of having nation states have like corporate entities. And again, I know this sounds wild, but they're actually like doing this in certain cities around the world. Apparently Greenland was one of the targeted places to have one of these quote unquote network states. They like the idea of multipolarity because if you don't have any one nation that is the superpower nation, they feel like that opens up the possibility for them to have more power to be able to execute on their like weird utopian ideas about these network states. So that's part of the push here as well and part of why Elon is interested in multipolarity as well.

[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

The other thing I would say is there are also pluses and minuses to a movement away from the post World War II international order where things were wrapped in this coding of democracy and human rights. So even something that was as brazenly resource grab as the war in Iraq had to be justified in these terms around human rights and democracy, et cetera. On the one hand you're right. It's kind of refreshing I guess to have the honest truth out there of like no, we just want the minerals and yeah, we just like we don't really care about Russia taking illegally taking whatever territory they want and are able to take. But we're gonna make sure we get our end out of the deal. And I understand why there's like an appeal to that. On the other hand, first of all if you're just in the law, the jungle might makes right, like, in a world that is multipolar, then that can very much come back to bite you when another entity feels they're powerful enough to make a play on your interest, et cetera, can contribute to the volatility of the world. And then the other piece that's a question for me is like, even though the justifications in places like Iraq were completely fake and phony. Ukraine, same thing. Ukraine is the perfect example of this, that is rock wrapped in this language of democracy that at this point is just not sustainable. Because at the same time, we're, like, funding this genocide in Gaza and speaking out of both sides of our mouth at the immediate time, did the necessity of politicians at least trying to pretend, having to try to pretend for the public that there was some larger good that was being pursued, did that act as a check on some of the larger imperial ambitions? Because it created a pressure point where, you know, once the Iraq War started going sideways and people started to turn on it, the distance between the rhetoric about democracy and the reality of the reasons we were really there, that became an effective political pressure point. You know, it becomes an effective political pressure point to point out the distance between what we're doing in, you know, Gaza and what we're doing in Ukraine. So that's why I feel very. I don't feel great about this shift into the new era of just, like, might makes right, law of the jungle. The big players can do what they want, take what they want when they want, et cetera. And having it all just out in the open of, no, it's just gonna be a grab for resources, and those with the biggest guns get the biggest problem.

[Krystal Ball]

I think it's just always been that way, and I'd rather us be honest about it. So this entire idea of the international order, it's like, well, then how does the UN Security Council make any sense? Why? Because the P5 plus 1 powers, or whatever, the nuclear powers on the UN Security Council are the people who won World War II. They have the nukes, and we get to do what we want. So in an ideal world, like, you just used the word illegal, there's no such thing as an illegal invasion. There's just an invasion. An invasion can either be repelled or it can succeed. This is all fake. I mean, this entire thing is an artifice designed to try and keep peace throughout the world. But the truth is that that peace was backed by US Aircraft carriers, US nuclear weapons. NATO itself was a, you know, it's no great big democratic force. It's a world. It's a tool of the United States and its empire to secure. Basically, you know, to the extent that we want democracy, it's because democratic societies do better business with America. The purpose of the United States Navy, I talk about this all the time, is not to deliver humanitarian aid. That's all bullshit. The point of the United States Navy is to secure commerce on the high seas and the blue water, to preserve ocean tankers so that gas doesn't cost more than $4 a gallon. Let's all just be truthful, and in that truth, we can achieve something. Now, what you're talking about, with imperialism and all that is important. And actually, if you Wanna talk about McKinley, one of the reasons that Americans turned in the past on the Spanish American War, the Imperial project in the Philippines, is because it was dressed up in this fake language. Although we're liberating these Filipinos and we're bringing all of this greatness. Americans were not concerned, but they were like, hold on a second. You're spending X, Y and Z. We're getting people who are killed over there as a result of this fakery. You're actually enriching all of these Gilded Age oligarchs which are using this to secure riches for themselves. So our guys are going over there dying. You people are all getting rich. What? Exactly. You know, the cognitive dissonance on this is just ridiculous. So I think that honesty is good. I think it's important. And with that honesty, we can actually talk. And instead of going to the North Koreans and saying, hey, you guys should give up your nuclear weapons and we'll make you really rich. And they're like, yeah, well, look at Gaddafi. It's not gonna happen. And we all dance around this idea that the. What was it? The International Atomic Agent. The IAEA is like this sacrosanct organization. Meanwhile, Israel has nuclear weapons, and we don't demand that they become Non Proliferation Treaty compliant. So when we go to India, even to this day, if you go to India and you try and tell them what they should do, they're like, yeah, well, we remember when we went nuclear to secure ourselves against Pakistan and you shook your finger at us and all this when we developed a nuclear weapon. And what would we always say? What about Israel? You guys don't demand anything from them. So the fact is, is that this has always been a tool for whatever we want. By instead reverting to just saying outright what's happening here. It leads to, in my opinion, Better relations. And this lack of this hypocrisy almost becomes the point. And when you argue within that hypocrisy, for example, Saudi Arabia is our greatest ally. It's like they treat their own population with barbarism. And then we're like, oh, we're the paragon. And then we'll go to some tiny African nation, and we'll be like, you guys need to repeal this law against gay people. And they're like, what? What are we talking about here? One of your greatest allies has the same laws on the books. And so they're like, screw you. We're not even gonna listen. Where if we talk in the language of gas, then everyone's like, okay, I get it now. You know, I think that's better. I think it's better for everybody. It dispels the hypocrisy, and it allows for honest dealings with the world, where in that, you know, in the rest of the world, they look at us like fools around this whole democracy, human rights nonsense. Post Iraq, it's all falling apart. That's one of the things that led to the demise of the image of the United States abroad, because people falsely used to believe all that rhetoric. And then when you see the most brazen invasion for no purpose whatsoever that destroyed our own nation, it immediately caused a major turn against us. And then you still have idiots like Max Boot and others who are actually preaching those values and then going abroad worse and lecturing other people. I just. I don't want to be in the business of lecturing other countries. I mean, there's that famous interview. I forget exactly who the president. I think it might be the Turkmenistan president who's talking to that BBC interviewer because she's asking him about human rights and press freedoms, and he's like, who's in your jail right now? Julian Assange.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Julian Assange, yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And she fell apart. Right. That's the problem with us, is that this is what we do. We go abroad and we tut, tut and tell people what to do. But if they're really rich, they're like, oh, forget about it, Turk. Prince Faisal, he's one of our greatest friends.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. No, I mean, obviously, on the hypocrisy point, there's no doubt about it. And you're correct that this really starts to come undone with Iraq. That's where it really starts. All the, like, edifice starts to come apart with the Iraq war, which was, you know, which was foolish. I just. You know, I do worry about a world when we have just completely pushed aside the idea that nations should have territorial integrity and that that should be something that, you know, is kind of like, if you don't wanna say it's illegal, invasion's just like taking territory because you can and you want it. Then at least the norms were in place that it was like, okay, this is something that's really bad to do. And it did help to create some level of global stability. It did. You said the reason to put it in place was to keep peace around the world. I mean, that was the idea. Now the downside of that is us being the world's policemen, us operating with whatever suits us at the moment. And the fact that we were so brazenly hypocritical about that has led to this place where the edifice is no longer sustainable. And I do think that our facilitating funding, bear hug support of Bibi Netanyahu as they were committing a genocide in Gaza really was the last thing that made it completely unsustainable. But I'm just saying there's. First of all, I mean I'm imposed opposed to the whole imperial project of oh, we're going to take Greenland, we're going to take Canada, we're going to take the rare earth mineral, we're not taking it for whatever we want. Trump seems pretty serious about it, at least according to Trudeau and himself, et cetera. But there are risks also involved in the shift away from the sheen of international order, democracy, territorial integrity, human rights, etc. There are risks involved in that and it could lead to a much more volatile, much more volatile and much more barbaric world.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't have a. I don't disagree per se. I just think it was probably gonna happen regardless. And I think that the worst outcome is being some biden boom, silent gen worshiper of democracy, human rights and all of that. And hypocritically having a realpolitik foreign policy which the rest of the world all knows. This Jimmy Carter kumbaya. It's always been a complete farce. And anyway, so the follow part of it is something that I'm gonna cheer forever. 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.

[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Sale ends February 17th. All right, so we got a couple questions yesterday, both to the White House press secretary and also to Trump himself about whether or not he intends to comply with the court orders that are coming down these at this point, it's just mostly temporary injunctions against some of the actions they've taken gutting agencies illegally, firing employees, et cetera. Let's take a listen to what the White House press secretary had to say. More on the judges does the White House believe the courts have the authority.

[Krystal Ball]

To issue these nationwide injunctions?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Ms. We believe that the injunctions that have been issued by these judges have no basis in the law and have no grounds, and we will again, as the President said very clearly yesterday, comply with these orders. But it is the administration's position that we will ultimately be vindicated and the president's executive actions that he took were completely within the law. They were constitutional. And we look forward to the day where he can continue to implement his agenda. And I would just add, it's our.

[Krystal Ball]

View that this is the continuation of.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The weaponization of justice that we have seen against President Trump. He fought it for two years on the campaign trail. It won't stop him now. So she alludes there to comments from the president. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what the president on how to say, if a judge does block one of your policies, part of your agenda.

[Krystal Ball]

Will you abide by that ruling? Will you?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, I always abide by the courts, and then I'll have to appeal it. But then what he's done is he slowed down the momentum and it gives crooked people more time to cover up the books. You know, if a person's crooked and they get caught, other people see that, and all of a sudden it becomes harder later on. So, yeah, the answer is I always abide by the courts, always abide by him, and we'll appeal. So he says he'll comply. This is the big question right now because, I mean, the truth of the matter is he's already in non compliance with a couple of the orders, specifically with regard to USAID and with regard to the payment freeze. But their position is that we mean to be in compliance. We're just confused about what that means. And it's hard to do this with the federal government, blah, blah, blah. So it's different than if they're just brazenly out and out, undeniably flouting court orders. So that's what they're saying right now. She also got a question, Caroline Levitt, about Elon Musk having massive conflicts of interest across all of government. Let's take a listen to how she responded to that.

[Krystal Ball]

You talked about the transparency with Doge and Elon Musk's availability yesterday. There is a conflict of interest law in place that says that people who have personal interests can't interact with government entities that could touch on those. Has President Trump signed a waiver for Elon Musk?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Does such a thing exist?

[Krystal Ball]

If it does, will you guys release it in the interest of transparency that he's committed to?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Ms. I have not seen the law that you are referring to. What I can tell you is that Elon Musk, as I've confirmed before, is a special government employee. He is filing the proper financial disclosure and he is complying with all applicable federal laws. As you also heard, Elon addressed this directly yesterday in the alleged conflict of interest. And he said everything he's doing is very public. And if you all perceive a conflict of interest, you're welcome to bring that up. And as the President said, if he feels like Elon is engaging in something that's a conflict of interest, he will tell Elon not to do that. And the president and Elon also said yesterday that before he moves forward with anything, he consults with the President of the United States. So we're very confident with the ethics and the guardrails that have been put in place here. Obviously, a preposterous answer given. I mean, first of all, there's barely an agency that Elon Musk could touch that he wouldn't have a conflict of interest. But if you go down the line of the agencies that he has gone after most vociferously, you can see in almost every case, they were investigating him. Oh, they were investigating him over here. They ran afoul of them over there and had previously had issues with almost all of these agents. The CFPB is the most brazen one because X has just signed this deal with Visa. He wants it to be the Everything app. He wants to get into payment processing. They were said to be regulated by the cfpb. No longer. That is all done just to get into the specifics, too, of the question there, because some of the details of why she asked that particular question is important. Special government employees are subject to. It's actually a criminal statute to avoid conflicts of interest. So it says they can't participate personally and substantially in any government matter that could affect their financial interests. And again, this is not civil. This is actually criminal. Violating the laws of felony. It could result in fines. It could result even in imprisonment. Now, not that we think any of that is going to happen with DOJ and Trumpet, pardon him, blah, blah, blah. But that's why she's asking specifically about, hey, did you give him a waiver? Because to avoid coming into conflict with this criminal statute as a special government employee. And she says, well, I don't know. Waivers can be granted for special government employees in certain instances, but even those can be challenged in court and deemed unlawful if you're just like, if it's not done in good faith, if they don't comply with legal standards, or if they violate ethical guidelines. So that's why she asked that specific question about whether or not Elon had been subject to any kind of a waiver.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, it was a smart question, actually, there on the way. But I mean, look, can we return? He said he would comply. I think that's important. That's one of the. I'm not saying necessarily that. What did you say? That there's different types of non compliance in terms of hey, it's taking a while for us to negotiate all of this. But as of now, you know the liberal fanfic about just openly saying that I'm going to defy is like not materializing and not happening. I do think that the Elon thing is objectively crazy. There's no way that you can just certify that somebody has, I grant you, conflict of interest like with the magic wand. Can you imagine? I also do think this is worth explaining to people. Special government employees. Actually all government employees who work for the President are subject to rigid conflict of interest laws, excluding elected officials, the Vice President and the President and members of Congress. And those are so stringent that it is often heard of here in Washington that when people go to work for the office of the President they have to offload their entire stock portfolio, famously in 2009. Not that I feel bad for these people, but I'm just telling you, many of the people who went to go work for Obama had to sell at the bottom just to be able to go and work for the White House. So it's an immense way it should be. I agree with you 100%. I think it is outrageous, however, cause I just always wanna highlight this, that the members of Congress themselves have specifically exempted themselves from these same government interest laws. These laws should be on the books for everybody. So it makes no sense that the employees who are making $45,000 a year as staff assistants have more rigid conflict of interest compliance. And they will get, as you said, they will be criminally prosecuted. There is an entire office in the government that reviews. You're not even allowed to buy stocks, including in ETFs and index funds, without reporting them when they're a Schedule C political appointee. Yet whenever you're member of Congress or whatever, you don't. Now this is where the Elon thing is important. It applies not only to public holdings, but to private holdings especially. So for example, SpaceX is an entirely private company. Now their private company also is reliant on government contracts. So this is where there is a lack of transparency because at least with Tesla, Tesla is a Fortune 500 publicly traded company. We have tons of insight into their financials to Elon's. I mean you can literally go up and look his own stock ownership, the number of shares, et cetera. There's all of these SEC compliance and things that you have to do whenever you're publicly traded, but in your private stakes, so things like the Boring Company SpaceX, et cetera, you don't have the same reporting requirements. There's literally no obligation to ever release your financials, like any business that's private. That is where I think that the most objectionable conflict of interest stuff can come. And it's just the most glaring hole for Elon in the future. Like, it's one of those where if you don't have this stuff buttoned up right now, you're gonna be spending the next decade in federal court. Like, let's all just look at this clearly. I mean, what, you think some Democratic AG is not gonna let this go?

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think he's gonna pardon it.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I guess he could. You're right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So I don't think.

[Krystal Ball]

But it would require a literal pardon, just like the same type of pardon that Hunter got, which is, I pardon you for all crimes in the past and in the future, which. Okay, I mean, I guess we've normalized that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I don't think there's any reason to expect that Elon would be left in any sort of legal jeopardy here. And just to drill down on what you're saying here, for anyone who believes this is some noble mission to root out corruption in government, I want you to understand the trajectory of the Trump administration here. In the very first week, what was one of the first illegal acts that he took late at night, he fired almost every inspector general across agencies, including ones that he had himself put into that position in his first administration. So they were all fired. These are the people that are meant to be the watchdogs at the agencies to provide some public accountability. And we've relied on the reports that these IGs, some of these IGs have put out, both with regard to Biden and with regard to Trump. So they're gone. So you no longer have people in position to watch over what's going on. So almost like a blackout there. You had him fire the top government ethics official that is supposed to be reviewing conflicts of interest and other things of that nature. With regard to the White House, he actually signed an executive order rolling back a Biden anti corruption executive order that also was meant to apply to the White House. And then, just for fun, because this is something that's near and dear to Trump's own heart in terms of being the global real estate magnate, he also has rolled back enforcement of foreign bribery laws. So now you can, you know, As a business person overseas trying to make a deal, bribe whatever officials you want to, to be able to secure that for yourself. So there has been a systematic effort to avoid. And one more thing, Elon also has said he's not going to make his personal financial disclosure public. So Elon is supposed to be enforcing for himself whether there's any conflicts of interest here. And like I said before, if you look at all of the different agencies that he had run afoul of Transportation, Interior Justice, Agriculture, the Natural Aid Relations Board, many lawsuits there. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the sec, the Defense Department, the fec, that's the Federal Election Commission, the Office of Government Ethics, that's the one I just mentioned where they just fired the top person. So it's insane to imagine that the richest man on the planet who has some $15 billion in federal government contracts over the past number of years is going to avoid these conflicts and avoid self dealing. We already know that that is the polar opposite of the case. And I think it's always really important to keep in mind what the goal is here. The goal is a very ideological, like radical libertarian vision of stripping the government down so that even if you don't go through Congress and roll back regulations, you know, that would be enforced by the cfpb, that would be enforced by the sec. They are so short staffed and they are run by people that are ideologically opposed to those regulations. So it's effectively deregulation by defunding and by firing all of these employees that you possibly can. Obviously this benefits someone who has a lot of business interest and wants to just be able to do whatever it is that he wants to do. So that's a big part that is the primary thing that is going on here. And at the same time that education contracts are being frozen and you had the health care, the health research freeze, that's been rolled back temporarily at least by a judge. We'll see if they're complying with that. But while you have all these programs that are frozen and contracts that are being frozen and rolled back, Elon himself, his contracts are going right through. This was a great scoop by Ryan and Jeremy over at Dropsite News. So Tesla is set to win the largest State department contract of 2025. They're getting from the State Department $400 million for armored Teslas. This is apparently armored cybertrucks in particular, that they are so $400 million in armored cybertrucks to the State Department according to procurement documents that they reviewed. So again the largest contract for the State Department for all of 2025 thus far. $400 million into the pockets of Elon Musk.

[Krystal Ball]

How do I buy one? How do I get it on the train?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Nice for him. Very nice for him.

[Krystal Ball]

Look, I think there's a couple of things. I don't think it's deniable that anything that you're saying is correct. I have noticed with great interest of a recent talking point, which is that Elon is so rich that he has no incentive to steal from you. Which is an interesting way to think about it, because by that logic, it means we should just take all of the richest and most powerful people and we should put them in charge because.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They would have power. They're surely the most honest. Right?

[Krystal Ball]

Sagar, look, that's wild. Well, let's move past it and just think about what's. I think there's a couple things. I think Elon is obviously getting his pet stuff. The reason why this right now is just so overwhelmingly popular with a lot of the Republicans is cause it's also dismantling this professional managerial class center of gravity. And that is really Elon's political genius here. And what I keep thinking about is he has to wait. They have to wait for him to screw up, to touch something that will really set people off before anybody's gonna care about all of this conflict of interest. I mean, you know, I remember how many times in the Iraq era would we talk about Halliburton and all of those no bid contracts that they would get and Republicans would just shut up and say, oh, no, no. George W. Bush told me that it was all okay. It probably took a decade for people to reckon with what was also obviously a very brazen corruption scandal right now by targeting all of these things, which are niche and which would also force Democrats to fight on unpopular ground. So for every talk that you're talking about education, from what we've seen right now, it's like what, a rural health clinic in a few different states. I'm not downplaying it, but it's not gonna make international news. You have to wait until you hit something that genuinely affects every single citizen. And if you don't do that, I'm unfortunately gonna tell you it's gonna be popular. Because what are you gonna mount your defense on? Oh, we're standing up for the NCAA's right to have transgender athletes or, you know, the Education Department. Like I said, as long as the funds continue to go through to all the schools. I don't think this person's gonna give a shit about actually dismantling the Education Department. Maybe if we have some denied program or something that affects tens of millions of people. But by and large the lack of trust right now in the government is so low and then the lack of really like faith that these people staying in their jobs was genuinely working for the average person is just. I don't think it exists at a zeitgeist level. Like there is something very attractive to the American citizen just broadly from what I've seen here in terms of the popularity and the enthusiasm around Doge that there is this permanent bureaucracy that is taking advantage of people. And I mean, one of my favorite stats that I see everywhere on Normie Instagram is about how the collar counties around Washington D.C. are the richest in the United States. That is fundamentally the problem is that we talked about the post World War II order. But a lot of this can be blamed on Bill Clinton for the privatization of government and of contract, the explosion of government contracts, of the deficit. So that's really why I think the Democrats are in a very difficult position. It's like people really hate a lot of these agencies and they genuinely do feel like the HR and make work vacation of so much of government has done absolutely nothing for them that it's gonna be very hard to convince people until something is genuinely taken away from them.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think there's probably something to that, but I also think that they're going for it. I mean, Elon is out there posting repeatedly about Social Security. The Republicans are targeting.

[Krystal Ball]

They're talking about fraud and say everybody does know that there is a ton of fraud and social. Look, I'm not defending it. What I'm telling you is that it will be popular.

[Sagar Enjeti]

People know Medicare touches their Social Security, their Medicare, their Medicaid.

[Krystal Ball]

The Republicans, I mean the only people are going to freak out about their documents who are fleecing the government.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Trillion dollars in cuts to mandatory spending. 70% of mandatory spending is Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. There is, yes. Fraud, especially in Medicare, Yes. You really think they're going after that because that requires going after rich people? No, they have an ideological far right libertarian agenda to strip down as much as they possibly can. That is the goal. And so while we're in the early phases here and it's rural health clinic there and meals on Wheels here and school bus procurement in I think Illinois that hasn't gone through, I think it's inevitable that they do hit bone and they intend to. I mean that's what move fast and break Things means they intend to hit bone. So there's that piece. The other piece is I want people to understand that these first few weeks of the Trump administration have been a historic bonanza for the richest of the rich in corporate America. The level of regulatory rollback is truly like at this speed is truly not something we have probably ever seen. And as I said before, it's not coming through. Passing laws through Congress and rolling back previous regulation because people would object to that, right? I don't think they could do that. So instead what they're doing, I don't know, is they're gutting the enforcement, they're gutting cfpb, they're gutting the sec, they're gutting the ftc, they're gutting all of these, the nlrb, they're gutting all of the bodies that are meant to be the sort of white collar cops that go after elite crimes. That has been a massive giveaway to Elon and the other billionaires who have an interest, personal interest in such thing. And then next up on the agenda is a massive tax. So while they're all running around, oh, austerity and the deficit and the debt, blah, blah, blah, they're about to pass a $4 trillion tax cut that goes predominantly to them. So you're right that what is being cloaked in is DEI and transits, this and marriage.

[Krystal Ball]

But some of that is true. That's the problem.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, but let me ask you a question, Sagar. What do you think is more popular right now? DEI or doge?

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I saw your tweet on the subject. I'm not sure if we're going to take if these tweets or these polls and all of that to the bank. I think it could be an inference point. Now we will find out in the midterm election. So Democrats and all these, they're talking about resistance and all that. But my main position here is I'm done being psyoped by many of these polls. Just considering what happened in the election, all of the polls that indicated some sort of cultural left resistance or whatever, was all bullshit? I mean, and look, let's just be really, let's be very basic. Do we think that affirmative action, which is what DEI is on steroids, which was nuked at the ballot box in the most liberal state in California, is as popular as cutting government spending? Specifically, if it's cloaked in fraud and in diversity program at a fundamental level, do you really believe that's true?

[Sagar Enjeti]

But it's just not true. There's no way, I will grant you your caveat. So, first of all, the answer to the question is, if you look at the polls, if you look at dei is actually more popular than that one.

[Krystal Ball]

Poll, which is DEI is more popular.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Which actually even surprised me, which is.

[Krystal Ball]

Probably shit libs being like, well, Republicans are against dei, so I have to be pro dei.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think also you have to admit, like, there is a colorblind merit instinct in the public, as there should be. And so when there was a movement towards too much focus on these racial divisions from the left, there's a backlash against that. But I think there's also, you know, a sense of it can go too far where now you're just, you know, you're swinging too far on the other side.

[Krystal Ball]

How do we swing too far?

[Sagar Enjeti]

But it's not. But that's the thing is merit is one thing. And rolling back, you know, Ibram X Kendi's like, pointless corporate training is one thing. Cutting into civil rights is another.

[Krystal Ball]

And I think civil.

[Sagar Enjeti]

There's cutting, but I think that's where they run the risk. But I want to move from that. I think where you're right is there's a reason why they cloak all of this in government efficiency and anti corruption and anti fraud, et cetera. But where there's a giant risk is if you ask people how much influence billionaires should have in our government, they're like, none. We don't like this at all. And I don't think people are so stupid as to not realize that there's a major problem with the richest man on earth making himself CEO, dictator of the country and calling the shots. I think the polling about how, whether you think the numbers are absolutely correct or not, but the shift against Elon in the sense, like, we don't really want this guy to have this much say in our government, even among Republicans. I think that's really important because there is an instinct of these oligarchs have too much control over government. They're already too involved. And that scene in the White House where in the Oval Office where he's standing there sort of over Trump and Trump is looking up at him, and the level of deference that Trump has shown to him has really been perplexing and surprising to me. I mean, we've never seen that sort of deferential behavior from Trump. But again, it hammers home who is really calling shots and who is really in charge. And I do think that there is a visceral reaction against that now when there is likely to be some Sort of inevitable, you know, either catastrophe or touching some program that really does have massive impact. I think you will see a swift turning on this, but it's already really not that popular.

[Krystal Ball]

I think it's possible. I'm not trusting these polls on this at all. Zero. I'm genuinely. My number one thing I'm waiting for is that Virginia election. I want to see the level of resistance, whether all of that is true, because there's just too much countermanding evidence against the idea that cutting government spending or Elon. Or all of this is unpopular. I mean, just considering the election, considering the mandate. I mean, we had, remember, mandate. Sagar. Okay, fine. I mean, he won the popular vote. No, by a point. Okay. He still won in all seven of the swing states.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Biden won by four and a half points. The congressional margin is like the smallest in history. And also that was Trump getting elected, not Elon Musk.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But much of what they're doing now, like, no one was saying when they were running for office, we're gonna dismantle the cfpb. That was not something Trump was running on. And in fact, I don't even know.

[Krystal Ball]

What the CFPB is.

[Sagar Enjeti]

In fact, this. That's why we're here, to explain to them that it's the anti dismantling blue in the face.

[Krystal Ball]

Half the Sagar vote for him anyway.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No one ran on. We're gonna defund the white collar crime cops. Right. That was not a part of the pitch. And I know they want to sell this idea that voters wanted some, like, massive revolutionary reform that, you know, led by an anarcho capitalist and the richest man on the planet. I don't think that's at all what people voted for. In fact, the way I know that that's the case is what was the whole purpose of Trump going on all of those, like, bro podcasts. It was to make him seem normal and not extreme. And it worked, right? It made people. Oh, they're saying he's gonna do all this crazy stuff. He's not gonna do crazy stuff. He's just gonna, like, try to get prices down and be a good businessman. Because that's what I remember from the first administration, is that prices were lower and my dollar went farther. We're about to talk about inflation. He's completely moved past. He doesn't care about that at all. He's happy to have he even himself said previously, I don't really think that inflation is why people voted for me. I do think that was a big part of the reason I absolutely think that was a big part of the reason, actually.

[Krystal Ball]

I still think it might have been more immigration and culture, just.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But I think immigration is part of it for sure. But I also am quite confident that people were voting with their pocketbook. They felt like things were better economically, and they buy into the idea of Trump as this great businessman. And he did a very effective job of, like, humanizing himself, making himself seem like, not this scary threat. And then you come in and you're like, actually, you know what? 2025 plus was the project. Not just the project 2025, but we're actually gonna go way beyond that. We want a revolution. We're gutting your public schools. We're coming for Social Security. None of that. We're gonna annex Greenland and Canada and Gaza and whatever. None of this was pitched on the campaign trail. So I think the notion that this program in total is what people voted for, I don't think that that is backed up by Adams.

[Krystal Ball]

I'll tell you why I think that's wrong, which is that what's crazy to you is not what's crazy to a lot of people. What's crazy to you is the idea of dismantling the cfpb. What's crazy to the rest of the. At least the people, a lot of people who voted for Trump is the very existence of permanent bureaucracy, dei, transgenderism, et cetera. So for them, it's actually normal, cool, and what they want to dismantle the very instant.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm not saying that there aren't plenty of people like that, but we're not talking about the Trump base who will justify anything. But it's out there now, like, oh, actually, us owning Gaza is a great idea.

[Krystal Ball]

Even the normal, probably the bro cast, shall we? To them, permanent bureaucracy, permanent managed zero class, liberalism, age, whatever you want to call it, they're the crazy ones. And in fact, I mean, I sympathize and I understand that. What gets to it even more with the CFPB and all this stuff is that at the heart of it, regulatory agencies and all them, nobody runs on it. Biden didn't run on nlrb. Nobody gives a shit about the nlrb.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, that is not true.

[Krystal Ball]

When did you say. When did Kamala say NLRB on the campaign?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Think of the contours of the fight between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. He was running on breaking up the big banks. That is a regulatory reform.

[Krystal Ball]

That also was more of a cultural argument at the time. Which would. You did your old monologue on this.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, that's Right. That is a regulatory reform. And Hillary did what these people are doing, which is to say, oh, well, breaking up the big banks isn't going to end racism, discrimination.

[Krystal Ball]

And Democrats trusted her. Correct.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And you're right. Very effective. And guess what? The whole Bernie Sanders movement, the Donald Trump movement, comes out of the destruction of a previously effective regulatory regime. When you deregulated the banks over successive administrations, but especially with the end of Glass Steagall, which separated the wild speculation part of banking from the traditional you put in your deposit kind of banking, that's what helps to lead to a complete financial crash. So to waver. Oh, nobody cares about the cfpb. No one cares about the sec. No one cares about it. Until you have a massive bubble that pops and destroys the entire financial system. And that's the path they're on. Like the level of deregulation that is going on right now by stripping and gutting these agencies, making it so that there is no enforcement whatsoever even. It has been so radical that David Dayen and Matt Solar were tracking this. The banks were like, actually, we need some guidance about what's even legal now and what we can do because we can't operate in this just complete wild west system. So even the banks are like, we need a little bit of guardrails and guidance here because it has been rolled back so precipitously. So, listen, what will happen in terms of how people feel about this or that, et cetera. We're both just guessing, right? Based on what we think about the politics and how it's gonna play out, who's gonna make the pitch the most effectively, whether people will be revolted by this billionaire or they'll buy into like, oh, cutting, waste, fraud and abuse. That sounds great. That's all guesswork. What I can tell you is that what's being done is very damaging and creates massive risks of a giant bubble popping, of a redux of the financial crash that we had before. It is a smash and grab. It is a destruction of any force that could have been oppositional. Not just to Elon, although that is his primary goal, but to the entire cast of billionaires, the ones you like and the ones you don't like as well. That's why that's what matters about what's happening right now. And you're right that it's being wrapped in these things that are more popular. But that's why I want people to really understand the big goal here, which is not about cutting some DEI program or condoms to whatever nation they're sending Condoms to.

[Krystal Ball]

To Jordan.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's the big ideological play, is to destroy these regulatory agencies so that the masters of the universe billionaire class can do whatever the hell they want to do. And the other thing I'll say is some of this it's very hard to put. Like, even the destruction that's already been done will be very hard to undo, even with these temporary restraining orders, and even if they do ultimately comply with the judge's wishes and blah, blah, blah, even if Democrats win in four years from now or take the House, not that that even really matters two years from now. Once you strip down, and you're right about Clinton starting the privatization trend, once you strip down the capacity of government, it is very hard to build back up. And so that destruction that is happening right now is going to have consequences.

[Krystal Ball]

I understand your argument now, which is that it's not about in the interim, it's about in the future. And I don't even disag. I've said from the beginning, I think the big risk is that the smash and grab, the move fast and break things can in government. It's not like an industry where ultimately we're just talking about money. We're talking about people's lives, we're talking about programs. If there is some massive bubble, you're absolutely right. They could get blown out and everybody will look back as they did. Nobody in 2007 knew what Glass Steagall was by 2009 or when did the big short come out. I'm forgetting you have the famous scenes that Adam McKay has in there of people literally explaining these previously. What was it? CDOs and CDO squared. I remember learning about it, too, when I was in college. Complex financial terminology that nobody outside of Wall street had any business knowing. I totally will grant you that. I am trying to process it in the moment about how is it exactly that we got here and to what end this will be. And I think the risk also for a lot of the Democrats is you can have all this language about how it's gonna be bad and all of this in the same way that they did from Trump in 2017. But if none of it ends up happening, then you actually will end up looking either alarmist or as if you didn't have any understanding of the public. I think that's a big reason why Russiagate and the interim, like Trump rehabilitation of his image came to be was people said, oh, this is gonna be the end of the Republican. We're like, well, it wasn't so bad, right? Actually, maybe Democratic norms and all of that rules is worse. That's why a lot of people ended up voting for him. So. So I do understand now the process argument you're making. I think I'm just trying to think politically and where, what if the alternative happens where they do cut Medicare, CFPB, SEC and all of that and the S&P 500 continues to grow by 20% for the next four years. There's no crash and there's no major international Crisis. I mean Je or Donald Trump Jr. Probably Trump Jr. Now I guess since we're gonna talk about that a little bit later, is gonna be sailing to election. You know, it could be easy. It would be one of the easiest power grabs and successors in modern history. If things go in that way, Junior.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Is gonna give me a panic attack.

[Krystal Ball]

Really. So maybe he should come on the Vance train. At least he can think, right? Is that even something that Americans value?

[Sagar Enjeti]

I at this point, to be honest with you, I said this before, I'm just cheering for Trump to take back control of his own presidency. What do you make of him being so deferential and cowed by this? What is going on here?

[Krystal Ball]

I think Trump is wowed by attention and he understands the power of like celebrity and money more than anyone else. And the reason why he's deferential to Elon is I think he has gotten it into his head that this like control and this like Elon has almost a Steve Jobs esque quality of like the reality distortion field around him where he can turn whatever his pet issue is into a thing that people on Twitter and others are just mindlessly willing to turn it. I mean usaid, nobody gives a shit about usaid Until Mike Bentz and Elon Musk started tweeting about it, let's be honest, right. Nobody cared. Literally. I would single handedly give credit to Benz and then to Elon for paying attention to it. Elon, I mean that whole UK thing, I covered that scandal at the time a decade ago. I thought everybody had moved on and then he overnight is able to create this thing. So Trump views that as an extremely powerful. I don't think he's wrong actually. I think he might be right in terms of Elon's ability to just like completely on a dime, create narratives and really bring a lot of the elite billionaire class, people who really look up to Elon.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Billionaire has given him that power.

[Krystal Ball]

Exactly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Else wielded it in a way to be able to drive. I mean that's when he says like you are the media that's what he means. Like, he is able to. He doesn't have to try to make it interesting for traditional news media to cover whatever his pet project is that day. He can do that and pull the levers all himself. I don't know. There's something weird going on with that relationship between Elon and Trump. I don't think it's just because even you'll relate to this. The specter of Elon in the Oval in a T shirt.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, yeah, listen, I'm hating it. Trust me.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's wearing Trump as more probably of a stickler for dress code than you are, famously.

[Krystal Ball]

I wouldn't say more.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay. On the same level.

[Krystal Ball]

He puts up with it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

On the same level.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And so to see Elon there standing over him in a T shirt, I was like, whoa. And we know that Trump has changed a bunch of his views to match Elon's project, you know, in the question of what was gonna win out the like, you know, national conservatism, right wing populism, whatever you wanna call it, or the anarcho capitalism, like Javier Molay crap. Javier, like, it's pretty obvious which direction things have gone in. Even though that is. And this comes back to, like, that is not how Trump positioned himself on the campaign trail. He was driving the dump truck and working at McDonald's and trying to get unions to endorse him or at least stay out of the race or whatever. He was still positioning himself in that way. Versus. This is Koch brothers on steroids. This is Javier Milei on steroids. That is actually what he is now allowing to happen under his administration. So I don't know. I think there's something else going on with this relationship with the company. Elon.

[Krystal Ball]

Maybe you're right. Yeah. I'm curious to see actually how it plays out. Like I said, watching for those elections and all of that stuff very, very closely just to see whether it matches elite democratic historians.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, here's the thing. And in Virginia, they're gonna get crushed because, you know, how many.

[Krystal Ball]

Crush to what?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Crush to how many ends? You know, how many federal government. Government employees there are in Virginia. I mean, and I'm not just talking about Northern Virginia.

[Krystal Ball]

No, I know, like, where I live.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The whole town is, you know, civilian scientists. You go down to Virginia Beach. I mean, these are the big population centers. Okay? Northern Virginia dominates.

[Krystal Ball]

Right?

[Sagar Enjeti]

And it's not just federal government. Direct workers, the contractors, contractors, FBI. That's the whole ecosystem in, you know, and then there's a lot of military, military base Virginia beats massive number of government workers there as well. That's Virginia Beach, Norfolk. That's all. And then the other one is Richmond, which would be less, you know, less dependent on federal government. They're going to get crushed in Virginia.

[Krystal Ball]

All right, well, let's see if they lose by 15 is lose by if they lose by 5.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm actually just giving you a point that you can use at the time, which is that it may not be reflective of the whole country.

[Krystal Ball]

Fair enough. Good park. I like it Foreign.

[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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