2/18/26: GOP Midterm Wipeout Polling, Zohran Rent Freeze Win, UAE Pressured On Sudan

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal & Saagar

Episode Date: February 18, 2026
Key Hosts: Krystal Ball, Ryan Grim (Sagar Enjeti absent)
Main Topics: GOP Midterm Polling, NYC Rent Freeze under Mayor Zohran Mamdani, International Pressure on UAE Over Sudan

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Episode Overview

This episode of Breaking Points explores a trio of weighty topics: the ominous polling for the GOP ahead of the 2026 US midterms, the newly-elected NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s fulfillment of a high-profile rent freeze promise, and the growing international pressure (or lack thereof) on the United Arab Emirates for its role in the devastating conflict in Sudan. The hosts offer a bluesky-optimistic yet critical take on progressive movements while diving into the realpolitik and contradictions at play, domestically and internationally.

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Government Shutdown and DHS Funding Standoff

(02:36 – 08:09)

• Current Situation:
  • The US government remains in partial shutdown—only the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is unfunded.
  • Democrats, though in the minority, have gained leverage by allowing most funding bills to pass and isolating DHS.
• Progressive Base Pressure:
  • The Democratic base, energized by anger at DHS and ICE after recent violent incidents in Minneapolis, is demanding significant action and reform.
  • Democrats reportedly sent a secretive counteroffer to Trump’s administration, but details remain private.
• Negotiation Dynamics:
  • Demands include increased body cameras (with only ~30% of agents currently equipped), warrants for immigration checks, and an end to masked agents.
  • Krystal and Ryan debate the limits and optics of these demands, acknowledging both practical and ideological concerns of policing and immigration enforcement.

Notable Quote:

“If your agency is so despised by the public that merely working in it is a threat to your family, the agency is the problem, not the people.” – Ryan Grim (07:48)

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Democratic Base Moving Left on Policy

(08:09 – 11:07)

• NYT Focus Group:
  • Cited research showing unanimous grassroots preference for “progressive” over “moderate” candidates.
  • Explored how labels like “progressive” have evolved, gaining new traction after years of being watered down.
• Electoral Implications:
  • Hosts express both hope and skepticism about how “progressivism” will play in conservative or swing districts (e.g. Nebraska, Texas, Maine).

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GOP Midterm Polling: Toward a “Wipeout”?

(11:07 – 19:29)

• Polling Bombshell:
  • Cited CNN/NBC “redo” polls: Kamala Harris would now beat Trump by 8 points, a major swing from 2024.
  • Democrats leading in generic congressional ballots by 4–5 points—crucially, new/younger voters are even more Democratic than previous models.
  • Senate map is suddenly in play: states like Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas could see Democratic or independent/left victories.
• Dem & GOP Favorability:
  • Despite positive polling, Dems are less favorable (-19.9) than GOP (-12.8) nationally—indicating voter enthusiasm is driven by anti-incumbent sentiment rather than genuine party support.

Notable Quote:

“The only option that we give to voters to express their anger in a midterm is to vote for the other party…Democrats, I hope, don’t confuse that for love.” – Ryan Grim (18:15)

• Key Timestamps:
  • Discussion of polling numbers and implications (11:07–16:57)
  • “Midterms as protest votes” thesis (18:15–19:23)

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NYC: Zohran Mamdani Delivers Rent Freeze

(22:02 – 37:36)

• Background:
  • Mayor Mamdani wins procedural control to appoint a majority on the Rent Guidelines Board, clearing the path for his signature promise: a city-wide rent freeze.
  • Skeptics warned Albany or entrenched boards would block him—he outmaneuvered those obstacles.
• Pros & Cons Debated:
  • Both hosts admit skepticism about rent freezes as long-term housing policy but acknowledge short-term relief is real.
  • Concerns: landlords might neglect maintenance, leading to squalor, and “ghost units” (empty apartments) persist if rehab costs aren’t compensated.
  • Ryan suggests: city should cover rehab costs if landlords are forced to suppress rents.
• Administrative Reforms:
  • Mamdani is appointing chief savings officers in each agency to root out government inefficiencies and reinforce credibility.
  • This blend of progressive social policy and “good governance” is praised as a way to maintain and build trust.

Notable Quotes:

“He’s picking all the low hanging fruit…as a progressive Democrat, going out and saying we’re appointing chief savings officers to get me a report within a month…So coupling rent control with a little bit of Doge is at least better than not, I suppose.” – Krystal Ball (30:14)

“If you and the public care about the government doing good things, it has to do them efficiently and effectively.” – Ryan Grim (31:09)

• Homeless Encampment Sweeps Policy Switch:
  • Mamdani is criticized for possibly reversing his pledge to stop encampment sweeps after recent homeless deaths in a cold snap—seen as left-orthodoxy colliding with governance realities, especially during emergencies.

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Sudan War: UAE's Role and International Stalemate

(40:24 – 52:51)

• Recent Escalation:
  • Sudanese army drone strikes kill dozens including civilians; UAE-backed RSF also behind shellings.
• Pressure on UAE at Munich Security Conference:
  • US and UK diplomats pressed on what leverage they’re actually using—both evade direct answers.
  • British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper gives a “filibuster” response, refusing to name the UAE as the key driver, dispersing blame across many countries.
• Sudanese Peace Negotiator (Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law):
  • Describes Quad (US, Egypt, UAE, Saudi) roadmap to truce via UN mechanism.
  • Emphasizes any solution must be Sudanese-led—UN can only facilitate.
• Sudanese PM on Ceasefire Conditions:
  • Argues that only disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of RSF will make any truce endure—RSF now mainly mercenaries paid by UAE.
• Media and Moral Clarity:
  • Hosts lambaste the “respectability politics” and global indifference exposed at Munich. Grim calls out “everyone she can to…spread out the blame when everybody who’s following this is like, no, it’s the UAE that is the key driver of this conflict.” (49:11–49:12)
  • Krystal warns history will not look kindly on this inaction.

Notable Quotes:

“People who are following this seriously realize when the dust settles how dark the kind of global disinterest in this is going to look.” – Krystal Ball (52:01)

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On-the-Ground Sudan Reporting & Final Thoughts

(52:51 – 54:49)

• Recommendation: The ION Network’s courageous local journalism covering the Sudan conflict is highlighted; hosts encourage listeners to watch the linked reports for a visceral sense of the situation.

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Key Timestamps Quick Reference

• Gov’t Shutdown / DHS Stalemate: 02:36–08:09
• Dem Party Base Going Left: 08:09–11:07
• GOP Wipeout Polling: 11:07–19:23
• NYC Rent Freeze / Mamdani: 22:02–37:36
• Sudan Crisis & UAE Pressure: 40:24–52:51

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Tone & Takeaways

The tone is frank, slightly sardonic, and policy-literate, with both hosts quick to interrogate orthodoxy—left or right. They combine hope for progressive possibility (especially in urban policy and electoral swings) with a willingness to spotlight uncomfortable trade-offs and messy realities, both at home and abroad.

• Memorable Moments:
  • Ryan’s “if your agency is so despised…” formulation (07:48)
  • The focus group “no one raised a hand” for moderates
  • The Mamdani rent freeze saga as a lesson in both democratic mandate and practical governance
  • Relentlessly evasive answers from Western officials on Sudan and the UAE

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For Further Exploration

• Watch the ION Network’s Sudan coverage (link in show notes)
• Review the data and polling cited (see transcript, 11:07–16:57)
• Follow NYC politics under Mayor Mamdani as a case study in left-wing governance under fire

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Summary created in the spirit and style of Breaking Points: adversarial, clear-eyed, and always rooted in the real-world consequences of political decisions—both celebrated and disastrous.

Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Krystal Ball]

Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.

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[Krystal Ball]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see [e-mail] meanwhile, we're still technically in a government shutdown, Ryan.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. Democrats, I think you got to give them their flowers for like effectively maneuvering the enough government funding through that. Remember, we were saying, like this was their goal and they were pretty clear about it and Republicans let them do it. What they did is they got government funding for everything except Homeland Security. And so then when Homeland Security came up, they're like, no, we're not doing that. Partly, I think it's the senators and the House members were so proud of themselves for getting appropriations bills through regular order that they couldn't resist passing them through the House and Senate because they haven't done that in like 20 years or something like that.

[Krystal Ball]

That's a wild theory.

[Ryan Grim]

And Democrats are like, yeah, go, go do that. Go ahead. Because. And now when the, with, with the government funded other than homeland Security, Democrats are sitting with all the leverage.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, and yeah, let's just set the table a little bit. Dave Chappelle, let's put this up on the screen. Was in Minnesota yesterday and visited a memorial to Alex Prady. This, of course, the reason Democrats feel fully confident pushing this shutdown is because the base, the party's base is absolutely demanding action against DHS and ICE after the violent January in Minneapolis. And so the fallout from that is trickling right now into this. And just yesterday we can put the CNBC report up on the screen. This is the next element. Democrats sent a counteroffer over to Trump. Now, technically, DHS is still, still funded, pretty well funded right now because there was something in the one big beautiful bill that was passed in July to fund them. But headline here is Democrats Send Trump DHS Funding Counteroffers. Agency Shutdown Grinds on. So Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. But I think this is actually just a reference to Schumer's new counteroffer. They are, as CNBC says, quote, locked in negotiations. And they aren't saying, they literally did not say publicly what was in the counteroffer yesterday. So we don't know. Brian, do you have any sense of what Democrats might be willing to cede in order? Because Democrats here are in the minority. That goes without saying. Republicans control The House, they control the Senate, they control the White House. What might Dems actually be willing to concede on this?

[Ryan Grim]

Well, they're pushing for some, you know, the kinds of police reforms they were pushing for back in the. The teens. Like, more body cams. Which people have. Which people have been like, we have footage of Renee Nicole Goode and Alex Preddy being shot and killed from like eight different directions. Like a ninth is not changing the situation. Like, there's a problem of accountability and impunity that is leading to this, not the fact that we don't have enough camera footage of what's going on.

[Krystal Ball]

Although I would argue in both of those cases, having first person perspective from the officer or officers will go to making their case for how threatened they actually were.

[Ryan Grim]

And they should not have to be pressed to agree to that, because in.

[Krystal Ball]

The good case, having his. I mean, the guy is holding his phone in his hand and his gun in his other hand. The officer in that case. And so Noem actually did, I think, at one point with Walls and Fry, agree to put body cams on everyone in Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge, which is now over. So maybe that's something that the Democrats can claim a win on if they get the administration agreeing to supply almost everyone. I think it's like the number that I remember is like some 30% right now are wearing body cams. It's not even a majority. So if they. I mean, maybe that's a win that Democrats can take to the base.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, that's one thing. The other things they have pushed for are they want to end this, like, papers, please, Gestapo situation where they just go around a neighborhood identifying anybody that they think is here illegally and asking them for papers. They want to stop that. They want to require a warrant. Like, hey, look, you say you've got X number of millions of people who are here illegally. You know where they live, you know who they are. If you don't, you have an enormous budget. Go figure that out and go find them. And the masks, like, we don't want masked gunmen walking around the streets. Like, that's a major demand from Democrats and the Democratic base.

[Krystal Ball]

I just don't think that's one that the administration will cave on. But, I mean, I agree with it. I think. I don't think armed agents of the state should be wearing masks. On the other hand, if I had someone in, if I had someone I loved who worked in ice, right now, I'd probably want them to be wearing a mask for their own safety. But then you shouldn't take the job. So it's.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, it's a democracy.

[Krystal Ball]

Like, if you're armed. Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

If your agency is so despised by the public that merely working in it is a threat to your family. The agency is the problem, not the people is what I would say. But people are like, Democrats are just absolutely, completely fed up with this.

[Krystal Ball]

So New York Times focus group is validating Ryan's spidey sense of what the Democratic Party's base looks like right now. Let's just put this image up on the screen. New York Times asked their focus group who A candidate who identifies as progressive or a candidate who identifies as moderate. Every single person in the focus group across the demographic spectrum from every different cohort said, a progressive candidate. And for a moderate candidate, the New York Times reports, no one raised a hand. Now, this is a feast for somebody who wrote the books that you've written, Ryan, like, this is a veritable feast of different people.

[Ryan Grim]

It's bittersweet because it's like, if you would have listened to us when it mattered, then we might not be here. So it's very bittersweet to have people come around and be like, okay, yeah, actually, you were right. Well, yeah, well, we're still in hell.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay. Yes. But also it's interesting, like, how you def. How people are gonna define moderate and progressive, because are they defining progressive as. Alyssa Slotkin? Do you remember in the 2008 Democratic primary, it was a big deal for Hillary Clinton to identify herself as a progressive? It was like a question at the base.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. It meant something back then.

[Krystal Ball]

Right?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And then 2020 kind of lost its meaning because everybody adopted it. But then by 2024, in the backlash around BLM and everything, and the woke stuff you did, you had a little bit of sheen come off of progressive, and it became. It meant more to say you were progressive. Right now, people witnessing what moderation gets. You are saying, I don't want to be. I don't want anything to do with that.

[Krystal Ball]

Which is very interesting because on the one hand, there are obvious analyses about voters seeing. And there's primaries and general elections, obviously, but voters seeing Democrats as having gone a little wacky on some of the cultural stuff and polling on some of the cultural stuff suggests that's absolutely true, that Dems got on the wrong side of some different issues. So that's gonna be a very, very interest post primary for Dems running in Nebraska or, well, independent, like a Dan Osborne running in Nebraska or Graham Platner running in Maine or Talarico or Crockett running in Texas. That's what I'm curious to see is how people who are defining themselves as progressive are approaching those issues. Because I mean, I don't know what that means.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And to get a sense of how bad it is for Democrats, let's roll. I mean for Republicans, even Kamala Harris is like if you did a redo right now with Trump, the public is saying that they would actually elect Kamala. So let's roll. Harry Anton and CNN here choice for.

[CNN Political Analyst]

A 2024 presidential election. The actual was Donald Trump winning by about a point and a half. It rounds to a point. But take a look here in a polled redo between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris In April of 2025, it was within the margin of error, right? Kamala Harris by point. But look at where we are now. According to an NBC News survey monkey poll, Kamala Harris wins in a redo. Asking folks essentially if you could redo the 2024 election, how would you vote? She wins it by, get this, eight points. A massive shift from what we saw back in November of 2024 when Donald Trump won by a point. And I will note that this sample was weighted, weighted to the 2024 result in which Donald Trump won by a point. But yet Kamala Harris in this reweighted in this weighted sample, get this, she wins by 8. Amongst the sample that voted for Trump by 12024 Harris voters, they vote for the Democrats on average by, get this, 89 points. The Trump voters mostly stick by the Republicans, but by a significantly smaller margin by 83 points. This means that the Democratic base that voted for Kamala Harris is sticking with those congressional Democratic candidates to a much greater degree than those Trump voters are sticking with the Republican candidates for Congress. And that is why what you're seeing on that generic congressional ballot is Democrats leaping ahead by this point by about five points. Because at least at this point, the Trump voters are not sticking by the Republicans as much as the Harris voters are sticking by the Democrats voters choice for election for the 2026 congressional elections, if they didn't vote in 2024, look at this, Democrats are winning that vote by a significant margin by 16 percentage points. So you add on to that the Harris voters sticking with the Democratic candidates, all of a sudden you see, hey, this is the way that Democrats are going to get back their congressional majority. And more than that, I will Note that in 2024, of course the Trump voters or the people who voted for Trump, he actually won a larger share of those non 2020 voters. It's not just the House, it's the Senate as well. Democrats chance to win the Senate a year ago is 19% according to Cauchy, 30% six months ago. And now Democrats have a 40% chance of taking back the U.S. senate.

[Krystal Ball]

Nine point swing.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, the combination of those two things is a wipeout. I think that curious for your take. I think the 40% under rates at this point, maybe not Democrats chances of taking the Senate, but that those two numbers combined, that the people who did vote in 2024 now going heavily towards Democrats and the people who didn't vote in 2024 but intend to vote in 2026, them being heavily Democratic. Also the combination of that means a wipeout for Republicans in the midterms because you saw the numbers, you know, people who didn't vote in 2020 favored Trump heavily in 2024. That's a, that's a key figure. The people who either weren't old enough to vote or just didn't want to when they come in, they tilt the electorate in sometimes unpredictable ways. If you have a shift that big, Susan Collins loses even to Janet Mills, who's not going to win the primary by the way, like she's getting, I think Platner's going to beat her fairly convincingly. We'll see. Nebraska might go, Alaska goes like Mary Peltola wins this Alaska seat. If that's the climate. People are so mad at what the federal government has done to Alaska. Iowa is in play. Unfortunately Nathan Sage dropped out, but Iowa is in like a depression like they're Trump's killing Iowa. Deep red, that's in play. Sherrod Brown with those numbers can win in Ohio, North Carolina, probably Democratic with those numbers. Ostoff cruises and is like top tier presidential candidate with those numbers. Texas, forget it.

[Krystal Ball]

Texas, forget it. I mean I was so close last time, genuinely so close last time.

[Ryan Grim]

If you guys go ahead and pick that crazy Attorney general, me.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. The Ken Paxton race, Cornyn Paxton, thoroughly.

[Ryan Grim]

Corruption, professionally and personally and might be the nominee. And if he goes up then against Talarico, okay, I'll like watch it. I'm not gonna believe it, but I will pay attention.

[Krystal Ball]

For the record, I have no dog in the Texas Republican primary or to the extent, my only real dog in that fight is that John Cornyn is a establishment McConnell tool. So I'll say that that doesn't mean the other options are great either.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

So speaking of which, that's exactly what I was just gonna say. Caveat to everything. You just laid out about the climate being unfavorable to Republicans. It's that I went back and recently pulled the numbers compared to 2018, which was a massive blue wave, blue tsunami. Republican favorability, Dem favorability. Right now, Dems are at negative 19.9. Republicans are at negative 12.8. The Democratic Party is less favorable nationwide than the Republican Party, even though Donald Trump is so unfavorable. People do not like Democrats. They just don't like Democrats. Now, Dems still lead in the congressional ballot right now, but by a smaller margin than they did at this point in 2018.

[Ryan Grim]

So what's that lead looking like now?

[Krystal Ball]

Let me pull the RCP here while I find that I will keep. Oh yeah, here it is. Okay, so Dems have a plus 4.6 spread right now.

[Ryan Grim]

Plus 6.

[Krystal Ball]

Plus 4.6.

[Ryan Grim]

Plus 4.6. Got it.

[Krystal Ball]

Plus 4.6. So, I mean, it's actually fairly healthy at this point, but it is lower than where they were at this point in 2018, or at least as of the time that I published that last story. So anyway, the problem that Democrats will have is getting people to the polls to counter disillusionment with the party. Now Republicans are going to have that problem too, because Donald Trump is not on the ballot. And the disillusionment when Donald Trump is on the ballot makes people stay home, vote for the Dem in some cases if it's an independent, but that's a. I mean, independent voters in general elections, like Maine, for example, certainly in Texas, certainly in Georgia, certainly in Alaska, if independents don't like Democrats, that's the caveat. I do think things are. The climate looks good for Democrats, for maybe a blue wave, but is it a blue tsunami, the type of which that sweeps Ossoff into a healthy reelection? Possibly someone from Texas, possibly someone from Alaska, Dan Osborne in Nebraska, I don't know that yet. And Osborne obviously is running as an independent, but Democrats are carrying a lot of. They're carrying a lot of weight. The brand is carrying a lot of weight right now.

[Ryan Grim]

It is. So yeah, in a midterm, though, people are almost always voting against something than for something. And that was the case in 2010. They were voting against, you know, they came out against Obama and Democrats and the status quo. 94, 2018, 2006, like 2006, Democrats were not popular, but Bush was much more hated. And so the only option that we give to voters to express their anger in a midterm is to vote for the other party. And so, and because you're not going to put them in power. I think it's easier for people. You're not going to put them in the White house. So in 2006 you might not like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, right? But you really didn't like Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush and Dick Cheney. So you're like fine Democrats. So I think that's what they're going to do this time. Fine Democrats. And I hope Democrats don't confuse that for love.

[Krystal Ball]

Love, right. Yeah, that's. It's a fine line. It's a fine line.

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[Krystal Ball]

Speaking of love, Ryan Mamdani, beloved by all, loved by all the children of the people.

[Ryan Grim]

Do we have any polling on him? That guy's just.

[Krystal Ball]

Just killing it.

[Ryan Grim]

Like, the funny thing about a mayor is that, like, the job is to be hated. And he'll get there.

[Krystal Ball]

I was gonna say give him time. Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

He's only been there six weeks. Seven weeks at this point. Usually, a mayor by this point can't walk outside Gracie Mansion without getting heckled. But if we put up. I think it's the third element. The news now is that Mamdani is going to be able to appoint a majority of people on the Rent Guidelines Board, which will then allow him to enact one of his most prominent and most criticized campaign promises, which is to freeze the rent. And this is a good moment to think about all of the people who put themselves out there as experts on the democratic process and on politics. And these are the. Well, actually. Types of nerds who inject themselves into these conversations and say, well, actually, Albany needs to sign off on any tax increases, so it doesn't matter what Mamdani says. And they say here. Well, actually, the Rent Stabilization Board, the Rent Guideline Board, you know, there are a lot of tenures that will be hanging over for a long time.

[Krystal Ball]

We never get you in character, so this is a rare treat.

[Ryan Grim]

And so, basically, they said, mamdani can't. He can't. We'll go with that tweet. Mamdani cannot, on his own, freeze the rent, so stop getting excited about what this guy is promising you he's going to do. And other people said, look, with enough will, there is a way, with public pressure, the board will do what the mayor wants to do because they don't want to get in the way of this public will. And right as he left office, Eric Adams tried to install a landlord friendly member to this board for a period of time. That would have made it difficult for Mamdani to have full control of the board and execute it on his agenda. Guess what that guy said? No way. Are you kidding me? If you are a landlord friendly type of person that Eric Adams is going to put on the board, you're probably doing pretty well in your life. You may have some difficulties at home. You know, there's probably some unhappiness somewhere in your soul as a result of how you got where you are. But you're doing pretty good. Life is pretty good. And Eric Adams is like, why don't you be the face of rent increases against Mayor Mamdani? And so they nominated this person and we won't even name them because why make them infamous? In fact, we'll give them credit. But when it was too late for Eric Adams to do anything about it, the person said, actually, how about I don't do that? How about I don't spend the next several years being the face of rent increases? The guy standing in the way of this democratic mandate for freezing the rent, he might not. This guy probably thinks freezing the rent is a terrible idea for all the reasons lots of people think it's a terrible idea, including me, including you.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't think it's gonna work. I'll go on the record right now. I'm bless the people of New York City.

[Ryan Grim]

You know what? It might not, but what it's going to do is bring relief to a lot of people, certainly in the short term, and then it will put pressure on politicians to like, get it right as a long term solution. There's a lot to.

[Krystal Ball]

And you know, I think Zora Mamdani, actually, if he were sitting with us right now, he probably would say the long term solution is the more important policy.

[Ryan Grim]

Right, right. And sort of like tariffs in a way. Like the tariffs for Trump were a stand in.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

For they were a proxy for. Trump understands that things suck and that we're getting ripped off and people are ripping you off and he's going to do something about it. Not that tariffs alone are going to fix everything or that tariffs, long term, the way he's implementing them are even a good idea.

[Krystal Ball]

Of course he can.

[Ryan Grim]

I think there's a similarity there. The freeze, the rent was a stand in for fixed prices. For no, for like, housing is unaffordable. Life is unaffordable in New York City. And I care and I'm going to do What I can to try to reverse that right now. Do you want to make the counterargument? I can even make. We can all make them. But what to the rent freeze?

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I mean, there are obvious counterarguments, but the one thing I would say in the short term that becomes a real threat to people who find themselves in precarious housing situations is that landlords act even worse. The rent gets frozen. They stop fixing things. They let you live in abject squalor. And so the mayor's going to have to then be policing that even harder, like housing codes and regulations and all of that. On the other hand, can you get people into, I mean, can he build, I don't know, can he build the types of places that people want to move into? Can you increase supply in a way that doesn't just leave people stuck? You can freeze the rent and it's going to be frozen at an unacceptably high level for a lot of people. That's kind of the problem with New York City to begin with. So.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, and to me, it's an incomplete policy. Like you would need. Like, if you're going to freeze it. And let's.

[Krystal Ball]

What.

[Ryan Grim]

What often happens is somebody, a tenant leaves and the place needs somewhere between 10 and $50,000.

[Krystal Ball]

So you get empty spaces.

[Ryan Grim]

You got it.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Because for a new tenant, you want to make the place look better and you want to fix all the problems that, that exist and that can, that can end up being fairly expensive. And if it costs $40,000 to rehab the unit is a lot. But let's say it costs 40,000 to rehab the unit and you can't move the rent to cover that cost because.

[Krystal Ball]

Construction is expensive in New York.

[Ryan Grim]

Then what a lot of landlords do is they just leave it empty.

[Krystal Ball]

Yep.

[Ryan Grim]

And that's not like. Nobody would argue that we should leave units empty.

[Krystal Ball]

I think Zoron has actually talked about that too. Like empty units. There's tons of like ghost units.

[Ryan Grim]

But to me, a more policy would be like, okay, we're, we're asking you to subsidize against the market rate by keeping this rent underneath the market rent, market rate. So we then as the city are going to come in and we'll. We'll rehab it for you. Like do that at least.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, let's put this on the screen. I mean, this is E4. This is going to be Assad. This is Mamdani doing a little bit of Doge, because even before he was elected, he was the guy who was holding court Speaking fluent abundance in conversations with Derek Thompson. So listen to Mayor Mamdani. This is the next stop.

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We are being as aggressive as we.

[Krystal Ball]

Can and recognizing additional revenue and have surpassed the state in our estimates of personal income tax, corporate tax and sales tax. But responsible governance is not only about revenue, it is also about discipline. That means finding savings across city government, reducing bureaucratic waste, and rendering agencies more efficient and cost effective. That is why I signed an executive order establishing a chief savings officer in every city agency. Chief Savings officers, or CSOs, have a simple remit identifying savings within the agencies they serve. They will consolidate redundancies in source programs.

[Ryan Grim]

That have been outsourced to bloated consultant.

[Krystal Ball]

Contracts and eliminate extraneous programs. Each CSO will issue a public report.

[Ryan Grim]

By March 20 detailing the savings they.

[Krystal Ball]

Have found and provide updated assessments every six months. These CSOs will have clear goals. 1.5% in savings in fiscal year 2026 and 2.5% in fiscal year 2027. I mean, he's picking all the low hanging fruit Ryan. He's cleaning the subway. He's doing an obvious thing where he's as a progressive Democrat, democratic socialist, going out and saying, we're appointing chief savings officers to get me a report within a month. Basically about savings that they found throughout the government. So coupling rent control with a little bit of doge is at least better than not, I suppose.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And the beauty of this, to me is that it. And we had Christian Parenti on here saying the left needs to embrace some austerity.

[Krystal Ball]

He literally made exactly. Yes. The argument for what Zorra Mandani just did.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And the argument is that if you and the public care about the government doing good things, it has to do them efficiently and effectively.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And that the government's purpose is to benefit the public, not just to kind of make work for government workers. And under the Tammany hall kind of style of city politics, it becomes its own thing and its own power base. But if you want to really radically use it to make as, as, as a kind of force for working people in the city, working people have to believe that the government is. That they are the government. The government is them, that they're. And they're working as one. Rather than that the government is this thing that is its own separate entity that is actually just trying to extract from you. And too many working people incorrectly, not, I wouldn't say correctly, but like fairly and in many cases correctly have identified the city governments as like, just extractive. And their goal Then is then to get the jobs in government or to get, you know, if their cousin works in this department, maybe they can get in that department too. And that's not sustainable. And it's not a way to scale up. You want it working for everybody. So good for Mamdani for embracing this because, like, it's too easy to just. To not do it, go the next. And that's why Doge could have been. Doge could have been great if, like, Doge came in and was like, wait a minute, you're all using these, like, 1984 computers running on Microsoft Windows 98. Like, let's upgrade this stuff. We're gonna. Let's make it so you can do your job more efficiently. It's gonna cost a little money here, but it's going to save all of this money down the road. That would have been one of the best services. Al Gore tried to do that, remember?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, but to your point, Doge lost the public trust really quickly. And to undertake significant reforms, you have to have public trust. And they lost public trust. And actually, I wanted to ask you about this because this I just remember, broke last night. I'm curious what your take of this is. New York Post. So they don't like Mayor Mamdani, to say the least. Who, by the way, producer max says he's up plus 16. He's up 16 points in his approval rating. So interesting.

[Ryan Grim]

Mamdani, he won by about 15. So that's up. So he's like, even more. Yeah. It's unusual to go northward.

[Krystal Ball]

We'll see how that continues. But here's the headline, Mamdani Brings back Homeless Encampment sweeps, Turning on campaign promise after backlash over Cold Weather deaths. So the New York Post is reporting that he's expected to reverse course on this campaign promise because of this deadly cold snap in which I think at least 10 people have died on the streets of New York City. It's been very, very cold. And sources have told the New York Post that that is going to start possibly as soon as today. Very interesting. The Post says the city's Department of Homeless Services, which has been left on the lurch with zero guidance since Mamdani's order came down to halt the sweeps last month, will again take the lead on issuing notices to people living on the Sources said that was an Eric Adams policy. It's been unpopular with people on the left. But listen, my perspective on that is it can save lives. I wonder if that's Mayor Mamdani's perspective, having been in power for About a month now if that actually is worth the life saving efforts. And just bitterly cold weather in New York City. So I don't know, Ryan, I don't know what to make of that actually, to be honest.

[Ryan Grim]

This seems like a case of where your well meaning left orthodoxy ran into this fierce ice storm and snowstorm.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

And I'm glad he's readjusting this. On the other hand, the orthodoxy comes from a mysterious place where criminalizing homelessness has its own obvious problems like that cruelty. It's not a solution either. But certainly on, in these like you know, freezing, you know, freezing temperatures for long stretches of time.

[Krystal Ball]

It's.

[Ryan Grim]

It's just incredibly unsafe and can be deadly to be out in, in the cold then. So the government has some responsibility. You gotta like can't. You don't want people to just die in the streets.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I'm curious to see how he handles the questions that I'm sure he's going to get from New York City press corps about this. Because listen, I think people actually respect when you are leveling with them. As a politician you say listen, like this was. We had people dying and I did what I had to do. You know, that's, that's how it goes. So I don't know. I'm curious how he handles that.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, we'll see.

[Krystal Ball]

But yeah, because he's not actually afraid to like color outside the lines as we're pointing out with him doing Doge in New York City is that that hasn't ever been like a huge barricade for him.

[Ryan Grim]

And the storm is interesting context than the snow for his popularity rate. Like you could easily imagine a world where the city was just wrecked by this, by this dump of snow and that he's at like the 30s in popularity already. Like this was a difficult situation. New York seems to have handled it much better than DC in fact. Thankfully the 40 degree days are now getting us out of this. But the city was struggling so. And you know, Mamdani was very out there and energetic out there like with the crews and like doing the mayor thing.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Which you know, they're prized. Some people are like, oh, the problem with these left wing candidates, they're not, they don't. They're just gonna be lost in like the ivory tower of socialist ideas. But not, not get into the streets and actually do the job of being a mayor. Which the number one job of being a mayor is plowing the streets when it snows.

[Krystal Ball]

But he was so aware of that, like deeply aware of what went wrong. With de Blasio, so we'll see if he can stave that off in his own tenure at Gracie Manor. Let's move on to Sedan Ryan.

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[Krystal Ball]

Are you my dad now?

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[Ryan Grim]

In Sudan, the Sudanese army in a wave of drone strikes in Kordofan and the Sennaar States over a period of a couple days killed upwards of 60 people, at least 26 of them civilians. In West Kordofan, in North Kordofan, 28 people were killed when a, when an SAF drone struck a market, according to the emergency Lawyers group operating there. The Sudan Doctors Network reported three killed in shelling and blamed that on the UAE backed rsf. And some sources said a hospital was directly hit in that case. This comes as at the Munich Security Conference. Finally we started seeing some, some pressure applied to the UAE in, in particular, which has evaded kind of all responsibility for this, the catastrophe that they have begotten. And the US is putting forward a proposal to the kind of, the quartet of countries that are kind of behind this, behind this war. Let's roll F2 here.

[Angie.com Ad Announcer]

You've been very involved in peace talks, particularly with the quad which we were talking about earlier, which is the us, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. So can you just update us? Is it peace in our time? You know, can we be hopeful?

[Sudanese Peace Negotiator]

We've done extensive work, We've been in continuous contact with both parties to work on the quad roadmap that we put out on September 12. The roadmap starts with a humanitarian truce and ends with a political transition process. So on the humanitarian truce, we presented an initiative, we presented a strong text to the parties that addresses all aspects of this, let's call it temporary ceasefire or truce. We have also engaged in extensive consultations with both sides. And then we've reached at some point an understanding that it will be most useful to go through a UN mechanism. So we proceeded with that. We've been working with OCHA specifically and with the UN Secretary General and his team to come up with a UN mechanism that will help implement and monitor this ceasefire or this humanitarian truce. And we've worked on it for weeks and I can say that we announced that in Washington a few days ago, along with our partner Tom Fletcher, that we do have a draft mechanism. It's going to be hopefully finalized very soon by the Secretary General's office and we will be ready at that point in time, hopefully within days to present the final draft to the parties and hopefully get their approval.

[Ryan Grim]

And the reason there is hope that this could be ended is that if the UAE were to back off, most outside observers believe that, that this would have to be, you know, have to wind up in a negotiated solution. The UAE has completely escaped any pressure internationally from the. From the US at the Munich Security Conference Channel Ford's Lindsey Hilsum asked the American adviser Mossad Boulos if it was time to, quote, get nasty with the UAE and finally put. Put some pressure on. Let's roll this.

[Angie.com Ad Announcer]

That there's enough talking because I understand that you bring together all these different parties, but it seems to me that this is the time, it's the time to get nasty, isn't it? Isn't it the time to put real leverage on the countries that are arming these factions? And the US has more leverage. President Trump has more power than anyone else. Come on, you can do it.

[Sudanese Peace Negotiator]

I agree with you. We've been quite patient and we've been quite accommodating. We wanted to make sure it's a successful process. Yeah, we've been engaging with both sides and all the relevant actors. However, too much time has gone by and it's really. It's about time to act. In fact, next week at the UN with the Honorable Secretary Cooper, we're going to have some serious talk. And action.

[Angie.com Ad Announcer]

You know, what is the pressure you're putting on him? What is the pressure you're putting on Himti? What is the pressure you're putting on Abu Dhabi to stop taking the gold which is coming out of Sudan at $5,000 an ounce?

[Sudanese Peace Negotiator]

Yes. Regarding, again, regarding the external support, our position is very clear. Not just us, but all our partners within the quad and all the other partners. We are totally against any sort of external support that we're seeing. And we're seeing it coming from all sorts of different sources, different supply routes, and to both parties, we're seeing it come to both sides. And this is totally counterproductive absolutely, to the mechanism and to the process that we're putting in place. We have a comprehensive peace plan that we've proposed and we're going to work.

[Angie.com Ad Announcer]

I'm still not understanding how. I mean, you know, I've looked at some of the principles of your peace plan. It hasn't been published yet, but, you know, I've looked at it. It looks great, but I don't see what is going to make either the parties or those supporting the parties agree to it. They want to keep fighting.

[Sudanese Peace Negotiator]

So this is going to be a Sudanese, Sudanese solution. We're not going to come here and impose anything. We can probably come up with mechanisms that will help them. We can come up with probably a UN Security Council resolution that will give the legal cover and the umbrella for this work. But it's going to have to be a Sudanese, Sudanese solution. It's going to be a comprehensive national dialogue and leading to a civilian led government.

[Krystal Ball]

So this is Tiffany Trump's father in law, for what it's worth. Let's also roll this clip of the UK Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, at the Munich Security Conference, responding also to those questions about pressure. Pressure. What kind of pressure will be used as leverage to get to peace? Everyone says they want peace. How are you going to get there? Let's roll the clip.

[Angie.com Ad Announcer]

What is Britain doing to try and pressure the United Arab Emirates to stop supporting the rsf? So, two different issues there. So let me just briefly deal with the issues around arms flows and the UK controls, because we have very substantial controls. We ensure. In fact, when there were any allegations made, I insisted that all the licenses were reviewed and 2,000 licenses were reviewed to ensure that there was no leakage, to ensure that there was no nothing that any of those licenses was reaching Sudan, and to make sure that the allegations that had been made were unfounded. But if there are any further allegations, we would take the same approach and to review extensively to ensure that that must not happen. But what I'm asking you about very specifically, and I'm going to come on to you as well, is about leverage. What leverage does Britain have on the uae because the UAE is supporting the rsf. I know they deny it, but there is plenty of evidence. And it seems to me that Britain has a very close relationship with the uae. So what I'm asking is what are you doing to pressure them? So we raise all of these issues with the uae, with Saudi, with Egypt, all of the members of the quad who are working with Mossad and continue to do so. And we also believe that this needs to be wider than the quads. Why raise this with the African Union, with all of the neighboring states, with foreign ministers from all of the neighboring states of Sudan? Our assessment is there's probably more than a dozen countries who are in some way involved in arms flows, maybe through funding, maybe through manufacture, maybe through transit, maybe through training in different ways. And like you, I am concerned of evidence that some of those arms flows may be escalated, escalating rather than reducing. However, a huge amount of work has been done on what a ceasefire might look like.

[Ryan Grim]

Impressive questions from that moderator, Ryan, and unimpressive answers. And we wanted to play all those clips because if you read into what she's saying about Cooper, for instance.

[Krystal Ball]

What.

[Ryan Grim]

Are you going to do about the uae? Well, I reviewed a whole bunch of licenses, you know, a bunch. And then she go like, we cut a lot of that out. She filibustered forever before instead of answering the question about how they're going to pressure the uae. So the reporter pressed it again. Okay, great. What are you going to do about the uae? She's like, well, there are like a dozen countries that are involved in some way in this, so of course we should pressure the uae, but also Saudi Arabia, but also Egypt and all the like, doing everything she can to, if she can't kind of say that the UAE is innocent, to just pour as many other culpable parties on top of it so that you spread out the blame when everybody who's following this is like, no, it's the UAE that is the key driver of this conflict. Now, to be fair, the Sudanese armed forces are also a, you know, a significant problem here. And the Sudanese prime minister at Munich, we won't play this because it's too hard to kind of clip up Camille Idris. We can put this, just put this tweet up and people can read it from, from dropsite. So he, he went back and forth with, with her as well and says basically that a ceasefire would, quote, not be an end. He said a truce, quote, will never work unless it's paired with disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, meaning that the RSF fighters must surrender their weapons, dismantle forces and be reintegrated to civilian life, and all those steps must happen concurrently. He said the RSF are now, quote, mercenaries, basically. His argument is that they have basically killed any of the kind of indigenous elements of the rsf and now they're basically all mercenaries that the UAE is paying to bring in. It is a fact that there are enormous numbers of mercenaries that have come in and fought on behalf of the UAE or RSF in Sudan. But it's not true that it's all of them. There has to be, you have to reckon with, with that fact. And he also deflected when was asked about the SAF's own war crimes, which are, which are many. So while there is some pressure and the US is saying that there are, they're putting forward a proposal to end this. Like, the UAE's backers don't seem that interested in putting real pressure on the UAE to end it. And the SAF also is still drawing a pretty hard line.

[Krystal Ball]

It's weird. You look at Munich is such a polite place. It's such a. The like hub.

[Ryan Grim]

We're all friends here.

[Krystal Ball]

All of these conferences are like hubs of respectability, politics. And one of the things you can read into from the tough questions there, at least I think you can read into, is that people who are following this seriously realize when the dust settles how dark the kind of global disinterest in this is going to look. Yeah, that's kind of what I. When I'm watching this, it's almost a little jarring to see it on stage at Munich like that and not just.

[Ryan Grim]

And they all know what they're doing. Yeah, yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

It's really dark. And I think with the moderator, whose name I should know, but what I think she's prepared for is she's looking at the carnage and thinking these are serious questions. These are not. You can't just sort of like punt this stuff away because everybody is going to look really bad when the dust settles. It really looks really bad now if you're following it closely.

[Ryan Grim]

Right, but. Right. No, absolutely. And before we wrap, we wanted to put up FF6. We wanted to give a little shine to the Sudanese Journalist Network. This is the AIN Network. We'll put a link to this. It's down in the show notes. You can watch the. Watch the full clip. There's not a whole lot of good journalism coming out of this war for obvious reasons, and so it's very difficult to cover. But ION Network got did some very interesting on the ground reporting about what it's like to live through one of these sieges and battles for the civilian population there. So we'll put that in so you can. You can watch the whole thing for. If you really want to dive into it. But that will do it for us for today. You were here yesterday.

[Krystal Ball]

I was here yesterday. I think Sagar's back. I think Sagar's back tomorrow.

[Ryan Grim]

Sagar back tomorrow. And we'll all be here. We'll not here. We'll be back Friday.

[Krystal Ball]

We'll be back Friday. And second half of that show. Premium subs so breakingpoints.com if you want to get it.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. It's what makes the show possible. It's the counter algorithm.

[Krystal Ball]

I was gonna say they keep the lights on, but that is a horrible. Because last week my lights literally went off in the middle of the Friday show. I lost power for like four hours. And it happened while we were live taping the Friday show, so it doesn't necessarily keep the lights on.

[Ryan Grim]

And Emily and I are gonna do the Megyn Kelly show later today.

[Krystal Ball]

That's right. We're gonna do an absolute deep dive. Right. Which means, by the way, we've been planning here at Breaking Points, as producer Griffin teased last Friday, some type of deep dive into Epstein for a while. This is, I think, a good. Megan has us on today to do a deep dive, but that's a good reminder for us at Breaking Points. We gotta get this thing rolling. Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

It's also a good reminder for you that you have this Megyn Kelly thing later. Don't forget that.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And then the podcast live at 9, like there's no rest for the weary. Ryan, it is what it is.

[Ryan Grim]

It's working, though, right?

[Krystal Ball]

It does. And the news doesn't stop. There's so much to do, so. So. Breakingpoints.com if you want a premium subscription. Otherwise, Ryan and I will see you Friday and Crystal and Sagar will see you back here tomorrow.

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Because he took such good care when.

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[Krystal Ball]

Kids, all eight of them, should something happen to us. Are you my dad now? No, sorry.

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[Krystal Ball]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Ryan Grim]

Guaranteed Human.