← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
2/26/25: House Passes Medicaid Cuts, DOGE Resignations, Trump Gold Cards, Israel Bombs Syria & MORE!
01:42:08
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Ryan Grim
Lenovo Lenovo.
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Krystal Ball
Where'd you get those shoes?
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Ryan Grim
Easy.
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Krystal Ball
They're from DSW. Because DSW has the exact right shoes for whatever you're into right now. You know, like the sneakers that make office hours feel like happy hour, the boots that turn grocery aisles into runways, and all the styles that show off the many sides of you from daydreamer to multitasker and everything in between. Because you do it all in really great shoes. Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or DSWell with the.
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Sagar Enjeti
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Ryan Grim
The future of this show.
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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.
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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.
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Krystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we.
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Ryan Grim
Hope to see you@breakingpoints.com welcome to Counterpoints. We always say that we have an amazing show today. We really, really, really.
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Krystal Ball
Brian is so excited.
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Ryan Grim
It's incredible. Yeah, there's so much going on in the world. Gold cards, yes, you can buy if you have $5 billion. Don't blow it because you can buy an American citizenship or according to Trump, Coming soon. All right, coming soon to all right.
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Krystal Ball
So we're going to start with news that actually House Republicans passed a budget resolution last night. We're going to walk everyone through exactly how they got there and what it means, what it could mean for Medicaid, what it could mean for all kinds of stuff. So that's going to be up first. Then we have lots of updates from Doge. As is the case, every single day, we learn more about what Doge is up to. Sometimes these reports are conflicting, but we are going to get to the bottom of the last 24 hours in Doge world. Trump also introduced, as we just teased, a quite interesting idea about $5 million gold cards that could replace visas. And Ryan has some reporting to share from Dropsite on the bombing in Syria that just took place over the course of the last 24 hours.
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Ryan Grim
Yeah, Israel launched an air assault over Damascus and its surrounding areas, because why not.
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Krystal Ball
And you had just. On the ground. On the ground, right?
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Ryan Grim
Yeah, we had him on the show last week. He just returned from Syria. He fil a dispatch last night with Ali Yunus. We're also going to talk about Ukraine agreeing that. Okay, you know what? After all, we will sign. We will sign a deal around rare earth minerals and exploitation of our oil and gas in our ports. They removed the. We're going to take 500 billion of it. So good negotiation from Zelensky. That's a pretty big sticking point. $500 billion sticking point.
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Krystal Ball
Yeah.
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Ryan Grim
Well, it's still no security guarantees. We've got Steve Bannon comments about what Trump should do with that minerals deal as well. That we'll get to. And meanwhile, prosecutors are being rather shy in how they approach a domestic violence case where a Republican member of Congress was, according to police reports, bruised up his not wife, but girlfriend who lives here in D.C. mm. And she decides she is now deciding not to press charges, although there's so much evidence that it seems like they really should be able to press charges. The police were able to see the bruises. It's pretty odd, which is, you know, that's at least like, hey, you're coming with us type of evidence.
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Krystal Ball
Yep, Yep. But, yeah, so we'll go into the sordid details of that story as a. Everything we know about it, because it's kind of an interesting story about Ed Martin, who is in the news, very much so in the news, for saying that he sees himself as the president's attorney. As D.C. yes.
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Ryan Grim
He's the U.S. attorney for D.C. and he's about as radical a figure that has probably ever been in a job like that.
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Krystal Ball
He's hardcore maga. That's.
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Ryan Grim
He is hardcore maga. He claims he was not in the Capitol Right. On January 6th, but he was there and has made his bones as the defender of the hostages, as Trump calls them, and is now just on a complete rampage, except against Republican congressmen who may have beaten their girlfriends.
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Krystal Ball
Yeah, we'll see. We will dive into all of that and man, do we have a Good Friday show. I'm very sorry, I unfortunately have to miss it because I have to get on a flight. But Ryan booked Rohit Chopra.
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Ryan Grim
Yeah, Rohit Chopra, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a former FTC commissioner. He kind of paved the way for the Lina Khan and Andrew Ferguson bipartisan anti monopoly wing to take power in the ftc. Then he went over the cfpb. Then he was ousted. He's going to respond to all of the various charges that he's gotten over the last several months. Jamie Dimon called him an arrogant pos, I believe, or arrogant sob. Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreessen. He has all the right enemies and he has them all very angry. So we're going to ask him why and see if he can defend himself against these defamations.
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Krystal Ball
Super interesting. Ryan's going to pass a couple of my questions on. So excited to watch and hear how it goes. Let's start with our A block, which is that the House of Representatives passed a budget resolution last night. This is going to go through the reconciliation process. To keep using this ridiculous parliamentary language. We can put the first element up on the screen. This was the vote total. Look at that razor thin margin. The vote was 217 to 215. The 1 and only Thomas Massie, American hero, in my opinion, was the only Republican to vote no, not because Thomas Massie had any issue with the proposed tweaks to Medicaid, of course, but because it adds to the debt. And Thomas Massie is a hawk on that and is always ideologically consistent. Now, what's interesting is that there were three Republicans throughout the day yesterday who said they were absolutely no's. Mike Johnson was able to flip two of them. Warren Davidson.
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Ryan Grim
With the help of Trump.
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Krystal Ball
With the help of Trump, Warren Davidson and Victoria Sparks. So now this bill heads over to the Senate where it will have to obviously deal with some of the same concerns about Medicaid. Someone like Susan Collins is not going to be particularly excited to have to vote for what we can get into this in just a moment. What many on the left will say amount to cuts to Medicaid and the right will say is we don't know the particulars of how they'll get to these cuts yet, but basically they'll try to add work requirements and all kinds of different things.
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Ryan Grim
In all likelihood, not to be the. Well, actually guy. And we'll roll Massie in one second. Yeah, it doesn't quite go to the Senate yet.
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Krystal Ball
Oh, no.
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Ryan Grim
You guys want to buckle up for a little parliamentary lesson? Get out your number two pencils, because this, this will be on the test. So the way that this absurd process works is the House floor votes on a budget resolution which sets the outlines for what each committee is supposed to then produce. So it'll say, hey, you, Ways and Means Committee, you do taxes. We want you to cut $4.5 trillion in taxes over the next 10 years. You at Education Committee, we want you to cut this. Over here in the Health Committee, we want you to cut this much Medicaid, et cetera. They just give a flat line. They don't tell them how to do it. They say, just do it. Then the committees all meet and they pass their individual pieces. Then the Budget Committee reconciles all of that into one place. Then they send that back to the House floor, and then they vote yes or no on that, and then they kick it over to the Senate. And so the Senate is undergoing its own process of reconciliation as well. The difference being they are not dealing with that $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. They're trying to only do the spending cuts. And that's why you keep seeing Trump saying that he wants one big, beautiful bill. And what he means by that is that he wants the tax cuts and the spending cuts all done together. Now, Massie, the reason he's a no on this is that you might have noticed that the numbers 4.5 trillion in spending, tax cuts, and what was it, 1.5 or 2.5, it's all made up. So it doesn't really matter what these numbers are, because these are projected out over 10 years and involve these projections that nobody takes seriously.
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Krystal Ball
1.5.
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Ryan Grim
Yeah, yeah, 1.5. So they're saying they're going. So they're even in their rosiest scenario, they're saying that they're going to cut $1.5 trillion in spending. Don't worry. Only bad things waste, fraud and abuse, not the things that you like. And then they're going to do 4.5 trillion in tax cuts. So here's Thomas Massie explaining why he voted no on this.
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Emily
Can you just talk to us?
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Lenovo Advertiser
Are you still a no? Is there anything?
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Ryan Grim
They convinced me in there. I'm a no.
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Lenovo Advertiser
Is there anything.
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Ryan Grim
Look, what. Let me, Let me. Their own numbers. If The Republican plan passes under the rosiest assumptions, which aren't even true. We're going to add $328 billion to the deficit this year. We're going to add $295 billion to the deficit the year after that, and $242 billion to the deficit after that under the rosiest assumptions. Why would I vote for that?
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Krystal Ball
So are you solidly a no?
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Ryan Grim
Yeah, they convinced me I was a lean no until this meeting. Now I'm a no.
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Krystal Ball
This no.
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Ryan Grim
This is a no. All right. So, Emily, what am I missing? That's a very persuasive argument from the right.
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Krystal Ball
Yeah. I mean, the only possible rebuttal to that from the right is that if this is your stance, you literally can't vote for anything.
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Ryan Grim
Yeah.
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Krystal Ball
Because you will just not get anything done.
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Ryan Grim
Which he doesn't.
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Krystal Ball
Yeah, right. He doesn't. Which is perfectly consistent. So, yeah, I mean, if you want. I mean, it's obviously a sliding scale of like, horribles, but basically, if that's your ideological position, you're consistent in it. To your point.
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Ryan Grim
The counterargument is. Come on, bro.
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Krystal Ball
Yeah, the counterargument is really.
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Ryan Grim
Come on, we gotta do something, bro.
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Krystal Ball
Yeah, but that actually is the counterargument. That's literally the counterargument that you'll get from people like Mike Johnson, who used to be sort of Freedom Caucus adjacent, like Massey's Freedom Caucus adjacent. But those guys obviously now face looking at this huge addition, as Massie pointed out. Let's take a look at how Democrats are reacting particularly to what's been going on Medicaid wise. This is aoc. Let's roll a three.
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Emily
There's a fundamental math problem here. There is a constant reiteration of waste, fraud and abuse. Sure, that's great. What is the identified amount of waste that this committee has identified? Because what the order that's been sent down Here is find $880 billion, not. There is $880 billion of waste, fraud and abuse. It's fined $880 billion. And so we have not heard a single concrete number of the amount of waste that's been identified. We have not heard a single concrete number on the amount of abuse that's been identified. There's just this vague magic wand around waste. To my colleague from California's point, waste is being used as a very large word here because what's being suggested is that long term care is wasteful in America, that children's health insurance is wasteful in America, that poor people seeing the doctor Is a waste that all of these people are disposable, that the elderly are disposable. So I think the problem here is that the numbers don't add up. And anyone who votes on this budget this week is voting to cut Medicaid in America and voting to gut health care for Medicare recipients in America. There's just no other way around it. And with that, I yield back.
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Krystal Ball
So that's obviously a temperature check. From the left flank. Let's tune into the center left flank. Here's Hakeem Jeffries.
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Ryan Grim
Children will be devastated.
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Howard Lutnick
Families will be devastated.
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Ryan Grim
People with disabilities will be devastated. Seniors will be devastated.
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Howard Lutnick
Hospitals will be devastated.
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Ryan Grim
Nursing homes will be devastated. So let me be clear. House Democrats will not provide a single vote to this reckless Republican budget. Not one.
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Howard Lutnick
Not one. Not one.
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Ryan Grim
They will not get a single Democratic vote. Why? Because we're voting with the American people. We're voting with the American people.
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Krystal Ball
So, Ryan, what's really interesting about that is this Republican resolution as it heads through the reconciliation process, has a really easy giveaway to Democrats in terms of, like, political unity when it comes to Medicaid. And Republicans are really bad at explaining, quote, waste, fraud and abuse as not like, pushing back on the allegation that that's a cut as opposed to reform. They're really bad at making that case. Like with Medicaid, the media isn't being super helpful here. But if you dig into what they say they're going to do, it is more like cutting down on. They say it's like waste, fraud and abuse. But if you look at it, say, okay, so you want to add work requirements and all of that, and we can disagree with it, but the word cuts, they should at least be, like, smart enough to try to find a workaround politically to try and find a workaround to that. But they don't.
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Ryan Grim
Yeah. And I'll give you my theory on why I think they can't do it. And it's because they don't like the program.
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Krystal Ball
Yes. Fundamentally. Yes.
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Ryan Grim
And a lot. And in a lot of cases, they don't like the people on the program. And in fact, Steve Bannon on his show had to remind his audience and Republican lawmakers with them that there are Magas, as he says, there are Magas on Medicaid. Implicit in that.
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Krystal Ball
He said a lot. And that's right.
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Ryan Grim
Implicit in that is it's just not those poor Democrats that you think about, poor black Democrats that you think about, like in your head when you think about when a Republican's thinking about Medicaid. And a lot of people think about Medicaid. That's what they think about. So he's telling them, okay, if that's what you think about, I understand why you want to cut it. But it's not just them, it's also magas that are on it. So you start from that premise that they don't actually like the program and they don't like the people who are on the program. So the way that they want to cut the program is to reduce the number of people that get the program. And the way they do that is they throw up a bunch of paperwork requirements, and also this work requirement, which would say you have to work 20 hours in order to get Medicaid. And if you can't find work, you basically have to come to some community center and sit there on a computer or something and just wasting your time so that they can feel good about making you feel bad about getting the assistance that they're giving you. And so they tried this in Georgia, and they spent like $70 million on this pilot program and ended up just having 6,500 people in it. So it costs an enormous amount of money to set up these projects and programs to monitor all of these people. And then you don't actually, you're spending enormous amounts of money per individual when it would be so much easier to just say, hey, if you're under this threshold, you get this money. Now, the other way that you could cut spending on this program is to go after the businesses and the scam artists that are ripping it off. And there is an enormous amount of waste in Medicaid and Medicare.
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Krystal Ball
It's one of them in the Senate, isn't it?
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Ryan Grim
On that front, yes. One of the guys in the Senate, Rick Scott from Florida, ran the largest Medicare scam in American history. And the way you do a Medicare scam or a Medicaid scam is like, I heard recently about a Medicaid one in New York where people were saying, like, dentists will do. These others will like, say, we'll give you a toaster for free if you will come in and sign a piece of paper that says, I pulled your tooth or whatever, and then I submit this. You could invest money in inspectors and probably AI at this point, analyzing the different payment schemes and finding this fraud and targeting it and prosecuting and going after it. I think the reason that Republicans won't do that is it would make the program work better. And as I said in the beginning, they don't like the program. What that would do is it would solidify it and it would make people feel better about the program, and so they would support it more. But there is indeed you could. So it's 880 billion that they're trying to cut over 10 years. I think you could actually do that without hurting individual people, but you would have to stand up a serious program of investigation. Hey, guess What? There's like 150,000 federal workers who are well trained that were just fired. You could go hire them to do that at pennies. Just continuing to pay their salaries. Actually, a lot of them are on administrative leave now or unemployment. So we're paying them anyway. We're just paying them not to work. So pay them, put them to work. Go find the fraud. It was much easier to do Medicare and Medicaid fraud before we have the technology that we do now. If you're some South Florida scam operation and you've stolen a bunch of Medicare numbers that you can find online, what they do is they steal these numbers. They pretend that they sold wheelchairs to them. They charge $7,000 for 100,000 wheelchairs. They cash the check, move the money, shut down, and then start up a new thing and do it again. I'm not a technologist, but it's got to be pretty easy to figure out how to make somebody prove that you actually did sell and have something to do with making wheelchairs or selling wheelchairs. Did you do it or not? I mean, scooters is the big one.
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Krystal Ball
It's very sad how, like, these grifts are so convenient for the political establishment. Like, this is also part of the reason. Exactly.
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Ryan Grim
Donors.
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Krystal Ball
It is part of the reason why Democrats are hesitant to, like, be super, like, to take a scalpel to Medicaid too, is that there's all kinds of people who benefit from the system. The people who benefit least are the.
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Ryan Grim
People who need heralded small business owners.
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Krystal Ball
Yes, exactly. The people who obviously need it most. And so as long as you have the inertia where the system feels like it's working well enough and people aren't rioting in the streets, then you end up with just, like, the worst system ever.
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Ryan Grim
Right. Because Democrats are unwilling to go after it because then they'll get accused of cutting Medicaid. In fact, in Obamacare, one of the good things that Obamacare did was cut Medicare Advantage, which is this privatized version of Medicare, which is absolutely rife with scams. And so they went in and said, we're gonna pull out some of the BS profit from Medicare Advantage, which is a good thing to do for everybody except the scammers who are making that fake profit. And they spent the next 10 years with Republicans complaining that they cut Medicare.
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Krystal Ball
It's amazing, right?
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Ryan Grim
Like wait a minute, what?
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Krystal Ball
But on the other hand, yeah, so this is the problem is like Republicans will say, like to AOC's point where she's saying they don't like this is poor people are disposable, elderly people are disposable. The principled ideological conservative response to that is actually they end up paying more for worse care. That's what the actual conservative argument is. And if you believe that, you also don't have many incentives to come up with a better solution, which is what we've seen for the past 10 plus years of the Republican Party after the repeal and replace era where there was nothing ever to repeal and replace with because Republicans couldn't agree on anything. There's just no incentives to either go fully. There's no good way to operate a system that aligns with the Republican Party's donor aligned incentives. And it's like sadly the worst possible. I mean if you look at studies on happiness, like they've gone into indigenous communities that have barely been touched by technology and found that one of the constants, two things that keep people happy, community like knowing that you have family around you and friends around you and health. So if you have your, if you feel like you have your health covered, if you feel comfortable with that, which most people in this country don't, like one in five people are actually on Medicaid in this country is a very, very high number and I'm sure it's a lot higher in some really deep red states. That's, I mean that's extremely precarious. It's not comfortable, it's very nerve wracking and the people who make these policies don't understand that.
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Ryan Grim
Yeah. And so if you noticed when you had your number two pencil out and I was explaining this process, obviously none of this is going to get done by March 14, which is the deadline for, for the government shutdown. But that's actually a separate track just to add a layer of complexity to this. So you've probably heard the news talking a lot about hey, March 14th. If they don't pass budget by March 14th, then the government shuts down. That actually is not related to what happened last night. What happened last night is setting the kind of the 10 year projections and the spending and tax policy for 10 years going forward basically 2026 on so on a separate track, they're pushing forward with what they're trying to do with these budget cuts to solid and to actually kind of codify the Doge cuts, which is what I think they should do. Like, you're gonna do this, you do it Congress, do it the right way, do it through Congress. Who knows what they'll be able to cobble together. The Republicans, you tell me, seem to be signaling quietly, okay, we're going to do a cr, which is a continuing resolution. Like, we're going to complain between now and March 14th. We're going to say we're not going to do a cr. We're going to denigrate the entire idea of doing a CR. And then when we've tried everything else, on March 13 at 11:59pm we're going to do a CR, which is a continuing resolution, which continues spending levels at a set level. Basically. I think they'll do it through September 30th. And then, Russ, vote Elon Musk and the others are going to take that amount of spending. And what they're signaling privately and somewhat publicly is that they see that as a ceiling. So don't worry, that's a big number and you feel like you've been betrayed again. We're not going to spend all that money. We're going to impound a bunch of it. We're going to ask for rescissions from Congress, but the impounded part will then draw lawsuits and it will go to the Supreme Court. And they think that that's when they'll get their chance to say that it is actually legal, contrary to the Impoundment act, for the president to impound congressional spending. And then that will overturn, potentially the Impoundment act, overturn it, and then solidify this unitary executive theory that they've been trying to put into practice. And then they go back by September 30th. By then, they hope they'll have passed their reconciliation tax bill. Right. Is that about what they're. Is that what we can expect, you think?
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Krystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably a pretty good sketch of what will actually end up happening here. You know, also the mentality with the one bill versus two bills and Mike Johnson won that out, obviously, so far. Right. So far. Right. John Thune wanted to do two bills instead of just one big, beautiful reconciliation bill. Part of the thinking was that you'd be able to put a lot more of the tough stuff in the first bill with the promise of getting the tax cuts or something in the second bill. You would be able or you could do something the other way around, depending on your motivations. But that was a losing argument from Thune. So we'll see how they can keep these, like, really narrow majorities in the Senate and the House together to get these votes. It's not going to be easy at all. But once again, Trump is the factor that can get things across the line because, I mean, we've seen this multiple times with nominations in the Senate. He's able to make that math work by threats. One thing that people have talked about is the America PAC that Elon Musk set up that was instrumental in Pennsylvania. That is a sort of, sort of Damocles, people have said, hanging over the head of Republicans that's been able to get them in line so far throughout this first month of Donald Trump's presidency, his second presidency. So we'll see what happens with these votes. But that's very, very powerful going forward.
- [25:59]
Ryan Grim
All right, what I like about this show, I think, is if you made it through this segment, I think you have a pretty good idea of what's going on here in a pretty weird situation. Should we see if we can keep that up with Doge? I doubt it.
- [26:11]
Krystal Ball
Let's take a trip to Dogeland. Let's try, though, with the best all.
- [26:15]
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- [28:12]
Ryan Grim
VGW Group void where prohibited by law 21/ Terms and Conditions apply all right, let's start with President Donald Trump, who decided that he was going to clear things up for federal workers because there's been a very confusing situation where Elon Musk emailed everybody in the government and said, reply to your boss and CC OMB and tell us the five things that you accomplished last week very quickly. The FBI, the CIA, dni, the Pentagon, lots of places that have national security implications were like, maybe it's not such a great idea to put all the information about what you did the last week into a public, basically a publicly available email.
- [28:56]
Krystal Ball
I tapped Ryan Grimm's phone, which will.
- [28:59]
Ryan Grim
Then be uploaded into some deeply insecure AI to have it analyzed. And Elon Musk's response was, hey, I said don't send classified information. And they're like, okay, thanks. That still doesn't help. We still don't want all of our employees responding and telling Chairman Xi and Deepseek exactly what they did the last week. So then Elon Musk said, all right, well, screw you. I'm going to ask again next week, and anybody who doesn't do it next week, they're going to be fired, despite what the Secretary of Defense or anybody else might say. So thankfully, there is somebody in charge. Donald Trump decided to clear it up for everybody. Here's the man himself. Can you clarify hopefully once and for all what your expectations are with this email to federal employees? What are you going to use that information For. And do you see it as voluntary, like OPM has said, or mandatory?
- [29:52]
Donald Trump
Well, it's somewhat voluntary, but it's also, if you don't answer, I guess you get fired. What it really is, what it is, is, do people exist? We have this massive government with millions of people, and nobody knows who's working for the government, who's not. So what they're doing is they're sending out a letter to everybody and they're saying, what were the things you did last week? I guess they asked for five. And if people are working, it's easy. I could tell you five things I did last. I could tell you five things I did six weeks ago.
- [30:22]
Ryan Grim
Right. Well, that's what I call government efficiency right there. Right.
- [30:25]
Krystal Ball
It's somewhat voluntary, but if you don't do it, you get fired. So it is somewhat voluntary.
- [30:30]
Ryan Grim
Okay. So the Secretary of Defense or the Director of National Intelligence tells you, do not do this thing. The President tells you, it's somewhat voluntary, but if you don't do it, you're fired.
- [30:44]
Krystal Ball
I guess. Isn't that what he said? He was like, I guess.
- [30:48]
Ryan Grim
So do you do it?
- [30:49]
Krystal Ball
I think you do it. It doesn't hurt to do it.
- [30:52]
Ryan Grim
Well, except it hurts national security.
- [30:54]
Krystal Ball
Well, if you. But, like, do it, but just be like, hey, to be clear, this is not actually what I did. No, there's no way to know. There's no right answer here. There's no right answer here. I mean, I think you obviously follow the directions of the department head, and some.
- [31:12]
Ryan Grim
Some managers have instructed their employees to say, here's the five things you should say. Like, number one, I fulfilled the responsibilities as listed in my job duties. Number two, I coordinated with my manager on my duties and completed those, which is amazing that you create all of this wasted time for workers and managers to do this efficiency.
- [31:36]
Krystal Ball
There actually have been sort of competing things from Elon Musk, too, who on the one hand is saying that this is just a, quote, pulse check. Like, he's repeatedly said, this is just to make sure that you're not dead. Right? Like, you're not a fake person. We're cutting down on waste, fraud, and abuse by just getting these responses back. But on the other hand, he's saying, like, and we've seen it from the White House, too, on the messaging. Is that, like, we don't think people are doing serious work. So are you supposed to take it as just a pulse check, or are you supposed to take it as an actual inquiry about the substance of your work? It's genuinely like pretty. They're thousands of people who have faced this conundrum over the course of the past week. Some of them in very important jobs, others of them probably in less important jobs. But if we have put B2 up on the screen here, this is a scoop from NBC News that 21 Doge staffers have resigned over a refusal to, quote, jeopardize American sensitive data, according to a letter that NBC News got. Ryan, did you read this report? It's pretty. It's pretty. I don't know. I think all of this doesn't portend well for the future of Doge, to be honest.
- [32:39]
Ryan Grim
So in defense of Doge, okay, these are doggy. In defense of doggy, these are people who were already in the doghouse when the dog pound boss showed up. Because this was the US what was it called? The Digital Services office or whatever. Office of Digital Services. And they just repurposed it as doggy. And so these folks are, you know, these are former Google, lots of Silicon Valley tech people who decided they wanted to come work in the government and help the government become more efficient. That's why they went, you know, that's why they took this agency and converted it into Doge. And so these are not die hard Elon Musk fans.
- [33:23]
Krystal Ball
Yes.
- [33:23]
Ryan Grim
Or these are not MAGA types.
- [33:25]
Krystal Ball
So I mean, it's arguably the deep state that he's targeting.
- [33:28]
Ryan Grim
Except, yeah, it's a fairly new deep state. So to me it's almost surprising that they lasted this long. So I don't think it's that damaging necessarily to Doggy because I think they can find some pups that'll come in and do their dirty work. Like there's more than one big balls out in Silicon Valley that they can, you know, there's no shortage of 19 year olds on 4chan that Musk can, you know, recruit to come and do this work.
- [33:56]
Krystal Ball
The response from Elon Musk was, quote, these were dem political holdovers who refused to return to the office. They would have been fired had they not resigned.
- [34:04]
Ryan Grim
I mean, Katie Miller. Probably true.
- [34:06]
Krystal Ball
Katie Miller said, quote, these were full remote workers who hung trans flags from their workplaces. That's the Katie Miller response to this again.
- [34:14]
Ryan Grim
What grade are we in here?
- [34:15]
Krystal Ball
Probably true.
- [34:16]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, might be true.
- [34:18]
Krystal Ball
So anyway, they also named the Doge administrator yesterday, like I think it was the Washington examiner, finally got their hands on the name of the person who. Like an Obama. Yes, Obama person who seemed to have been on vacation, who was formerly part of the usds. And this is interesting because Elon Musk was seen as the head of Doge. And then the White House confirmed last week that Elon Musk was not even part of Doge formally, but was employed by the White House and sort of oversaw Doge in his capacity as a White House official, as a special, quote, special government employee. So anyway, I guess I shouldn't have said that this doesn't portend well for the future of Doge, but it does just. There's an air of chaos around Doge that doesn't bother the people involved in it at all. I mean, I think a lot of this was always intentionally, understandably going to involve chaos. Everyone sort of knew that. But there's chaos and then there's chaos. That's inefficient, ironically. And in this case, I do think there's just, I mean, like, the email one is a really good example. There's chaos to the point of creating inefficiencies to the end of efficiency. Like, in the process of creating efficiency, it's just been a very. It was always gonna be messy, but they're creating more work unnecessarily for themselves.
- [35:34]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, it's weird. Like, why are they doing this? Why are they doing this weekly email thing? Like, I've seen a lot of people be like, well, there's nothing wrong with like a worker telling their boss what they did the last week. It's like, bro, you don't think that they were already doing that? I guess if you have bottom barrel levels of hostility towards all federal workers and you think that managers aren't managing their workers and workers aren't actually doing any work, then you need to come in and tell them to do this. But if you checked in, you'd see like, this is a bureaucracy. This is a giant bureaucracy. The one thing that bureaucracies definitely do is this kind of stuff. What did you do? Like, what did you get done last week? Who did you check in with? What meetings?
- [36:26]
Krystal Ball
It's half the work. Just having meetings about meetings.
- [36:30]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, that's half of what a bureau. And it is the criticism of a bureaucracy.
- [36:35]
Krystal Ball
They spend too much time keeping track of that stuff.
- [36:38]
Ryan Grim
Right. And so now Musk is going to come in with another TPS report that they have to complete that is supposed to be in the name of efficiency. It's like, so. It's so dumb. It raises the question, okay, what are they really doing? What's really going on here? And are they actually trying to create chaos? Under the old argument that Democrats would always make about Republicans, that they don't like government. And so then when they get in power, they make it not work. And then they point to the fact that it doesn't work under them as reason that you should get rid of the government. Is it really just as simple as that old thing just now dressed up as a sleek cybertruck?
- [37:21]
Krystal Ball
This is a sleek cybertruck. Wow, that was beautiful. Very poetic. Yeah, that was a very poetic touch.
- [37:27]
Ryan Grim
Putting this stuff out for free.
- [37:28]
Krystal Ball
Yes. Well, not if you want it commercial free.
- [37:31]
Ryan Grim
If you want it commercial free, go.
- [37:32]
Krystal Ball
To breakingpoints.com so Ro Khanna posted a video of a fired VA worker that just in this bigger conversation about inefficiencies, I mean, the email point, I think some of this obviously is intentional. I mean, the Russ vote playbook was explicitly before the election to cause trauma for bureaucrats. And so, I mean, I think that's obviously the playbook and part of this. But again, there's efficiency, there's inefficiencies that are sort of inevitable when you're creating chaos, and then there's inefficiencies that are hurting your effort to battle inefficiencies. So let's take a look at this video that Ro Khanna posted of some people who have been affected by various cuts. We can roll this.
- [38:16]
Ryan Grim
I'm a veteran. I deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Anybody who asked me, you know, I would have told them I was voting for Trump. But at this point, I mean, obviously, I never would have expected things to go this far. This was really a job that meant a lot to me. It was a way for me to help veterans that are struggling.
- [38:33]
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- [38:35]
Krystal Ball
Trump's executive orders, I'm being discarded like I don't matter. I don't think anybody's opposed to the idea of government efficiency and really getting rid of wasteful practices, but doing it in such a chaotic manner that leads.
- [38:46]
Emily
To people getting fired by the tens of thousands.
- [38:49]
Krystal Ball
This was my dream job, and it's just being taken away by an administration who doesn't care about science. It doesn't care about people who might be homeless.
- [38:58]
Ryan Grim
I literally sank in my chair. I had no idea that without due.
- [39:03]
Lenovo Advertiser
Process, that I could just be terminated.
- [39:05]
Ryan Grim
Out of the blue.
- [39:06]
Krystal Ball
I was a highly performing individual.
- [39:09]
Howard Lutnick
I would just ask President Trump and.
- [39:11]
Ryan Grim
Anybody else that might be in charge to reconsider your decision. The United States of America is not a social media or tech company, and it should not be run like one. Mr. President, many of these people voted for you.
- [39:22]
Krystal Ball
I don't regret voting for President Trump. But the actual policies being pursued just.
- [39:28]
Howard Lutnick
Don'T comport at all with the actual.
- [39:30]
Krystal Ball
Goals of the administration.
- [39:31]
Ryan Grim
We want them reinstated. It's an absolute travesty that the president the other day said that Elon Musk was a patriot. When we see how many veterans we have on the line that are being absolutely devastated by this, this has been.
- [39:42]
Krystal Ball
Devastating for our family.
- [39:43]
Lenovo Advertiser
We have a mortgage.
- [39:45]
Emily
We have to pay for a preschool.
- [39:46]
Krystal Ball
Mine happened on February 15, but the day before what many reporters are calling.
- [39:51]
Emily
The Valentine's Day Massacre, my computer went.
- [39:53]
Krystal Ball
Black and I was unable to sign back into my computer.
- [39:56]
Ryan Grim
You know, I was the source of our family's health care. It's put us in a pretty strenuous position right now.
- [40:01]
Krystal Ball
People getting fired, then bringing back because they were fired without realizing how crucial their work is. It really leads to mistrust from the general public and steers people away from a career of public service. I was anticipating having, you know, 12 weeks of paternity leave through my work with the USDA. I mean, Rayne, we talked about for months before doggy actually went into effect, Doge actually went into effect, that there were going to be all kinds of tear jerking images of fired federal workers, whether they're on the streets with their ferns in boxes or talking in these videos that Democrats put out that make the process complicate the politics of the process for Republicans. Now, a Harvard Harris poll this week found pretty widespread support for Doge.
- [40:44]
Ryan Grim
I think to the worst pollster in.
- [40:45]
Krystal Ball
America, we should underscore completely, although to be fair. Because it's Mark Pence. Yeah. To be fair, other polls have found similar results.
- [40:55]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. If you ask, should you cut federal spending? And like.
- [40:59]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, well, and the reason I bring that up is because to the extent Republicans are able to say this is just about waste, fraud and abuse, and they keep saying, waste, fraud and abuse. Waste, fraud and abuse, then they can politically sort of win the battle and overcome the obstacles of having all of these tear jerking stories circulated through media and by Democrats. But, but those stories, the more powerful they are and the more sympathetic they are, they create a much higher hurdle to overcome for Republicans to make the case that this is just about waste, fraud and abuse.
- [41:27]
Ryan Grim
Right. And if they did all this and they made the government more efficient and they like cut taxes for people, then you probably would have a decent chunk of the American public would be like, I'm sorry that this had to happen to these hard working people, but we have to live within our means, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're not going to do that, I think they're going to make the government much less efficient and they're going to anger a lot of people in how they do it and they're going to basically go on a round of grifting. So one of the workers in there was from the va. The Doge lead who is handling the VA is Justin Fulcher. So much is going on that this has barely gotten any attention. He's the co founder of Ring md, which is a telehealth company. I'm trying to think of what would be a more direct conflict of interest than sending a telehealth tech guy into the VA to slash and destroy it. So we're going to make sure all these veterans get much worse care. Oh, and guess what? But I have a telehealth company here that is willing to step into the breach. Sorry that we shut down these different community facilities. I'm sorry we've extended wait times and now you can't get in to see an actual doctor for six months. But guess what? I have a zoom for you for the low, low price of whatever he charges the va. Don't you worry about it. We're just going to have the VA write a check directly to us and we're going to walk away with enormous amounts of money.
- [43:08]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, and some of this has actually been cuts. There have actually been proposed cuts to telehealth coverage too. Like it's all very across the. It's all over the place what the actual strategy is. And again like they would say that's completely necessary. I actually agree to some extent that there are going to be conflicting cuts because they're trying to do this like sweeping quote revolution according to Elon Musk. And there is a lot that can be cut. I saw an interesting post from someone at the Manhattan Institute who said imagine if Mitch Daniels were in charge of dosh. Like you had this very. It's an interesting catch 22 because on the one hand you don't have the, I guess, cultural capital and just like crazy will to do a lot of the stuff that Elon Musk does.
- [43:51]
Ryan Grim
Who's Mitch Daniels?
- [43:54]
Krystal Ball
The very mild mannered Tea Party era governor of Indiana. Yeah. Who was all about it. Sort of like a Coburn type, a Tom Coburn type who was all about it. That someone who would like the Rand Paul annual Festivus list. This is the bread and butter of somebody like Mitch Daniels. And it's kind of a fascinating hypothetical to think about or just to think about what it would look like without Elon Musk. Like Doge without Elon Musk. Because on the one hand, you don't have the insane energy, but on the other hand, you don't have the insane energy. Could you even have Doge without Elon Musk? I don't know. But without Elon Musk, it probably would be. There would be streamlining. I would imagine there would be more consistency.
- [44:42]
Ryan Grim
Last point on efficiency, because we're not being very efficient moving through this block.
- [44:47]
Krystal Ball
We don't claim to be the Department of Media Efficiency, though.
- [44:51]
Ryan Grim
Because of civil service protections, Musk had to go after people who were on probation. It's been widely reported that that means that they were hired within the last one to. But it also includes people who were recently promoted from 1 GF from 1 level to another. In that brief period during the promotion, you are back on a probationary period, even if you've been there for 15 years. So think about what that means. All of the people that he fired without checking with their managers about how valuable they were, without even looking to see whether or not they protected nuclear secrets, were trying to prevent an outbreak of bird flu, any of these things. What they also did systematically is fired everybody who was, you know, came into the government within the last couple of years, which means somebody over the last couple of years decided that this is a position that they needed filled. These are very hard jobs to get. Like, there is a. It's a ridiculous thicket that you have to go through, and that would be a good place to cut, actually, and just, you know, so you can actually hire faster. It can take like two years to get one of these jobs. It's incredible because they're trying so hard to root out corruption. And I think they've gone too far in the inefficient direction because corruption and efficiency and transparency and inefficiency kind of go together in an uncomfortable way that we don't like to talk about. So these are new people, but then also people who got promoted. So who did you not fire? Like, people who've been in the same job for like 12 years when some.
- [46:18]
Krystal Ball
People have been rehired because they've realized.
- [46:20]
Ryan Grim
Oh, wait, we do have to actually do something about bird flu. Right?
- [46:24]
Krystal Ball
So again, inefficient. Inefficient. Now, to people like my friends on the right would look at be like, okay, so you are now like, this is a just cause and you are now whining about the process. And I actually completely understand that. But I still. My counter argument to that would be we don't know how this all plays out. Like there's still a long way to go, right?
- [46:41]
Ryan Grim
They'd say, you gotta break some eggs to make an omelette. And I'm like, cool, where's the omelette?
- [46:45]
Krystal Ball
Waiting for the omelette.
- [46:48]
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- [48:50]
Krystal Ball
All right, so let's pivot to this news that Kyle Cheney posted in before about judges, judges, judges, judges. This is the fight for the next couple of weeks. Obviously, a lot of this has gotten tied up in the courts, but it just took an interesting turn. So Kyle Cheney says a federal judge gave the Trump administration about 36 hours to pay out hundreds, millions of hundreds of millions of dollars for work performed by Force foreign aid contractors and is demanding details about potential defiance of his orders. Speaking of defiance of the judge's orders, Elon Musk posted this yesterday. This is from. This is B5. If any judge anywhere can block every presidential order everywhere, we do not have democracy. We have tyranny of the judiciary. Now, Elon Musk also, I want to point out, weighed in on something that Nayib Bukele posted where he said, if you don't impeach the corrupt judges, you cannot fix the country. They will form a cartel, a judicial dictatorship, and block all reforms protecting the systemic corruption that put them in their seats. And Musk essentially posted an agreement with that point from Bukele. Did you see Musk post on this, Ryan?
- [50:01]
Ryan Grim
No.
- [50:02]
Krystal Ball
He reposted the Bukele thing in agreement. And that to me is offensive, to be honest, because Bukele is making a very direct comparison between the judicial system in the United States and the judicial system in El Salvador. That's insane.
- [50:19]
Ryan Grim
That is pretty insane.
- [50:22]
Krystal Ball
I don't think our system is perfect and I do think there's some serious questions about separation of powers, but that's insane.
- [50:28]
Ryan Grim
That is insane. Now, of course, it is true that throughout our 200 plus years of being a republic, not a democracy, as the right loves to tell the left, but.
- [50:39]
Krystal Ball
Actually it's not a democracy, Ryan.
- [50:43]
Ryan Grim
There has been a push and pull tug of war between the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branch. And you would see people like me who are angry about supreme court decisions, or FDR, for instance, in the 1930s, who are angry about FDR, Supreme Court decisions hemming in the will of the people. During the New Deal, he threatened to expand the size of the court through a legislative action. And as a result, the Supreme Court backed down and started allowing New Deal policies to go through. Hey, this is kind of how it goes. These are different power centers. These are the checks and balances that are built right into the system. For Elon Musk to be surprised that a check exists in a system, I was gonna say suggest that he didn't go through elementary school in the United States, but he did not go through elementary school in the United States. So he should go back and check out some of these, like how a bill becomes a law and the checks and balances and all the things. Well, they're on the citizenship test though.
- [51:50]
Krystal Ball
So here's what he posted.
- [51:51]
Ryan Grim
Should have actually seen it then. Unless he, he sent some gamer in to take a citizenship test for him.
- [51:55]
Krystal Ball
So Bukele posted, checks and balances don't truly exist unless the judicial branch can also be checked and balanced.
- [52:00]
Ryan Grim
He could have stopped right there. Checks and balances don't truly exist in El Salvador.
- [52:04]
Krystal Ball
But he said checks and balances don't truly exist unless the judicial branch can also be checked and balanced. And Elon Musk responded, the only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges. No one is above the law, including judges. That is what it took to fix El Salvador. Same applies to America. And it is true that you have to be able to check the judiciary 100%. It's true that you have to be able to check to judiciary. Now, Elon Musk going full Bukele here and the Trump administration, I mean there are reasons to have strategically close relationships as Marco Rubio does with Bukele. But applying Bukele is into domestic politics is different than cozying up to Bukele on foreign policy, even if we disagree with that relationship, doing it. Applying Bukeleism to domestic politics politics is like we just have a completely different country, completely different system. And you can understand why people would say, well maybe that's a slippery slope to just completely politicizing the judiciary branch. And I agree the judiciary branch has like problems with being already overly political, but it's not El Salvador.
- [53:09]
Ryan Grim
It was a very surprising thing for him to suggest because you need 2/3 vote in both the House and Senate to impeach a judge. And clearly Republicans don't have a 2/3 vote. So why float something you know can't happen to shift the Overton window? Yeah. And so he knows that. I mean, I don't know if he knows this or not. Like in the first couple years of our republic. And people can look up the exact judge on this. There was a judge who was ruling against the Federalists, if I'm remembering the details right. And people were mad and the Federalists were mad about that. And they tried to impeach him based on his decisions. They didn't say he was corrupt. Alcee Hastings, late Democratic congressman, I think he's late, was impeached as a federal judge, but for corruption. And then he was elected to Congress. It was kind of funny. He's like, wait, didn't you get impeached and thrown out of office and then you won a congressional seat? Whatever. Okay, but that was for corruption. The founders basically, in that first or second term or whatever it was of Congress rejected that resoundingly. And a lot of the Federalists or whoever it was that would have benefited politically from getting rid of that judge said no on principle. We do not want to set a precedent that a judge should be removed because we don't agree with their decision.
- [54:31]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, well, I'm not panicked. I'm personally not panicked yet about this question because I think this is an intentional effort on behalf of the Trump administration to force judicial decisions about executive power and to. And they've been very clear about this. Russ Boat has been very clear about this. They think executive power is atrophied and they want to force the question into the courts to get definitive answers on things like the Impoundment act, potentially to overturn acts of Congress that they think have unduly sapped power from the presidency. And some of that I actually disagree with. I think that creates, I think it's a too powerful executive. But on the other hand, I do think it's a serious problem that you have, and we've talked about this before sometimes at the epa, it doesn't happen as often to the left as it does to the right. But you have some bureaucrat who came through the revolving door and is making decisions that the President wouldn't be happy about to benefit the industry, to benefit oil and gas industry that they came from. So there is a seriousthere's absolutely a serious question about how these executive branches, these executive branch agencies should be tethered politically to the goals of the President. On the other hand, there are things like the ftc, for example, or there are places where you have to have some level of distance and the judiciary is kind of the intermediary there. So some of this is just going to get kicked into the courts and it's going to feel kind of nerve wracking as it's happening because you don't know exactly how Trump and Musk will wield those powers. It's hard to trust how Musk in particular will suggest people in doggy doge wield those powers. But on the other hand, there are some serious things that do need to be resolved. And having, I guess, more direction one way or the other won't be the end of the world. In fact, it could actually be a good thing in some places of the government.
- [56:17]
Ryan Grim
And interestingly, we're seeing multiple power centers within the executive. So the judge that we just mentioned told the executive that they have to restart a lot of this foreign aid funding or face contempt charges. But we've also learned, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal, that Rubio and Trump approved spending around feeding the hungry and AIDS funding, as he said he would. He said, if you really are just doing poverty reduction stuff that isn't part of deep state cabal, then I am going to give you a waiver and we're going to move, move that money out. So they approved a bunch of that stuff. And then Doge people came into the back end. And this is what people have been panicked about with the Doge unchecked people and blocked it again.
- [57:09]
Krystal Ball
Authorized by the Secretary of State.
- [57:11]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, right. Money authorized by the Secretary of State to go back out, appropriated by Congress. Authorized by the Secretary of State, who was nominated and appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate. And then Big balls comes in. Or not big. I don't want to slander Big balls. If he didn't have anything to do with this, some Doge person goes in and just clicks a button and blocks it. And so the judge is saying, no, you've got to get this money moving. So who's in contempt at that point? Rubio's like, look, I'm trying to spend this money now. He's not trying to spend all of it. There's a bunch that Rubio doesn't want to spend that the judge is saying you have to spend.
- [57:47]
Krystal Ball
And that's usaid.
- [57:48]
Ryan Grim
And that's going to be very interesting. But what do you do if the kids are like, no, not gonna do it.
- [57:54]
Krystal Ball
Mm. No, really. Let's, before we leave this block, kick it over to Representative Nicole Maliitz Hawkis of New York, who weighed in on Doge with some criticism, facing tough reelection.
- [58:06]
Ryan Grim
Right. Is one of the few Republicans this is a chief target of Democrats.
- [58:10]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. She's in New York's 11th district, which is actually kind of one of the interesting places. I mean, she won pretty handily last time, but it's a. She's one of those places in New York where you can kind of find MAGA world and interesting places that would surprise, I think, a lot of people in, like, D.C. beltway media. So let's turn it over to Representative Malia Takis. When I see what happened last week with the 911 health care program, that employees were fired and that grants were removed from the program that disturbs me. And it just shows that they're acting too rash and that they need to slow it down a little bit. And obviously you're going to start seeing more and more of this sort of dissent from Doge and Elon Musk and Trump may or may not understand that some people obviously have to stake out positions that put them at odds with Doge or at least publicly stake out positions even if their votes end up in Congress looking different and even if their sort of criticism doesn't have a ton of teeth because they're a single representative in a swing district. So some of that you'll start to see more and more cracks in the foundation as we have over the course of the last week. People like, you know, expectedly Lisa Murkowski coming out against Doge. It doesn't mean that the Republican Party as a whole is having problems with Doge. That said, and this stuff does make it harder for she's responding to political pressures that Doge will have to answer to, not just in swing districts but all over the country. The debate over how astroturfed or not astroturfed, for example, what Rich McCormick got in a deep red district in Georgia, as we talked about last Friday with Crystal Ryan, that whether or not it's part of like it was organized by indivisible or some left leaning group isn't really the point. The point is that that means they're able to suddenly organize a bunch of people to get people out to town halls because there is actually some like legitimate frustration in even red parts of the country.
- [60:05]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, and she so she represents Staten island and then Republican leaning portions of like outer Brooklyn.
- [60:11]
Krystal Ball
Interesting areas to quote Steve Bannon, a lot of MAGA on Medicaid with the.
- [60:17]
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- [61:47]
Ryan Grim
Hi.
- [61:47]
Jenny Garth
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- [62:18]
Ryan Grim
Let's move on to Donald Trump's suggestion that they up the price for American citizenship. Because you actually already can buy American citizenship sort of through a process of like you have to like invest like a certain amount of money or in a property or something and then that moves you up in the in the line. So this is not actually a kind of brand new idea from Trump. But like Trump likes to do, he's really saying the quiet part out loud and just outlining it and putting a price tag on it completely. So this new Trump idea for gold.
- [62:50]
Donald Trump
Cards, we're going to be doing something else. It's going to be very, very good. We're going to be selling a gold card. You have a green card. This is a gold card. We're going to be putting a price on that card of about out $5 million and that's going to give you green card privileges. Plus it's going to be a route to citizenship. And wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this car. They'll be wealthy and they'll be successful and they'll be spending a lot of money and Paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people. And we think it's going to be extremely successful. Never been done before or anything like this. But it's something that we're going to be putting out over the next. Would you say two weeks out? Do you want to say a couple of words about it?
- [63:33]
Howard Lutnick
Sure.
- [63:34]
Donald Trump
Wait a minute.
- [63:36]
Ryan Grim
Do you have to invest a certain.
- [63:38]
Howard Lutnick
Amount of money in this country in order to qualify for that gold card?
- [63:42]
Donald Trump
Yeah, Exactly.
- [63:43]
Howard Lutnick
So the EB5 program was really, you lend some money, but it was all, it was full of nonsense, make believe and fraud and it was a way to get a green card that was low priced. So the President said rather than having this sort of ridiculous EB5 program, we're going to end the EB5 program. We're going to replace it with the Trump Gold card, which is really a green card.
- [64:09]
Ryan Grim
Gold.
- [64:09]
Howard Lutnick
So they'll be able to pay $5 million to the US government. They'll have to go through vetting, of course. We're going to make sure they're wonderful world class global citizens. They can come to America, the President can give them a green card and they can invest in America and we can use that money to reduce our deficit. Why do we give out lotteries of green cards? Why do we give out EB5 for green cards?
- [64:33]
Krystal Ball
Brian saying that's Howard Lutnick by the way. If you were listening to this and you couldn't see the video, the dulcet tones of Howard Lutnick explaining this here.
- [64:41]
Ryan Grim
The former, he was the head of what's the private equity company that was at the Fitzgerald World Trade Center. Yeah, A very interesting guy himself. And his story of 911 is go find it if you can. He would not be alive today if he hadn't taken his kid to kindergarten that morning.
- [65:02]
Krystal Ball
He's the Commerce Secretary now.
- [65:03]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. And he was on his way to work and I think they lost more than 600 people at Cantor Fitzgerald. So separate from that. So the EB5 program, they're kind of right, that it's right for abuse. Basically you have to tell the government, you have to convince the government that the amount of money that you're investing is going to create a certain amount of jobs. And the threshold for it is different. How do you define it? How do you prove it? How do you actually make sure that somebody's actually doing it or not? It's all difficult. It's all subject to different judgment calls. And so Trump's like, look, let's make it simpler. Write a check $5 million pay to the order of U.S. treasury.
- [65:55]
Krystal Ball
Yep.
- [65:56]
Ryan Grim
I guess they'll run a background check on your oligarch status. Will they? Are you going to let Russian oligarchs in? And he said, hey, some Russian oligarchs are not good people. I've met them. So I guess they'll have the FBI do a little background check. Maybe or maybe not. I mean, I mean, who knows? And then you're in. And if you're like, from the US Perspective, I can see lots of arguments around fairness and on and on, but from a just national kind of interest perspective, this seems like a smart move for the United States.
- [66:32]
Krystal Ball
Oh, yeah. This is honestly a way more transparent and transactional, like nakedly transactional way to improve an already transactional program.
- [66:43]
Ryan Grim
And I think you might have a decent number of rich people who would take it up for their kids. Yeah, probably. Like, if you can cut a check for $5 billion for no reason to the US then you probably are already a global citizen because you can buy citizenship in like Cyprus or whatever. Like, less than that. And that gets you then citizenship in the eu. And if you have citizenship in the eu, you have reciprocal travel privileges to the United States. So the only reason you might need this extra gold card would be. Yeah, for your kids. So you give them a trust fund and you give them then citizenship that passes down. Because if your parents are an American citizen, I presume now, should we make them buy a gold card for every one of their kids and cousins and everything? Cousins, definitely. But kids, do the kids automatically get a gold card out of this?
- [67:41]
Krystal Ball
That's a great question.
- [67:42]
Ryan Grim
If they weren't born here.
- [67:43]
Krystal Ball
That's a great question. But this is galaxy brain trumpism, right? This is an idea that is so completely bizarre in Washington because it says we are just going to be transactional instead of we are going to mask our transactional process. This in the language of neoliberalism, he's like, no, $5 million.
- [68:03]
Ryan Grim
Now, if you want it to be really neoliberal, the way that it should work is that you should be able to sell. We're not going to print. Citizenships can't just create an asset bubble of citizenships. We have a flat number of citizenships out there. And if a rich person wants to buy it, they have to buy it from an American citizen bid. So if you want to sell your American citizenship to an oligarch for $5 million, you can do that. I bet you'd have a lot of people be like, now you have to figure out like, okay, now I am a country less citizen of nowhere. So hey, Mexico, can I like come down and I have $5 million, but I have nowhere that I can live.
- [68:46]
Krystal Ball
Just live in international waters.
- [68:47]
Ryan Grim
And definitely it'd be funny if you sold your citizenship and then at the ceremony ICE arrests you and puts you in detention.
- [68:56]
Krystal Ball
Would it be? I mean, yeah, I guess that'd be hilarious, but that's the thing. So our visa program is obviously, it's very complicated, but there are all different ways that elite companies are already gaming the system and rich people are already gaming the system. So Trump is like, if we're going to do it, just streamline the process and be honest about it and stop allowing these companies to poke different holes based on their privileges and their lobbying carve outs and all of that. So honestly, if we're going to have the system, whatever, $5 million gold cards might as well.
- [69:33]
Ryan Grim
But we don't like people that become poor after they're rich. So shouldn't we charge them like a million a year? Keep it going, keep it going. And if you can't pay your million a year, then we're stripping that gold card from you.
- [69:45]
Krystal Ball
It's more of a subscription than a $0.01.
- [69:47]
Ryan Grim
Like a country club is a big upfront fee, but it's not like you pay your upfront fee to the club. I mean, you wouldn't do that for Mar A Lago. And so if it's not good, it's not good enough for Mar A Lago Don, and it's not good enough for the United States of America. Country club membership here, big upfront fee and then an annual membership on top of that.
- [70:06]
Krystal Ball
But see the problem with that is you get to the renters versus owners dilemma, which is serious. You don't want to have it in the country.
- [70:13]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, these people are renters. We can. It's safe to be xenophobic now. Trump won.
- [70:18]
Krystal Ball
Vibe shift, Right? Well, ideally you want people to invest the long term health of United States. Yeah.
- [70:27]
Ryan Grim
But that's just went up to two.
- [70:31]
Krystal Ball
You're doing the wall. The wall just got 10ft higher.
- [70:34]
Ryan Grim
It's two now.
- [70:36]
Krystal Ball
Well, we'll see how this goes. This is like one of those Trump ideas that he says and then you don't know if it will actually happen. But now in his second term, everything he says seems to actually be happening. So be on the lookout for the gold card. Maybe you could do it Willy Wonka style.
- [70:49]
Ryan Grim
I think you would need legislation because EB5 is legislatively constructed.
- [70:54]
Krystal Ball
Yes, we've Said that many times in the last month.
- [70:57]
Ryan Grim
But, dude, do your legislation. Like, this is the thing. Like, people like, oh, stop, stop, stop saying you need Congress to do all this stuff. It's like, guys, you control both houses, you have Congress. Just do it.
- [71:07]
Krystal Ball
They're lazy.
- [71:09]
Ryan Grim
Just do it.
- [71:10]
Krystal Ball
Well, some of this is intentionally testing executive power. Like some of this, they actually want it to be. They want to prove that it should be the executive's authority to do X, Y and Z. But some of it, they're not trying to make a point, so they might as well just fold it into the reconciliation.
- [71:24]
Ryan Grim
But the CFPB gutting in the CR.
- [71:26]
Krystal Ball
Oh, 100% parliamentarian. Be just fine with that. All right, let's move on to the awful reporting that you guys have at dropsite. It's not awful reporting. It's reporting on something awful. I should be clear about out of Damascus. Ryan, what can you tell us?
- [71:42]
Ryan Grim
You can put up this D1 here. So Tuesday evening, Israel launched airstrikes around Damascus after a day earlier, Netanyahu came out and claimed that you can put up D2 here. Here's a drop site piece by Murtaza Hussein Ali Yunus. I can put a link down there and people can go read it. So yesterday or Monday, Netanyahu said southern Syria is now off limits for the Syrian government. And Netanyahu referred to it, and so did Defense Minister Israel Katz, who confirmed that Israel was the one that carried out these airstrikes as a security zone, quote, unquote, security zone. So this is a de facto annexation of Syrian territory way north of the Golan Heights, effectively saying anything south of Damascus is a no go zone for the Syrian government. This is a heavily Druze community. The Druze are a significant element of Israeli kind of pluralistic propaganda where they, they will point to the Druze and say, look, you call us an ethnostate, but here are the Druze who are living here in Israel and they have equal rights. And you'll have a lot of Druze who will say, we don't actually have equal rights. You don't treat us as equal citizens, but we do get treated better than Palestinians. And then there's a whole hierarchy. There's the Palestinian who's a citizen of Israel, then there's the Palestinian who lives in different areas of West Bank Palestinians, then further who live in different areas of West Bank. And then. And then all the way at the bottom, Palestinians who live in Gaza and have effectively zero rights, including the right to life. And so the Syrian government has truly Bent over backwards to convey to Israel and to the United States, Europe and everybody else that they want no peace of this axis of resistance, that Assad was a member of this axis of resistance, one of dubious reliability, but a member nonetheless. They overthrew Assad and they have said that they do not want any of this smoke and they can't handle any of it. They're completely destroyed. And immediately upon taking power, Israel bombed all of their military bases, destroyed all their planes, all their anti aircraft. Like they completely wiped out any, any capacity for this new state to actually defend itself. They are an offshoot of Al Qaeda, which people love to point out has bombed everyone you can think of, gone after everybody you can think of except Israel. So there's never been this Al Qaeda, Israel hostility. All of this was done in the vain hope of appeasing Israel. Israel that Israel would say finally we've gotten rid of the Assad family which has been our enemy and has refused to reach full agreement with us, even though they did reach various different deals that are in place. And so finally we can now have a neighbor that we can coexist with. There was hope that Israel would see it that way. Israel does not see it that way. Israel sees it as an opportunity to expand the land that it controls. Continuing with this very confusing thing where on the one hand is Israel has a right to exist, on the other hand refusing to ever define where the borders of Israel end because if it has a right to exist, but it doesn't ever define where its borders are, then does it have a right to exist in southern Syria? And is southern Syria now Israel, Southern Lebanon now Israel? Meanwhile, there's a mass invasion of the west bank underway which we can talk about in a second. So this is putting pressure on the Syrian government. We can put up C3. So these are protesters marching through Damascus. They are, they are chanting in Arabic but the translation is O beloved Jelani bam Tel Aviv. This is indicative of the public pressure that the head of Syria is under from the Syrian public to stop just rolling over for Israel, but it's not really up to him. And you can read the piece by Murtazin Ali. They don't have the capacity to do anything, anything against, you know, they're still fighting, you know, with some, you know, gangster elements of the Assad regime that are still around as basically, you know, meth traffickers, captagon traffickers. So the idea that they're going to take on Israel with any, with any seriousness is a fantasy. The real concern that Israel has and this is talked about in the story as well is that Turkey is the backer of this new Syrian government. And Israel is worried that Turkey is going to use the foothold in Syria to begin flexing muscles.
- [77:03]
Krystal Ball
Which is plausible.
- [77:05]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, it is plausible. And to re become the great power in the region because they've indicated that's. And also like this period from 1917 would follow the Ottoman Empire until today is the anomaly in world history. For more than 2,000 years, you had two empires that controlled the entire Middle east. The Byzantine Empire and then the Ottoman Empire. Like just two. Like that's an enormous amount of stability going back to B.C. and so you can imagine like, so nationalism was kind of forced on this region after World War I in a fake way where there weren't really random borders. There weren't random borders and fake made up nationalities with people deliberately pitted against each other so that the west could keep them poor and struggling and extract their resources. If we actually cared about reducing the amount of conflict in the region, you'd probably go back to everybody unified under some type of government. This was the dream that kicked around as the kind of pan Arab socialist movement which said, we're not Iraqis and Iranians and Turks and Syrians, we're all Arabs and Persians and we're all in this area together. Now, Turkey has a different idea in the back of Erdogan's mind where he's going to say, well, how about we just bring back the Ottoman Empire? And then Israel's like, well, wait a minute, where do we fit into that?
- [78:48]
Krystal Ball
Sets off some red flags.
- [78:49]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, hold on a second. Because this whole area over here of Palestine, when it was in the Ottoman Empire was not an independent country called Israel.
- [79:00]
Krystal Ball
And what do we know about both Hagseth and Rubio? What can we assume or how can we assume they'll handle Israel's move here? Full support, essentially.
- [79:13]
Ryan Grim
Well, Rubio is an interesting case because he is completely hemmed in and has basically no authority left and doesn't even seem like I was for a minute complaining that the State Department wasn't having daily briefings. I'm like, why would I want to go to a State Department daily briefing? As if they have anything to share with us, which would imply that they know what's going on. They have no idea they're learning from us what's going on, Rubio?
- [79:39]
Krystal Ball
Because Trump calls the shots in a way that Biden didn't like the Trump. The Trump presidency calls the shots in foreign affairs in a way that Biden really let Blinken, call the shots. Yeah, Very different.
- [79:51]
Ryan Grim
Rubio, this is my forecast, got played in the most hysterical fashion, like Trump plucked him out of the Senate so he can make his daughter a senator from Florida. And the second that she is a senator from Florida. Not the second, but give it 45 days. Rubio will be fired as Secretary of State. So he will have lost his tennis seat.
- [80:12]
Krystal Ball
I don't know. Trump seems very happy with Rubio so far because, I mean, as long as.
- [80:16]
Ryan Grim
Rubio keeps kissing his butt, but Rubio.
- [80:18]
Krystal Ball
Also, cleaning up, plays the role. We know that Trump sees these literally as casting decisions. And Rubio has.
- [80:24]
Ryan Grim
That's true. If he keeps playing his role, then he can stay in that role. So I think the US Is just going to be as they have been forever. Just let Israel. Israel said it would withdraw from southern Lebanon as part of a ceasefire deal that we negotiated. The time for that expired and they said they're not really going to do that. They then go invade and bomb Syria. And right now they are launching, they've sent tanks and a major military incursion into Jenin and Tulkarum, really trying to wrestle full control of the west bank, displacing tens of thousands of people, seizing homes, seizing entire villages and cities, and in the direction of complete annexation of the West Bank. So they're going for it.
- [81:27]
Krystal Ball
CPAC passed a resolution last week.
- [81:31]
Ryan Grim
What was that?
- [81:31]
Krystal Ball
Annexation of the.
- [81:32]
Ryan Grim
Before it or against it?
- [81:33]
Krystal Ball
Judea and Samaria for it.
- [81:35]
Ryan Grim
Yeah.
- [81:36]
Krystal Ball
So we'll see.
- [81:37]
Ryan Grim
Is there CPAC to weigh in on another country, like, just getting to annex territory?
- [81:42]
Krystal Ball
I mean, I just say that because. Because it's an interesting indication of where the people who are pressuring the Trump administration are right now. They didn't even really have to do. They didn't even have to talk about that. But it's a priority.
- [81:59]
Ryan Grim
So, look, Israel has unlimited weapons from the United States and it has the military capacity to throw people out of their homes and seize more land. It's 2025 and they're going to do that. So I guess I hope that they're proud of themselves.
- [82:19]
Krystal Ball
Well, Trump obviously is not the ideologue that Mike Huckabee, his ambassador to Israel, is, and the people who Huckabee represents ideologically, which is a big chunk of professional Republican politics. But Trump has, you know, did the ceasefire, for example, as Biden was leaving office, helped the ceasefire, sent Steve Witkoff to aid Blinken in the cease fire agreement to the chagrin of the Huckabees of the world. So it's not as though they're fully in control. Trump will push back when he thinks it's detrimental to his goal of looking like the peacemaker in chief, as we hear the White House repeatedly refer to him, too. But not all boys. Yeah, so that'll be an interesting one to watch for sure with the best.
- [83:06]
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- [83:36]
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- [84:36]
Jenny Garth
Garth from I Do Part 2. Who do you know on Ozempic or Semaglutide right now? Everyone right These game changing Weight loss meds are everywhere and Future Health makes it easy to get started. Find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just three minutes@tryfh.com FutureHealth is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at providers discretion. Results may vary. Sponsored by futurehealth.
- [85:05]
Ryan Grim
I asked Some people close to Trump what this exact question, like, what is Trump going to do about these efforts by Netanyahu to continue to expand territory and also to who looks like he's trying to blow up the cease fire in Gaza? And they said, look, Wyckoff is very committed to making sure the ceasefire holds and that phase two is completed. But Trump is not focused on it. Trump is focused on Ukraine and getting a deal there.
- [85:34]
Krystal Ball
Interesting.
- [85:35]
Ryan Grim
That's where his attention is. So let's talk about the progress toward that. We can put this next element up on screen for the New York Times. U.S. and Ukraine agree to minerals deal, officials say. And so to back up here, the treasury secretary went to Ukraine, offered this deal, like, hey, look, we will actually we're not going to promise that we're going to do anything, but we will, you know, invest in some kind of resource extraction. And in exchange for that, you give us $500 billion worth of rare earth minerals, plus basically control over oil and gas in your ports. And Zelenskyy then leaked that to the lawmakers who came to visit, slammed it in the press, said he wasn't going to do it. Trump responded by calling him a tin pot dictator and then saying that it was actually Ukraine that provoked the war and now siding in the UN With Russia against a resolution that condemned Russia for the invasion, basically adopting the argument that it was Ukraine's provocations, which were real. It's not Ukraine's provocations. That's actually kind of to back up. So they are mostly US Provocations and NATO provocations. There were Ukraine provocations, of course, like the Maidan coup in 2014, the far right right seizing power there, banning the Russian language in the east. So then you get this civil war over in the east, you get Zelenskyy elected on a promise that he's going to reach a peace deal, Donetsk and the rest of eastern Ukraine. He comes under enormous pressure from the ultra right. And instead of that, he kind of ramps up the war in the east. And then Russia sends its actual troops instead of just its proxy Nazis into Ukraine. And so you can see how there's responsibility on both sides. But Trump very clearly angered by this rejection. It's like, actually, this is all Ukraine that started this war anyway. And so now Ukraine has come back and said, okay, we'll agree to the deal, but we're not doing this $500 billion thing. We will create. They said they'll create a pot where 50% of the revenues from the extracting of the Rare earth minerals will go into a fund that will be used to redevelop Ukraine, but then we get all the rare earths. So that's the deal. What do you think?
- [88:08]
Krystal Ball
Well, I think it's actually pretty significant as a. If it holds, which it may or may not, because there's so much. There's still a lot of moving parts. But if it holds, I think it's a pretty significant notch in the Trump foreign policy Zelensky wins column. Just because there was mass hysteria. First it was kicked off with the J.D. vance speech in Munich, but then Trump's various provocations towards Zelensky over the course of the last week, which he said, even, like, I had Victor Davis Hansen on my show yesterday, and he was saying. Or today, and he was saying, some of this stuff is actually crazy. Some of what Trump is saying is wrong, and it's counterintuitive to what he's actually said himself about Putin starting the war. Putin did invade, which is why it's very obviously hardball. It's very obviously part of his.
- [88:59]
Ryan Grim
Trump's whole argument is that Putin wouldn't have done it if Trump was there.
- [89:01]
Krystal Ball
Exactly.
- [89:02]
Ryan Grim
So implicit in that, isn't Putin did it.
- [89:04]
Krystal Ball
Right? Yeah, exactly. So that's where, like, some of this hysteria, I feel like, from the media and European leaders has not been. It lacks all of this context about how Donald Trump negotiates, which is that even some people in, like, America First MAGA World World were concerned that he was talking so tough about Putin after he won the election. And they're like, oh, great, Trump's been overcome by the neocons. And we should know by now that this is literally just how Donald Trump negotiates. Over and over again, he does the same thing. His position on Ukraine is actually one of the most interesting, which is that he would say all kinds of nice things about Vladimir Putin in 2016, 2017, 2018, whatever. And then he was the one who was arming Ukraine more than. And so it's clearly what he does publicly, what he says in his conversations with other world leaders is always like, you can't connect it to the policy decisions that he's making or may make, because he's just doing the psychological. It's his psychological attempt at manipulation, manipulating other world leaders into getting deals. He acts like a. He's in the middle of a business transaction. He's trying to get the, like, property rights to someplace he wants to build up in Manhattan. Like, he's just trying to flatter people or he's trying to Piss people off to bring them to the table. And in this case, it seems to have actually worked. It seems as though Zelensky and people who are pro Ukraine, who are saying Donald Trump is so awful, have actually come to the table to him and saying the United States is backsliding into authoritarianism by siding with Putin. Putin, it's like, okay, you just cut a deal with it. Obviously, his leverage, his attempt to create leverage here was successful. So all of that is to say, the last couple of weeks of coverage of Donald Trump's negotiations in Ukraine, I think got the situation woefully wrong. And this is just proof that he was negotiating. But I think it was clear all along that he was negotiating well.
- [91:09]
Ryan Grim
So let's hear it from Trump himself, who is asked, you know, what does Ukraine get out of this? Let's roll this.
- [91:13]
Howard Lutnick
What does Ukraine get in return, Mr. President?
- [91:17]
Donald Trump
$350 billion and lots of equipment and military equipment and the right to fight on. And originally the right to fight. Look, Ukraine, I will say they're very brave and they're good soldiers, but without the United States States and its money and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short period of time.
- [91:38]
Ryan Grim
Meanwhile, related to this, by the way, did you see the news that Congo, which is facing this massive insurgency, Rwanda backed insurgency, reached out to the US and said, you like rare earths? We have tons. We'll give them to you if you will sanction Rwanda for supporting the M23 insurgents here. Like taking us from the global police to the global mercenaries.
- [92:05]
Krystal Ball
Mercenaries, yes. And by the way, a fairly brilliant approach to negotiating with Donald Trump. Yeah, like that's. We were just talking about the gold cards. Yeah, just like it's transactional. Naked mercenary in this sense. Literally mercenary. But, you know, he's sort of like figuratively mercenary in many other senses. So Trump is not the only one capable of doing successful Trump negotiations. So we'll see how that goes.
- [92:31]
Ryan Grim
And so Steve Bannon was asked about Trump's minerals deal by our old friend Michael Tracy at cpac. Let's roll, Bannon.
- [92:42]
Howard Lutnick
My advice is walk the fuck away. I wanna walk away so hard. I'm even prepared to say, okay, maybe we don't even investigate, which I think we have to, but we have to walk away. I don't want their minerals. Okay, there's enough minerals in the rest of the world. What's the reasoning behind this proposal then?
- [93:00]
Ryan Grim
Why?
- [93:00]
Howard Lutnick
I think President Trump looks at Iraq and looks at other places in Afghanistan, and I think as a deal guy, he's sitting there going, look, remember in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't take the oil. The next president already didn't take the minerals in Afghanistan. The net present value of our expeditionary was $9 trillion. Think of what this country would be like that if in the last 20 years we spent $9 trillion in rebuilding America. The factories we would have. What would Detroit be like? What would St. Louis be like? What would Baltimore be like? What would the great cities of the east be like? What would Detroit be like? If we spent $9 trillion on American citizens, on the soil of the United States of America, this would be a paradise. We didn't. We pissed it away and let people steal it. And so many people dead and countries ruined and cultures ruined and the Christians eviscerated for $9 trillion. I think it says in President Trump, he says, look, if these guys did it, what we should do is at least get something for it. I mean, that's the way he exchange for a security guarantee though, which could necessitate or require some kind of US military action. In fact, speaking of World War II, it reminds me of the British arguably very foolishly extending Poland a so called security guarantee that they didn't have the ability to even uphold. And then World War II gets declared once Hitler goes into Poland. Now that's a very extreme scenario. But, but a security guarantee, I mean, those don't have a great record throughout history. No, very few people understand that. The reason that World War II, which had been building in the same kind of way, this is triggered in September 1939, is because the Germans knew it. And the Germans also knew that the French and the British couldn't stand up to it. And that would give them every pretext to roll across Western Europe.
- [94:37]
Krystal Ball
Just two bros talking about World War II on the floor of CPAC. I saw Tracy walking in the CPAC. I was interviewing someone outside of CPAC. I saw Tracy walk in and I.
- [94:46]
Ryan Grim
Was like, gotta get some videos.
- [94:48]
Krystal Ball
Here it goes. And so this was obviously Bannon. This was taped with Bannon. I wanna say this was Friday, Thursday or Friday. So way before the news came out, just in the last 12 or so hours that Trump had successfully negotiated this deal. So it'd be interesting to see what Bannon says now that Zelensky is giving apparently the mineral rice.
- [95:08]
Ryan Grim
Well, to say that it's successfully negotiated. And it's like, we'll see, we'll see.
- [95:14]
Krystal Ball
But obviously he got him to agree.
- [95:15]
Ryan Grim
Still paper getting passed back and forth.
- [95:17]
Krystal Ball
But even like in. Yes, but even in practice and do they even have.
- [95:21]
Ryan Grim
What they're saying they have is an open question. And to Bannon's point, there's minerals everywhere.
- [95:26]
Krystal Ball
In Russia, even as Putin. Well, in contested regions, as well as Putin talked about the Donbas recently. And your point about the Congo is a good one. But no, I mean, even in theory, getting Zelensky. I shouldn't even say in theory, but like, in practice, getting Zelensky this.
- [95:43]
Ryan Grim
Sure.
- [95:43]
Krystal Ball
After all, the hemming and hawing of the last week looks like a big MAGA victory. And so does Steve Bannon say, great, like, this was well done by Trump, or does he say, I don't want the minerals? I think it's actually pretty interesting because it's a contrast with the USAID drawdown. And your point about us becoming the policeman of the world versus the mercenary of the world is a really interesting one because some people in the USAID debate, like, you actually sort of saw this play out when Mike Benz went on Tucker Carlson show and Benz was saying he was worried that a lot of MAGA world doesn't want to be precise and sort of take a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer to a lot of USAID in realizing that some of this is beneficial, like, the empire is beneficial. And Tucker Carlson's just sort of like, I don't know, I'm kind of done with all of it. And that's a pretty interesting tension that we see play out here. If you want the U.S. to stop, quote, economically colonizing the world. This mineral deal feels like an extension of economic colonization. It sort of feels like Burisma, as a matter of fact, except this was more nakedly transactional than Burisma, USAID and all of that. So I think that's one of the trend lines actually to watch over the next couple of years is how MAGA handles the question of economic colonization and empire.
- [96:59]
Ryan Grim
Right. And maybe they'll just eventually work their way right back to creating a new USAID soft power instrument, but just different.
- [97:08]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [97:09]
Ryan Grim
And also one last point on that classic Steve Bannon riff.
- [97:13]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [97:14]
Ryan Grim
Like, he's on Afghanistan. Like, I think, like, he's just, he's just nailing every piece of it. And then he throws in and all these Christians got killed. It's like, where did that come from? Like, I thought the whole idea of Christianity was that were all created by the Creator and, like, all equal in his eyes. So why does he have to emphasize that it's Christian? There were Christians that were killed to, like, try to land the idea that people getting killed in war is a bad thing. Doesn't it also suck that when a Muslim gets killed?
- [97:50]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, of course.
- [97:51]
Ryan Grim
Should. Right? I mean, it's just like always seeing that from Bannonist, Like, I agree, agree, agree, and then whoop. And yes, I don't like when Christians get killed either. But I also don't like when atheists or Hindus or Jews or Muslims or anybody gets killed.
- [98:07]
Krystal Ball
No, there's a charitable reading of that though, which is he's trying to appeal to conservatives who do see these regions as categorically like radical Islam.
- [98:17]
Ryan Grim
He's appealing to the baser instincts.
- [98:19]
Krystal Ball
I don't think it has to necessarily be xenophobic. I think, I think there is an instinct, especially after 9, 11, for people to say everyone there is like radical.
- [98:28]
Ryan Grim
I guess a reverse version that the left would do is to say, hey, look, these Medicaid cuts are gonna hurt trans indigenous. No, no, they're gonna hurt poor white people. Trying to appeal to a MAGA person.
- [98:42]
Krystal Ball
Absolutely. Yeah.
- [98:43]
Ryan Grim
I mean, rather than making more universal argument.
- [98:47]
Krystal Ball
Right, right. But I think the left also does it in its own way.
- [98:50]
Ryan Grim
Because when they're appealing to the left.
- [98:52]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, yeah. But I don't think it necessarily has to be xenophobic so much as. It's just. It could be, but I also think it could be like there are a lot of people who don't. I actually think a lot of people, like for example, in the west bank, genuinely don't understand how significant those ancient Christian communities are.
- [99:09]
Ryan Grim
So, yeah, I mean, where's Jesus from?
- [99:12]
Krystal Ball
It's a good point.
- [99:14]
Ryan Grim
So let's move on to the scandal of a Republican congressman getting out of a domestic violence charge.
- [99:21]
Krystal Ball
This is an awful story.
- [99:24]
Emily
With the.
- [99:25]
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- [100:54]
Jenny Garth
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- [101:25]
Krystal Ball
All right, we have an update in the unfolding saga of Congressman Republican Congressman Corey Mills who is facing assault allegations, serious assault allegations, and this is a really complicated story. It brings in interim D.C. attorney General Acting Attorney General Ed Martin, who's a pretty interesting character from MAGA World. So I'm going to bear with me as we go through the details as we don't want to get anything wrong on this. We want everybody to have the specifics of this story because it's a big one and it's an interesting one. I'm reading from a report in the Independent which I think actually aggregated a lot of the different parts of these allegations. So right now the police department has said this is an active criminal investigation and there's no further information on the case to provide at this time. But last Wednesday she Corey Mills mistress. He is married. This is a woman that is not his wife, 27 year old woman called the police to his apartment in Washington D.C. told a 911 operator that she had been assaulted by Corey Mills. Mills, quote vehemently denies any wrongdoing whatsoever and is confident any investigation will clear this matter quickly. That's according to his office in a statement to the Associated Press. Now, Mills told Politico both myself and the other individuals said what they had claimed took place and never took place. And that's been reported multiple times. Now, the Independent says a police report that it was that it was provided with describes the initial 911 call as alleging a simple assault with hands or feet involving the mistress, whose name is Sarah Raviani. She's the head of a group called Iranians for Trump as the victim in this case. Now, a previous police report that NBC Washington got said that Mills, who she's apparently been with for over a year, grabbed her, shoved her and pushed her out of the door, which left her with bruises. And then she let the police listen in on a phone call between her and Corey Mills, wherein he allegedly told her to, quote, lie about the origin of the bruises. When police, according to the report, encountered her, she was physically shaking and scared. Now, the Independent says these are, quote, circumstances that would typically prompt an immediate arrest of an alleged assailant. The Independent goes on to say Raviani then recanted her claims, including about the origin of the bruises, when officers said Mills would be placed under arrest. So when she was told that Corey Mills, Congressman Corey Mills would be arrested, she recanted his claims. People who have covered and worked with victims of domestic violence know that that's a familiar pattern of people who are victims of domestic violence. Unfortunately, that's incredibly traumatic as like imperial emotional process to go through that can increase the pressures and it's enormously difficult to judge people in those situations who are legitimate victims of domestic violence. But obviously then recanting the claims takes away some credibility from the claims. Now, Mills has not been arrested. And this is interesting. Officers, as the Independent says, quote, initially classified the call as a family disturbance, though after commanders reviewed investigative materials, it was reclaimed, classified as a domestic violent assault investigation. But Raviani now says that there was no physical altercation at all. She was drinking and sleep deprived. And that explains why she made the allegations. She says the bruises came during a recent trip to Dubai and were not from Corey Mills. Now, Ed Martin, who is the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columba, Columbia. So here in D.C. is really hardcore MAGA ideologies. Trump appointed him last month. He has the Florida Democratic Party, we'll add this from the Independent, has accused Martin of, quote, running cover ups for Republicans. But he is not obviously not bringing he's not arresting Mills.
- [105:37]
Ryan Grim
So far he has. Yeah, he has paused though. DC Asks DC which is not he's not charged. Right. Dc, which is not a state, asked Martin to sign off on an arrest warrant for Mills and Mills office. Not Mills office. Martin's office refused to do so and said they want further investigation here. What's so incredible here? It's not unprecedented, but it's unusual. They have him on witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Dead to rights. Because the police officers were there with Mills on the phone with Mills telling his girlfriend Raviani to, quote, lie about the origin of her bruises.
- [106:23]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [106:24]
Ryan Grim
That's witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Like, just even if you don't have anything else, if you're told to lie and also, obviously.
- [106:35]
Krystal Ball
And then you lie or then you.
- [106:37]
Ryan Grim
Change your story, then obviously, if he is telling her to lie about the origins, that is also a confession of where they actually came from. And also it doesn't make any sense. Like, according to the police report, which was altered twice, the bruises to the officers appeared to be fresh. Everybody. Nobody in a jury would know what a fresh bruise looks like. And you would know what a bruise that you got in Dubai the day before looks like. And so then when she comes back and says, actually it came from somewhere else. Not what I originally said after she told. She let the officers listen to the claim.
- [107:22]
Krystal Ball
But what did they hear? That's the thing. Like, we don't even know.
- [107:25]
Ryan Grim
Right. I mean, they should tell a grand jury, get an arrest warrant.
- [107:29]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [107:30]
Ryan Grim
But Martin is gonna block that. Martin is the guy who yesterday, the day before, tweeted, I am the president. We are the president's legal team, and we look forward to defending the president at all costs. No. What? No, that's not what you are.
- [107:45]
Krystal Ball
Well, it's sort of true. In a technical sense, if you look at what the role is like, in a technical sense, if you are in that position, it is your job to, like, defend the executive. Executive branch and the Constitution, obviously, people versus.
- [107:59]
Ryan Grim
Yeah.
- [108:00]
Krystal Ball
Right. Yeah. So there's like a technical world in which. That's. Right. The spirit of it, though, looks like, from what he said, it looks like. What's the best way to put it? Like, special privileges to the president and.
- [108:15]
Ryan Grim
Then also to his wife beating fellow party members. Because the key, as we talked about in the A block, they passed this budget by the skin of their teeth. If one vote had gone in the opposite direction.
- [108:31]
Krystal Ball
So, so does he now bring charges after the budget resolution vote is over.
- [108:36]
Ryan Grim
But they're going to need him again. Over and over.
- [108:38]
Krystal Ball
But they could replace him pretty easily.
- [108:40]
Ryan Grim
Takes a while. And so Then you're down a vote for that stretch of time.
- [108:45]
Krystal Ball
Yep.
- [108:46]
Ryan Grim
So. So I would imagine they're gonna just prop him up just cause they want his vote just like they did with George Santos, even though they didn't want him there. He said, look, I'll vote. You have a tiny majority, I'll vote your way. Just keep me out of prison as long as you can.
- [109:03]
Krystal Ball
Well, actually they regret now. I mean, I think if you talk to most like Maga Hill Republicans, they will say they actually regret getting rid of Santos when they did. They could have actually used him more on that now.
- [109:13]
Ryan Grim
They got swozy in there.
- [109:15]
Krystal Ball
Well, yeah, but also they feel like they could have used him longer on votes and it would have been more beneficial.
- [109:19]
Ryan Grim
Right, so this time. Yeah, let's see if there's any equitable justice at all. Or if you're in D.C. and you're a Republican, laws don't apply to you. And what did Trump say? If you're saving the country, you violate no law.
- [109:36]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. He who saves the country.
- [109:38]
Ryan Grim
People assume that just a place applied to Trump. Why would Trump not apply that same rationale to anybody who's going to vote with Trump to quote unquote, save the country? Corey Mills is going to vote with Trump. Corey Mills can violate no law.
- [109:51]
Krystal Ball
That's actually a really good callback, an important callback if that's the mentality that is spreading in MAGA world. And there's again, they will. The charitable interpretation of it is you violate no law if you are acting in the spirit of the Constitution and you eventually it's upheld right. In the court of law or whatever. But that's definitely not, that's definitely not the, I would say best interpretation. Or that's definitely not. You can't just default to that charitable interpretation. In the case of Musk in particular, reposting that gleefully. So especially we were talking about Bukele earlier in the show and all of that stuff. So anyway, the last thing I want to say is, and it's rather interesting that she is the head of a group called Iranians for Trump that may or may not have anything to do with this, but it does add an element of potential foreign questions that are raised, espionage questions that can potentially be raised. But it also at this point just looks like there's clearly enough evidence if they have a police report where police are listening, the police are involved in a call. So they should have a record of a call. They have testimony of the officers who were listening to a call in which he instructed her to lie, meaning those bruises were not from Dubai. And then her story changes after the call. There seems to be plenty of evidence in that case to actually bring charges. Now maybe Ed Martin and the police department know something that we don't. That seems unlikely at this point. It is always a possibility. Maybe they, you know, something that we don't. But at the same time, what we're seeing also does look like a fairly tragic conventional domestic abuse situation where you have a woman who is pressured and bullied out of holding to allegations that end up with her significant other going being arrested. So it's not atypical of how people who are experiencing that kind of trauma handle the situation. Just appears on his face to be a really, really sad story and one with political implications.
- [112:05]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. And also somebody who runs Iranians for Trump.
- [112:09]
Krystal Ball
Yes.
- [112:09]
Ryan Grim
Which is interesting in itself.
- [112:11]
Krystal Ball
It's a very interesting group.
- [112:12]
Ryan Grim
Washington is. Yeah, yeah. Washington is filled with interesting people.
- [112:16]
Krystal Ball
It sure is. It sure is. Ryan. I'm really looking forward to the Friday edition of the show. I'm sad that I can't stick around for it, but this is a huge interview. I mean, Wall street should be eager to tune in to Friday Counterpoints Friday this week.
- [112:34]
Ryan Grim
If you're a banker, plunk down your premium subs so you can watch this. Watch this one early.
- [112:40]
Krystal Ball
Curious what his because we had Doha Mekhi on last week, people should go watch that edition of the Wednesday show. But I'm curious what he makes of what he thinks Andrew Ferguson will continue to do in his role at the ftc because he should have some good insight into the neobrandisians. So the sort of progressive legal world and the maga legal world, the new.
- [113:04]
Ryan Grim
Conservatives, a neo Brandeisian.
- [113:06]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, the conservatives, they mingle. They know each other. So that's an interesting. I wonder what he thinks about that.
- [113:13]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, this is the guy that Jamie Dimon called an arrogant S.O.B. and Mark Zuckerberg said is just out to destroy America.
- [113:21]
Krystal Ball
So we will see how he responds to that because I know you're going to ask him.
- [113:25]
Ryan Grim
Yep. All right, Stick around. We'll see you on Friday.
- [113:40]
Emily
With the.
- [113:41]
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- [114:11]
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- [115:11]
Jenny Garth
Hi, this is Jenny Garth from I Do Part 2. Who do you know on Ozempic or Semaglutide right now? Everyone right? These game changing Weight loss meds are everywhere and FutureHealth makes it easy to get started. Find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just three minutes@tryfh.com FutureHealth is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at providers discretion. Results may Vary. Sponsored by FutureHealth.