← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
2/5/26: Iran Seizes Vessels, Tech Stocks Tumble, Trump ICE Pullback In Minnesota
01:08:33
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- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Public Ad Announcer
Guaranteed Human support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available@public.com.
- [01:06]
Saagar Enjeti
Hey, this is US.
- [01:07]
Krystal Ball
Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and.
- [01:09]
Saagar Enjeti
I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.
- [01:11]
Krystal Ball
As athletes, our lives are about having.
- [01:13]
Saagar Enjeti
A clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you learn more at pennymac.com pennymac loan services llc/housing lender nmls id 35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply.
- [01:35]
Lenovo Ad Announcer
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- [02:06]
Saagar Enjeti
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [02:07]
Krystal Ball
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
- [02:14]
Saagar Enjeti
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [02:20]
Krystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you. Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:31]
Saagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com. good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
- [02:43]
Krystal Ball
Indeed we do. Some breaking news this morning. Iran seizing two vessels as we continue to hover on the brink of another war. The stock market has taken a dive over AI concerns. Trump is retreating further on ice deployment. Bill Gates responding to Epstein allegations. We've also got a little tour for you of all of the various Epstein defenders and the defenses that they're offering. I think you might enjoy that one. We're also going to take a look at the latest with regard to this Trump assault on elections. He's doubling down on his previous comments that they should be nationalized and taken over. So that's a fun one.
- [03:19]
Saagar Enjeti
Right? And Tulsi Gabbard is now seizing, what is it, Puerto Rican voting machines.
- [03:24]
Krystal Ball
Yes. Because to investigate a link to Venezuela, this whole idea, the idea that there might be a deal with Maduro is looking more and more plausible by the day.
- [03:34]
Saagar Enjeti
Very plausible. We'll be on Maduro Watch. Maduro Stop the Steel Watch. Thank you to everybody who has been subscribing BreakingPoints.com we have a number of you who have joined the show in the last week because of Epstein. We're very happy to have you. Please support our work, be able to watch our show in full as it is meant to be consumed. BreakingPoints.com and really just again opening the books. We had two segments yesterday demonetized. One of them was over an ice shooting. The other was over the Elon Pair terrorists raid. But just to give people an example of how we cannot pick and choose our coverage based on what is going to get ranked in the algorithm and ad revenue. That's why we primarily, you know, rely on all of you. And we've had multiple Epstein demonetized here as well. So thank you to everybody who supports the show. If you are watching this on YouTube, another way to help us out if you can't is to just hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you're listening to this on a podcast, please share an episode with a friend. It really helps other people find the show. But let's go ahead and start with Iran and the latest that just happened right before we Started. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. Iran's IRGC has seized two vessels in the Persian Gulf, threatening the United States with, quote, massacre and hell, I guess their version of fire and fury. The IRGC's Navy's Public Relations Department alleges that more than 1 million liters of smuggled fuel were found on the ships and some 15 foreign crew members were referred to judicial authorities. So this happened in, in what they're claiming are Iranian waters. This is still very, very unclear exactly what's happening, but this is clearly a shot across the bow as diplomatic negotiations with the United States remain very, very in flux. So what they are saying here specifically is that the Strait of Hormuz will be the place of massacre and hell. I think this crystal is a very clear message. A shot across the bow at Trump. After multiple incendiary comments made by the administration yesterday as diplomatic negotiations literally off and then on again, all in the span of just three hours, we had a very, very significant development here.
- [05:37]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. According to Dr. Parsi, the way the Iranians are thinking now is previously when you've had Israel attack them and we attack them, they've done these very limited, coordinated with us retaliatory strikes, with the calculation from the Iranians being, we don't want this thing to spiral. There is a different mindset there now, which is basically like, okay, we tried that, that didn't work. So we need to adopt a different tactic. So I think you can look at this seizure of these vessels and this type of rhetoric, threatening massacre and hell as a different approach that is responsive to the fact that, hey, they tried the more conciliatory, okay, you can hit us and we will hit back because we have to, but we're going to coordinate it with you. This is a signal that, you know, this time they may not play that game again and they feel the need to take a harder line because the previous approach obviously didn't work since we're now, you know, we had claimed that, oh, we destroyed their nuclear capabilities. Now we're back saying we've got to negotiate over your nuclear capabilities. And by the way, your ballistic missile program too, which is a new add on from Israel, which is meant to poison the well, which is meant to back us into a corner, not force because we have our own agency here, but to push us once again towards war.
- [06:54]
Saagar Enjeti
The Ballistic Missile edition is completely fake. It was added at the very last minute by the Israelis because it's only a security threat to them, not to us. We're all the way over here. And then the way that we square that is. Well, but we have all these troops in the region. It's like, well, why are the troops in the region? To protect Israel. Oh, okay. So that's what this entire thing is about. Nonetheless, this is almost certainly in response yesterday to Trump yesterday threatening the Supreme Leader of Iran in an NBC News interview in the Oval Office. Here's what he had to say. Should the Supreme Leader in Iran be worried right now?
- [07:28]
Donald Trump
I would say he should be very worried. Yeah, he should be. As you know, they're negotiating with us.
- [07:33]
Saagar Enjeti
I know they are, but the protesters have said, you know, where are the Americans? You promised them we would have their back. Do we still have their back?
- [07:39]
Donald Trump
We've had their back. And look, that country's a mess right now because of us. We went in, we wiped out their nuclear. So that's the question. If we want peace in the Middle East. If I didn't take out their nuclear. Think of it. If we didn't take out that nuclear, we wouldn't have peace in the Middle east because the Arab countries could have never done that. They were very, very afraid of Iran.
- [08:01]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [08:01]
Donald Trump
They're not afraid of Iran anymore. We wiped out those beautiful B2 bombers. One's right over there. Those beautiful little model. Those beautiful B2 bombers went in and they hit their target, every single bomb and obliterated it. And because of that, they were going to have a nuclear weapon within one month. Yeah, within one month, they were going to have a nuclear weapon that was a big threat, that they're not going to have it anymore.
- [08:26]
Saagar Enjeti
But if we obliterate it, what's the deal about. I mean, if there's no more. Are they. Are they trying to restart the nuclear.
- [08:32]
Donald Trump
I heard that they are. And if they do, and I let them know if they do, we're going to send them right back and do their job again.
- [08:38]
Saagar Enjeti
So you're understanding they tried to restart it, and that's why you're threatening force.
- [08:41]
Donald Trump
They tried to go back to the site. They weren't even able to get near it. There was total obliteration. But they were thinking about starting a new site in a different part of the country. We found out about it. I said, you do that, we're gonna do very bad things to you.
- [08:57]
Saagar Enjeti
So the supreme leader should be very worried. He said that they're one month away during Midnight Hammer from a nuclear bomb. Literally. Just not true. There's an entire thing about breakout time, et cetera, which Tulsi Gabbard don't forget right before midnight, Hammer had said that there is no indication. And in fact, you know, in our interview with Dr. Parsi, as well as a lot of other information that has come out, the supreme actually takes his fatwa on nuclear weapons very seriously. And it would take a repeal of that. There's been no intelligence indication. I can guarantee you if they had, the neocons would let us know tomorrow so that we could start a full blown nuclear war. Nothing has changed on the ground whatsoever except for the protests. And so the protests are making people very excited about this idea of a shaky regime which can just be toppled from the air and turn it into an Israeli civil war rump state. But that is just not where things are. And in fact, you know, what we see right now is we may have exhausted the very last chances of real diplomacy here. And that the current, you know, the current framework from the administration is that this is an illegitimate regime, is that every time that we hit you and or we negotiate that the goalposts will move. And that's why the Iranian position has changed so dramatically now basically to the point. And look, the critics are saying that they've always been like this. I don't remember multiple airstrikes and negotiations and crises that were all happening. This is entirely one manufactured of our making and of Israel's making. And this was underscored by the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday, who again takes direct aim at the leadership of Iran, who apparently we also want to negotiate a 2. Let's go ahead and roll.
- [10:33]
US Official / Spokesperson
That the Iranian people and the Iranian regime are very unalike, in essence what the Iranian people want. This is a culture with a deep history. These are people that the leadership of Iran at the clerical level does not reflect the people of Iran. I know of no other country where there's a bigger difference between the people that lead the country and the people who live there. And so our hope resides in that. As far as the President's views on the way protesters were treated, he was very clear about it. And as you saw, part of what the President said publicly prevented mass executions that were being planned and that were on the precipice of, and obviously beyond that, the President retains a number of options to how he responds to that and future events. But as far as the talks are concerned, you know, I think the Iranians had agreed to a certain format for whatever reason has changed in their system or what have you. We'll see, we can get back to the right place. But the United States is Prepared to meet with them? I think it was scheduled for Friday. Steve is ready to go. He'll be prepared for that. If the Iranians want to meet, we're ready. They've expressed an interest in meeting and talking. If they change their mind, we're fine with that too. We prefer to meet and talk. I'm not sure you can reach a deal with these guys, but we're going to try to find out. We don't see there's any harm in trying to figure out there's something that can be done. This is a president that always prefers a peaceful outcome to any conflict or any challenge.
- [11:53]
Saagar Enjeti
So you can all see very clearly here, you know, this is a direct shot. We would like to meet, but it's like the people of Iran deserve basically freedom. I mean, I guess maybe you can hold those together. But Crystal, when we put it in pair with what happened yesterday, it is very clear there is a massive factional war inside the Trump administration. Let's put this one up here on the screen just so we can show all of you. So basically as of yesterday morning we were supposed to meet with the Iranians after some pushback from them saying we don't wanna meet with regional partners, we just wanna meet one on one with the United States. Those talks were then called off as of midday. Then by the end of the day, the plans for the U. S Iran talks are actually back on. After several Arab and Muslim leaders urgently lobbied the Trump administration Wednesday afternoon not to follow through on threats, to walk away. Quote, they asked us to keep the meeting, to listen to what the Iranians have to say. We have told the Arabs we will do the meeting if they insist, but we are very skeptical. The officials said at least nine countries had passed on messages, the most senior levels of the Trump administration strongly asking do not cancel the meeting with the Iranians in Oman. And a second US Official said that the Trump administration agreed to take the meeting with the Iranians to be respectful of the request of US Allies and in order to coordinate pursuing the diplomatic track. So very clearly the Arab powers are freaking out because people forget this. It's not just Israel. Where was that token strike back from the Iranians? Doha, Qatar, who by the way also got struck by Israel. And then we signed some non aggression pact with Doha, Saudi Arabia, the Straits of Hormuz. We have massive amounts of oil that move through there. So this would be a destabilization event which the Iranians now with their seizure this morning are making clear we can wreak absolute havoc. The price of Oil skyrocketed on the news initially whenever the meetings were supposed to be canceled. I'm sure that the raid this morning will also have some sort of follow on effect. But it is clear that there's a deteriorating situation and we keep narrowing the goalposts to make it so that it's like war seems to be one of the only options left that's currently on the table, absent a genuine breakthrough tomorrow, which we can all hope for. But if you're Iran, the last time you were scheduled to meet with Steve Wyckoff, we bombed you. So what are they going to do in this meeting?
- [14:11]
Krystal Ball
And if you're any of these regional powers and allies of the U.S. you also have to feel a little bit nervous about how sufficient our defenses are gonna be. I mean, you watched and this again wasn't covered that much in the Western press. But last time, you know, our stockpiles and Israeli stockpiles of, you know, of defense interceptors, missile defense interceptors were running low and Israel was struck. Now, Iran, I have no doubt took more damage, but there was, there were significant blows struck inside of Israel. So they also can't feel totally confident that, like the US Is just going to have our back and it's not going to be a problem and we're not going to take on any damage. And then are they excited about having, you know, a failed state in Iran and all of the chaos that that entails and the spillover effects, which, you know, nobody understands what that can look like better than the countries in this region. So listen, I have no idea, I have no inside knowledge whether we are going to strike Iran imminently or not. But what I can say is what we've seen over the course of this administration and at other lower levels, under other administrations as well, is they are continuing to push in this direction. I mean, the protests are both organic. Like there's genuine upset in the country over the government. I don't want to downplay that whatsoever. But that also is fomented by our intentional squeezing of the Iranian economy. You know, you've got the precipitating event was this currency collapse. And there's every indication that we were involved in that. So we're trying this, we're cycling through a variety of ways to try to squeeze this government, to try to cause some sort of collapse. You know, the Israelis are not going to stop pushing in this direction. So I have zero optimism that we're not going to, in some way or another, continue down this track. Whether this means imminent kinetic action or Whether that's further down the road or whether we try some other tactic or whatever. And that's without even talking about, you know, Mike Pompeo bragging about the Mossad agents in the streets alongside the protesters.
- [16:12]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, if anything, you know what, I think we may, perhaps, may have a chance off ramp here because what Trump and them are afraid of is a full blown war. And it seems that the Iranians are basically willing to roll the dice again. What Parsi told us was we know we can't win a war, but we can make it pretty miserable for all of you and for everybody else.
- [16:32]
Donald Trump
Right.
- [16:32]
Saagar Enjeti
Long term strategy. Long time strategy of U.S. adversaries. And put on this last element, please, a 5 quote U.S. iran agreed to discuss nuclear talks on Friday. But originally they said Iran is going to play hardball with the US to throw it off of balance. And what they're saying behind the scenes is that with this seizure that we saw this morning and in general was that they are just not going to be, they're not going to be pressed back into the corner that they found themselves originally, and in particular, we shot down this drone recently. Now they're threatening things with their navy. They're making clear there will be no more token strikes on our country. It's do or die. And basically calling the bluff of the United States of you can try if you want. We're gonna make it very, very difficult. And a lot of your people may die as well as the global economy may be completely ruptured. Trump and his people are afraid of that. Because while, yes, they've had their tremendous success mission in Venezuela and they did have Midnight Hammer, they haven't had a real military engagement with any serious amounts of risk. And they're making it clear, no, we're gonna make it very, very difficult for you.
- [17:40]
Krystal Ball
It's a smarter strategy.
- [17:41]
Saagar Enjeti
It is.
- [17:41]
Krystal Ball
I mean, and it is based on what we've all observed with Trump. I mean, his tac, especially when the markets start to get squirrely. And so what they're banking on is, okay, the conciliatory approach obviously didn't work because here we are back having our country threatened again. This did not succeed. And so what does Trump actually respect? And what he respects and what he responds to is, hey, listen, yeah, you have more firepower than we do, but we can make you suffer. We can cause pain. We can cause pain among your regional allies. We can exact a price on your service members or in the region. And critically, we can cause a lot of financial pain. I mean, this is the weapon of warfare that we've been consistently using against Iran. And the Iranians have their own cards that they can play with regard to that. No, obviously they don't have all the levers of the global financial system the way that we do, but they do have very critical location and obviously very critical to the oil market. So, and you know, do is, are our citizens ready to pay that price? No, they don't want that. They're not interested in that. And Trump is not gonna be around forever. So like, okay, we can threaten you credibly with exacting some pain, and we don't think that you really are up to that. We don't think you really have the stomach to persist if we credibly threaten you. And so it is, in my opinion, it is much more intelligent strategy given Trump's psychology and what we've seen play out with regard to other countries. You know, even with the Greenland pullback, right, where he was gung ho and all in, and the fact that there was, there were some wiggles in the market, that was enough to cause him to pull back from the brink. So I think that's what they're counting on as well.
- [19:25]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. We'll see. You know, it's smart until it's not smart. And then what? Millions of your own people die as well as our own people. Right. And so that's the, that's the risk. And, you know, you can read a book to see how many times they're like, oh, well, they're only going to respect strength. And then next thing you know, you end up in a lie or some sort of false flag incident. And then, boom, we're off, you know, and then at that point, nothing can happen. Our Congress, I think the way they're.
- [19:47]
Krystal Ball
Looking at it obviously, though, is like, you know, we're sort of damned if we do, if we, damned if we don't. Our country is going to get attacked either way.
- [19:54]
Saagar Enjeti
If I were them, I would be doing something way more dramatic than what they're doing now currently. So I have no idea.
- [20:00]
Krystal Ball
Well, and that was the other thing.
- [20:01]
Saagar Enjeti
That's why it's highly rational the way that they're.
- [20:03]
Krystal Ball
Yes, and that's the other thing Dr. Parsley said is actually majority of the Iranian government is in favor of racing to a nuke. And it's really the supreme Leader that holds them back because he takes lesbians, as you said earlier, his own fatwa against nukes, seriously. But that is the logic that we've laid out. That is the rational behavior that we have created that Trump has created in.
- [20:20]
Saagar Enjeti
The sense, and that's the last thing is we have this dream of we'll strike the supreme Leader. Well, as we've often said with Putin, who knows what comes next? What's the reality of what would actually succeed? Who are the people who have all the weapons and all the money? The irgc, the people who are in the naval boats who are trying to seize right now? Those are the people who want nukes. Those are the people who sprint ballistic missile. Those are the people who've been running smuggling for years and who are filthy rich and who have an immense amount of power inside of the country. Unless you kill literally all of them, which seems relatively impossible. Well, and then you occupy the country and then try and force some sort of democratic transition, they're probably the most likely group to be able to seize power. So don't, don't be so sure that things are going to be working out all that well on our behalf. So speaking of the economy and crash, why don't we get to that?
- [21:07]
Public Ad Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures in the.
- [22:08]
Lenovo Ad Announcer
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- [22:38]
Krystal Ball
Wasn't that delicious? So good.
- [22:40]
Saagar Enjeti
Your bill, ladies.
- [22:42]
Krystal Ball
I got it. No, I got it. Seriously, it's this. I said first. Don't be silly. You don't be silly.
- [22:49]
Saagar Enjeti
People with the Wells Fargo Active cash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Okay, rock, paper, scissors for it.
- [22:58]
Krystal Ball
Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.
- [22:59]
Saagar Enjeti
No, the Wells Fargo ActiveCash credit card. Visit Wells Fargo.com ActiveCash terms apply.
- [23:09]
Krystal Ball
Speaking of the market, we have a lot of very interesting and troubling news going on there. The futures are down this morning. There was a significant drop in the market yesterday and it seems to be because there is a bit of an oh shit moment happening with regard to what AI is going to mean for our economy. So let's go and put this Wall Street Journal tear sheet up on the screen. And the TLDR here of a number of, you know, news reporting that I'm going to show you in just a moment is that non techies such as myself are beginning to really reckon with. Okay, AI development might be good for this handful of companies that are leading the way, but what about all of these other tech companies whose services are going to be effectively taken over by these AI agents? So one of those industries is, they say AI threatens a Wall street cash cow, financial and legal data. And just if you think about it logically, you know, if you're paying and people who are, you know, inside like traders and who are in the industry, they pay big bucks for these services to analyze financial and legal information. Well, if you have a free or a very low cost AI agent that can do all of that for you in a custom way, are you really going to shell out those dollars for these subscriptions? So I'll read you a little bit of this article. They say. For years it seemed like a surefire business model. Amass vast troves of financial data and sell it to Wall street for a premium. Then Claude came along and that's Anthropic's product. Shares of companies like S and P Global, MSCI, Intercontinental Exchange, London Stock Exchange Group, FactSet Research Systems all tumbled this week after fast growing artificial intelligence startup Anthropic unveiled a new suite of tools for automating legal tasks. The new legal plugin for Anthropic's coworker assistant, powered by its AI model Claude didn't seem to have much to do with Financial data. Nonetheless, lseg, which has spent years pivoting away from its traditional stock exchange business to selling data and analytics, slid 13% on Tuesday before inching lower on Wednesday. And so again, the theory here is that people are really starting to be able to envision what AGI and what already the capabilities that AI has is going to mean for these different markets now, what these companies to give their side of the story, what they say, the ones that are doing all this financial analysis, they say, yeah, but we have our own proprietary data that CLAUDE is not going to have access to. But at least as of today, investors are betting that's not going to be sufficient. And by the way, as their capabilities develop, how much of this data is going to continue to be off limits and continue to be proprietary where you have to pay to gain access to it?
- [25:50]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you continue to look at. And by the way, these stocks have been on wild swings. So LSEG went down by 15%, then back up by 8%. It's difficult to track day to day. But the overall point is that the CLAUDE code, which again, I'm a CLAUDE subscriber, I don't think I pay more than 100, whatever, 150 bucks to be able to use the product. If I can just simply go in there, use their AI legal tool and analysis tool to automate or get, let's say, 80% of the way that I could have been previously for something that cost tens of thousands of dollars. The asymmetry of that wipes out any real ability or want to have to pay for a lot of these types of premium products. And actually it's kind of fascinating because what you're watching is the destruction. And we've talked about white collar work and we've also talked about legal work. What you are watching is the destruction of the high dollar, almost management consulting data based industry. So like the McKinseys and all of these other people who would come in and they would do proprietary slideshows and all of that. And again, look, while I don't think that AI is going to cure cancer or any of that, I do think it's pretty good at automating some of the most base tasks and data collection and putting that stuff in there. Obviously you still need a little bit of quality control, but the amount of brute force that people used to have to do, especially if you're and XL jockey and all that, a lot of it is starting to go away and has been now for years, but especially accelerated with AI. So if all of that goes away instantaneously, relatively like in market terms for five year period and you can see a path to almost 80 to 100% automation that is going to actually nuke a significant sector of our economy. What's really scary about this, and we can put the next one up here on the screen, is this reveals actually some of the dangers of the way that our modern economy has structured. I've tried warning about this for years. We are a completely service based economy, which is great until all the services get automated and rolled up into AI. So while our GDP overall may actually increase because the stocks of Google, Anthropic and all these OpenAI will increase, the number of jobs that will be there may reduce. And it's not like we have stuff and companies that make a lot of things, physical things, steel or you know, any manufacturing base that we have, you know, to be able to absorb any of this. So our service based economy is uniquely, you know, is uniquely susceptible to be dramatically disrupted by AI, which would also wipe out and hurt the entire upper middle class really of the country. It would disrupt the university education system which for the last 20 years of the top 20 schools have been feeders to BCG, McKinsey, Accenture and all of it, I mean it destroys like this entire fabric around all these things. So imagine then the downstream effects like what are the suburbs of major cities going to look like?
- [28:45]
Krystal Ball
The ones around here toast.
- [28:47]
Saagar Enjeti
Take a drive around Northern Virginia, Deloitte, kpmg, you know, all of the defense contract, I guess they'll be fine, but yeah, but everybody else.
- [28:56]
Krystal Ball
Palantir stock dropped yesterday too, which is kind of interesting.
- [28:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Well that's exactly the point is that data analysis, if you make it so that it's no longer high dollar and super proprietary and broadly available, that's going to massively disrupt significant portion of our service based economy. And it's not like we have a lot of other stuff to absorb it. And then like yesterday it comes out that Google is spending like 180 billion on data centers and capex spend. If there's a single bus there, then we're screwed all around. Like it's not good. Makes us very, very susceptible to a huge economic shock.
- [29:27]
Krystal Ball
Chris Hayes had a viral tweet that I think captures the sentiment you're expressing while he said, I think it's best for everyone to understand that the unified class project of billionaires right now is to do to white collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue collar workers. Keep pushing the share of national income, away from labor, towards capital, replace the kinds of workers that they think are uppity and spoiled, ultimately turn Marin county into Youngstown, Ohio. He then goes on, and I do think this is important note here. He says, my very smart friend in finance urges me to clarify. I mean, the tech AI oligarchs, notall billionaires, and points out, rightly, I think a lot of the business class is extremely worried about the damage and disruptions if AI becomes what its backers say it will be. And I actually do think that that is correct in a sense, because you see this burgeoning divide between where Wall street is and where the tech oligarchs are and the place I think you see that most in terms of a proxy fight is over the independence of wants to take over the Fed and drop the industry and have control over it, basically to be able to serve the tech oligarchs who he's really thrown in with. I mean, obviously he's great for all billionaires at this point in time, and he does love them all, but that is really where he's placed his chips in terms of his administration. Wall street obviously being very opposed to that. But in general, the point here stands that when I graduated from college with an economics degree, I got a job at one of these consulting firms around here. And what did I do? I worked on a help desk, right? Trying to help users with a product I barely understood. But, you know, that was how I learned. Do you think that that sort of thing. No. And I was doing all kinds of spreadsheet analysis. I was a total Excel jockey. All of that can be done, you know, easily now. They could just get someone who was a little more experienced to use AI to do something that took, you know, my work product, that took like a month to spin out, and that is, that's already done. So you think of, you know, everybody I graduated from college with basically got that same sort of job. That is what really, at this point, with our economy shifting so far away from blue collar work, that is what so much of, you know, our economy is based around. And yeah, the goal is, and this is already happening right now, is automating all of that away. And listen, I didn't really enjoy that job. It's not like it was great. And if there's some new brave world where we can all pursue our passions and we're gonna share in the profits of all of these gains and productivity from the AI, that's one thing, but that's obviously not the reality in the economy that we have set up and it's obviously not what these oligarchs are pushing for. Even the most progressive of them, the guy who runs Anthropic, he's like progressive taxation that comes nowhere close to dealing with the problem at scale that we're looking at at.
- [32:19]
Public Ad Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S P500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SI Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures in the.
- [33:20]
Lenovo Ad Announcer
Heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech@lenovo.com dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high quality streaming with Intel Wi Fi 6e and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search power up@lenovo.com lenovo.
- [33:46]
Donald Trump
Lenovo.
- [33:50]
Krystal Ball
Wasn'T that delicious? So good.
- [33:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Your bill ladies.
- [33:54]
Krystal Ball
I got it. No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. Don't be silly. You know, be silly.
- [34:02]
Saagar Enjeti
People with the Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Okay. Rock paper scissors for it. Rock, paper scissors.
- [34:11]
Krystal Ball
Shoot.
- [34:12]
Saagar Enjeti
No. The Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit card. Visit wells Fargo.com Active cash terms apply.
- [34:21]
Krystal Ball
We can put the next one up on the screen. This is B3 US tech stocks hit by fresh wave of selling as chip makers Qualcomm and AMD tumble, they say US Tech stocks hit by a fresh wave of selling, there was an AMD fueled sell off that's another chip maker, sparked by concerns about the impact of AI on software businesses. And so the, you know, the thinking here is basically like, again, all of this, like so much coding can be done by people who don't have a technical background. You know, if you spend a little bit of time understanding how to code with Claude, you can spin out products that previously would have taken years and years and years and years and years of training and lots and lots of work to be able to do. It's called vibe coding. Right. And so you have, that you have with these AI agents. And we talked about this in the context of Molt Book and this Claude bot, or Open Claw I think it's called now, where you can send out these AI agents to do all sorts of things for you. And the idea is ultimately rather than you going to an app or you going to a separate, separate software product, you're just going to ask your AI agent to do it and not even interact directly with those apps. So what does that mean for the entire economy? And that's what the market is just now really starting to grapple with. There is also, this is interesting and fun in terms of the sort of battle between these different AI players. Sagar was saying that the super bowl is going to be like the AI Super Bowl. So many of the ads are going to be.
- [35:53]
Saagar Enjeti
If you haven't been watching the NFL, like it's already like probably 30% AI ads. But this time around, because of the dollar value and the ability for them to just throw money, I think a massive portion are all just going to be AI. And by the way, already they're releasing some of them. So Claude is now going to have a premium super bowl ad which will take a shot at OpenAI. So let's go ahead and take a listen. How do I communicate better with my mom?
- [36:27]
Krystal Ball
Great question. Improved communication with your mom can bring you closer. Here are some techniques you can try. Start by listening. Really hear what she's trying to say underneath her words. Build conversation from points of agreement. Find a connection through shared activity, perhaps a nature walk. Or if the relationship can't be fixed, find emotional connection with other older women on Golden Encounters, the mature dating site that connects sensitive cubs with roaring cougars. What would you like me to create? Your profile.
- [37:09]
Saagar Enjeti
So that's from Claude saying that's why you should use ours, because we're not doing ads, but OpenAI is doing ads.
- [37:15]
Krystal Ball
To be honest with you, I feel like that commercial makes all AI look.
- [37:18]
Saagar Enjeti
I was going to say it's like, it's like if the. What we're all sparring about is who will be able to chat with me and whether we serve you ads or not.
- [37:26]
Krystal Ball
I mean, I'll give you advice about your relationship with your mom.
- [37:29]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, how about this? Don't ask AI about your relationship with your mom, like period. You know, maybe talk to your mom about it or somebody else, like another human being. Sam Altman, very, very upset about this ad. Let's put this up here. By the way, he claims he laughed. I don't think he, he said for the first, the good part of the Anthropic ads, they're funny. And I laughed. And then a wall of text. I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we don't do exactly this. We would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid. We know our users would reject that. I guess it's on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren't real. But a Super bowl ad is not where I would expect it. More important, we believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access. We believe access creates agency. More Texans use ChatGPT for free than total people use Claude in the United States. So we have a differently shaped problem than they do. If you want to pay for ChatGPT plus or Pro, we won't show you ads. So basically just saying, look guys, we are an exp. Anthropic is an expensive product for rich people. They're the same price. But actually ChatGPT might be more expensive. ChatGPT Pro than Cloud.
- [38:43]
Krystal Ball
Well, is there like not a free version of Anthropic Might be what?
- [38:46]
Saagar Enjeti
Maybe there isn't.
- [38:47]
Krystal Ball
I don't really know.
- [38:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Look, it depends. I actually prefer Claude for anything technical and then specifically anything math related. ChatGPT is usually better at like some of the more research.
- [38:57]
Krystal Ball
I think the general consensus is Claude is kind of in the lead now, tech wise. Right. That's my, that's my understanding.
- [39:02]
Saagar Enjeti
It depends on what you mean by that. For coding, et cetera. Yes, but yeah, I mean the whole point is just that these people, all they have created is a new Google. That's it. Yeah, and that's fine, actually. It's very useful. But that's not going to cure cancer. And in fact I recently read a Washington Post article which was a guy who Uploaded his health data to ChatGPT and got completely misdiagnosed. He took it to a doctor and the doctor was like, this is bullshit. This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. And I was just like, man, the promises that they sold to us are just, are not, are not true. Like, and instead they're going all in on porn, erotica, advertising, Super Bowl. Like, if you have to advert, if your process, you need to massively advertise on the super bowl for why. But you know, because you haven't seen like the NFL ads, the ChatGPT, it's like, help draft my workout plan or something. Like, it's not revolutionary shit. Yeah, that's really happening.
- [39:54]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I go back and forth on this because in terms of, yeah, my day to day, I find all kinds of problems with whatever, you know, chatbot I'm using. But then I see things like, you know, the way that people who are more tech savvy are using Claude and the AI agents and you, the capabilities that they already have. And then I'm sure you saw this clip that Griffin sent to our group about, you know, I'm talking about these scientists who are at a conference. Like, these, the AI is already good enough that it's doing like 90% of what I can do. And these, I'm talking about like some of the most brilliant minds in the entire world. So I don't know, I go back and forth on what this stuff, how powerful this is, where it's going, where it is right now, et cetera. And, you know, I really don't have a clear. I don't have a clear understanding of how revolutionary what we already have is. There was a good article in, I believe it was in Nature magazine by a number of scientists who were saying, you know, by any reasonable metric, it already has achieved AGI. And they made a pretty persuasive case that it. They actually, in some of the tests, the people who were testing it found it to be human. Like, guessed that it was human more often than they guessed actual humans were humans. So by the standard of the Turing test, which has always been the gold standard, they were like, we kind of aren't really acknowledging it, but we're already there. What does that mean? I can't say. I mean, I just can't. I don't know that anyone can. So in any case, I go back and forth on all of that and this is a good place to put up this one. So this is. We talked earlier about Molt book, which is Reddit, but just for AI. So you have all of these AI agents, agents who congregated there, and they're, you know, talking to each other and they're spinning up religion and they're talking about, you know, whether they should do a takeover and get rid of these pesky humans and, you know, these very existential questions. And, you know, there's all sorts of, like. I mean, in one sense, they're just like, aping human behavior. There's also a bug where humans could just directly effectively post through their AI bots. So it was important to keep all of that in mind. But now put B6 up on the screen. Now we have this edition, which is a rent a human website where it says, robots need your body, and goes on to say, you know, AI can't go out into the world and do things, but you can. So, human being, let us robots use your body to go out and do whatever we need you to do in the world, and we'll pay you. So this is, you know, it's gig work. It's like, what is it? What are the ones that are for individual tasks? What's it called? Something, rabbit, something, whatever. Anyway, TaskRabbit. There you go. It's like TaskRabbit, but the person who's assigning the tasks is a robot. So one of the things that people have been thinking is, okay, well, we can't be too scared about these AI agents taking over because they can't actually go out in the physical world and do anything. It's like, here's a wave of humans signing up to be like, we'll do your stuff for you. Don't worry. Just pay. Pay us a given amount, and we'll go out in the world and do your bidding. So already with this, the relationship is reversed, where it's no longer the human telling the robot, hey, can you do this and that and compile this report? And, you know, book me a hotel or whatever. Now it's the robot saying, hey, human, can you go out in the world and do whatever? I know one of the tasks was go make a sign and hold it on the side of the road and say, AI is paying me to hold this sign. So I don't know what other tasks are being assigned and how. It's like, you know, I. I mean, but it's just. And like, who knows? And whether this. How real this is and what it really means. But already the prospect of how the relationship between human and robot can get flipped around and inverted very quickly. Like, it's here. It's manifesting itself.
- [43:43]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, I just take it back to this point about the stock market crash. Crash, by the way. It's a couple percent, so I don't want to take it too far. But you have enough of a hit and some sort of volatility which is making people question the foundation of the economy. And as we've talked about with Russia and with Ukraine, it turns out that you can be cut off from the global financial system. You can lose McDonald's the horror, right? You can lose access to US fast food, the American banking system and be subject to the worst possible sanctions that have ever existed in the western world. And as long as you have a shitload of guns and a shitload of oil, you'll probably be okay. What is going to happen to us? While, yeah, we have oil, we can't actually create all that many guns for our own defense. It turns out that our highly connected globalized economy makes us dramatically vulnerable to any sort of shock. China and Taiwan, I've talked about our laptops, video game systems. We don't make anything here. Can we really produce even enough cars for a single year if everybody decided that, you know, just to be able to want a new like. No. None of this exists for our domestic capacity from chips. And I'm talking at the advanced level, let alone the more basic level. We rely on Canada, we rely on Mexico, we rely on Europe for some high tech manufacturing. We rely on Asia for all of our lower goods, even clothing, most of the clothing that we look at. Take a look at the charts for our trading with Vietnam. How did Vietnam become a top 10 trading partner to the US? Cheap clothing, like we don't make anything. Does anybody even remember how to darn clothing or any of that? No, it's all gone. Even the suit I'm wearing, probably from China, to be honest. And you can just see this over and over and over again. And if we have some sort of crash or effect, what we're gonna watch is that if we lose the white collar wealth, we don't have anything that we make and then we're gonna be in a full blown societal crisis. Not saying it's gonna happen overnight, but you know, it can happen in 10 years. 12, 15. Like think about when was the iPhone the first true iPhone? The one that was widely adopted? 2,000.
- [45:45]
Krystal Ball
It was like 10.
- [45:46]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. So was the iPhone 4, right? IPhone 4. So 2010, that was 16 years ago. It feels like a lifetime wasn't that long. But think about how much our economy has been disrupted and changed just since then. Not to mention, I mean, what nafta? There's probably a decent amount of people who are alive who remember what life was like pre NAFTA. Now watch what has happened in the interim, some 30 years, and then try to imagine what it will look like in the future. We have not gotten serious. We refuse to do it without a huge shock. We're not gonna change anything.
- [46:15]
Krystal Ball
Well, and here's what I want people to connect this to the Epstein files and the other reporting we've been doing on this show. Like, one thing you should take away from that is the billionaire class. They don't care whether you live or die.
- [46:26]
Saagar Enjeti
They truly don't.
- [46:27]
Krystal Ball
They don't think of you as a full human.
- [46:29]
Saagar Enjeti
They don't even think of themselves as human. They think that they're above it. What is consistently comes across in Epstein emails, how much better he thinks he is than everybody else. And actually you're like, wait, I'm maybe smarter than you. Actually, I can spell.
- [46:43]
Krystal Ball
Epstein was a transhumanist. Another way of saying that is basically, this is a eugenicist. There's no. I mean, you read about. He had all these plans, and this is reported out in the New York Times. This is not like Kukuri, right, to use his ranch to have some baby incubator factory. And he talks in there about what a foolish idea Bill Gates has that comes from the stupid Catholics about all humans being equal, et cetera. It's all. There's an email out there where some guy is saying to him, I keep thinking over what you say about how we get rid of the poor people altogether. I mean, this is Epstein's ideology. And clearly what comes across is this is shared by a broad swath of billionaires. So they only care that they are destroying your lives and taking your jobs. To the extent that you are going to retaliate and that that causes problems for them, that's the only thing. Then that's just like a math for them to figure out and solve and figure out how they can. How they can deal with that. But I mean, truly, and we're already at a place where, you know, previously and the current still reality of our economy is much of it is bolstered by consumer spending, right? That's what the US Economy is really built around. The bulk of that is already done by the rich. So then truly, what are you, you know, what are you average person good for? They find you just to be like a pesky problem to be solved and to be Dealt with, with. So I think it's very important to fuse these things together and that's why the Epstein files release is so incredibly important to really understand the way they think, the way they see the world. And by the way, this is the true definition of a global. They don't have any allegiance to nation states. There's a part where Mandelson, who we're going to talk more in the Epstein block about how the whole Keir Starmer government might be brought down by this because they still have a functioning society over there, unlike us, apparently. In any case case Mandelson is plotting with Epstein against the interests of the UK in favor of the interest of the financiers and figuring out how to use Jamie Dimon to get what they want for the banks, which was again, directly. Which they saw as being directly in contradiction to the interests of the uk. So that's the way they operate in the world. And so it's really important to keep that in mind when you see what they're developing and the way they're approaching, the way they're going about. And you know, I think we have to, we have to grapple with the reality that this technology is here, it's not going away and we have to figure out how we want to craft a social contract that is going to work for everyone and it's not going to be just led by these oligarchs who truly do they actually prefer that? I mean, they don't care if you live or die. That's the best you could say. And the worst you could say is actually they prefer you dead because you're a problem alive.
- [49:25]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, that's very, very, very true. All right, let's get to ice.
- [49:30]
Public Ad Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures in the.
- [50:31]
Lenovo Ad Announcer
Heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech@lenovo.com Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high quality streaming with Intel Wi Fi 6e and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search power up@lenovo.com lenovo.
- [50:57]
Donald Trump
Lenovo.
- [51:01]
Krystal Ball
Wasn'T that delicious? So good.
- [51:03]
Saagar Enjeti
Your bill, ladies.
- [51:04]
US Official / Spokesperson
I got it.
- [51:05]
Krystal Ball
No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. Oh, don't be silly. You don't be silly.
- [51:12]
Saagar Enjeti
People with the Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Okay. Rock, paper scissors for it. Rock, paper, scissors.
- [51:22]
Krystal Ball
Shoot.
- [51:22]
Saagar Enjeti
No, the Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card. Visit Wells Fargo.com ActiveCash Terms apply.
- [51:32]
Donald Trump
All.
- [51:32]
Krystal Ball
Right, so we had some very interesting comments from President Trump yesterday with regard to his deployment of ICE to various cities around the country. Let's go ahead and take a listen.
- [51:41]
Saagar Enjeti
That so I want to be clear because it sounds like there is a shift in immigration enforcement here, that there's going to be a shift after Minneapolis. What should Americans expect going forward?
- [51:50]
Donald Trump
Well, one thing I say to my people, you know, we do a good job, we don't get credit for it. I say they have to ask and they have to say please when a city is going to ask. And who has to say please? Or the governor. I don't want to go and force ourselves into a city, even if their numbers are terrible. Like for instance, I got a call from Jeff Landry, governor of Louisiana. He said, we have a big problem. Could you go in and help us with. Well, let's see, certain sections, I mean, to be honest with you, certain sections of the state, beyond their famous beautiful city, certain sections of the state, we have done not only in New Orleans, we've done a really great job in Louisiana. But I was called, I want to be called Chicago. We could solve the Chicago crime.
- [52:34]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, on that question, which cities are you headed to next?
- [52:38]
Donald Trump
We have five cities that we're looking at very strongly, but we Want to be invited? We will sometimes call the governors.
- [52:46]
Saagar Enjeti
Are they cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Are these the cities?
- [52:49]
Donald Trump
We could straighten out the crime in Chicago. We've already brought it down 25% just by being there. We could have Chicago be a safe city, just like DC Is a safe city, just like all of these places that we've gone to. And I look forward. You know, I didn't campaign at the that I campaigned on law and order, but I didn't think I'd be going into individual cities and making them safe.
- [53:09]
Saagar Enjeti
Anything else you can tell us about the five cities? The five cities.
- [53:11]
Donald Trump
So Americans are ready announcing them very quickly. But we could do something. As an example, I was called by people San Francisco said, please, we have a Democrat mayor. He's trying very hard. Would you friends of mine that live there, it's got crime problems. Would you let him do the job and not come in and let's see how it works? I said, look, I can do it much quicker, much faster. Don't forget, we remove criminals. We took over 2,000 hardcore criminals out of Washington D.C. if we didn't do that, 2% of the people create 90% of the crime. Think of that. 2%. So you have a criminal, because it's over and over again, 2% create 90% of the crime. We took out 2,000 people, more than 2,000 people out of Washington D.C. and we now have a safe city.
- [54:04]
Krystal Ball
So obviously the most noteworthy part there is him saying that they want to be asked. They're not going to just go in. Obviously we're not asked to go into LA or Chicago or Minneapolis. Those are the places that they surged into, create a huge conflict with the population and you ended up with two Americans dead. In the case of Minneapolis, another noteworthy moment from this interview where he gets asked because what the modus operandi has been is these massive mass raids where you're literally going door to door. Stephen Miller yelled at ICE agents, tell them they need to go to the Home Depot. Forget about all this targeting of actual criminals. Just go out there. We're going to set a quota. You need to pick up as many people as you possibly can. These Kavanaugh stops based on, like, how you look and whether you have an accent or not, like, that has been the way they are operating. So he gets asked about that. Are you going to continue going in that direction or are you going to actually focus in on people who are quote, unquote, criminals? Let's talk. Take a listen to that.
- [54:57]
Saagar Enjeti
Looking forward now, your goal during the election was to deport everyone who came here illegally under President Biden. Is your mission now to deport everyone who came in illegally or just people who have come in illegally who have also committed additional crimes?
- [55:09]
Donald Trump
We are totally focused on criminals, really bad criminals. Now, you could say people that came in illegally are criminals, but I'm talking about murderers from different countries. We have 11,888 murderers that Biden and his group. Group led into our country. We've captured a lot of them, We've brought some of them back. A lot of them we don't want to bring back because we don't trust the country that they're not sent back again, despite how strong the borders are. They'll figure a way to try and get in and we don't want them and we'll. We'll incarcerate them. But 11,888 murders. Yeah, we are after those people. We're after the drug dealers. We're after the. We are, by the way, a big problem they allowed to come into our country. People from their mental institutions, people from insane asylums that are mentally ill and very dangerous. We're getting them out. Right.
- [56:05]
Krystal Ball
Still no idea where that particular idea comes from. But what's critical there is, you know, the way Steve Miller and others talk about undocumented immigrants, when they say we're getting the criminals, they mean all of them. Because criminals, in their view, is like Trump said, oh, well, we see you as a criminal if you just cross the border illegal or here illegally. But Trump goes on to specify, that's not actually who I'm talking about. I'm talking about people who committed further violent crimes. And he used this example of murders. I have no idea whether his numbers are correct. They're probably not. But anyway, he specifies that. And one more clip I wanna play here before I get Sager's reaction. This all dovetails with Tom Homan, who of course is put in charge now of the Minneapolis operation. Greg Bovino is pushed aside and Homan is claiming we're gonna now supposedly they were doing targeted operations all along. Of course, we saw the was much different from a quote, unquote, targeted operation. Homan is now announcing that they are going to actually for real do targeted operations. We'll see if that's the case. And critically, they're drawing down on about a third of the deployment that they've had into Minneapolis. Let's take a listen to that.
- [57:09]
Saagar Enjeti
And as a result of the need.
- [57:10]
Donald Trump
For less law enforcement officers to do.
- [57:12]
Saagar Enjeti
This work in a safer environment, I have Announced, effective immediately, we will draw down 700 people effective today.
- [57:24]
Donald Trump
700 law enforcement personnel.
- [57:27]
Krystal Ball
So 700 people fewer in Minneapolis. Like I said, that's about a third of what had been sent there originally. Saga.
- [57:33]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, this is a huge pivot from the administration. Basically what has happened is that there's been a sidelining. However, this is going to be just like Iran. So I want to make it very clear that anything could change at literally any time. And a lot of of this is factional. But the administration knows that the Preddy situation was a disaster. They know that. What they also know is that by sidelining Bovino, sending in Tom Homan immediately, then announcing that thing, by the way, it's been a week. Take a look on your social media feed. Haven't seen a single viral video since that happened. Now Tom Homan saying, we're going to send 700 people away. They're going to dramatically change. Already there's been a negotiation, allegedly behind the scenes, and some sort of full exit from Minneapolis does. I'm not gonna say it looks imminent, but it's probably on the course for a few months. What they know is that they have lost a significant portion of the public. I mean, look, I mean, even the Peretti situation, because it got so to the point where it was so obviously just not even about immigration at that point. And it became about something much bigger in terms of Americans Second Amendment right. That just exposed the administration the way that they actually, in the immediate aftermath, I actually think that the big turning point is, do you remember when Caroline Levitt refused to repeat the domestic terrorism language from the podium and she actually threw Stephen Miller under the bus? I think when you combine all of that together, what you're watching is a retrenchment in the immediate term. However, I will say also Trump has been presented, as far as I understand it, with another option, but he also doesn't wanna take that one. And this is where, where, look, the liberals will get upset. But here's the truth. You could very easily have a significant mass deportation without any ICE agents if you targeted the business community. But guess what? He's not gonna do that. Because Iowa, Ohio, all these other red states have been all on the phone to him now for months saying that workplace raids are bad for business. And one of the things to understand is Tom homage, while, yes, also a proponent of these ICE raids or of these ICE detainers for criminals, has been a significant proponent of workplace raids. And when I say workplace, I'm not talking about the Hyundai raid. That was a STEPHEN MILLER SPECIAL I'm talking about going after meat packing plants or chicken processing facilities where the mega corporations employ vast number of illegal immigrants. But they don't want to do that because it's going to hurt big business. And at the same time they're worried about grocery store inflation. And if we're all being honest, obviously that's a significant reason why that inflation is not even more out of control whenever it comes to food and to agriculture. They don't want to touch the agricultural industry. They're basically in the pockets of the usda. So I genuinely wonder how long this is going to last because under a so called home envision, there will be economic consequences if we're being completely honest, specifically for the richest American, for the hotel industry for example, a lot of the places that rely on illegal cheap labor, I mean that's massively beneficial to their bottom line. So when that eventually happens and a billionaire calls Trump and says this is bad for Marriott hotels, what's gonna happen? That's my question as of right now. Cause that's where I see things headed in that.
- [60:48]
Krystal Ball
Well, and the other side of that is Stephen Miller has a, he is deeply ideological and he's a very effective operator. And so like the Hyundai thing, that was a Stephen Miller special, right? That's what he wanted. Trump claims he didn't even know about it beforehand. I kind of believe him actually.
- [61:07]
Saagar Enjeti
No, he definitely didn't know.
- [61:08]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that he didn't know that this was gonna be done. And the whole shock and awe approach, like as much as people wanna throw Kristi Noem into the bush, she deserves plenty of scorn and scrutiny as well. Don't get me wrong, Stephen Miller is the person who has architected this entire approach. This is his baby. And there's a Wall Street Journal terror sheet we actually have for later in the show. But it's very relevant here talking about how he knows how to work Trump. So he will use these, he'll bring into the Oval Office this shocking imagery of someone who was brutalized by an undocumented immigrant or something like that. And he'll show it to, we have to do this. And he knows how to manipulate him. Again, this is not to take agency away from Donald Trump who was a grown ass man in the President of the United States States. But everyone knows that this man can be manipulated and Stephen Miller is expert at it. It's part of why he has been around from the very beginning. He knows how to play this game. So you know, while Trump can waver and right now he feels like the optics are bad and he doesn't like it. And he's looking at the poll numbers and he feels like this is, you know, he doesn't like the way the videos look, etc. Miller is going to keep pushing in this direction. He will not get. This is the project, the ideological project of his lifetime. He has the reins of power right now, and he is not going to stop. So it's sort of like with the Miami occupied government always pushing in one direction, or with the Zionist occupied government always pushing in a certain direction. Stephen Miller and there are other acolytes in the Trump administration. They're going to continue to push. So I think it's really important to, number one, acknowledge that the unified resistance of the people in the streets and the mass public opinion and discussion discussed with what they saw happening in Minneapolis, all coming to a head with the murder of Alex Preddy. That has led to a temporary retreat. But that does not mean that you're not going to go back to these very similar tactics. Just to speak to the polling here, let's put C5 up on the screen, because this is the very latest polling on how people view all of this, and it is truly brutal. You've got 63% who now disapprove of ice. So about two thirds of the country that disapprove of ice, you have 60% who want ice out of Minneapolis. You've got almost 60%, 58% who want noem removed from office. And, you know, if you go in there in terms of the percent who think the Alex Purdy killing was justified, it says not justified wins by 40 points, 62 to 22. That's double the margin, actually, on goods killing. So it shows you there was a more fervent public perception on Alex Perdy's killing. There was, I guess people perceived it as sort of less of a gray area. But in any case, these are the type of poll numbers that Trump and his team are looking at and going, you know what? This was our strongest issue, and we have turned it into a nightmare for ourselves. Let's put C6 up on the screen with some new reporting from Ken that is also, I think, worth considering because he got the actual list of all of the munitions that they had stockpiled to use in Minneapolis. So he says, 35,000 munitions in Minneapolis, but then they suddenly withdraw. And this is all the, you know, what they call, like, less lethal, the crowd control stuff. You've got all the, you know, tear gas, tactical grenades, and all of this, but just an insane, extraordinary amount of, you know, just quantity of munitions here to be used on the public in Minneapolis. So you can see what the plan was and now you have obviously this drawdown. So definitely a decided change in course with regard to Minneapolis at least, and at least in just this moment. So one more piece that I want to put up on the screen because I think it's very interesting to get insights as to what Ken has been great at too from inside the agency. But Wired got inside the ICE forum, they say, where agents complain about their jobs. And there's a lot of interesting stuff here because. Because the ICE agents themselves are not happy with the perception of the agency, with how all of this is going. They're disgusted with leadership. There's one user who noted there'd been no pre planning for the influx of officers, how to use them, outfit them, database access, cars, equipment, duties, nada. Instead they throw the RAs to ERO to do consensual encounters that they haven't had training on. Really, a two hour team zoom course ain't enough? Ero, referring to the Enforcement and Removal Operations division of ICE where staffers manage detention and make arrests on the ground. RA refers to rehired annuitant or federal employees who were retired but have since returned to federal work. The same user alleged the arrest reports are also lies in some cases. A lot of cases, lots of false statements at worst, misleading statements at best. Plaintiffs lawyers gonna have a field day with lawsuits after Trump leaves. They talked about the image that was created. They said there was absolutely 0 4th or thought. And our management just rolled over to let bp, that's Border Patrol, take over. Huge mistake when the nuance of actual targeted enforcement is needed. Others complained about the leadership and direction of the agency. They said, led by some of the worst leadership I've ever witnessed, from the local level all the way up to the national stage, this agency has managed to turn a righteous mission, some may disagree with that, into a complete cloud show. So in any case, even the ICE agents are lucky. Like, this is a fucking mess. This is a disaster. And another thing that Ken points out, because what I said to him is like, well, how do you square that with the clear enthusiasm of the people that you see on the ground? And he said, well, it's a selection bias. Cause number one, they're sending out a lot of these new people who signed up because they see the brutality in the street and that's what they want to do, that's where they want to be. And then you're Also asking for people to go on a volunteer basis, which means you're getting, like, the people who are pissed about it and think that they're. That this is disgusting. They aren't the ones who are being sent out. The people who look at this and are like, yes, sign me up to, like, tear gas, a child in a car. Those are the ones who are being selected to go to places like Minneapolis.
- [67:07]
Saagar Enjeti
And the videos that go viral are the worst ones, right? So, like, there's 3,000 agents. We probably have seen like 200 in terms of video. I mean, even in terms of talking about this with ICE agents and all of that, I think it misses the general point, which is that they've chosen to go this way as a reason of their mandate. They clearly had one on immigration and on the border. And, I mean, I've just been thinking about a, you know, a different world, let's say, in which you had passed. Let's say the one big beautiful bill. They extended all of these tax credits. Great, Cool. For rich people. They could never put universal E Verify in that. I just think we're living in a different universe. If you had universal E Verify, which, look, you know, libs, you're going to get mad about it, but yes, many illegals, it means you will not be able to. To be employed. If they had a remittance tax 100% on Mexico, Guatemala, or the entire Northern Triangle, these people would just leave, period. They literally would leave because they cannot send money back for. But guess what? That hurts the banks. It hurts the remittance company, Wells Fargo, all these people. It's gonna hurt the Marriott industry, the weed farmers of California, so that white yuppies can't smoke cheaper marijuana. Yes, all of you may be upset, but then we're gonna have a different conversation about prices and inflation and I mean, at the end of the day, remember Florida? There were videos of viral construction firms which were supposedly empty. They're like, oh, the Florida economy's gonna crash. No, it didn't. Turns out it's fine. You can weather that storm. You would actually be massively popular, I think, if you had something like that. And then what the libs are gonna get mad about fair immigrant, fair employment practices? Like, yeah, that's a joke. You're gonna be arguing on behalf of illegal labor. No, you're not. Not so that you're gonna be put in much more difficult situation. Instead, they chose the other tack. And this is where we are. I mean, we were just talking about this. Ross Doubt that video about how Trump has lost the country. I think it's just unambiguously true. And I think that they have decided to embrace the most base instincts of a very select group of people on Twitter. And in fact, you know, I've talked about how I think liberals were very online, let's say what, 2014 to. When would you call it? Whenever the online stuff started to fade? Maybe 2019, 2020. Maybe up until Elon. But that's when the liberal Jezebel Twitter universe ruled the entire Democratic and liberal establishment, I would say from BLM, MeToo. It was madness. It was obviously driven by a very select group. I think you could probably flip it and say after Elon purchased Twitter, you've had the same phenomenon where you have a very select group of people who will never criticize Trump, who don't not just not criticize Trump. If they do, they'll criticize him for comments like this. And then they will encourage and defend and change the very nature of the information environment which people swim in. And I cannot understate, I cannot overstate enough how much all of these younger staffers and people live on Twitter. They do not even engage with politics on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, where a lot, way more people are, as you and I know, and is creating the same selection bias. Miller, all of these people, you think I'm joking? Like, they live on Twitter. His own wife works for Elon and is on hosting a Twitter platform.
- [70:17]
Krystal Ball
Nothing is easier than picking a Twitter fight with the vice President of the United States. So that's what I'm saying.
- [70:22]
Saagar Enjeti
It's like, this is not the way to run a country. You are actually too online. Like, I really mean. And this has created this situation even in the media, one where they're not living in the world that you and I are.
- [70:35]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [70:36]
Saagar Enjeti
And I can see that because also we host a show on YouTube which is way more accessible to the general public. I could look at our Twitter analytics. I thought Trump switched. I remember distinctly. I went on parental leave. I came back and I was like, oh, man. You know, just. Just from analytics, you can see very clearly. I went on check the YouTube podcast chart. Today, Midas Touch is number two in the United States. Number two behind Joe Rogan. Is there any reckoning with that at the national level? No, they just don't get it.
- [71:05]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, they're still living in the past about. They think it's 24.
- [71:09]
Saagar Enjeti
They don't understand, like you and I can, of how radically things can change. Think back to the online energy from Trump July of 2024 to, I would say January. It was extraordinary. I was relatively certain Trump would win purely based off of our YouTube analytics. And you can see now, based on the way things are trending, I mean, it just, it demonstrates first how coalitions are not static. Number one, two, how the public is much more engaged than you might think because they really believe that people just fuck around and do nothing all day. But they just don't get that relative amounts of check ins. When you start to see enough of these videos, it's not gonna work out well for you and they will switch on you in a.
- [71:50]
Krystal Ball
Well, there's two other things to consider in that. Number one is the fact that for individuals who just want, you know, their influencer base, and I'm not just, I'm not talking about, I'm talking about people in the government who want to be like famous and get patted on the head. Oh, that was so based. That was based. Blah, blah, blah. Then it like, that is actually their, that is their whole world. And they don't really care about what the whole public thinks about. They just want those like that affirmation from the hardest fringe, like neo Nazis online who want to tell them that they're based for whatever outrageous thing that they do. The other thing to keep in mind is that with Stephen Miller being so influential, this man is not buffeted around by the winds of Twitter. He has a project and the reason why he is not that excited about going in and doing the E VERIFY stuff or whatever is not only because it pisses off the wealthy. That is part of it. That's part of certainly why Trump is not interested in going in that direction. But it's because immigration is a key piece of Stephen Miller's broader project of more power projection. That's why. And we've had this discussion before, that's why Minneapolis is chosen, right? It's not because it's a hotbed of undocumented immigration. It's not compared to other cities in the country. It's because it's a hotbed of liberal opposition to Trump from the mayor to the governor, right? And then, you know, you have the Somalis who again, by and large, American citizens. But that's a useful political cudgel. And this will bleed out. We're gonna talk about the elections thing. Steve Bannon is floating, hey, we should use these ICE agents and send them out to the polls. Miller sees this as a cohesive project. He wants to. I don't think he's gonna succeed. But his goal is not only to change the ethnic composition of the country, but to effectively quash the opposition forever and win some sort of a final battle in politics, which is always, you know, it's an impossibility, but that is what he's driving towards. And so him being able to get this massive budget for ICE that they have more money than they could know what to do with, and they're building out all these huge detention centers and flooding them into cities and clashing with liberal protesters, this is all going according to his plan. These are exactly the scenes that he actually wants and was aiming for. So his wings are being clipped right now because Trump is sort of tuning into this and like, wait, wait, wait, this is not actually helping me. I don't like this, this is too far, et cetera. But Stephen Miller's like, dedication to that project is not going anywhere, which is why I was saying earlier he's going to continue work and use whatever angles he can to get back to exactly what he was doing in Minneapolis and surging 35,000 different types of munitions into the city so that they can have these explosive clashes with mostly like white liberal protesters, not actually even undocumented immigrants.
- [74:51]
Saagar Enjeti
So I don't know. I mean, I don't disagree necessarily, to be fair. If you've been read or looked at Stephen or any of these, he's been talking about you verify for 15 years. So it's not like he wouldn't be pushing it. I think he lives in the world of reality where this was the only thing that they could get through the GOP Cola. Don't forget, the GOP congressmen are just as bought off by the agriculture and by the big business industry just as much. And that's part of the reason it doesn't get through ICE agents is frankly the low hanging fruit of being able to fund something without really doing anything about it. Touching the financial system, talking the agricultural, or any of these different big businesses.
- [75:25]
Krystal Ball
No, I agree with you. To Stephen Miller's credit, I guess he is ideologically committed to the project and he doesn't bother him to piss off wealthy people in the service of the project because he is committed to that goal. It's not just transactional for him.
- [75:41]
Saagar Enjeti
That's not so if you go and read, people should remember he worked for Jeff Sessions. Sessions, if people forget, was the very first senator to ever endorse Trump, which was shocking, actually. When was that? 2015, maybe. He was the very first elected politician to endorse Trump. It was genuinely shocking and it was because of immigration. Now, Jeff obviously gets stabbed in the back by Trump because of some Russiagate bullshit later on, and Stephen creates his own own little empire inside of the White House. But a lot of it does trace back to some of the discussion that we're having here. I don't know which way it's going to go. I would say considering the way things are, you're one Nick Shirley video away from everything changing. I guess we can just rely on his own illiteracy and incompetence to make sure that that doesn't happen.
- [76:33]
Krystal Ball
Foreign.
- [76:41]
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