3/13/25: Dems Plot Fake Shutdown Resistance, GOP Senator Downplays Market Crash, Gov Spending Record High Despite DOGE

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Episode Released: March 13, 2025
Title: Dems Plot Fake Shutdown Resistance, GOP Senator Downplays Market Crash, Gov Spending Record High Despite DOGE

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1. Introduction and Episode Overview

In this episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosts Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti delve into a series of pressing political and economic issues shaping the current landscape. From the Democrats' strategies to avert a government shutdown to the GOP's stance on market stability, and the escalating federal spending despite efforts from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the discussion is both comprehensive and incisive.

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2. Democrats' Strategy on Continuing Resolution (CR) and Potential Government Shutdown

Krystal and Sagar kick off the episode by examining the Democrats' maneuvering around the continuation of government funding. The core issue revolves around the Continuing Resolution (CR), a stopgap measure to keep the government operational amidst budget negotiations.

• Krystal Ball [02:08]:
  "If the House and the Senate do not pass some sort of budget funding, then the government is gonna shut down in a day's time."

• Sagar Enjeti [05:21]:
  "Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input from congressional Democrats."

Key Points:

• The House Republicans passed a CR without Democratic input, leading to a potential government shutdown.
• The Senate's filibuster rules require at least seven Democratic senators to move forward, posing a significant hurdle.
• Democrats mobilized their base to oppose the CR, fearing it would grant Republicans carte blanche control.
• Chuck Schumer's Proposal [05:21]:
  "They have to get seven Democratic senators because Rand Paul has already said he is not going to vote for it."

Conclusion:
Democrats appear to be negotiating behind the scenes, attempting to maintain leverage while publicly resisting the CR to prevent a government shutdown. Krystal suggests this strategy might be misleading the Democratic base, indicating potential caving in the future.

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3. Impact of Government Spending and the DOGE Agenda

A significant portion of the discussion centers on DOGE's (Department of Government Efficiency) efforts to reduce federal spending, which paradoxically results in record-high expenditures.

• Krystal Ball [19:01]:
  "Continuing, whenever you're down here is the monthly outlay, for example, on USAID was some 226 million compared with 547 million in the same month."

• Sagar Enjeti [44:04]:
  "Despite what they claimed as $100 billion of savings, spending actually rose by $40 billion compared with the same month just last year."

Key Points:

• Federal spending hit a record $603 billion last month, undermining claims of substantial savings by DOGE.
• Cuts are primarily in smaller departments like USAID, Department of Education, and CFPB, which constitute a minor fraction of the total federal budget.
• The administration's focus appears to be ideological, targeting agencies that oppose their broader agenda rather than making impactful budgetary reductions.
• Jessica Riedel [45:14]:
  "DOGE savings are so small as to not be identifiable in monthly spending totals."

Conclusion:
Despite proclamations of fiscal responsibility, DOGE's actions have led to increased spending, particularly in endeavors aligned with ideological goals rather than genuine efficiency. This approach has negligible impact on the overall federal budget and raises questions about the true motivations behind these cuts.

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4. Economic Analysis: Inflation Numbers, Tariffs, and Market Reactions

The hosts analyze the latest economic data, including inflation rates and the administration's tariff strategies, alongside their implications for the market and the broader economy.

• Krystal Ball [34:23]:
  "The president is working diligently and he's working hard on this every single day. And we need Congress to also help."

• Sagar Enjeti [27:06]:
  "Senator Tommy Tuberville taking to Fox News saying there's no pain, no gain. That's his message on the tariffs."

Inflation Updates:

• Krystal Ball [39:58]:
  "Inflation cooled somewhat more than expected in February. 2.8%."

Tariff Strategies:

• Sagar Enjeti [27:06]:
  "President Trump knows exactly what he's doing and he has a game plan, something Democrats didn't know anything about."

Market Insights:

• The stock market is experiencing volatility, with S&P futures indicating a potential downturn that could propel the economy into recession territory.
• Krystal Ball [36:43]:
  "Tariffs was number one, front and center. And then it was like tariffs misspelled different ways."

Trump's Approval Ratings:

• Sagar Enjeti [28:56]:
  "Donald Trump's current approval rating according to our brand new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, is 45%. His disapproval, Sarah, is at 54%."

Conclusion:
While there are modest signs of cooling inflation, the administration's aggressive tariff policies and contradictory economic messaging are destabilizing market confidence. Trump's declining approval ratings, particularly concerning economic handling, indicate growing public dissatisfaction that could have lasting political repercussions.

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5. Social Security Administration and Efforts to Cut Services

Krystal and Sagar shed light on DOGE's attempts to overhaul the Social Security Administration (SSA), raising concerns about service accessibility for vulnerable populations.

• Krystal Ball [51:03]:
  "They were like how about we cut the phone service so that old people can no longer and disabled people and whoever needs to call in and ask a question about Social Security."

Key Points:

• DOGE is systematically reducing SSA services, including cutting phone support, which disproportionately affects elderly and disabled individuals who rely on these services.
• Efforts to eliminate fraudulent claims have backfired, with discoveries revealing that many flagged accounts were legitimate beneficiaries.
• These cuts lead to longer wait times and reduced accessibility, undermining the very integrity of the SSA.

Notable Example:

• Krystal Ball [62:23]:
  "She posted the Business Woman Special. Not a great look."

Conclusion:
The administration's approach to reforming the SSA is criticized for its lack of sensitivity and effectiveness, creating barriers for those who need assistance the most. These actions not only fail to address genuine issues but also erode public trust in essential government services.

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6. Future of the Democratic Party and Leadership Challenges

The episode explores the internal struggles within the Democratic Party, highlighting a disconnect between leadership and the base's expectations.

• Krystal Ball [22:35]:
  "The Democratic leadership is rudderless. They have no idea what they're doing."

• Sagar Enjeti [13:54]:
  "This is really a fall apart of the Democratic strategy, which doesn't have a singular pillar."

Key Points:

• Leadership figures like Chuck Schumer are perceived as out of touch with the Democratic base's demands for decisive action against Republican strategies.
• Progressive voices, such as Bernie Sanders, are gaining prominence, but there's skepticism about their ability to unify and lead effectively.
• Activist groups like Indivisible express frustration with Democratic leaders, feeling that their concerns are being ignored in favor of political maneuvering.
• Pramila Jayapal [10:14]:
  "Democrats should refuse to allow this bill to pass in the Senate. If they don't, I think there's going to be a huge backlash from across the country."

Conclusion:
The Democratic Party faces significant internal challenges, struggling to present a unified and effective strategy. Leadership appears fragmented, failing to resonate with the base's desires for robust opposition against Republican agendas, potentially jeopardizing future electoral success.

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7. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti wrap up the episode by emphasizing the interconnectedness of political strategies and economic policies, urging listeners to stay informed and engaged.

• Sagar Enjeti [43:15]:
  "Get started risk [e-mail] iheart."

Final Takeaways:

• The episode underscores the complexity of current political maneuvers, highlighting how budget negotiations, economic policies, and internal party dynamics are shaping the nation's future.
• The administration's focus on ideological goals over pragmatic solutions is criticized for leading to increased spending and reduced efficiency.
• The Democratic Party's leadership struggles could have profound implications for upcoming elections and the overall political climate.

Notable Quotes:

• Krystal Ball [09:37]:
  "Just vote for it. Like don't mess around. Don't try to trick people into thinking you're fighting when really you're not."

• Sagar Enjeti [38:52]:
  "The worst possible outcome would be maximalist tariff strategy for the first three months, stock market correction, and then a reversal."

Closing Remark:
This episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar offers a critical examination of the current political and economic strategies in play, urging both parties to rise above partisan tactics and focus on policies that genuinely benefit the American populace.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Krystal Ball [02:08]:
  "If the House and the Senate do not pass some sort of budget funding, then the government is gonna shut down in a day's time."

• Sagar Enjeti [05:21]:
  "Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input from congressional Democrats."

• Pramila Jayapal [10:14]:
  "Democrats should refuse to allow this bill to pass in the Senate. If they don't, I think there's going to be a huge backlash from across the country."

• Krystal Ball [09:37]:
  "Just vote for it. Like don't mess around. Don't try to trick people into thinking you're fighting when really you're not."

• Sagar Enjeti [38:52]:
  "The worst possible outcome would be maximalist tariff strategy for the first three months, stock market correction, and then a reversal."

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Note:
This summary focuses solely on the substantive discussions between Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti, excluding advertisements and non-content segments to provide a coherent and comprehensive overview of the episode's key themes and insights.

Transcript

[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

[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.

[Sagar 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.

[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.

[Sagar 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?

[Krystal Ball]

Indeed we do lots of big breaking news updates. We've got the very latest for you on that effort to pass a CR as Senate Dems plot what their move will be. We got some new inflation numbers, potentially good news for this White House amidst economic turmoil and some interesting new comments from Tommy Tuberville as well. Doge so far in terms of the alleged cut spending goal, not really making a dent. Actually spending is up after even all of their chainsaw efforts. So Break down what that means. We've got the latest for you on Mahmoud Khalil and some other censorship efforts. We've got Zionists claiming a scalp in the Trump administration. This was an important battle. Didn't want to let this one slide by. Greasy Gavin meets Sloppy Steve. Have some highlights from that podcast to share with you and what it all means about the future of the Democratic Party. And it is the end of an era at Southwest Airlines. They are now going to charge four bags, joining the rest of the industry. So very sad to see.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's sad to see because I think it just really is a demarcation point in the overall US Economy and the consumer experience. We live truly in the idiocracy in the world in which we're all just going to get it charged for everything in corporate states of America. It's sad. It's sad. Crystal, what do you got here? This is a new one for you. Crystal's got an energy drink on the desk.

[Krystal Ball]

Usually I'm the only Camp Aulani flavor. By the way.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We're not getting paid for this.

[Krystal Ball]

Not getting paid. This is. It's sort of like a. Tastes like a creamsicle. They're delicious. And it's almost like bottled cracks. Okay, there you go. About halfway through it. So things will get even more interesting as we go along.

[Sagar Enjeti]

All right, let's get to the cr.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's get to the cr. I hate this topic because it's so like in the weeds DC but the TLDR is if the House and the Senate do not pass pass some sort of budget funding, then the government is gonna shut down in a day's time. The House Republicans were able to pass a continuing resolution. They lost one vote from their caucus. They gained one vote from the Democratic caucus, but pretty much down a party line vote. They did not negotiate with the Democrats on this. I'll give you a few more details about the CR ups defense spending a little bit. It reduces some domestic spending by a bit. It has some other provisions in it that Democrats really object to. So. So that passes the House on more or less a party line vote, then it goes to the Senate. Well, the Senate's a little more interesting because of the filibuster rules. They have to get seven Democratic senators because Rand Paul has already said he is not going to vote for it. So it was looking yesterday like the Democratic senators were just going to cave and vote for this cr. And this is extremely consequential because it is really the only time when Republicans are gonna need Democrats for Anything at all. So this is truly their only moment of leverage. The Democratic base is very adamant that they do not want Democratic senators to help Republicans to fund the government and give what they see as a carte blanche to Trump and to Elon to continue doing whatever the hell that they want to do. So there has been a mass mobilization of the Democratic base to call their senators and tell them vote no. So yesterday it was a real open question. It looked like they were going to cave. And then Chuck Schumer gets on the Senate floor and seems to indicate a different strategy. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what he has to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input, any input from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House cr. Our caucus is unified on a clean 4-11-cr that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass. We should vote on that. I hope, I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.

[Krystal Ball]

So what he floats There is a 30 day, quote, unquote clean CR, which means the same funding levels as currently exists. No messing around, no different provisions, no rolling back this, no adding money to defense, et cetera, just for 30 days so that they can negotiate on a broader package. So initially there were a lot of Democratic activists who were like, my God, they're actually not going to cave. But what it looks like is actually probably happening, although none of this is a done deal yet, is that they are more. It's less that they're not going to cave and more that they're coming up with a strategy to try to trick their own base into thinking that they're fighting for something. So let's put this up on the screen. This is the latest from Manu Raju over at cnn. He says John Thune, who's the Senate Majority Leader now takes the procedural step to bring the House spending bill to the floor. The vote would occur Friday morning, hours before the government shutdown deadline. Unless there's an agreement to have it sooner, 60 votes would be needed. Schumer is threatening to block it, but senators on both sides think an agreement to give Dems an amendment vote for a 30 day extension which would fail, could help end the standoff. So effectively Democrats strategy appears to be that they're going to push for this show vote on a 30 day cr. They're going to vote for cloture, so they're going to not filibuster the whole thing. Their little 30 day show vote will fail. But since they've already voted for cloture, that means that Republicans can move forward with their CR and pass it with a bear majority. They no longer need the Democrats and things move forward. So like I said, I know that was a lot, but the tldr is that Democrats appear to be trying to come up with a plan to trick their own base into thinking they are not caving, when they in fact are caving.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right. It's hilarious because it would take people like us to have to sit here and to explain it to everyone. But the point is, is that this is actually fecklessness on their part because they're getting a lot of pressure to try and appear as if they're standing up to Trump. And if you compare it to, let's say the Tea Party, I mean, they would have no qualms whatsoever of voting this thing down. They're like, absolutely not. You're gonna what we want. Oh, the House is out of town, we don't care. Shut the government down. If you think about it too, you know, the White House seems to think that they would be on strong grounds for a shutdown. I don't think that that's true because people usually blame the party in power of all three and the executive largely is the person who absorbs all of that. I think actually one reason I heard floated is that Democrats are terrified of a shutdown because then Trump gets to decide who is essential government personnel and who's not. So it would only be even easier for him and Doge to fire the employees. But broadly, people be aware here, the Democratic leadership is rudderless. They have no idea what they're doing. The Democratic senators are actually getting quite a bit of calls and others to their offices telling them, hey, please, like, do something. And they just refuse basically to even try. So they're trying to show people, oh, well, we did this. But I mean, I don't think that people, voters and others are gonna buy it. They're gonna see that at the end of the day, nothing goes through the Senate unless the Democrats want it to pass. Let's be clear here. In a world with, in a world without the filibuster, and he still needs 60 votes for cloture. If the Dems vote for it, they know exactly what they're doing.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I think that's right. And so I think they, if this is what they go forward with, with, again, not a done deal yet. And guys, if you want them to stand up, you can call them and let them know. And I know many people out there that are. But I do think if they, you know, it's almost worse. Like just, just if you want this thing to go, then just frickin vote for it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I agree.

[Krystal Ball]

Just vote for it. Like don't mess around. Don't try to trick people into thinking you're fighting when really you're not. Like don't, don't do. I think that will actually just piss people off even more because they're gonna see through the trick. Let me go ahead and play Pramila Jayapal, who of course a progressive leader in the House, warning Democratic senators of exactly what Sager is saying, which is you may face a real backlash if you go along with Republicans and this one moment when they need you and when you have some leverage to potentially extract something from them in this negotiation. Let's take a listen to what she has to say. They should refuse to allow this bill.

[Sagar Enjeti]

To pass in the Senate. If they don't, I think there's going.

[Krystal Ball]

To be huge backlash from across the country and I think all of them will, you know, will have to deal.

[Sagar Enjeti]

With the consequences of that.

[Krystal Ball]

The Republicans have the White House, the Senate and the House. If they want to do this and if they want to screw over the American people, they can do this with.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Their votes in their party.

[Krystal Ball]

I do not believe that Democrats should participate. And to Sager's point about the Democratic leadership being rudderless, we have all known for months now that this shutdown fight was coming on March 14th and yet they had not worked out a strategy, they hadn't really aggressively messaged around it so that there isn't a clear cut like okay, here's what we're demanding in exchange, we will support. We don't want to shut down the government because we're Democrats and we support the government, whatever. But here's our list of demands. None of that has been developed, none of that has been messaged to address what Sagra was saying too about the concern that, listen, number one for Democrats, it's uncomfortable cuz they are the party of like hey, we actually think that government does some good things. It's a different ideological orientation versus the Tea Party that's like screw government, whatever, we don't care if it shuts down. So that is uncomfortable. But to address that core concern of like, okay, so if there's a government shutdown then maybe you're just handing power to Trump and Elon to say who's essential and who's Not. And I just look at that and I'm like, what world are you living in? Because they're already operating that way. I mean, we just got. The Department of Education just got slashed by half this week. USAID was just completely dismantled, as was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Like probationary employees were mass fired across the government. Elon and Doge are deciding what they feel like spending and what they don't. So that ship has sailed. Like, they already are calling the shots on literally everything. They are racking up losses in terms of the court system. But as you can tell, that is taking a long time for any of that to be enforced or final decisions to be made, et cetera. And meanwhile they're just rolling through and doing whatever they want. So if you think that you're protecting something by going along with this and continuing, the government is effectively already in a shutdown in a certain sense because Trump and Elon have already claimed those powers for themselves.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I think it is just ironic that really what we're watching is a fall apart of the Democratic strategy, which doesn't have a singular pillar like last time, which was just Russiagate. And so this time around, whenever they're trying to be and find a message, they just don't really know quite what to do. I also think that there is an elderly aspect to this with Schumer, where Schumer is a traditionalist of the White House. He's not somebody who's ever read the base and or its moments. So his political movement is not one that at least like with McConnell. McConnell was an old school creature, but he understood very clearly the assignment, if we'll all remember the famous quote of him in 2009. And he's like, our job is to get Barack Obama not reelected, period. He's like, we're not here to do anything else. Our job is to defeat Obama. That's it. We need to hold up the President's agenda. And he laid it out very clearly. That was a big scandal in Washington at the time. But if we're looking back, it was the correct strategy if you were working on behalf of the Republicans, because with the Repub. Is their base hated Obama and they didn't want anything to do with any senator or whoever was gonna play ball. And that happened in the Tea Party wave. Many of the people who got took out, many of the incumbents even in their primaries, were those who saw as too conciliatory to the administration. So at a political level, they just have no clue yet what they're dealing with. Right now. And I do think it's a. I think it's a big problem for them.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, I would be inclined to agree with your assessment that it's like elderly gerontocracy. Ish. I think that's part of it. But then when you see Bernie Sanders who like 83 years old, who's out there and like leading the chart, I mean, Bernie has, Bernie has, Bernie is the leader of the Democratic Party right now. Like, he has stepped into that role. I think that is, you know, I.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Don'T think that's true.

[Krystal Ball]

I think that is absolutely true in terms of the. He is the one person who is like setting the bar of, okay, here's what we're gonna do and here's how we're gonna move forward and here's how we're messaging. That's what I mean by he is. The leader of the Democratic Party at this point is sure as hell is not Chuck Schumer. And so I think it's less an issue of his age and more an issue of a cowardice that has set in at the core of Democratic Party elected, especially like elected leaders, they are so afraid of rocking the boat, of facing some blowback, of having to make a case of really getting into the arena. And that's, to me, what really comes through here. Because again, we've known the shutdown fight was coming. Okay, if you don't think this is the place to take a stand and put your chips down and use what little bit of leverage you have, then what is your other plan? Give an alternative where you're, okay, well, no, we're not going to do it. But here's where we really think we're going to take a stand. It's not going to be on reconciliation, which is the next big thing that's going to come up, because that doesn't require you. That requires only a bare majority vote in the Senate. There is no 60 vote filibuster on the reconciliation bill. So where is the other place where you're gonna take any sort of a stand? So that's why, I mean, it really is just so clear that they are not up to the moment. It's telling that they feel at least some pressure from the base. Like, okay, we've gotta at least try to trick them into thinking we're fighting for something. But I think you're fools if you think they're really gonna fall for it. This is Jenny Garth from I do part two. If you could lose 10.4 pounds in one month, would you try with Future Health. You can Future Health gives millions access to affordable weight loss meds for less than three bucks a day. Find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just three minutes at try fh.com try fh.com results vary based on start weight and adherence to diet, exercise and program goals. Data based on independent study sponsored by Future Health. Future Health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at providers discretionary.

[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

Lenovo the novel the last thing I wanted to mention about this CR and this will transition into the block we're about to do about the economy, which is just a little interesting nugget in there. They put these little provisions in, think that nobody's really going to notice. They can put this up on the screen. So inserted into this continuing resolution is an item to what the New York Times describes as quietly seed power to cancel Trump's tariffs, avoiding a tough vote. So it says. House Republican leaders on Tuesday quietly moved to shield their members from having a vote on whether to end President Trump's tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, tucking language into a procedural measure. That's the CR that effectively removes their chamber's ability to undo the levies. The maneuver was a tacit acknowledgment of how politically toxic the issue had become for their party. Another example of how the all Republican Congress is ceding its power to the executive branch. So they don't want to have to take an up or down vote on Trump's tariffs because they don't want to get crosswise with Trump. But business world hates the tariffs. The tariffs are very unpopular at this point. So they're just like, okay, we just, we're going to wash our hands of it and just let you do whatever and we're not going to have any say in it. What here.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's really not surprising actually at all because why would you want to take a tough vote? This is also part of the problem with all of these things getting lumped together as usual. They always don't want to make it so that they have to take single up or downs. But I don't know, I'm curious to see if that soak based reaction. I mean my thing with the, the only reason I said I don't think Bernie is the leader, I think that's a little bit of progressive wish casting. Like it's not like this Democratic base is all on board with Medicare for all or all this other stuff. They just want somebody to quote, fight. So Democrats, like, you know, they want the activism that's like the beating heart of like what they think is being a Democrat right now. I don't know, I mean, I'm just skeptical because if this were true, then that guy Zoron would be winning, you know, hands down in the New York City primary. Right. And it's just not gonna happen. Like I mean I said on, I think our editorial call, my call is Cuomo by 50. Like the truth is, is that these traditional Democratic politicians and others, even as long as they embody like somewhat of the fight, they seem to be massively more popular, you know, than any sort of like actual progressive politics. So I just don't think we can say Bernie is quote the leader of the Democratic Party. I just think that the fight and all of that is being dispersed in popularity across the board. But there are still like serious policy differences and even like theoretical differences in power and all of that that are working out right now.

[Krystal Ball]

So let me, let me parse that a little. We could say more of this conversation for the block we have coming up about the Democrats. So first of all, I disagree with you that the base doesn't want Medicare for all. Even when, I mean when Bernie was losing to Joe Biden, still a overwhelming majority of Democratic base voters preferred Medicare for all, but the reason they voted for Joe Biden is because they thought he was more electable and they wanted to defeat Trump. And that was their number. They were convinced of that and that was their number one issue. So it really didn't have, ultimately the election didn't turn on Medicare for all in the Democratic primary. If it did, they would have picked Bernie Sanders. That's number one. But number two, you're absolutely right that from talking to Brian Tyler Cohen, you get the sense it's not that Democratic based voters have suddenly become more progressive in terms of their ideological valencies. They just want someone who will fight. So if that person is Jasmine Crockett, who is more mixed in terms of her, the ideological valence of her, she's been pro crypto, she's been more pro Israel, but she is a fighter and she's very charismatic and she's not afraid to get in there and mix it up. They will take her, they will take Al Green, they will take Bernie Sanders, they will take AOC. You're 100% correct that it has much less to do with, with where they position themselves on a left right spectrum and more about where they position themselves on. Are you willing to actually stand up and fight and do something and at least show that you're upset about what's going on in this era? And so I think that's really sort of the core here. And if you are a Democratic leader who thinks that the right thing to do is, for example, to just like hang out and make nice with Charlie Kirk all day, it doesn't really matter where you are on the ideological spectrum, they're gonna see that as totally unacceptable.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I wanna see cause for this theory to work, then these people have to start actually getting serious primary opponents and losing. And I mean, we're not really gonna find that out for another 18 months. But I'm curious. Like, let's watch everybody. If anybody sees a serious challenge to a real Democratic incumbent, let us know. I wanna track those campaigns and maybe we can compile like a spreadsheet or something and then check that we could.

[Krystal Ball]

Have the Justice Democrats people on and talk to them about what's happening.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I'd be curious. I mean, no offense to them though, but it's like, you know, they don't have a very good track record here. So that's why I just, I am very skeptical of all these people's political judgment. I have not yet seen any truth to the fact that these folks are truly harnessing Anything to, like, be able to win an election. You know, you can have some power, you can have some social media buzz and that, but actually, winning is a very, very different thing. I'm still very skeptical.

[Krystal Ball]

The other people that'd be interesting to have on are the indivisible people, because they're not. They're not Bernie people. In fact, they were sort of adversarial to some of the Bernie primary candidates.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I forget indivisible.

[Krystal Ball]

They sprung up after Trump was elected the first time, and they were like the sort of core resistance group that sprung up in counties across the country. And so they are the ones who, again, ideologically, they're just, like, squarely in the sort of Democratic liberal mainstream and thoroughly disgusted with the lackluster, rudderless approach of the Democratic Party. So it'd be interesting to talk to them and see what they're hearing from their groups. And I know that they're one of the groups that Hakeem Jeffries was pissed off at them because their members were calling Democratic leadership and telling them to stand up. I know that their meetings have been flooded with people who are showing up, what can we do? How can we fight back? Et cetera. And again, this is not, you know, this isn't justice. It's not Bernie aligned. This is like base liberal resistance voters who are now truly disgusted with Democratic leadership in a way that is so different from 2016, when Nancy Pelosi was a hero and Adam Schiff was a hero, and they felt like Democrats were truly fighting for them and on their behalf and they were loving MSNBC and all of that stuff.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

So I think it'd be really interesting to talk to them about what shifts they're seeing and what kind of energy they're seeing and how they're feeling about how things are going. Because, again, Democratic leadership's underwater with the Democratic base. And I've never seen that be the case.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, but Republican leadership's always underwater with the Republican base. Yeah, but that's always.

[Krystal Ball]

But that's. The point is like, the Tea Party was a real thing.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it was. Until it wasn't. Right. And it's like it was. And then Paul Ryan was there and he was unpopular, even though he was a Tea Party guy. And then Mike Johnson is here and he's unpopular, you know, with the base who came before him. McCarthy, he was unpopular, but. So it's like. I don't know, it's one of those where Congress in general is always more.

[Krystal Ball]

Rebellion on the Republican side.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

And now you have a Democratic base that is showing much more rebellion than they previously have vis a vis their own leaders and media outlets. Even think about like the 300,000 people who dumped the Washington Post when they didn't endorse Kamala. You know, I mean that's, it really is different because that's what determined the 2020 election is that liberals were like tell us who to vote for. And all of those outlets were like, it's Joe Biden. And that was basically that. Yeah, that has changed.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's true. Yeah, I think that's, that's a fair point. We'll talk more about this in the Democrats block.

[Krystal Ball]

This is Jenny Garth from I do part two. If you could lose 10.4 pounds in one month, would you try with Future Health? You can. Future Health gives millions access to affordable weight loss meds for less than three bucks a day. Find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just three minutes at try fh.com try fh. Results vary based on start weight and adherence to diet, exercise and program goals. Data based on independent study sponsored by Future Health. Future Health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at providers discretion.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Stop hitting snooze on new tech.

[Krystal Ball]

Upgrade the whole [e-mail] Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device. Win the tech search for business PCs.

[Sagar Enjeti]

At Lenovo.com Lenovo Lenovo.

[Krystal Ball]

This message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest.

[Krystal Ball]

With your guardrails in place.

[Sagar Enjeti]

With Greenlight, you can send money to.

[Krystal Ball]

Kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building.

[Krystal Ball]

Healthy financial habits together on Greenlight.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Get started risk [e-mail] iheart all right, let's talk about the economy, shall we? Because lots of stuff still going on here. Republican senators doing themselves no favors. Senator Tommy Tuberville taking to Fox News saying there's no pain, no gain. That's his message on the tariffs. Let's take a listen. And Trump's tariffs making America great again. It's a great strategy if somebody's finally.

[Krystal Ball]

Doing something out of the White House.

[Sagar Enjeti]

President Trump, that is. That says you have to take an action in another country. Yeah, no pain, no gain. That's what we used to tell our football players there's going to be some pain with tariffs. But tariffs got us back as the strongest economy in the world when President Trump was in the first time. He knows what he's doing. Democrats, get out of the way, shut up. You have no answers. You didn't do anything right in the last four years with Joe Biden. We have a game plan. Trump has a game plan. Along with Howard Ludnick and the other people that are pushing the tariffs. We can turn this thing around. But folks, let me tell you, this is our last chance. If we can't get it done now with tariffs and with putting and pulling regulations and getting people back to work and cutting our debt and cutting the amount of spending, we're not going to have the country that we've had before. So people need to just listen, learn from this, understand it's short term pain. We're going to get this turned around. President Trump knows exactly what he's doing and he has a game plan, something Democrats didn't know anything about. No pain, no gain. These guys have really got to get their stuff together because that has never been a historical message that has worked politically, literally ever. You need to instead be talking about the gain part and not really talking or emphasizing the pain. You're like, we have a serious plan. This is what we're doing. These are the number of jobs that are going to be coming back. I saw you and Emily covered that. Howard Lutnick.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I wanted to talk about it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It was unbelievable. And, you know, it's ironic, two days ago he said there won't be a recession, so which one is it?

[Krystal Ball]

And he said, just to remind people, he said a recession would be worth it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right?

[Krystal Ball]

Worth it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Okay. Nobody in all of human history in politics has ever, ever succeeded by running on that. And that is the part which is really starting to drive me crazy is that without any serious affirmation plans and you know, actual trust with the American people that things are going to get better tangibly quickly. We are a consumption based society after all, then I don't think that this is going to work. And you really actually risk doing a lot of damage and reversing a lot of the basically embrace of the American people of targeted tariffs. Most people are on board with tariffs if you sell them correctly and if you tell, then explain the benefits as they're part of a plan. But if you have a yo yo strategy and people basically start to believe that all tariffs are bad, we're gonna end up right back to where we Are in the first place. No, many tariffs are good. I'm extremely supportive of tariffs. Canada, Mexico, China, et cetera. The problem is, is that they're on, then they're off and then they're off for the auto workers. And then now we're here and soon we're gonna be giving exemptions and then we're not giving exemptions and people can't pay attention. At the same time, their public services are basically remaining flat. So now what? And then, oh, in your retirement account, I think 35% of Americans have 401k and so their retirement is down. The rest of the 65% of Americans or so are gonna be affected by the stock market basically, whether you like it or not, if there's a 20%. So what do we do right now from the all time high, I think we're down roughly like 8 or 9% S&P futures. While you and I are recording is all the gains of yesterday are basically being erased. So let's say we go down, we're roughly down 10. When you're down 20, you know, not only will we pass correction territory, we're going towards recession territory. There's gonna be layoffs. There's no question. The only thing that could potentially, I think, save the economy right now is the Federal Reserve. They're not meeting until May to announce their interest rate. Two months is a long time and America's not a forgiving nation. It's really not with consumption. They will do it if you sell them, if you have a plan, et cetera. But if they feel screwed around with and they just have less money, that's not a good, that's not a place to engender any sort of confidence in your government. And we're starting to see some of this tick down now. Here's the same caveat with all these polls. It could be fake, I have no idea. But there are at least a number of polls right now showing Trump's economic approval going down. I would only pay attention because traditionally it's been. Even if the polls were fake, even in the fake ones, he's usually been doing pretty well. Here's what the CNN poll had to say. Donald Trump's current approval rating according to our brand new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, is 45%. His disapproval, Sarah, is at 54%. He's clearly upside down underwater. Any expression you want to use to say this is not where any president would want to be. And if you over time, that 45% number, that was actually his high watermark in all of CNN's polling throughout his first administration. So if you look at the issue set overall, how is he handling the whole host of issues that we tested, there are some issues he scores quite high on. 51% approve of his handling of immigration. But you ask the key question, the economy, it is by far issue number one for voters. Nothing really comes close overall for Americans. And on that score, he's actually performing a tick below his Overall approval rating. 44% approve of his handling of the economy. You see that they're below his job overall there. The economy, 44%. 56%, Sarah, disapprove. He is minus 12 percentage points on the issue that Americans say is the most important. So everybody take that for what you will. The point is, is that even our friend Logan, Logan Phillips, from Race to the White House, he pointed this out. Let's put it up there on the screen. You currently have a net shift from approval to disapproval. Dropped an average of 5.3% across eight separate polls in the Trump overall net approval rating. And all of this generally tied to, I think, the economy. And you really have to be certain that what you're doing is going to produce a good outcome and that people are going to be with you throughout that period. And the White House right now is coasting off of being new. We see this in Caroline Levitt's comments. Actually, that's what she told me, right. Whenever I asked about the stock market. But somebody over there actually asked a great question. So, like, how much longer are you going to blame Biden? Here's what she had to say.

[Krystal Ball]

How does the White House measure this in terms of when can you not blame it on former President Biden and when does it fully become President Trump's responsibility? Well, we've only been here for 52 days, but certainly the president is working hard every day to again bring down the cost of living, which we see is already happening. You see, the cost of eggs is going down. Cost of gasoline is going down because of the massive deregulatory efforts of this president. And also the fact that we are delivering on his promise to drill, baby, drill already. You saw this past weekend, the National Economic Advisory put out a report that because of the regulations we've already slashed, in just 52 days, we've saved American taxpayers $180 billion. That comes out to about $2,000 per American household.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's in 52 days.

[Krystal Ball]

So the president is working diligently and he's working hard on this every single day. And we need Congress to also Help. We need Congress to pass tax cuts, which the President campaigned on and the vast majority of the American people support.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So there you go. She's like, well, we've only been here for 52 days. Look, America will give you Runway. That's what I want people to remember. Trump is not sunk. He's not done. There's none of that whatsoever. You still got a long way to go. We're only 53 days or whatever into the administration, however, and I'll go back to the Biden administration. He started at a 70 something approval rating. It took him nine months to go underwater. Trump is the most divisive person probably in modern American politics. So started off a little bit lower, but the economy was a huge strength of his. Always the whole like, oh, wish I had mean tweets right now, or whatever. And seniors, the people who vote more than anybody are also the people with the most assets and are gonna be paying the most attention to the stock market. So there's a lot of political built in apparel for the Trump administration right now. And I don't know, I really wonder how much of it is bluster, how much of it is real. And I actually think the worst possible outcome would be maximalist tariff strategy for the first three months, stock market correction, and then a reversal, because then you wouldn't even have any of the new jobs as a result of the tariffs. You'd have just the pain and then caving to the business community after a couple of months, which. And then also the public, as I said earlier, would nuke its approval of tariffs, which, like, no tariffs are good and necessary. But I don't know, I'm worried, I'm worried that about not only the strategy, but I could see people pulling away if we get to 20 and 30% correction territory. I mean, nobody in America has experienced 30% or whatever in a long time. Yeah, I saw some people posting Warren Buffett's letter to America the other day. He wrote this in 2008 about why he was. I was like, guys, the market's only down 10%. He wrote that when the market was down 50%. So none of us have been there. I have a lot more respect for my dad now after living through this and how he white knuckled it all the way through the Great Recession. So it's. None of us have had to live through that yet. Hopefully we don't, but that can cause all kinds of crazy political problems at that time if we get to that.

[Krystal Ball]

No doubt about it. And you might be surprised to learn, but I share your concern that this is gonna just completely negatively polarize people against any tariffs whatsoever. He's giving tariff policy a terrible name right now because it's done in such a chaotic, haphazard, across the board, non targeted, no story about why we're doing this and what the benefits are or the story changes every day, et cetera. And as you guys know, I supported his tariffs that he put in. I supported the Biden tariffs, which were paired with industrial policy which did have positive benefits and helped to reshore some manufacturing and were targeted at particular industries. There are instances where tariffs make a lot of sense, but the way that this is going, it's a total and complete disaster. And we showed yesterday, Emily and I, the word cloud from JL Partners. They asked people like, what is Trump's biggest mess up? And maybe you guys can throw it up in post and add it into the segment. But tariffs was number one, front and center. And then it was like tariffs misspelled different ways. And then the number two was all different sorts of things regarding Elon Doge, federal firing, government. So all of those are really core sort of economic pieces. And for Trump to have at the core of his administration discontent like that really is the story of his administration right now, discontent around his economic moves. That is something that is definitely new and different ultimately from the first term. I do want to say, though, they did get some good news. Now there's another inflation report that is set to come out maybe today or tomorrow, and we'll see what that one says as well. But we could put this up on the screen. Inflation cooled somewhat more than expected in February. 2.8%. Core reading also eased. But looming tariffs, they say, may keep consumer prices rising. So consumer prices were up 2.8% in February from a year earlier. That's according to a Labor Department report versus a January gain of 3%. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had expected a 2.9% gain. So it came in a little bit better than expected prices, excluding food and energy categories. The so called core measure that economists watch in an effort to better capture inflation's underlying trend because food is more volatile, rose 3.1%. That was the lowest year over year reading since 2021, also lower than the 3.2% expected by economists. So when you heard Caroline Levitt there saying that egg prices are down and inflation is cooling and lowest reading since 2021, whatever this is what she is referring to, one of the theories of what they're doing where it really feels like they're Manufacturing, a stock market crash and manufacturing effectively a recession is that that is an effort to crush demand, which means crushing your wages and ability to spend in order to get infl. So that is one theory for what is going on out there, which if your goal to get inflation down is basically to screw over regular people, I don't think that's something that people should support, even if it does have the impact here of cutting inflation. But I'm not trying to sandbag them on this. It's good inflation's coming down. It's good. It's a good piece of news for them, et cetera. But just putting in that broader picture of what one of the theories about what the hell they're up, no one knows.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Let's put the next one up there. Egg prices, by the way, have started to fall. So that's good. Fortune magazine was saying it could be just for a little while. This is actually mostly as a result of like the wild swings in the bird population and in bird flu control. But also it possibly, hopefully could be a result also of the administration announcing an investigation into those egg producers. Right, that's right. Because, and you know, this is part of my issue as well. It goes back to the Biden administration. I'm not really sure why they are. I'm not really sure why they're not talking more about these types of initiatives. I mean, I have a suspicion, which is that it's very anti big business and they don't necessarily wanna be tagged that way. And I would say, okay, great big business or whatever is not the be all end all of the US Economy. It's a good thing to fact that a daily staple like this and the price is going to continue to go down. We should try and do more of that across the board. So interesting. Also political judgment there by the White House. But yeah, I mean, like you said, I'm rooting for inflation to go down no matter what. I'm especially rooting for inflation in the most important places in American life to go down, like in housing, and especially hoping that these interest rates go down so that people can get more affordable mortgages. But things are not good right now, no matter what. And the White House has got to play very, very close attention, otherwise they're in big trouble and they'll end up with high tariffs, high inflation, high unemployment and high interest rates. I mean, what a shit situation that would be.

[Krystal Ball]

Stagflation.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Can we even imagine.

[Krystal Ball]

Stagflation is definitely one possibility that is on the table. And the other thing to note about this report is it really comes in. It's reflecting data from before any of the tariffs were put on too. So we don't really have any indication yet what that might have done, what impact that might have had on prices. This is Ashley Iconetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. If you could lose 10.4 pounds in one month, would you try? Well, with Future Health, you can find.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Out if weight loss meds are right.

[Krystal Ball]

For you in just 3 minutes at try fh.com that is try fh.com try f h.com results may vary based on start weight and adherence to diet, exercise and program goals. Database on Independent studies sponsored by Future Health Future Health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at provider's discretion.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Stop hitting snooze on new tech Upgrade.

[Krystal Ball]

The whole [e-mail] Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Create and boost productivity all on one device. Win the tech search for business [e-mail].

[Krystal Ball]

Lenovo this message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest.

[Krystal Ball]

With your guardrails in place.

[Sagar Enjeti]

With Greenlight, you can send money to.

[Krystal Ball]

Kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building.

[Krystal Ball]

Healthy financial habits together on Greenlight.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Get started risk [e-mail] iheart all right, let's get over to Doge. This is, you know, funny, depressing, depending which way you want to look at it. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. So for all the talk of cutting federal spending, of budgets, of America going bankrupt, et cetera. New report from the Treasury Department. Keep that in mind from the actual Department of the treasury, not from everybody else. Shows that US federal spending actually rose to a record of 603 billion just last month, despite any claims of, what is it, 100 billion or so in savings. Remember that? What's the word? You were an accountant, right?

[Krystal Ball]

Lies.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Amortized.

[Krystal Ball]

Lies.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, but what am I looking for? Like that word about taking spending and putting it over a period of time. I think it's amortized. Yeah, amoritized.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Despite, like this is always. When people are like, we're cutting $10 trillion in spending, it's like, yeah, it's theoretical spending over 10 years, man. Like, how much are you actually cutting right now. So they have claimed $100 billion of savings, quote. But only a handful of departments have registered any drops in spending. In the first full month of the administration, spending actually rose by 40 billion compared with the same month just last year. On a like for like basis, which is a 7% increase in month over month data, they have actually shown few large categories that have achieved some decrease. The Department of Education had cut outgoings by about 6 billion. So that means that those were made up for elsewhere. Jessica Riedel. Yeah. Who is an economic expert at the Manhattan Institute, was quoted here saying, doge savings are so small as to not be identifiable in monthly spending totals. And continuing, whenever you're down here is the monthly outlay, for example, on USAID was some 226 million compared with 547 million in the same month. But that's what I kept trying to say even during that whole USAID fight is I was like, hey, guys, this is 0.2% of the federal budget.

[Krystal Ball]

Right?

[Sagar Enjeti]

And it's like, well, if we look at where a lot of the payment and the spending and all of that is going, it's on stuff that no one's even thinking about cutting. Defense budget entitlements and debt servicing. All three of those, arguably, interest rates have cost America more than anything else because it increases the amount that we have to pay to service our debt. That alone, apparently, debt servicing is more than all federal tax revenue that they took in just last year. So what are we doing here in the idea of federal employees or whatever? It's just a drop in the bucket. If you really wanna change things, fine, let's have that conversation. I'd be happy to, but nobody seems particularly interested.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And some of the discourse I've seen online about this is like, okay, so which is it? Is Elon, you know, messing everything up or is he doing nothing at all? And what you're pointing to helps to square the circle. If you eliminated every single civilian federal government employee, all of them, it's 4.3% of the budget. The things that he has targeted USAID, we're talking about a budget in the millions, while meanwhile, you're planning an extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs act, you know, tax cut for the rich and corporations, 4.6 trillion. Okay, so it is very possible to slash government workers and make it so old people can't call the Social Security lines anymore. And there's huge lines and hours to get service and to completely dismantle usaid, cut the Department of Education by half, cut NIH funding by a significant amount and do a lot of real damage while saving comparatively pennies in comparison to the federal government budget. And that is effectively what is going on here. Because again, they haven't touched the Pentagon. I mean, that's the place where you would really want to cut. And I don't want them to touch Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. But if you aren't doing significant, significant cuts in those areas, then you're gonna see the numbers continue to go up. I mean, that's just where you are. And it's very, I mean, you can't take seriously anyway their claims of grave concern about the debt and the deficit when they are planning these massive tax cut giveaways to people who really don't need it, and also, by the way, planning on increasing defense spending, et cetera. So I have always said it's really important to not take at face value the claim that Doge is about saving money. Doge is a power play. That's what it is for Elon. And also for people who are ideological libertarians or anarcho capitalists who are just opposed to government, don't want government to have power, see government as like a rival power center to the conservative movement. People like Russ Vogt, who is a real sort of ideological stalwart in this direction. It's not really about saving money for Elon. It's about making sure these agencies can't stand in the way of his companies, especially targeting the ones that have irritated him the most, the FAA and other places, making sure that he has his hand on the tiller so that he can, whether it's feeding data into to his AI system or whether it's potentially shuffling contracts into his companies, which we've already seen him do in certain instances. And it's also for others, an ideological project of just like, how do I tear the government down and make sure that it can't work and can't deliver for people? So it's sold because it's popular as efficiency, as cutting out waste, as reducing the debt and the deficit. But that isn't really the core of the ideological goal. One other thing I wanted to get your thoughts on this, Sagar. So I was thinking about the areas like you named the places where they actually spending went down, like they've made the most severe cuts and usaid, Department of Education, CFPB are kind of top of that list. All of which again, have comparatively small budgets when you look at the grand scheme of the federal government. But those are three areas where the Russ Vote Project 2025 conservative movement where they had a plan to dismantle them. And so I feel like the places where they have been able to move the most aggressively and the most radically are actually the places that Russ Vogt was most interested in. I wouldn't say it's Russ Vogt.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's that the Heritage foundation, all of them have hated the Department of Education for years. There's been almost a 15 year project against the CFPB, USAID as well. It's been a long time target. No, you're not wrong, which is that these are longtime targets of the federal government. I mean, do you remember Rick Perry's famous debate moment on the stage where he forgot the three departments that he wanted? It's like these are long standing. He was like, oh, can't think of the third one. Yeah, he later on, by the way, his excuse was he was on painkillers, which is an insane. Okay, but you shouldn't admit that, dude. It's better to just say you're being.

[Krystal Ball]

Stupid back issues or whatever.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's like, oh, I was actually highest on painkillers at the time.

[Krystal Ball]

Probably not. Okay, brightest bulb. But yeah, I'm just saying there's a picture that's starting to emerge of the DOGE people sort of running through these agencies, getting access to these sensitive databases, causing a lot of trouble and tumult. And at the Social Security Administration, certainly they're slashing, which is another longtime conservative target, but slashing the number of people there floating all these crazy ideas. First of all, oh my God, there's all this fraud. Oh wait, it turns out that those dead people aren't getting the funds. Maybe we can cut the telephone service. They're just sort of running rampant on this like chaos train. And the things that are really aggressively moving are things that were sort of lined UP through Project 2025 and where there was an existing long standing conservative priority and plan of how they wanted to go about doing it. Do you think that that's, that's.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think it's just that those really look politically, these are obviously the easiest ones to cut. It's just that now you have to deal with real stuff and it's also a lot more complicated. So I'm just not sure I'm not ready to buy all that much into it. But this is actually another reason why they're flirting a little bit with problems is that you have incited you both will not actually decrease federal spending, but you will also have launched like this grand program against it. And so if any. Cause I've seen people who are real. They're like serious doziers is the way I would describe it. They're like people who have genuinely for decades wanted to massively cut the size of the government. They're like, hey, guys, just at the same point I made on tariffs, if you don't do this properly, the American people are not going to trust any future effort to seriously want to reform the government. I was like, hey, you know what? That's actually kind of a good point. You really have. You could nuke a lot of public trust in that and make it so that hanging and keeping around dead weight in the future becomes a more politically popular decision. You found this of a teletown hall survey where. And look, people who call into town halls and participate in this, these are 0.1% of the most politically activated. So just remember who exactly we're dealing with. But it's still important because it knows the type of people who show up and vote. So he was doing a teletown hall, did a poll of people who support or oppose Doge, and the results were pretty astonishing. This is Republican Tom Barrett from Michigan. Let's take a listen. We'll go ahead and move on to our second poll question. And that question is, do you approve of the Department of Government Efficiency's mission to streamline the federal government and reduce spending? Again, this question is regarding Doge. Do you approve of the Department of Government Efficiency's mission to streamline the federal government and reduce spending?

[Krystal Ball]

Press 1 for yes and press 2 for no.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Again, that's 1 for yes and 2 for no. Our results are coming in and it's at 70% for no and 30% for yes. That's 70% for no and 30% for yes. 70% for no. So, yeah, that's a little bit of an issue there. Again, let's keep it. So do we have his district in?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I just looked it up. According to cpt, this was Alyssa Slotkin's old district. It's a swing district, so he won it pretty narrowly, 50.3% of the vote. His opponent got 46.6, and there's a Libertarian who took the remainder of the vote. So you're talking about a swing district in Michigan. Obviously, you know, that's important data point. I mean, no one is saying that as tele town hall is like a scientific poll or anything. But the other thing that's funny is I was saying to you, there was that edict that went out from the head of the NRCC. I can't remember the dude's name, but McCormick maybe, something like that. Anyway, he was like, don't do in person town halls. If you're gonna do a town hall, do a teletown hall because it makes it much easier. You can control who gets to ask questions. You don't have the specter of the crowd with signs and yelling at you and whatever. And so he's taking that advice of like, I'm not gonna see these people in person, but I'll do my teletown hall. And even within the context of that is getting a clip that gets played on shows like ours and passed around, et cetera. So it is kind of interesting. I mean, these are. People are. People are very activated and very concerned about this. And the impacts show up in more places than you would expect. We've talked about the federal parks, you know, the national parks that are important to people and important to economies as well. And again, and let's say you cut 10 park rangers that are like critical to the operation of that park. How much money did you save? A piddling amount. But the impact is really devastating to that area because the park can no longer function. You've got long lines to get in. You don't have people who are able to maintain it. Or like, there was an issue with like people getting locked in the bathroom. There's no one there to help them, et cetera. Some places had to stop taking reservations altogether because they were already short staffed. And then further cuts came and they just really could no longer function. So put C3 up on the screen because this was some inside details about the Social Security Administration and the back and forth there. And this is what I was talking about a little bit, the Washington Post tear sheet about how the Doge people went in. And initially they were like, my God, we found all that. Look at all these people who are 300 years old who are in the system, like, holy cow, we found billions of dollars in fraud here. And then the career people were like, well, actually, that's not what's going on. Those are just all the names of people who have ever gotten Social Security. And we're aware they're in there. And their birth dates aren't correct, but they're marked, so they're not getting paid. And by the way, we did an investigation to see whether we should clean them out of the database, but it came back, it was gonna cost millions of dollars and it doesn't really cause a problem, so we just left them in there. So the courier People are able to explain to them, of course, the President Elon, are still running around making this case because it enables them potentially to make the case down the road that we're cutting Social Security, but it's just fraud, et cetera. And so once they were, the Doge people inside of Social Security were convinced that, okay, this dead people thing is not real. This is kind of a dead end for us to pursue. Then they were like, how about we cut the phone service so that old people can no longer and disabled people and whoever needs to call in and ask a question about Social Security, et cetera, so that they either have to go in person, which, by the way, some of those offices are being cut and shuttered as well, or they have to file it online. Do you have elderly relatives, parents, whatever? Like, do you know how sometimes they need to talk to someone on the phone and they struggle to fill out some paperwork or figure out how to navigate online? Like, it's kind of an important service. So they were going in that direction again. The career staff came in and were like, you know, that's really not a great idea. Like, this isn't gonna work out well, et cetera. So now they've paired back again to. What they're gonna do is just cut your ability to change your direct deposit information via the telephone. So that's what they've landed on. But I mean, all of this, like, internal tumult, cutting the staff at the Social Security Administration, which already was reportedly sort of like shortened staffed, trying to strip down. Now you're talking about services that allow people to get enrolled already the phone wait times have spiked already the wait times at these offices have spiked, et cetera. And you just get like, these people don't really know what they're doing, and they're just sort of like, rooting around and making it up as they go.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So I know this is gonna be tremendously unpopular, but should we really coddle old people by just keeping phone service around?

[Krystal Ball]

Of course.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I don't know.

[Krystal Ball]

Sucker.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What are you talking about? It bothers me. It's like when you go to a park parking garage and they have an attendant there, even though there's like a. A button there to press. And you're like, why are you even here?

[Krystal Ball]

Like, oh, sorry, Grandma, you have to figure it out. Because you can't figure. No, you don't have to start online.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, come on in American old people, that they have the IQ to figure it out about how to enter your data online, aren't they being a Little bit like, stubborn by demanding that we pay a bunch of people.

[Krystal Ball]

It's not just.

[Sagar Enjeti]

How hard is it to check your routing number on your computer and your phone?

[Krystal Ball]

Okay.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, it's right there.

[Krystal Ball]

Have you ever really worked with the elderly?

[Sagar Enjeti]

I have not.

[Krystal Ball]

I have not worked with elderly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I have not worked.

[Krystal Ball]

You're talking about disabled people, like, having off the.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, that's a different question though.

[Krystal Ball]

Because here's the thing too, is like, people complain. Oh, the government doesn't work. And it's so hard to navigate. And it's like, okay, well, we have this service that makes it easier for people to navigate. And it's like, nah, let's cut that. Let's make it more difficult for people to be able to get the Social Security payments and access the system that they have themselves paid into.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is why I'm not gonna get elected, because I just think that it's not that problem.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, the amount that this costs is like nothing. It's, you know, in the content, grand scheme, fair enough. Things. Fair enough. And it makes life bet. This is the most popular program that has ever existed in our country. Most successful social safety net program in the world. Like, yes, I think people should have as easy access to it as possible.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, but how long does this continue? It's like, do we have to wait until forever?

[Krystal Ball]

Why not?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Do we always have to have phones? Why not? It's ridiculous. In the country, 90 something percent of people have a cell phone with 5G data on. Like, it's not difficult, especially with iPhone. They even have Boomer mode on the iPhone. You can have your text as big as possible and they make it easy to go out disabled. I'll absolutely give you 100%, that's fine. But I don't know, there's something about it that bothers me a little bit. Where we just tend to. It's like that least common denominator thing where it's the Nassim Taleb concept, where if you have one person who's disagreeable in a group of 100, then the group of 99 will generally go with that. It's like, do we really need to have like all of these government services for people who just refuse to use the Internet? I don't know, it just makes me a little bit skeptical of that. Not saying that what I'm saying is popular at all.

[Krystal Ball]

I know people freak out. Like, think about Joe Biden and his cognitive decline. And now imagine a legion of Joe Bidens. I mean, listen, memory loss and confuse. This happens as you get older. And so, yes, I think to make it as easy as possible for people to be able to access the benefits that they have earned and deserved is like the bare minimum of what we should expect from our government.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Call me ableist, ageist or whatever. I don't know, it makes me uncomfortable. I'm like, how much do we really have to sit here and cater to all of them? I'm sure all my younger folks or whatever who are out there who've had to ever deal with disagreeable old people or in an office space or something can agree with me. But anyway, to your point about Doge not sending their best, this is a hilarious segment that CNN found. One of these Doge workers has been doing these Get Ready with Me posts on Instagram, working as an influencer, actually in her government office, posting some of her outfits in like, cutesy little poses. So let's take a listen and if you're able to watch, I do recommend that you watch Thwart. Let's take a lesson.

[Krystal Ball]

It looks just like any other influencer video. A young woman posing in front of.

[Sagar Enjeti]

A camera over and over and over.

[Krystal Ball]

Again, showing off her trendy but timeless professional fashion.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But she's no ordinary influencer, and that's no ordinary office. Her name is McLaurin Pinover, and she's a Trump administration's new director of communications for the Office of Personnel Management, or opm, which manages federal employees.

[Krystal Ball]

All of these videos were shot in.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Her government office right here at OPM headquarters in Washington, D.C. ground zero for Trump's plan to cut thousands of workers from the federal government in the name of efficiency.

[Krystal Ball]

Inside her office, Pinover captures video at.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Her desk putting on makeup, modeling new.

[Krystal Ball]

Outfits to her 800 followers.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Pinover markets close on her account.

[Krystal Ball]

Using what's called affiliate links, she could.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Get a portion of any items sold.

[Krystal Ball]

Through her Instagram page, like this $475.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Skirt or $300 dress. But it's unclear whether she's made any money.

[Krystal Ball]

On February 13, the day 20 people on her communications team lost their jobs, she posted a moment for mixed patterns.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And the week when her agency demanded.

[Krystal Ball]

All federal employees list five things they did that week, she posted the Business Woman Special.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay. Not a great look.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay. The most humiliating part is that she only had 800 followers.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of work to be putting in for 800 followers. Like you said too, on those affiliate links. It's like, you know, you'd be lucky if you get one or two people to click on something like that anyway, the more that you're gonna see stuff like that, I think it's gonna be a problem.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I think it's a problem. Yes, your stomach is a mess and you feel lousy. Something is just off but you don't know what.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, we get it. You've tried every fad, diet and supplement.

[Krystal Ball]

Under the sun and none of it worked.

[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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