3/13/25: Trump Border Czar Says Free Speech Has Limits, Gavin Newsom Interviews Steve Bannon, Southwest Ends Free Bags

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – Episode Summary Release Date: March 13, 2025

Overview In this episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosts Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti delve into three major topics: the Trump administration's stance on free speech as it relates to immigration enforcement, Gavin Newsom's controversial interviews with Steve Bannon, and Southwest Airlines' policy shift regarding free baggage. The discussion is rich with analysis, critical insights, and robust debate, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of these pressing issues.

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1. Trump Administration's Approach to Free Speech and Immigration Enforcement

Mahmoud Khalil's Case The episode kicks off with an in-depth examination of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and student activist detained by the Trump administration. Khalil faces potential deportation on grounds that his presence poses a threat to national security, specifically in combating anti-Semitism.

• Tom Homan’s Perspective (02:33): Comments highlight the administration's assertion that "Free speech has limitations, but when you go to a college campus, you incite protesting and locking down, taking over buildings".

• Marco Rubio’s Justification (03:52): Rubio elaborates, stating, "When you come to the United States as a visitor...if you tell us that you are a threat to our national security...we will revoke your visa and kick you out." This underscores the administration's hardline policy on visa revocations for perceived threats.

Legal and Civil Liberties Implications Krystal and Sagar dissect the legal foundations and broader implications of Khalil’s detention:

• Krystal Ball (05:02): Points out the vagueness of the charges against Khalil, noting, "There's been very little specifics of what he's done or what he said that is so egregious that he no longer exists in this country."

• Sagar Enjeti (05:42): Criticizes the administration's selective enforcement, questioning, "Are they all gonna get kicked out? If you're the leader of the IDF soldier...are they all gonna get kicked out?"

Government Overreach and Precedents The hosts argue that Khalil’s case represents a significant overreach, potentially setting a dangerous precedent for civil liberties:

• Krystal Ball (10:25): Suggests the administration may be inviting more overreach by targeting sympathetic individuals like Khalil, stating, "Once you've gotten away with that, then everything else is easy."

• Sagar Enjeti (23:19): Emphasizes the lack of inherent rights for non-citizens, saying, "You don’t have a right to be here. This is where I do get a little bit annoyed."

Impact on Universities and Free Speech The discussion extends to Columbia University’s role, which appears to have been passive during Khalil's detention:

• Krystal Ball (21:05): Highlights the university’s silence, "the university has been remarkably absent and silent."

• Quote from New York Times Article (21:22): Details tensions at Columbia, including warnings to non-citizen students about publishing work on sensitive topics, further illustrating the chilling effect on free speech.

Legal Battle and Future Implications The episode underscores the ongoing legal battle and its potential ramifications:

• Krystal Ball (28:13): Warns of the broad implications, "the government is using... to revoke his permanent resident status and deport him. That is incredibly wild."

• Sagar Enjeti (32:53): Concludes that such actions could lead to further erosion of civil liberties, despite Khalil being a permanent resident with due process rights.

2. Gavin Newsom's Interviews with Steve Bannon and Democratic Party Dynamics

Newsom’s Podcast Series Krystal and Sagar transition to discussing California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new podcast series, which features interviews with prominent right-wing figures like Steve Bannon.

• Krystal Ball (39:53): Critiques the format, noting the congenial interactions, "it is so friendly... allowing them to endlessly insult him."

• Example Clips (41:48 – 44:25): Show interactions where Newsom appears conciliatory towards Bannon, discussing tariffs and election legitimacy without significant pushback.

Impact on Democratic Base The hosts debate how Newsom’s approach affects his standing within the Democratic Party:

• Krystal Ball (46:12): Argues that Newsom misreads the Democratic base, which desires strong advocacy rather than conciliatory dialogue with right-wing figures.

• Sagar Enjeti (49:37): Expresses skepticism about the Democratic leadership’s political judgment, questioning Newsom's strategy and its alignment with voter sentiments.

Party Leadership vs. Grassroots They explore the tension between Democratic leadership and the grassroots movement:

• Krystal Ball (51:01): Highlights a disconnect between party leaders and the average Democratic voter, stating, "the median voter in the party is disgusted with party leadership for not putting up enough of a fight."

• Sagar Enjeti (56:50): Reflects on Newsom’s political resilience despite questionable strategies, suggesting skepticism about whether such approaches will yield positive outcomes in future elections.

3. Southwest Airlines Ends Free Baggage Policy

Policy Change Overview The final segment covers Southwest Airlines' decision to terminate its long-standing policy of allowing two free checked bags, signaling a shift towards more charges akin to major carriers like American Airlines, Delta, and United.

• Sagar Enjeti (60:02): Criticizes the change, noting the loss of family-friendly benefits, "they had family boarding, up to two check bags...now you have to pay upcharge for a seat, boarding, and bags."

• Impact Analysis (64:05): Discusses the broader trend in the airline industry towards monetizing previously free services, emphasizing the negative impact on middle-class families and frequent travelers.

Economic Implications The hosts analyze the financial motivations behind such policy shifts:

• Krystal Ball (64:07): Mentions airlines’ focus on premium cabins, "airlines... making a ton of money from their baggage fees."

• Sagar Enjeti (64:42): Highlights the broader economic strain on travelers, "you’re paying $1,600 plus $50 for bags...the price of travel has become prohibitively high."

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Concluding Thoughts

Throughout the episode, Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti provide a critical lens on governmental overreach in immigration enforcement, the Democratic Party's internal struggles with leadership and grassroots alignment, and the shifting dynamics in the airline industry that disadvantage average consumers. The hosts employ a mixture of factual analysis, ideological critique, and passionate discourse, enriched by notable quotes and timestamps for reference.

Notable Quotes:

• "This is not about free speech. This is about people that don't have a right to be in the United States to begin with." – Sagar Enjeti [04:53]
• "The government is using... to revoke his permanent resident status and deport him. That is incredibly wild." – Krystal Ball [28:13]
• "It is so friendly... allowing them to endlessly insult him." – Krystal Ball [39:53]
• "The median voter in the party is disgusted with party leadership for not putting up enough of a fight." – Krystal Ball [51:01]
• "You’re paying $1,600 plus $50 for bags...the price of travel has become prohibitively high." – Sagar Enjeti [64:42]

Conclusion This episode of Breaking Points underscores the ongoing tensions between civil liberties and national security, the evolving strategies within political parties, and the economic pressures shaping consumer experiences. Krystal and Sagar's discussions aim to illuminate these complex issues, providing listeners with a deeper understanding of the forces at play in contemporary American society.

Transcript

[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Guys, Sagar and Kristal 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.

[Krystal Ball]

So we've got some updates for you guys with regard to Mahmoud Khalil. He is that green card holder and student activist who has been detained and they are attempting to the Trump administration is attempting to deport. So let's go ahead and start with this comments from Tom Homan, who was in Albany, New York to speak on exactly this issue and sounding a bit of a different note on free speech than the Trump campaign certainly, certainly did when he was campaigning, and notably JD Vance did when he was over in Europe. Let's take a listen to that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Free speech has limitations, but when you.

[Krystal Ball]

Go to a college campus, you incite.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Protesting and locking down, taking over buildings.

[Krystal Ball]

And damaging property and handing out leaflets. For Hamas, who is a terrorist organization, coming to this country either on a.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Visa or becoming a resident alien is.

[Krystal Ball]

A great privilege, but there are rules associated with that. So again, I think it's really important to remind people that Mahmoud Khalil has not been accused of a crime. The justification they're using for his, the stripping of his green card status and potential deportation is that Marco Rubio determined that he was a threat to our national security priority of combating anti Semitism. We also have some more details about Khalil himself that we'll get to in a moment. In particular, you notice the charges against him are always very vague. He's like, affiliated with this literature that, by the way, we haven't been able to allowed to see. He said things that we're supposed to assume are anti Semitic. There's been very little specifics of what he's done or what he said that is so egregious that he no longer exists in this country. So keep that in mind as well. Let me go ahead and play Secretary of State Marco Rubio also giving his justification, sounding some similar notes to Tom Homan. Let's take a listen.

[Sagar Enjeti]

When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is, which is how this individual entered this country, as on a visitor's visa, you are here as a visitor. We can deny you that visa. We can deny you that if you tell us when you apply. Hi, I'm trying to get into the United States on a student visa. I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages. If you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, and by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti Jewish student, anti Semitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities. If you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa. I hope we would. If you actually end up doing that once you're in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it. And if you end up having a green card, not citizenship, but a green card As a result of that visa while you're here and those activities, we're going to kick you out.

[Krystal Ball]

It's as simple as that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is not about free speech. This is about people that don't have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way.

[Krystal Ball]

So when you apply for a student.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Visa or any visa to enter the United States, we have a right to deny you for virtually any reason. But I think being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them upside down and being complicit in what are clearly crimes of vandalization, complicit in shutting down learning institutions. There are kids at these schools that can't go to class. You pay all this money to these high priced schools that are supposed to be of great esteem and you can't even go to class. You're afraid to go to class because these lunatics are running around with covers on their face screaming terrifying things. If you told us that's what you intended to do when you came to America, we would have never let you in. And if you do it, once you get in, we're going to revoke it and kick you out.

[Krystal Ball]

So a few things to note there so far. He says he's a, quote, unquote, big supporter of Hamas. You know, it seems like they just assume anyone who is like pro Palestine and has a critique of either the Israeli government or our government support of the Israeli government, they just label as pro Hamas. But if we could put D6 up on the screen, Ryan Dropsite, they've been doing some digging into, okay, like what did this guy actually say and what was he all about? One of the things that you hear repeatedly on like right wing influencer accounts and people like Scott Jennings, et cetera, is that he called for the quote, unquote, total eradication of Western civilization. Now, even if he did, I would say, hey, protected speech. That is vastly different from saying I'm a Hamas supporter or even further, which again, I think would be protected speech. But there's no allegation he provided material support for Hamas or any other terrorist, quote, unquote organization. But let's just parse the claim that he even is the person who said this total eradication of Western civilization thing. Apparently they're getting that from an Instagram post from a group that he was loosely affiliated with that he had nothing to do with this Instagram post and may not have even have seen. So I Want you to think about that. The government is using, in part, a post that he was tangentially linked to that he potentially had no even knowledge of to justify stripping, detaining him. He's now been flown down to Louisiana and held indefinitely there, and stripping him of his permanent resident status and potentially deporting him. That is incredibly wild. And you may think this will never apply to you, and it's all fine and good, etcetera, but we have seen far too. I mean, the whole trajectory of post 911 and the war on terror, et cetera, has been going step by step by step, taking away more and more and more civil liberties and expanding and expanding the police and surveillance state. And this is a dramatic jump on that trajectory.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, that's the thing about what Rubio keeps saying. It's like, yeah, no one's saying that you can't do it. It's whether should you do it and for what purpose? That's the question that I really have around this, is why are. The guy didn't commit a crime. Yeah. He's the leader of a group which some people didn't like. Okay. There's a lot of groups, a lot of leaders that I don't like that I'm sure here are on student visas, too. Are they all gonna get kicked out? If you're the leader of the IDF soldier, whatever, former IDF soldiers on UCLA campus, that's good to go. What are we doing here? That's the big issue that I really have with not only the precedent of deportation and really the invocation of the INS act against this person, because we have to remember, he's saying he's a serious detriment to our foreign policy. What does that mean? That his presence here is a serious detriment to our foreign policy with Israel. What, Israel's gonna cut off relations with us over a campus protestor in the United States?

[Krystal Ball]

Well, they're specifically saying we have a foreign policy priority of combating anti Semitism.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay. So, first of all, I don't even know if that's true. But second, let's assume that it is true. What definition? Oh, the definition which conflates, like, any criticism of Israel with anti Semitism. The whole thing is preposterous. And that's where the big problem that it all comes back to is that we are having a debate here about somebody who was here protesting the actions of a foreign government. That. I mean, even if you look back to the Patriot act era, at least then we were demonizing each other over the actions of our Government. This is something so contrary to any of those ideals of even many of the like criticisms or whatever that they've made about free speech overreach in the past and just basic to the notion of anything that's supposed to be America first. But I do have bad news. I mean to be honest, the government has good standing. I mean there is the basic truth here is you can revoke the visa of whoever you want. But that's not the point is not can you, it's should you? And for what purpose? And I mean why? This is why I can't get around either who picked this guy as the first one. Wouldn't you pick somebody who was in Hamilton hall or whatever, you know like breaking windows. There's no argument on that one. It's like yeah, you committed a crime here bro, you gotta go. But for the rest of em, like deporting a quote student leader who has committed no actual crime, been charged with nothing basically for statements it's like where did this name get plucked? And who decided that this was the ground to. I actually cannot think of a worse one. Cause first you would pick a student visa, wouldn't you? And then you would not a green card holder.

[Krystal Ball]

Cause the thought he was here and they didn't check.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So first they pick somebody who's on a green card, not a student visa. Then they pick somebody who didn't commit a crime. It's like you would ideally if you wanted to set a precedent or you know, make a big stand, you'd pick a guy on a student visa who did commit a crime. It's an open and shut case that's easy as hell to deport somebody for and a lot harder to argue against in my opinion.

[Krystal Ball]

The other way to look at it, and I'm not sure on the legal piece you might be right. But there is a legal battle that will unfold here and it's not entirely clear cut which way it will go. It does look like the administration is like immigration judge shopping. That's why Khalil was flown all the way down to Louisiana was because I think they like their chances there better than they did in New York or New Jersey. But in any case, one way to look at it just like, oh this is such a screw up, they should have picked someone who committed a crime. It was on a student visa, it was open and shut. No one could even, even I couldn't say that it was that they didn't have the right to do it. And it would represent a much less profound abridging of civil rights than what this a permanent resident. And also he's just a sympathetic guy. I'm about to show you a video of him as well, and you'll see his wife is eight months pregnant. She's an American citizen. You listen to him talk on cnn, et cetera, and he's saying, I actually think the liberation of the Jewish people and the Palestinian people go hand in glove. And that's why I support equal rights for all. People have been digging through everything this man has said at this point and have not come up with anything that is like, even out of. I don't think should be out of bounds at all. So there was no, like, I love Hamas and way to go on October 7th. If there was, trust me, you would have heard about it by now. And when he's given interviews, and he gave a lot of interviews in his role as like a student leader here, he was quite clear about his commitment to equality and dignity for both the Palestinian people and the Jewish people. But in any case, I think the other way you can look at it is that by taking a maximalist stand with this relatively sympathetic person who didn't commit a crime, who is a permanent resident and not a visa holder, they are first of all inviting a huge freak out, which they seem to relish. And second of all, once you've gotten away with that, then everything else is easy, right? Then you've laid all this track and created this massive space within which you can operate. So I'm not sure that it's the sort of like, tactical mistake. I don't even think they see. They seem to relish this fight. They seem to feel that they are on very firm political ground and are quite happy to use Mahmoud Khalil and make an example of him as well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

In the immediate term. I mean, if we're being honest, they probably are on good political ground. I mean, people don't really care much about Palestine protesters outside of like the left. If you still look at the overall, if you overall approval rating for Israel, still quite high, especially amongst Republicans, amongst boomers, it's definitely true, things have changed amongst the Democrats. But I mean, nobody's shedding tears really, for student protesters. Yeah, I don't think so.

[Krystal Ball]

You're probably, probably right. I will say, listen, being the Free Speech Party was a core part of their pitch this time around.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You're asking ideological consistency from the likes of Kathy.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. But I'm saying they were able to take what if you looked at like, the specifics of, you know, this or that White Nationalists saying terrible things, you would say, okay, well this isn't like really good political ground. But when they framed it in the context of like no, this is a fight over free speech and they are the cancel culture ones and they're snowflakes and the woke mob and whatever, it ended up being very politically powerful for them. So there's nothing that says that similar abuses directed at Mahmoud Khalil and they say that, you know, he's the first of many to come, can't similarly turn people off. And also the overreaches of post 9 11, eventually there was a backlash against that as well. So you may well be correct. But I don't think it's quite as clear cut as that. But I do wanna share with you guys and then we'll get to his lawyer, etc. But I do wanna share with you cuz we've talked so much about him, Mahmoud Khalil, in his own words. He actually was filmed as part of a documentary put together. Breakthrough news. Shared this, it's being released this year by Watermelon Pictures and executive produced by mcle. And they have an interview in here with Makmun Khalil talking about his family's journey and how they ended up in this refugee camp in Syria. This is D7 guys. D7, go ahead and play this.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus in Syria. My family's history in Palestine actually goes back to as long as my grandparents could trace it. They lived in a very small village right next to Tiberias. Mostly they were farmers. My grandmother, she used to tell us that she had Jewish neighbors. They would share a piece of land where they would farm it. Tiberias was one of the first cities that the zionists targeted in 1948 with ethnic cleans. In April 1948, a month before the Nakba, the Zionist militias, they burned one of their villages. When they heard the news about it, they had to leave immediately. Some of the men went to fight. Big families, they had to go to Syria. My grandmother, she was pregnant at that time. She had to walk 40 miles. She gave birth on the way. When they arrived in the refugee camp, they thought it's just a matter of days until they would go back. They did not want to be killed because they heard about the horror stories across Tiberias. My dad was born in a tent. His family lived in that tent until like mid-70s when they upgraded to small structures. In the 90s they finally kind of like had concrete buildings. To us it was always a temporary home until we go back to Palestine.

[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

So that's a little bit of his backstory there and how his family ended up in this refugee camp in Syria. We do have some legal updates for you guys with regard to his case. You could put D3 up on the screen here. So there was a hearing in Federal District court in Manhattan yesterday about the nature of his detention. And so the judge ordered and again, this is a federal district court, so this is not an immigration judge. He will also see an immigration judge about the merits of his case and whether or not the government has offered sufficient grounds to revoke his green card and deport him. But they said he has to remain in Louisiana for now. He set a schedule for Wednesday for the lawyers to present written arguments later this week. He said his order to keep Khalil in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana was not due to the merits of any arguments, but to provide time to address the important issues that this case raises. The judge directed Khalil's lawyers be allowed phone calls with their client, which apparently is something that has been blocked up to this point. The lawyer was having very huge amount of difficulty getting in touch with Mahmoud Khalil. And his lawyer said, our access to our client severely limited by the fact that he is in Louisiana. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of Mahmoud Khalil's lawyer talking about their belief that they'll be vindicated with the case. And also he talked a little bit too about here, the role of Colombia. And there's been some reporting come out and emails released that Mahmoud was messaging the administrators Colombia and saying, look, I really fear for my safety. I'm getting all of these threats. I fear ICE is going to come in and snatch me up. And they did nothing. And of course, this is exactly what happened. Let's go ahead and take a listen to his lawyer.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Every day that Mahmoud spends in detention in Louisiana is a day too long.

[Krystal Ball]

We and he fully intend to vindicate.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Not just his First Amendment rights, but.

[Krystal Ball]

Those of all Americans, frankly, and all lawful permanent residents and anybody who wants.

[Sagar Enjeti]

To speak out that it simply cannot be the case that you can be disappeared. To basically put the university on notice that he was feeling, you know, unprotected.

[Krystal Ball]

By the university and that he was.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Worried about detention by ICE and doxing and actions by private actors. He was in fear for his life and well being. That is, that is accurate. He did send that email to the.

[Krystal Ball]

Head of Columbia University. And I think his email raises an important question.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is a university that has spent the better part of the last year talking about its duty to protect students and to keep them safe. But in a scenario where numerous students are being approached by ICE on Columbia's campus, and one Columbia student, Mahmoud Khalid, has been effectively disappeared by US Government agents, again on Columbia's property, the university has been remarkably absent and silent.

[Krystal Ball]

And the university is coming under increasing scrutiny. There was a New York Times article that went inside. A pretty stunning meeting that happened on campus. You could put this up on the screen. So the headline here is Tension over Gaza Protests hits a breaking point under Trump. Let me read you a little bit of this. They say, days after immigration officers arrested a prominent pro Palestinian campus activist, administrators at Columbia University Gathered students and faculty from the journalism school and issued a warning. Students who were not U.S. citizens should avoid publishing work on Gaza, Ukraine, and protests related to their former classmates. Arrest urged Stuart Carl, a First Amendment lawyer and adjunct professor. With about two months to go before graduation. Their academic accomplishments or even their freedom could be at risk if they attract the ire of the Trump administration. Quote, if you have a social media page, make sure it is not filled with commentary on the Middle East. He told the gathering in Pulitzer Hall. When a Palestinian student objected, the journalism school's dean, Jelani Cobb, was more direct about the school's inability to defend international students from federal prosecution. Quote, nobody can protect you. Mr. Cobb said, these are dangerous times.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I don't know why everyone's mad at him. He's right. He worked like, what? You're gonna go up against the United States government? What are you talking about? And look, I mean, I talked about this before, but I know a lot of leftists don't wanna hear this. You don't have a right to be here. You are a guest in our country. And if you're gonna shit stir against the current US government, good luck to you. I wish you the best green card holder. Even if you have, you have the.

[Krystal Ball]

Same First Amendment right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You have a First Amendment right to say what you want. The government has a right to be able to revoke your citizenship and they're coming. Or revoke the residency, which they're going to.

[Krystal Ball]

True.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No. Even if they provide him due process and they can make this case based on the ins, he's going to go. Maybe it'll take three months, maybe it'll take six. Like, you don't have a right to be here. This is where I do get a little bit annoyed.

[Krystal Ball]

Where?

[Sagar Enjeti]

At this idea that, you know, oh, what are they supposed to protect you? Like, by what, Standing in the door against the government? Like, okay, you know, again, like on a sympathy perspective. You're not winning. You're not a citizen. You don't. You can't just come here and expect to be able to do whatever you want without consequence.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I think the expectation that you would be able to protest foreign government and critique policies, I think is a very reasonable one, I think are a permanent right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But we live in reality.

[Krystal Ball]

You do have First Amendment rights and free speech rights. So if it was a student visa holder, then the legal case is much more clear with this. No, I mean, this is true. Like, McCarthyite red scare insanity. And I understand what you're saying about, like, he is right Nobody can protect you. The other piece, but this comes in the context of Columbia University making a big show about how their number one priority is student safety, in the context of Jewish students who were upset by the protests. But now that you have one of your own students being snatched from your campus without a warrant, even being offered after he came to you and was like, please, I need help and you did nothing. That's where comments like this end up, you know, end up landing very poorly. But you know, the other thing I would say about this is this is exactly the reaction that the Trump administration is, you know, expects and is manufacturing and that it will chill all protests and speech and people will be afraid to speak out, they'll be afraid to post on social media, they'll be afraid to go to the protest, they'll be afraid to write articles. There was somebody who wrote an op ed at Columbia who got disciplined by the Columbia University administration, et cetera. And so this is the goal of this policy, is to make an example of him and to scare people from speaking out on this issue. I don't know if you saw this, this is a crazy, just like side note, but I think is sort of facilitated, encouraged by this crackdown from the Trump administration, which is the mayor of Miami is trying to pull the lease of an independent movie theater that dared to show the Oscar award winning documentary about the occupied west bank, no other land. They had a screening of it and now he's trying to pull the lease so that this theater is destroyed. Like this climate is insane. It really is not safe for anyone to offer their criticism of a foreign government and to have this crackdown and this spectacle and use Mahmoud Khalil, who again committed no crimes. We've been offered no evidence even that he was a supporter of Hamas or anything. They just assume he is cuz he was pro Palestinian. Like it's outrageous. People should be disgusted by it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I have no disagreement that this is not what should happen. But I also think if you're an international student and if you value your presence here in the United States, Jelani Cobb is correct. And that you like, it's like, what point do you want? Maybe if you want to create a spectacle of yourself getting deported, okay, fine, but you should be honest too about that. I just see Cobb getting attacked over this. He is correct. The government has immense power. I really just don't know what reality people are living in. One for hypocrisy. Like, yeah, you're right. Are these the Jewish student safety and is that all bullshit? Absolutely. 100%. Elections have consequences. I mean, who do you think won the election and is now setting this standard? We as Americans.

[Krystal Ball]

I was told this was the Free Speech Party. I mean, censorship, government censorship was gonna be a thing of the past.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We can all point hypocrisy in all directions and nobody is truly ideological consistent. I think this is bad. I mean, I think that a lot of. Of conservative free speech people are either humiliated by this silent and. Or showing themselves despite getting filthy rich off of talking about identity politics and cancel culture, are now cheering this on. Yeah, you should, you know, absolutely speak out against them and vote with your dollars or your eyeballs or how. How say you to speak. But I also think these students are gonna get shit advice if they're being told, like, we're going to protect you. Nobody can protect you against the government and against visa and authoritarian government. No, but you are not. This is where I get annoyed. You're not an American citizen. At the end of the day, you can kick you out no matter what. You should take that into consideration.

[Krystal Ball]

That's not true, though, Sagar. Permanent residents have almost all the same rights as he can be offered due process. Due process, yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And he will get it and he will still lose.

[Krystal Ball]

I think the other thing, Sagar, is that they invented like, it's not like this provision has been routinely used. And everyone should know that, like Marco Rubio can just decide that you're a threat to our national security, which is utterly preposterous. The idea that Mahmoud Khalil is undermining our global fight against anti Semitism, which, by the way, nothing is sparking more antisemitism than Israel's genocide in Gaza and our enabling of it. So maybe there's some people who need to be deported for the way that they're sparking antisemitism with their approach to all of this. But putting all of that aside, this has almost never been used in this way. I don't know that it has ever been used in this way. So again, the legal theory is not at all settled. You do have rights as a permanent resident green card holder. Mahmoud did not do anything wrong here whatsoever. And if it was, the shoe was on the other foot. And you had Joe Biden, Kamala Harris saying that anti racism is one of our foreign policy goals.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, they did.

[Krystal Ball]

And we're going to deport anyone who is either on a student visa or a green card holder who is Trump supporter, because we believe Trump is racist and his movement is racist and this undermines our foreign policy that would also be insane and the right would be correctly up at arms and it would be authoritarian and it would be an abridgment of free speech and first Amendment rights. So yeah, this is an outrageous assault on civil rights of everyone. Because if they can find some little provision that they can hang their hat on to try to revoke this guy's permanent resident status and deport him, you don't think that they can find some little provision that can criminalize your speech for saying something very similar, even if you are a US Citizen? Like they just are pushing the bounds as much as they possibly can. And there is not just nothing to protect people who are from a foreign country. There is nothing to protect anybody at this point.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, see, that's where I just think that's not true. I mean, at the end of the day, you're right that Mahmoud is due, due process, but they can just give him due process and still deport him. I mean, listen, I hope that the legal theory doesn't end up correctly. Cuz I don't want this definition of anti Semitism to stand, period. I would hope that the Supreme Court would be able to strike it down as an obvious overreach, but that's just not really how they've interpreted the law in the past whenever it does come to the ability to have of deportation proceedings against somebody else. And I understand why people are getting upset. As I said, I think the principle is really, really bad. I guess I'm just coming back to these international students seem to think that they have a, quote, right to be here to be able to say what they want and also stay here. And it's like, guys, nobody should be giving you that opinion. Like really? Jelani Cobb, I think was correct. You're not wrong that they're hypocritical in terms of how they are phrasing all this stuff about student safety. But I mean, if you really believed all of that, I didn't know what to tell you. It's pretty obvious from the beginning. They got their $400 million cut. And of course this is a reaction. Robert kraft center for $100 million, you think gives it to them for free. Like, what do you think this whole thing is about? Right? This is a private moneymaking scheme that's basically, I guess, built on idealism and shelling out $80,000 a year. So if anything, it's more like removing the veneer of where all this is about. But I also don't think that this is necessarily. I'm not saying this isn't an assault on free speech, on free speech principles. But it is still fundamentally different than a United States citizen. You know, if a United States citizen is having their actual rights abridged by the government as a result of what they say about a foreign conflict, that's genuinely another matter whenever it comes to this. And I don't think the Trump administration will go there because everybody knows that that would be categorically 100 times more insane than what's happening here.

[Krystal Ball]

Last point. There is a distinction because he's a green card holder and not an American citizen. However, he does have this. And that's why this is a dangerous abridgment of everyone's First Amendment rights, because he does have the same First Amendment rights that an American citizen has. And that's why, I mean, what we've seen since the passage of the Patriot act is step by step by step by step, more and more civil liberties taken away. And so if this abridgment of his First Amendment rights, which again are the same as yours and mine, if that is allowed to stand, yes, that has potential reverberating impacts on American citizens as well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it's a fair point. I do. Yeah. We'll continue to cover the proceedings because the point there is still very important for what the court case actually decides. I hope that they strike it down, specifically this antisemitism definition. There is nothing stupider than that. And don't forget there have been previous legal challenges. Abby Martin successfully challenged that BDS law in Georgia. I hope it becomes a national standard and I would love to see it. There's nobody who would like it more than me, but I do think it's, you know, you're playing with fire too, whenever you're going up against the US government. This is Jenny Garth from I Do Part Two. You could have lost 10 pounds already if you started one month ago.

[Krystal Ball]

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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]

Okay, so we had Alyssa Slotkin, who, I don't know what these people are thinking, but former spook who is now being offered as like the new face of the Democratic Party. She gave the response to Trump's State of the Union and longed for the days of Ronald Reagan. I mean, it's just like, you just can't make this up. Now she had a guest appearance on the View where she talked about her view of the country and what's going on right now politically. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. I think there's a feeling in the country, and I often say this, you know, we're about to turn 250 years old, right. We're still pretty young for a country. These are our, like, like our angry teenage years, Right. We are going through this push and pull where we're happy, we're sad, we.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Want this, we want that.

[Krystal Ball]

And what do you do when you have a teenager who's threatening themselves and others?

[Sagar Enjeti]

You just try to get them through.

[Krystal Ball]

This period alive so that their brain.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Can fully form and you can come.

[Krystal Ball]

Back to kind of, what country? No, I'm talking about our country. We're a pendulum swinging. We're a pendulum swinging.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And so for me, I think that.

[Krystal Ball]

This, I don't think there's a single American who feels like this is normal. And, you know, she workshopped that shit.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Like, she really thought she was gonna nail it with that one.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And it's like, that's pretty insulting. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Here's your reaction. I'll tell you what it brought to mind. For me.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, for me, it's just like deeply insulting and elitist. Try and talk down to people in general. What you want to do as a politician, and I would struggle with this, is meet people where they are, as evidenced by my old age comments during the Social Security. I can say that I'm a commentator, but you're not supposed to talk about this stuff as if you are some child who is easily swayed and not actually taking your concern seriously. I think that was the real problem, not only with her comments, but also in the diagnosis of what the problem to address there is. Because if it is purely an emotional problem, then you have to meet it only with emotion and with rhetoric. If it was a problem and a reaction against policy decisions and the conditions of our lives, then the appropriate diagnosis is very, very different in the way that you would meet those two things. Yeah, that's kind of how I saw it.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I think that there's so. I read a lot into it, actually, because, I mean, just knowing her ideology, like, she's just like, you know, a standard establishment Dem Lib. Whatever. Number one, if it's just the angry teenage years, it's just like something that naturally occurs, that you just have to let it run its course and get to the other side. And it's like, well, then you are completely avoiding the root causes of what led the country to be in such tumult. You're completely avoiding the way the Iraq war radicalized people, the way that the financial crisis screwed people over, the way that neoliberalism's failures to improve the material conditions of people for them to be able to afford a basic, stable middle class life, the way that it stripped apart communities. Like, if this is just a natural thing that you have to go through, then there's no blame to assign of how we ended up here. That's number one. And number two, there's nothing you really have to do to deal with it either. It's like, oh, well, they'll just, you know, after a period of time, they'll get it out of their system and their hormones will calm down and they'll go back to being, you know, normal human beings. It's like, no, actually, there needs to be a reckoning. There needs to be a reckoning specifically within the Democratic Party and their betrayals and their, you know, coziness with a billionaire class that has led them astray from your core mission that used to be delivering for working class people. It leads you to that conclusion of a James Carville of just let them punch themselves out and don't really do anything and listen politically. Maybe because they're betting on things are going to be a disaster for Trump. Maybe it's possible it's not looking that great for him right at this moment. It's not looking great for Republicans right at this moment, especially since Trump probably can't run for another term again and there's no one else who has really the charisma and star power to pull off the things that he's able to pull off. But in terms of actually building a durable majority and delivering for people, there has to be a true reckoning within the party. And so in addition to, I think you're right about the sort of condescension, elitism that comes with this, which is ironic because she's being pitched as like, she's from Michigan, so she really understands people, whatever. But I also, to me, the bigger problem is it lets everyone, everybody off the hook, both from the root causes and for what needs to happen now to right the ship.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I completely agree with that diagnosis. And it is interesting, too, because that's how these more establishment folks seem to be meeting the moment. You flagged a bunch of moments here from Gavin Newsom and Steve Bannon on the podcast.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, go ahead. Well, I just want to set this up a little bit before we get to greasy Gavin and sloppy Steve here. So this is, I think the order is. I think this is Gavin Newsom's third podcast of his new series, which, by the way, is apparently using campaign funds to promote it, which seems wrong to me, but whatever, that's what's happening. And all three of them have been right wing commentators or influencers. You had Charlie Kirk was number one. Michael Savage, who's like a right wing radio host, I guess, was number two. And then you have Steve Bannon. I think that's the right order. So when I saw originally that that was the direction he was going in, because the first two were announced right away. So you knew he was leading off with these conservative commentators. I was like, this is actually really smart. He's gonna get in there and he's gonna fight with them the way he did with Ron DeSantis that was so popular with Democrats. And as we discussed earlier in the show, I don't think that the liberal base of the Democratic Party has, like, an ideological priority right now. They just wanna see someone who can fight. And I am deeply worried, because I am not a Gavin Newsom fan, that someone like him who has the rhetorical debate skills to pull off the appearance of a fighter could snow people into thinking like, this is the guy for the moment and he's gotta be our next nominee or whatever. But that is not what happened. Instead, in each of these, and I've watched a good chunk of all of them, it is so friendly. It's so buddy, buddy. Whoever it is that's sitting, or whether it's Charlie Kirk or Michael Savage or Steve Bannon are allowed to endlessly insult him, number one, which is like super cuck behavior with him, just sort of like laughing it off. And number two, just, like, try to pitch people on their ideological view with next to no pushback. So as an example of that, I present to you some snippets from Gavin Newsom and Steve Bannon here from his most recent podcast. Let's take a listen.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Everything happening with the markets, everything happening with the.

[Krystal Ball]

With tariffs, everything happening with CR&A potential government.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Don't.

[Krystal Ball]

Don't be giving tariffs stinka.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I don't want to start off with you giving it stinkai already.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I'm a tariff guy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm a tariff guy.

[Krystal Ball]

I appreciate that. And we'll see. We'll stress the purpose I want to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Do this is I want to convert.

[Krystal Ball]

You to be a tariff guy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Also, this is.

[Krystal Ball]

This is part of the process to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Unwind you from being a globalist to.

[Krystal Ball]

Make you a populist nationalist.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's a long journey. It's a long journey.

[Krystal Ball]

It's a long journey, but I think you'll get there. This is part of the deprogramming, is it? I appreciate. And by the way, for the record, I'm going down your rabbit hole right here. I'm not an absolutist as it relates to being against tariffs by any stretch of the imagination. And I thought it interesting where we. What I think Biden tripled tariffs on aluminum and steel, which is getting a lot of attention in this country today, as it relates to Canada. And Democrats weren't screaming and yelling about that. So that was kind of how things kicked off at another point. Yeah. I mean, super friendly. And they said, oh, and why these Democrats? So, like, hypocritical. It's like. Yeah, I mean, you see what I'm talking about here. There was another moment where Bannon insists repeatedly that the election was stolen from them in 2020. And even on that, which is like a core liberal priority, rebutting that lie, Gavin just kind of lets it slide. Let's take a listen. We learned after President Trump, and look.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You know, we disagree on this, but President Trump won the 2020 election, and.

[Krystal Ball]

We were kind of shattered as a.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Movement when he left Washington, D.C. and we had to go back to basics to say, you know, it can't be.

[Krystal Ball]

Somebody else do something.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You know, we had to do something. And that's where we went back to, really, a pure populist movement to go at the grassroots, the precinct strategy, and kind of rebuild ourselves from there.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, And I appreciate the notion of agency, that we're not bystanders in the world. It's decisions, not conditions, that determine our fate and future. And that, that, that fundamental notion of agency, I think is important more broadly. And I think that goes to some of the issues around, you know, victimization. And I see a lot of that respectively on the right increasingly, even with.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Trump often approaching things from that sort of mindset. What do you, what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean for Trump?

[Krystal Ball]

I think there's sort of the grievance narrative that comes from Trump. This, this, this notion of there. Is there sort of a victim? Well, they did try to, they did.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Try, they did try to put him in prison for 300 years.

[Krystal Ball]

Right?

[Sagar Enjeti]

They did try to bankrupt him. A guy ever had a, ever had.

[Krystal Ball]

A set of grievances. They did steal, according to us, and.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We'Re firm believers, the 2020 election, which I think worked out better that providentially.

[Krystal Ball]

That he was able to come back.

[Sagar Enjeti]

With that gap, because I think you're seeing a, a much more, not just.

[Krystal Ball]

New and improved, but somebody that's much more in command of these decisions and really stepping up in a way that we could have never done before. So that's what's kind of the energy. I mean, listen, obviously we do this show, we believe in people talking to people who have different opinions than them. But it's just profoundly interesting to me how much Gavin Newsom is misreading the moment for the Democratic base because clearly he wants to run for president. Clearly, this podcast is about setting him up for that. And he is really disqualifying himself in the eyes of many Democratic base voters because of the patty cakes way that he approached these conversations. And the other thing that jumps out at me, too, Sager, is like, first of all, Steve Bannon is very smart. Steve Bannon knows what his ideology is, knows the world that he wants to see made, knows how he wants to convert people over to that worldview and ideology. And a just sort of like empty, ambition driven neoliberal like Gavin Newsom, I think, really doesn't have much of an ideology to speak of as well. Like, you're no match for that because you don't, number one, you don't really care. And number two, like you, some kind of ideology is gonna beat no ideology every day. And so instead of using your platform to offer a different vision, and you can do that in a way that's not, like, ugly and it doesn't have to be personal. But if you're not offering any sort of competing vision. You're just giving up space for Steve Bannon to make more converts effectively.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I don't know what Gavin's strategy is here. I mean, maybe it's that he's got a nice smile and he's the governor of the biggest state. And maybe he thinks these liberals, I mean, if we're being honest, are gonna vote for him anyways if he does win the nomination. So maybe he doesn't need that necessarily and he can just.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, he's gotta win a Democratic primary. Right. And there's gonna be a crowded field.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, he. Look, I'm saying from his perspective. His perspective is what is that, okay, we just had an election, we didn't win the popular vote. I've gotta try and have some inroads here with the dudes and with the other people who are more maga, possible friendly. Show them that I'm not some horrible monster and that I'm nice and greasy and I can give it to them what they need while also maybe in the future giving the Democratic base what it needs. Are there really gonna be boomers in Iowa who aren't gonna vote for Gavin? Cuz he had Steve Bannon on his podcast, a little bit skeptical, right? 18 months from now.

[Krystal Ball]

You're wrong about that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, we got two more years to go. It's been 50 days. I mean, just an eternity.

[Krystal Ball]

My theory is that the way politicians conducted themselves right now, when it was uncertain and when it was difficult because they did just suffer a defeat, is going to be a critical litmus test in 2028. Because that is the way that the Democratic base has really aligned itself up to this point, where again, I wish it was more ideological. It's not. Most of the people, not all, but most of the people who are filling in the gap of being those fighters happen to be on the left, happen to be people like Bernie Sanders. AOC has been very vocal. Al Green is another person who's really. I mean, he's not gonna be running for president or whatever. But I'm just saying, like, Maxwell Frost is another one who's been outspoken and people feel like, okay, this is someone who's at least trying to put up a fight, et cetera. Rashida Tlaib, certainly. In any case, most of the people who have emerged to fill that gap happen to be on the left. But I was fearful that a Gavin Newsom, who is very rhetorically skilled, who was very effective in that debate against Ron DeSantis, I think even conservatives had to admit, like, I handled him pretty well there. If he had these people on and he fought with them, I think he would be unstoppable in 2028. And so I'm actually glad in a sense that he's approaching it this way. And what I attribute it to Sager is I think he's in these Silicon Valley donor circles where they're jealous of the right. It's the same people like Hakeem Jeffries was talking to, and they want the more like conciliatory capitulate, like, make nice. That's the approach that they want. There is a big divide between that, like, donor base of the Democratic Party, especially the Silicon Valley donor base of the Democratic Party, and where the Democratic base is and what they want to see. And I can promise you he is misreading the moment for the Democratic base in order to win a Democratic primary, like, in an unbelievable way. So if you think about the viewers of Brian Tyler Cohen, if you think about the Midas Touch brothers, they in particular have been disgusted with him. Their viewers are disgusted with him. And that's where the energy in the party is right now. I just don't want to over read it. You're right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Because who's got better political judgment, the left or people like Gavin?

[Krystal Ball]

This is. My point is this isn't the left. And that's what I think Gavin Newsom is reading it as, as well, because he thinks, oh, these are just like the Bernie people. They're always mad about everything. Whatever. Shut up. Right? You people voted for Joe Biden this time around. But the difference is, and this is what I think the Democratic Party is not understanding and is really failing on is that it's not just the left. I'm telling you, it's the indivisible groups. It's the core. Like the people who went to the Women's March. It is the core Democrat. You go to your average Democratic county party meeting and it's flooded with regular Normie Democrat voters. Like the median voter in the party is disgusted with party leadership for not putting up enough of a fight. And I think that's where they are profoundly misreading their own voters because they think that it's still just like the Bernie people. No, this is like, this is your MSNBC watcher. These are the people who have flooded to Midas Touch. The people that have flooded to Brian Tyler Cohen, your Normie resistance Democrat that thinks that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries need to resign yesterday, that are thoroughly Disgusted with the patty cakes with Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon and Michael Savage and whatever, and are really looking for something different than what the Democratic leadership are providing right now.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Maybe, yeah, it's certainly possible. I'm ready. Not ready to count Gavin out yet. I mean, you don't.

[Krystal Ball]

I wouldn't count him out.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You don't become governor, the biggest state in the country.

[Krystal Ball]

He is hurting himself. He is hurting himself right now.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm just not ready. I don't know. I mean, part of me, part of the reason. I'll just explain this. Cause this is difficult and there's a lot of data necessarily to back you up. But every online Democratic freakout and or vibe trend that I've seen from the liberals has never really worked out. And in general, you'd be probably better off over the last five years betting against anything that AOC and Bernie and all of them are fighting on than being on the side of them. So if you look at the social trends, if you look at from, you know, Wokeism to BLM to what. I mean, I could go on forever defending Biden, which a lot of them did. Pro Kamala, vibe shift, Brad Summer, Tim Walsh, none of these bets have worked out. So I just am skeptical that this time their grand political judgment is there, as opposed to the great survivors like Schumer and Gavin Newsom in the interim. You might be correct. But their political judgment and track record is bad, especially in the back, you know, from the last five to seven.

[Krystal Ball]

Years of overall political political judgment.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, he survived recall. He survived recall. He's got a high pro. Got a high enough approval rating. Listen, I don't know how they put up with him over there, but that's. They're the people who don't. They just left. I guess they moved to Florida. But they like him. I don't really get it. I'm not making a judgment about myself. I'm looking purely at the guy's metrics. He seems to be doing fine. He's got a decent approval rating with a lot of Democrats. So my only point is, just like I'm skeptical that we're once again trying to see some wish cast of what Progressives and liberals have a very good way of shaping a narrative through media and through Twitter and et cetera, into believing things are way more popular than they actually are. And there's no electoral evidence to back any of that up.

[Krystal Ball]

Who do you think is gonna be voting in a Democratic primary?

[Sagar Enjeti]

I have no idea. Listen. I don't know.

[Krystal Ball]

In a Democratic primary, I mean, you have to appeal to liberals.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay, by that standard then Bernie would have won in the 2020 election.

[Krystal Ball]

No, because liberals were not behind it. That's what you're missing. And that's what he's missing is. I'm not talking about the Bernie Sanders voter. Yes, they're pissed off. Whatever. They're gonna be, you know, both. They're gonna be looking at it from an ideological valence. No, I'm talking about your standard normie Democrat, like the base of the party. And that is what is so different. I mean, that's why these channels are blowing up massively.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, but how do we know that energy disaffected people are barely not gonna vote anyway? Like I'm just, again, I'm not saying that that doesn't exist, but I have no Idea what the 65 year old boomer out there and how they're exactly taking the pulse.

[Krystal Ball]

Do you put no stock in the fact that. Listen, I know polls can be off, blah, blah, blah, but the Democratic leadership being underwater with the Democratic base, 49% disapproval to 40% approval. That's so different. Wildly different.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I put some stock in it.

[Krystal Ball]

And that is your normie Democrat voter. Like they are flooding these offices with calls. They are enraged by the capitulation from Joe Amica and MSNBC and the Washington Post and Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Like that is a very different dynamic than we have seen before. And so my contention here is simply that Gavin Newsom has an opportunity to make himself invincible in 2028. Because I do think he has a lot of the things going for him that you're. He's got plenty of money behind him, he's smooth operator, all that stuff. But rather than making himself invincible, cuz if he came out as this like fighter in this moment, I think he would be very difficult to beat in 2028. Instead, I think that these. He is positioning himself in a way that hobbles him with the Democratic base. And I feel really confident about that now. Is that a guarantee? No, of course not. But is he doing damage to himself when he had an opportunity to sort of make himself an unstoppable force? Yeah, I do think so.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Maybe. I don't know. I'm not ready to make the judgment call yet. I just don't trust the political judgment of a lot of the folks who I see at the helm right now. They've just had a terrible track record. And by the way, 40% approval is still higher than a lot of Republicans. Republicans feel about their leadership. And those people survive all the time and they continue to win elections. So I'm not saying they aren't necessarily different, but you could go much lower. And I still think that things could be. I just don't think things will necessarily manifest in the same way. Will he be invincible? He's making different bets in terms of how he sees the coalition. Like maybe there's also something to be said about somebody who wants to run for president as opposed to somebody who just needs a bunch of libs to show up in a. A low turnout midterm situation that actually is qualitatively different for the overall base. I don't know who exactly or what is correct. I always just think it's important to put that caution out there. Like, look at the political track record of these people. And it's terrible. It's not one that has worked out at the ballot box. And so with that, you should think about that in the future. They could be correct this time, but they just don't have enough of. They don't have enough going for them in the past or meet at may any real trust in their overall political judgment. I think it's definitely working to raise money online to get a bunch of liberals who already hate Trump excited. Sure. That's not hard actually, though, what's actually hard is to win an election which they've been completely unable to do.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, put a pin in it. But again, I think you're focusing on AOC and Bernie, and that's not actually what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the mainstream of the party, which you definitionally need in order to win a Democratic Party.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Sure. But then there's no mainstream elector or elected official who has access to probably more privileged data than you or I. That is acting in the way that you're describing, which is what makes me a little bit skeptical that any of this is real. I mean, there are a lot of political entrepreneurs. These are the most opportunist pieces of egotistical people in the world, lighting up.

[Krystal Ball]

A whole other can of worms. But Tim Walz is moving in more of the direction where he's going out and doing town halls, following and sort of like the Bernie model in Republican red districts. So, I mean, this is the other thing. It's like the Newsom approach is also a very elitist approach versus the Let me go out and not talk to, like, Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. Let me go out and talk to voters in these places that we've lost and that we need to win back and in swing districts and in red parts of the country. And I also think that that is a much better approach. Going to the grassroots and talking to regular people about what's going on for them versus talking to making nice with the right wings.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's kind of my point. Is that what we're trusting the political judgment, one of the only two Democrats in the world to lose a popular vote election in 20 years. Like, I don't trust that person, you know, to look at their overall political judgment. I'm just saying, you know, whenever you look at somebody like him, it's like what you're going to put up. Like, do we really want to point to who's the guy who lost in 92? Dan Quayle you're going to trust?

[Krystal Ball]

Are we going to trust him? Got recalled in California. A Democrat who almost got recalled in California.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Listen, I wish he almost got recalled. It was weak. Blew it out against.

[Krystal Ball]

The fact that he even made it to that point, though, is crazy. Like you trust that you think that guy is the political genius?

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, but I mean I between the two, I would pick Gavin 100%. There's no way I would bet on Tim Walls after his track record, but I guess that's a separate conversation for another day.

[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

To Southwest, shall we? I. I wanted to put this in the story. As people know, I love to fly. I've always hated Southwest Airlines, but I have understood its place in the market, which is if you have a family, particularly a big family, it's a great airline to fly. Why? Because of open seating and because of the no paid bags policy. Well, they're doing away with all of that. Let's put this up there on the screen. I just think this is a very sad development for the overall airline marketplace. Southwest Airlines will begin charging customers a fee to check bags, abandoning the decades long practice that executives had described last fall as differentiating the budget carrier from its rivals. For years, it has built all of its advertising campaign around the fact that you get up to two checked bags for free and open seating, making it very accessible to families. What's especially ironic is that just last fall, as we said, let's put this on the screen, the quote, chief transformation officer of Southwest Airlines had said, we are more likely to lose money if we start charging for bags. So what did they do? They fired this guy and decided to do it anyways. And this comes after ditching the open seating policy, which will go into effect soon, which means that they're trying to milk customers just like every other airline in the entire country. The reason why I'm sad about this is it just shows you that if you're like a family of four, you have no choice anymore. Because with Southwest, they had family boarding, they had the up to two check back policy, which was great for people who were flying to Disney World or whatever. And they needed to check, you know, two strollers and whatever other things a kid needs whenever you're flying. And they were able to board a little bit early, it was less stressful and it would be a moderate price. Now you basically have the worst of all worlds where you get an upcharge for a seat, you're getting upcharge for boarding, you get upcharge for your bag, and the base airline fare is still comparably high enough to American Airlines, Delta and United. And as one of the people who flies on the big three, the reason you do it is to get miles that are transferable with international carriers. So not only do not get access to a large alliance in the way that you would on any of the big three, you're subject now to the exact same fees. I guess the only reason at this point to fly it would be if it has a preferential route that you're doing, and you just want to subject yourself, but it is no longer the differentiated carrier that it once was, which genuinely made it beloved by a lot of people. So I just think it's a very sad development.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. When my oldest was a baby and I was flying a lot, I always flew Southwest because of the, like. Yeah, yeah. And it was nice to be able to have the. You know, you get to get on first and you pick your seat, and it was very family friendly. So, Rip.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. The checked bag policy is gone. And it just. So not only that, it is. You really have to consider that with a base price of like, $400, that means now that you're paying 60 again, family of four, you're paying 1,600 bucks plus. How much? 50 bucks or so for bags. And then if you want to board first, good luck. You know, as far as I know, with this whole family boarding thing. And then you're looking at skyrocketing hotel prices and then Disney tickets. We're racking up 3, $4,000 now at this point, and the price of it has now gotten so out of control that you're watching in real time make it less accessible. And I keep coming back to the Wall Street Journal thing that we were talking about. The reason why this is all happening is that the converse of all of this is that the airlines are actually making a ton of money. Put F5, please, up on the screen, because you can see here how much people are paying for how much airlines make from their baggage fees. They're making billions of dollars a year. And the reason why is that these airlines right now have found that if you make the customer experience miserable for the mean 50th percentile, that the top 10 percentile will spend any amount necessary to not suffer. So premium cabins exploding.

[Krystal Ball]

I heard a lot of times they're on business accounts, too.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Business. Not just the rich people, people who make two, $300,000 a year. People are flying to Europe. Europe all the time. Air France said they were shocked at the number of American customers that are willing to spring for full fare. Premium cabins. They're like, we've never seen anything like this. And they're making money hand over fist. If you fly international recently, you'll notice this. Those premium cabins are getting way bigger, and the economy section is getting way shittier. And the reason why is that they have found that they will make all of this money for just catering to the top 10% of the US population. Nobody cares about the middle service economy.

[Krystal Ball]

This is the story.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is the America's story. So nowadays like Spirit Airlines or you know, Southwest is just coming like the rest of them, which is like middling service, middling on time. But you know, yeah, we'll upcharge you for the bag or whatever and we're roughly the same price. So at this point you should just choose to fly based on if it's the most convenient place for your direction. Or don't even be loyal to any one carrier. Just go ahead and find like whatever the cheapest route is for yourself because it's bad out there. It's not good. Wanted to make sure we got that in the show. Anything else before we go?

[Krystal Ball]

Nope. That's good. All right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

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