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Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
3/18/25: Israel Bombs Gaza As Ceasefire Collapses, Neocons Drool Over Trump Iran Saber Rattling
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- [01:29]
Sagar Enjeti
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:31]
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.
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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.
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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 inbo.
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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 Tuesday. We have a great show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
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Krystal Ball
Huge breaking news this morning here and abroad. So Israel has resumed their all out assault on Gaza. Really one of the deadliest days that we've seen in quite a long time. So that cease fire is completely gone. It had been, you know, had already sort of been broken but now it is just all out of salt back on. So we'll break all of that down for you. Also, Trump now sort of threatening war with Iran. So another significant development there. We had updates with regard to the courts and Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. We've got updated news with regard to the economy, consumer sentiment in particular, falling off a cliff. The Doge people led by Elon really taking ax to Social Security. A new memo leaked revealing the details of their plans there. And Chuck Schumer canceling his planned book tour on his book antisemitism because of quote, unquote security concerns after there is a fierce Democratic backlash to his decision to cave to the Republicans in the Trump administration too.
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Alec
Good.
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Krystal Ball
So interesting domestic political moves there. Yes.
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Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, he's got security concerns now after a 45 day book tour. Long planned tickets were all sold. Highly secured environment.
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Krystal Ball
But yeah, I think the first one was supposed to be with Richie Torres. What a shame.
- [03:22]
Sagar Enjeti
So good.
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Krystal Ball
What a shame that people will miss out on that.
- [03:24]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, hard turn here. We've got some very, very terrible developments overnight in Israel and in Gaza. Let's go ahead and put some of this up on the screen and I will narrate over it. So military operations resuming late last night Eastern time in the United States. You can just see lots of scenes of panic. Israeli military jets basically bombarding both the north and south of Gaza. There was a mass panic inside of the Gaza Strip. It appears to have caught everybody kind of a little bit off guard. There was some knowledge that military operations would resist at some point. But the collapse of the ceasefire happened incredibly rapidly. And the resumption of military operations as well basically caught everybody's surprise except for the United States. Let's put this up there on the screen. Drop Site News Ryan Grimm outlet has here some reports from on the ground in Gaza. Keep in mind that that number up there is outdated. It appears we've got three or four hundred people now who have been killed inside of the Gaza Strip. It's apparently one of the deadliest days since 2023 in the resumption of bombing there in October after the Oct. Oct. 7 attacks. Drop site contributor Abu Bakr Abed reports. Quote, Israeli shelling and bombardments have intensified in Dar El Bala and central Gaza. Talks advancing further east, tanks advancing further east and heavy shelling in the area ahead of them. Quote, I can't stop hearing airstrikes and I can't stop hearing shells. It is horrifying and unbearable. It is absolutely unbearable. Let's go to the next one, please. And we will show you here from the Israeli Prime Minister's office. Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz have instructed the military to take forceful action against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Drop site notes Medical sources in north Gaza have confirmed to drop site that aerial bombardments are being heard across the entire strip from north to south, everywhere, literally everywhere. Now do make sure that you know that this was not Israel acting outside of the approval of the United States White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt on the airwaves yesterday to make that clear. Let's take a listen.
- [05:29]
Caroline Levitt
The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight. And as President Trump has made it clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel, but also the United States of America will see a price to pay. All hell will break loose and all of the terrorists in the Middle east again, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iranian backed terror proxies in Iran themselves, should take President Trump very seriously when he says he is not afraid to stand for law abiding people. He is not afraid to stand up for the United States of America and our friend and our ally Israel. And we know that these successful defensive strikes that took place over the weekend against the Houthis in the Red Sea were indeed successful. We took out some of their leaders and the Defense Department is continued to, is set to continue with this campaign if the Houthis continue with their retaliatory measures. The President is going to stand for the navigation, freedom of navigation of our seas, which is a very basic principle that unfortunately the previous administration refused to stand for. And that's why we are in this mess in the Middle east in the first place. President Trump inherited a lot of problems, Sean, because of the incompetence and the weakness of the Biden Harris administration. But he is focused on fixing them and our allies and our adversaries better take him seriously.
- [07:00]
Sagar Enjeti
So you can see it's pretty clear that they consulted there with the United States. And I think this is a major turning point for the Trump administration. We were on a decent enough path. We had a 50 day ceasefire which was extremely, you know, I think, good for people in Israel, for people in Gaza. There was some hope for the hostages. Our Griffin Davis spoke with one of the family of those hostages. They were very helpful with the talks of Bowler and Steve Witkoff. However, the Israeli government basically made it clear from day one that they had no interest in transitioning to some sort of phase two deal. I think the straw that broke the camel's back was Adam Bowler's direct talks with Hamas and his sidelining it was just clear that there are elements here in the United States government that simply cannot countenance any sort of genuine diplomatic solution. And without that, an Israeli government and military, which is hell bent on just continuing the war basically forever, they don't believe in not only the possibility or the necessity or a want of a permanent ceasefire and or a release of the remaining hostages. This is the most beneficial outcome to them. And we are now boxed in a very, very dangerous corner of not only resumption of military force in the Gaza Strip, but everything that comes with that geopolitical instability, war with Iran, possibly. Which we're gonna talk to a little bit. The Houthis and the Trump administration trying to telegraph that they are not afraid of using military strength. I mean, the main thing that I just get so annoyed by there at the end is she's like, joe Biden didn't try to enforce freedom of navigation. Yes, we just talked yesterday. We dropped more missiles in the last two years than we did in the 30 years prior for anti SH2 wars that we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, I'm aware that there was not a naval element, but the point still stands. Hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars have been spent trying in just the last two years to diminish this Houthi threat. Turns out the only thing that worked was a ceasefire. It was good for America, it was good for Israel, it was good for Gaza. But you've got elements here which just don't wanna participate in it. And we're on the roadshow now, so everybody buckle up. And it's unfortunate, but I don't really see a way out of this for the very foreseeable future. Except if there is. What we can all hope is, Trump blinks and there's so much instability that he has to push back. But even creating and allowing the situation in the first place, there's no reason for it. Zero. They were on the right track, but as you guys can see, you have a member of the US Government, he goes on television, says, we're not a client state of Israel, basically gets lopped his job entire off the next day, so be it.
- [09:28]
Krystal Ball
Not to mention a story that we never could get to covering, even though we had it in the show like four different times. But his name is Daniel Davis. Correct. Who. Who's supposed to be under Tulsi at The DNI in a significant position, helping to compile the briefings, the daily briefings of intelligence for the president who had dared to be critical of our policy vis a vis Israel and critical of the Israeli government. And they also were able to keep him from being part of this administration. Something that our friends over at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft were sounding the alarm about and quite upset about. And I just point this out to underscore what Sager is saying here that, you know, that seems to have been significant turn. There was an opening of like, oh, maybe there will be a different approach here. But, you know, from the beginning, there were kind of two different theories of what was going on with this ceasefire. One was that Trump just basically wanted a win that would to bring to his Inauguration Day so he could say, look at I was able to accomplish something that Joe Biden wasn't able to accomplish. I was able to get it done before Inauguration Day even happened. Look at this era of peace and prosperity I'm going to bring to the US and that the plan was always like, after that, he didn't really care what happened. Bibi Netanyahu has from the beginning promised his coalition partners, who are absolute terrorist psychos, that he was going to not move on to phase two. His coalition depends on him resuming this war. Not to mention he was scheduled, I believe, literally today to have to testify in his own corruption hearing, which has been delayed and delayed and delayed because of October 7th and because of the war, et cetera, et cetera. Well, now guess what? He gets a delay on that as well. So we always knew what Netanyahu wanted to do here, but there was an open question, okay, did Trump just care about getting the win for Inauguration Day, or did he see this as like a sort of signature achievement, part of his ego and legacy building, that he would want to fight and work and use leverage to be able to preserve. And at this point, I think we have our answer that if he cared about it at all, he certainly didn't care about it enough to withstand the pressures of the significant donors that gave to his campaign who were interested in this. There's many hawkish, and some of them, it's not about financial. Some of it's just purely ideological interests within the Republican Party, the Republican establishment within his own administration, people that he has brought in and elevated within his own camp. So I think at this point, it is undeniable that he was not willing to stand up to the internal political pressure, was not willing to use the nearly unlimited leverage that we would have to secure a better outcome here and is happy to effectively, at this point, give Bibi whatever he wants, whether it's with regard to this, with regard to the Houthis now threatening war vis a vis Iran and something we haven't talked about in a while. You remember, Trump floated this idea of like, oh, we're just gonna get rid of the Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. We'll just ethnic cleanse them altogether. Well, there was a reporting recently that Israel and the US Were actually talking to different African countries about, hey, would you take these Palestinians we're about to expel from Gaza? Now, both of those countries said, no, we're not willing. But it shows you this was more than just a flight of fancy or something that he threw out there. This is something that they're at least somewhat serious about and actively pursuing to see if they could be able to achieve. So that's where we are today. Yeah.
- [12:58]
Sagar Enjeti
And we have here for dropsite. This was a response from Hamas. Netanyahu and his government resumed their aggression and genocidal war against defenseless civilians in Gaza. We hold Netanyahu and the Zionist occupation fully responsible for the repercussions of the treacherous depression. Netanyahu and his government have decided to overturn the ceasefire, exposing the prisoners in Gaza to an unknown fate. We demand that the mediators hold Netanyahu and the Zionist occupation fully responsible for violating and for overturning the agreement. So the most important thing to take away from that is that they have retrenched basically back to where we started before. Now, look, it is great, you know, we got some hostages out, but it's one of those where we're now at a point, and it's a real jump off point, where the collapse of the ceasefire, which was basically violated by. I mean, look, the Israelis obviously violated the ceasefire. They're saying Hamas violated the ceasefire.
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Krystal Ball
The Israelis never stopped killing people in Gaza, by the way.
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Sagar Enjeti
At a lower level, they did, you know, cut off electricity, et cetera. They just have never had any interest. The only way to do it would be to put significant pressure from the United States, which we did, to facilitate the very first ceasefire. I genuinely, I don't think Trump has true feelings about any of this. He wanted to be the peacemaker and he really enjoyed the headlines. But you people, everyone watching the show, you need to understand the internal political pressure that happened from Adam Bowler and from Steve Wykoff is unbelievable. I mean, in the opening days of the administration, if you'll remember, I did multiple segments and I was Talking about here, the Israel Lobby here in Washington declared war against Steve Wyckoff. They're doing it now today against Tucker Carlson and any other right wing figure. Their current line is that they are bought by Qatar and by Hamas. Yes, the people who are from the Israel Lobby are accusing others of taking foreign donations. It's just genuinely the most insane thing I've ever seen. But this is reality.
- [14:57]
Krystal Ball
A Jewish real estate, New York real.
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Sagar Enjeti
Estate, Jewish developer, Hamas. Okay, no, people need to understand that's what counts for politics here. And here's the thing, guys, it worked. Not only did Steve Wykoff, he probably never received more calls in his entire life than whenever he facilitated that ceasefire and genuinely, it seemed, wanted to push for phase two. Then Adam Bowler, who again, this is a guy who worked for Jared Kushner. This is a guy who helped negotiate the Abraham Accords. Want to tell me that Adam Bowler, who, by the way, I think believe is Jewish himself, is some anti Semitic? No, he stated the obvious. Where I understand why the Israeli government upset. We're not a client state of Israel. Oh, my God. His discussions with Hamas. What else did he say? He was like, yeah, they're actually good guys.
- [15:43]
Krystal Ball
He said that he understood that the Israelis were afraid that they would meet with them and find like, ah, they don't have horns growing out of their heads. Maybe they're good guys. So he.
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Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, okay. My point being he stated the obvious. That's what you do whenever you're trying to facilitate the end of a conflict. You're supposed to talk to your enemies, even if you don't like them. Yeah, it's sad. Okay. I don't know. Welcome to reality. The problem that is for Bowler is what happened? Oh, my God, Same thing. The freakout. The Jewish insider that we have right now, which is basically just a hatchet organization against any America first appointee. You have no idea the internal pressure. And I've been trying. I'm not really able to report everything that I hear on this, but it is unbelievable the amount of pressure coming from the Adelson organization and the neocons. And the breakthrough in the last, let's say 72 to 96 hours has been this Houthi stuff where Trump, at the end of the day, is very easily manipulatable. So they're like, hey, look, this is happening. And. And in his mind he's like, okay, so let's bomb them now. He's probably aware, I think, that bombing the Houthis has not worked for 10 years. However, it's about what strength? They're like, you're gonna appear weak. That's how they manipulate him. They'll be like, look, you're gonna appear weak if you don't strike back. Then this whole Iran connection is the one that is brought in. And he's like, well, actually, you need to take a step further than Biden and you need to threaten the Iranian regiment directly. Now this is where it is. Again, preposterous. Does Iran support the Houthis? Yeah. Do they provide them weapons? Absolutely. But by the logic of providing weapons to somebody, Russia would be well within its rights to bomb us. No. For giving Ukraine weapons. Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, but you're never gonna hear that one from any of these people. Are they proxies? In a sense? Yes. Are they totally and totally controlled by Tehran? Absolutely. Not Anybody who's familiar with the Houthi organization or with any of their development. Many of the Iranians were not very happy about some of the things that were happening over the last several years. They still maintain, like a connection. I'm not gonna claim that. But the point beyond all this is they think they can just solve this by saying, oh, we're gonna bomb Tehran. And they are very easily slow walking us into a much worse geopolitical situation. There is no reason for us to be so deeply enmeshed to be facilitating the removal of Palestinians on behalf of the Israeli government or the military. And all this does is not only cause suffering, it causes immense problems for the United States and the potential of future terrorism and so much more. So, yeah, this is my only hope. My only hope is that there is at least outrage, pushback, some sort of conflict where we're genuinely on the brink, where they have to choose. I would hope that they choose not to go over that brink. But unfortunately, courage is not something that comes readily available in Washington. And the path of least resistance for the Biden administration, for the Trump administration, is let the Israelis continue to do it. We'll pick, I don't know, we'll talk out of two sides of our mouth and we're just gonna let them slow walk us into more and more problems. And, you know, America needs to wake up, but we're not there yet. We're just not.
- [19:03]
Krystal Ball
I also can't divorce it from the domestic political climate that they have created with the absolute crackdown on speech around all of the pro Palestine protests, taking arresting Mahmoud Khalil for his speech, a legal, permanent, residential, calling him a terrorist, et cetera. It becomes very difficult to sustain the thought that anyone who even posted pro Palestine sentiments is a terrorist or supporting terrorism or people who protested in favor of an end to this war that you claimed you wanted to stop, is pro Hamas and is supporting terrorism while you have your own negotiator out there saying hey we gotta meet with these guys. You know, Israel's not a, you know, we're not an agent of Israel and they're afraid that we're going to meet with them and find that they're not such bad guys and they don't have horns coming out of their head. These things become sort of internally unsustainable. And so I think you can't divorce this timing of the resumption of all out assault in Gaza and giving Bibi everything he wants with regard to that and the Houthis and Iran with the domestic crackdown here as well. These things sort of go together hand in glove.
- [20:18]
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- [22:27]
Krystal Ball
With that being said, we've mentioned here a couple of times what the latest saber rattling with regard to Iran. So why don't we go ahead, Sagra and get to that piece as well?
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Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, let's go to that. This is probably the single most troubling development of this entire thing. And let's go ahead and put this up there on the scre. Donald Trump says Iran, quote, will suffer dire consequences for any more Houthi attacks. Further attacks or retaliation by the Houthis would be considered an attack by the Iranian regime and it would face dire consequences. This specifically comes from Trump's Truth Social account. So can we please put that up on the screen so that I can just read the full thing? Quote, let nobody be fooled. The hundreds of attacks being made by the Houthi, the sinister mobsters and thugs based in Yemen who are hated by the Yemeni people, all emanate from and are created by Iran. Any further attack or retaliation by the Houthis will be met with great force. There is no guarantee that will force stop there. Iran has played the innocent victim of rogue terrorists from which they've lost control. But they haven't lost control. They're dictating every move, giving them weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated military equipment, and even so called intelligence. Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon from this point forward as a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of Iran. Iran will be held responsible and will suffer the consequences. And those consequences will be dire. Now, this is one of those where we're basically creating what you don't want, which is a direct red line. If you don't cross it, you're actually gonna embolden. Right. The Houthis. And Trump has consistently tried to do this in the past. And I will say, I guess the only good thing is that he has never really followed up on it. He keeps telling Hamas there's gonna be hell to pay, there's gonna be hell to pay. It's like, okay, well nothing really happened, you know, with any of that.
- [24:09]
Krystal Ball
Well, now there is.
- [24:10]
Sagar Enjeti
Okay, the Israelis are doing it. But I mean America's not in there directly bottom the Gaza Strip, which is effectively what he was saying on this point. You've now made it clear Houthis cross it. Do the Iranians even have total control? Let's say they don't. Only takes one guy and then that's it, we're off to the races. And the problem that we wanna identify here is it's just fundamentally different for Israel and for Iran to have tit for tat strikes against each other even. Yes. With the United States coming and intervening, it's genuinely just completely another universe where the United States itself is directly bombing Iran has not happened in, I don't Even know, it's 1991, something like that. And that's just my other thing is that these pro war with Iran folks, they always try to point to limited military engagements in the past and be like that's the way that it's going to go. You have no guarantee. We have also created a situation for them where they have to save face in some respect or they will be not only like look ridiculous to their own people, but look ridiculous to any of their proxies or power projection. They have interests in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere. They've taken a lot of L's in the last few years. It only takes one to jump off. And so the pro war with Iran crowd, they think that's worth it? I don't think it's worth it at all. What interests could we possibly have in that region to expend billions and to possibly lead to thousands of American lives being lost? I wanna read here from Tucker Carlson. Specifically, this is the post that has been getting him tarred as a Qatari asset. You could say a lot about Tucker. To call him a Qatari asset is probably one of the dumbest things that I've ever seen. True. It's worth pointing out a strike on the Iranian nuclear sites will almost certainly result in thousands of American deaths at bases throughout the Middle East. Cost the United States tens of billions of dollars. The cost of future acts of terrorism on American soil may even be higher. Those aren't guesses. Those are the Pentagon's own estimates. That's true. A bombing campaign against Iran will set off a war. It will be America's war. Don't let the propagandist lie to you directly underneath it. Top reply the post is brought to you by Qatar. But listen, it's him. You got Candace, you got Steve Bannon out there. That's basically it. Everybody else in the administration, even the people who may agree their mouths are shut, they don't have anything they could particularly do. At the top, you've got Marco Rubio, Mike Walsh, you've got Marco Rubio, Mike Walsh and Pete Hegseth, all who basically said stuff like this before or the opposite of this on Iran in the past. They're on the record about how they think America should handle all of this. So, yeah, I hope it works out. I'm not very hopeful to look at all this. The ground is laid and everyone always points to the Suleimani thing. It's like, oh, nothing happened. It's like, like you can't take it as evidence that nothing happened in the future.
- [27:06]
Krystal Ball
That's not even true because they did attack and injure quite a number of our troops. But no, it didn't lead to a war.
- [27:11]
Sagar Enjeti
It didn't lead to a massive break. Yeah, you're right. But that's not evidence that this is going to be okay this time. A direct attack by the United States on Iranian soil would be a new era. It would be a new jump off point. And it would just take almost nothing for us to then easily become enmeshed, not only in a war with Iran in Gaza, by that standard, you know, we should be involved in Syria, in Gaza, with Iran in Yemen. The way that this can snowball, as we all saw during the war on terror, during the war in Iraq, is just so detrimental to any fundamental reading of American interests. So I'm very worried about this. I really am.
- [27:53]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. I mean, it really seems like they're set to give Israel everything that they wanted. I mean, the fantasy for Israel forever has been to draw us in to a direct conflict with Iran, and we're on the precipice of that. I mean, I think it's worth taking a minute. First of all, I want to go back to what Tucker was saying there. I think we can all note for the record, I'm not a fan of Tucker Carlson. What did he say there that was not correct?
- [28:17]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, nothing.
- [28:18]
Krystal Ball
And I mean, it's telling. When people, when they're only come back as, like, you're a paid propagandist for Qatar, it's like, why don't you actually respond to what he said here? We have tens of thousands of troops stationed across the region. They would all. I mean, this is outside of the notion even of a broader Conflagration, you would be immediately putting all of their lives at risk for what? To further Bibi Netanyahu's domestic political ambitions, to further the interests of Israel. Like, what are we doing here? Go and ask the American public how they feel about war with Iran, about a more chaotic and inflamed Middle East. How do they feel about that? And the answer will be absolutely resounding. All of the support for dragging us into some new Middle east conflict is within 30 miles of where we sit right now. That's basically all of the support for it in this nation is right here because of all sorts of interests in whether it's the military industrial complex, whether it's just absolutely ideological actors, whether it is people who are directly interested. Whatever the Netanyahu government wants, that's what they get, et cetera. We know the level of power that these people have and have had in both parties, which is why now you get the Trump administration. And Trump's supposed to be this totally different character and he's pursuing a policy that sure does rhyme with the policy of the Biden administration. The to go back to the Houthis here as well. You guys remember Biden said, do I think that this policy of bombing the Houthis is going to work? No, but we're gonna continue it anyways. Like, that's what we're talking about here. This policy has already been a proven failure that is only going to lead to increased escalation. Like the best case scenario is that we just blow up a bunch of Yemenis and it doesn't lead to a massive war. But already the whole reason that the Houthis started their campaign again because they had stopped during the ceasefire was because Israel broke the ceasefire and especially specifically resumed the siege in the blockade of humanitarian aid and ultimately cut off the electricity. And of course, now we're back on to full on genocidal assault within Gaza. The whole thing is insane. You know, just to back up a little bit on with regard to how we got here with, with Iran, the Obama administration negotiated the Iranian nuclear deal that was actually going well. Trump, I think just reflexively because Obama did it gets out of it. I think Sager is correct that with regard to the Middle east, he's just more transactional. I don't think he is a particularly ideological actor here, which is why some people held on hope that perhaps he would approach things in a different way than the Biden administration. But so he gets out in his first administration. The Biden administration then fails to get back in this was something we covered extensively at the time. That the window to do it was right at the beginning of his administration, when you still had a relatively moderate Iranian political leadership in charge. That was the moment to do it. The Iranians had continued to comply with that deal even after we had exited it. Biden never does it. It remains, we remain out of that deal. Trump comes back in and makes some noises about basically, either we're gonna bomb you or you're gonna get back in the deal. And the leadership says, screw you, like, we're not gonna be bullied. We've put the Trump administration, put even more sanctions on Iran. Like that's been working in the past, like that's achieved our goals either there or in Russia or Cuba or anywhere else around the world. We're gonna put more sanctions on resumption of maximum pressure. And the Iranian leadership said, why should we trust you? We were in this deal before you all backed out. There's no reason for us to trust you whatsoever. You're trying to bully us with the sanctions, like, no. And so now here we are, very close to giving Bibi his absolute fondest wish. Ken Klippenstein had a really good piece. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. He noted a couple of escalations, some of which I hadn't even taken note of because they were not really brought up in the US press. His headline here is, Trump is now at war with Iran. Let's call that this what it is. I don't know if I would go quite that far yet, but the indications are certainly very troubling. He says in this piece, without the American press even noticing, Donald Trump has started a war with Iran. On February 28, the US military announced two B52 heavy bombers flying from an undisclosed location in the Middle east, which I can report is the country of Qatar dropped bombs on another undisclosed location, which was Iraq. The message was not lost on neighboring Iran, whose state media warned that the B52s are nuclear capable bombers carrying a message whose recipient was clear as day, the Islamic Republic of Iran. He goes on. Then on March 9, a second bomber demonstration was made. US B52s flew alongside Israeli fighter jets on long range missions, practicing aerial refueling and joint operations. Again, the American press missed the story, though not the Israeli press, which correctly reported the real purpose of the operation, quote, readying the Israeli military for a potential joint joint strike with the US on Iran. The military preparations culminated this weekend in a set of U.S. airstrikes on Houthi leadership in Yemen. And Ken says he will be reporting today on more of the war plans with Iran. So the preparations have been made, the groundwork has been laid. The rhetorical groundwork with regard to, you know, Trump and the way he's posturing has also been put out there. And you know, the whole thing is in danger of being ignited directly by our president deciding to go along with whatever it is the Israelis want.
- [34:09]
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- [36:16]
Sagar Enjeti
Off. It's 2025. We invaded Iraq in 03. It was 2022. 22 years ago. So why are we using B? Do you know even want to know how much it costs to run a B? 52 per hour? You really don't. It would be enough for, you know, there's always that meme. It's like people are about to find out why America doesn't have universal health care every time they're on the mite. You have no clue the amount of money that we have expended here. Just trying to do what? To show Iran that we're tough.
- [36:47]
Krystal Ball
Weird that Doge doesn't seem interested in this spending.
- [36:50]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, good point. And look, this solution is staring us all in the face. Didn't even cost any money. Just tell the Israelis, hey, we're doing a ceasefire now. You got your, you know, you did it for two years, you basically leveled the place. You know, every time I see them, they're bombing it. I'm like, what is even left? What is left to bomb? I don't even know.
- [37:09]
Krystal Ball
Women and children. Based on the photos and the videos that are coming in, it's predominantly women and children.
- [37:14]
Sagar Enjeti
What exactly is, quote, left to hit? And if it is, at this point, isn't that an admission that your bombing campaign over a two year period has already basically failed? Because it means that you haven't been able to accomplish this through military force and, or limited ground incursions? Oh, oops. Not allowed to ask that question. The point is, at this point, I mean, what, it's March 18th. So this has been what, 18 months, month or so, bombing? Probably more at this point. Bombing campaign by the Israelis and ground operations. When are we going to admit this is a total failure and why should we continue? But that's just how Washington works. I don't even know how long it took for us to stop providing the Saudis with arms for their Houthi campaign. Maybe year, I think five years. At that point in Washington, it's the easiest thing. You just keep the, the checks and all that flowing. The problem is, is you are walking us closer and closer to the precipice. You drew your red line now. So if you don't follow, if you follow through on it, it's bad. If you don't follow through on it, you're gonna look like an idiot. And then the pressure here is unbelievable. Yesterday was the most excited I have seen. Neocons in the entire Trump administration, first and second. So listen, I trust them. They know when they're getting what they want. They have been seething over Witkoff. They've attacked him, they've smeared him. Boller, they destroyed this man's career. They have smeared any person who has said that they want to avoid war with Iran. They have used all their media outlets. They've thrown everything they possibly can, and I think they've won for now. So, people, if you're somebody who disagrees with that, you also need to engage here on a baseline political level. It's not just even about protest or any of this. These small fights that we've been trying to raise attention to, they matter a lot because they've got an entire media apparatus ready to go. You know, the smear campaigns that have been against these. Go spend some time on Twitter. Go look at some of these accounts. They're disgusting, the way that they just spread literal lies. They don't care about the truth. All they care about is getting their way. And so we're in a dangerous place, and there's no media apparatus to try and serve as a check. It's great to see, you know, Tucker, Dave Smith, and all these other guys that are out there. We're a tiny fraction of anybody with any real power. But the good news usually is that the actual voters are not with a lot of these neocons. And if they go down this road, it's the easiest way to ruin your presidency. The George W. Bush administration was destroyed by the war in Iraq and by privatization. Sound familiar? So sometimes history just needs to rhyme enough for you to. It needs to just rhyme just enough for you to maybe recall some lessons and not go down that path. I would hope. I would hope. I know there are at least some people in the White House who know that.
- [40:01]
Krystal Ball
I do think that there is. I think it may be the case that Trump misreads what the politics would be. I think he assumes there would be a sort of, like, rally around the flag effect that would benefit him politically.
- [40:14]
Sagar Enjeti
Unfortunately, there are, honestly.
- [40:16]
Krystal Ball
But, I mean, with his base, with the Republican Party, yes, there would be. With the rest of the country, no, there would not be. But, I mean, this is someone who is engaged in consolidating all the power that he can. And a war is a great way to consolidate even more power, claim even more extraordinary powers. That. And I do think that he just has this assumption that country's at war, people rally around the flag, and I'll get a big bump. And, you know, and we do see the way the media backs up anytime there's a bombing, suddenly CNN and MSNBC and Fox News are all like singing the same tune. So he's not even 100% wrong about the way that the media backs him up. But ultimately I think Sager is 100% correct that after possibly an initial like, oh, look at us, we're so strong, et cetera, when the reality of yet another Middle east quagmire, disastrous war sets in, which would set in very quickly, then the political implications of that are going to be very different. Now again, I think this president is an authoritarian and I think that he wants to consolidate power in a way where that political dissent, where he's basically sort of immune from that political dissent and you know, where it doesn't really matter to him and what he wants to do. And maybe he'll be right about that as well. But you know, I think Sager is absolutely correct that the public overall, not the Republican base, but the public overall will viscerally reject being dragged into another war. Cuz also, I mean, this is for Israel. Like they're the ones who want this. It's not like we had after nine, 11, like we were attacked and people did rally around the flag and there was a sentiment and that that sentiment was directed in all of the wrong places. But we haven't had like October 7th wasn't here. So we haven't had that same, you know, assault directly on us. So the political landscape is wildly different than it was during that time during the George W. Bush administration.
- [42:27]
Sagar Enjeti
And I just gotta show people like what this is like. So my friend Trey Yings, he's the Fox News correspondent. Can we agree he's not very, you know, like the most pro Hamas? Can we agree on that?
- [42:38]
Krystal Ball
I certainly, you and I can certainly agree on it, yes. Okay.
- [42:41]
Sagar Enjeti
No, I mean, I would say he.
- [42:43]
Krystal Ball
Dared to stand up for Palestinian journalism.
- [42:45]
Sagar Enjeti
So, you know, let me read you what he said this morning. He said, horrific images circulating inside Gaza, the aftermath of Israeli strikes. One shows a small baby wearing a jumpsuit with rainbows who was killed. The death toll continues to rise. That's what he said. That's a statement of fact. You know what, and these are all professional right wing influencers, thought leaders, et cetera. Who's circulating the images? Trey, what are the sourcing on these images? Why was the baby there? Tried. Do you have any images of the hostages? When will Hamas stop using human shields? Hamas is the one that's responsible for this. This is what the aftermath of Taking hostages look like every single one of those. And look, I know Twitter is not real life, but the reason I'm reading from them is I know every single one of those people and how influential they are in the discourse. Yeah, that is who is winning right now.
- [43:26]
Krystal Ball
Well, the Trump administration takes Twitter very seriously too.
- [43:28]
Sagar Enjeti
And they should take Twitter seriously, right? Because that's like the right wing ecosystem of where all their voters are, or at least a significant portion of their thought leadership, et cetera, is all he said. Horrific images circulating in psychoth. It's not even a statement. It's a statement of fact. It's not even an opinion. That alone noticing fact, noting that for people inconvenient, they demand absolute fealty. Only people like me and a few others who genuinely have no financial connection and have the ability to speak can everybody else. They're done. Even if you disagree, you have no idea. The messages and all these other things that I get from people who are either inside the administration or inside the blob or whatever, they know, they know this is bullshit. They can't say anything. So that's the reality of the situation that we're living in. It's like 2003 all over again, you know, and there's a few folks out there, but that's, you know, they're lone voices, just like back in the day. I thought it would be better, I really did. But you know, in some cases, even the same people like Glenn, it's like he's just the lone stalwart standing there athwart a lot of this bullshit. Everybody else, they're just going along for the ride.
- [44:34]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, well, in the climate, that climate has been encouraged and fostered by, first by the Biden administration, which also characterized anyone who is pro Palestine is basically like, you know, fringe pro Hamas, terrorist supporting, et cetera. And then that has been codified and weaponized even more aggressively by the Trump administration, which of course we've been tracking here, not just with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, but investigating the Colombian protesters for terrorism, sending letters to 60 universities saying that if you don't take these dramatic steps to combat, quote, unquote, anti Semitism, we're going to strip all your funding, stripping all of the funding from Colombia and claiming that they didn't do enough to combat anti Semitism. They have created and fostered climate where any dissent from the status quo vis a vis Israel equals your pro Hamas, equals your pro terrorism. And so then, yeah, this is the domestic climate and the foreign policy go hand in glove. You cannot separate those two things. So if they wanted to take a different course, if they wanted to let the Adam Bowlers of the world be able to say, hey, we got our own interests here, we're not an agent of Israel. And by the way, I understand why they didn't want us to go to Gaza. I understand why they didn't want us to talk to Hamas. We might find out. Actually, you can negotiate with them. Actually, you know, they, you know, you know, are human beings. Not to say they're. He didn't say they're good guys. He said they might just. You might discover that they're actual human beings that you can work with, et cetera. If you wanted to go in that direction, you have to also have a different domestic political climate and conversation. And that has been also in recent weeks, completely taken off the table. And like I said before, I mean, the Biden administration also fostered that same sort of sentiment. It's just been codified, weaponized, aggressively enforced power, consolidated dissent, crushed, First Amendment rights crushed under this administration.
- [46:25]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, and the crazy part is actually pretty bipartisan. I mean, we're gonna talk about Schumer and all that soon. That's the leader of the Democratic Party in the United States Senate. De facto agreement. There's some quibbles, you know, on Mahmoud, actually. Has Schumer said anything about Khalil?
- [46:42]
Krystal Ball
I think Schumer put out one of these long 20 paragraph statements, preamble about what a scumbag he is. One ambiguous line at the end that's like. But maybe the First Amendment. I think he's in that camp. But that was certainly. Whether it was him or other. That was a lot of the vibe coming from Democratic leadership.
- [47:01]
Sagar Enjeti
Toast of bipartisanship. That's what it actually looks like in Washington.
- [47:18]
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