← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
3/18/26: Trump Says He Will Take Cuba, Ro Khanna VS ADL, Aipac Loses Key Elections, Dem Party Attack On Platner
01:06:44
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- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
American Military University Announcer
Guaranteed Human military life isn't predictable, but earning your Master's degree can be. With American Military University's 40 flexible online master's programs, you can stay mission ready while you get market ready. Learn anywhere, anytime with an education built to keep pace steady, reliable and always accessible. Plus, military service members, veterans and their families can save up to 45% on master's tuition with AMU's special special rates and grants. Learn more at AMU Apus Edu steady through every mission.
- [00:34]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Ready to save. It's time for cyber deals. Put a spring in your step with fresh savings that brighten the season. These exclusive week long digital offers on your favorite products are only available when you shop online. Save on eligible items from Kettle Chobani, Quaker Skippy, Hidden Valley International Delight, Frito Lay and Signature select. Available now through March 24th on pickup or delivery orders only. Restrictions apply. See website for full terms and conditions.
- [01:04]
Public Investing Platform Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comdisclosures hey guys,
- [02:05]
Krystal Ball
Sager and Krystal here. Independent Media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show. This is the only place where you
- [02:15]
Saagar Enjeti
can find honest perspectives from the left
- [02:17]
Krystal Ball
and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. 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. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you@breaking points.com.
- [02:39]
Saagar Enjeti
when you're a star, they let you do it. Donald Trump has some ideas about Cuba. Here he is in the Oval Office.
- [02:46]
Donald Trump
I think Cuba is, in its own way, if, you know, tourism and everything else. It's a beautiful island, great weather. They're not in a hurricane zone, which is nice for a change. You know, they won't be asking us for money for hurricanes every week. But I think Cuba see the end. You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it? I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba. That'd be a good honor.
- [03:15]
Saagar Enjeti
That's a big honor, taking Cuba.
- [03:17]
Donald Trump
Taking Cuba in some form. Yeah, taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it. I think I could do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth? They're very weakened nation right now. They were for a long time very violent, very violent leaders. Castro was a very violent leader. His brother's a very violent leader. Extremely violent. That's how they governed. They governed with violence. But a lot of people would like to go back.
- [03:46]
Saagar Enjeti
What's crazy is that you can sort of see a lot of people like, Peter Doocy doesn't have a soul, and yet you see it draining from his body.
- [03:55]
Krystal Ball
Peter just has a soul. There he goes.
- [03:57]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, clearly he lost it right there.
- [03:58]
Krystal Ball
What did he say? He was like, take it.
- [04:00]
Saagar Enjeti
Take it. You can just see the life draining from him. He's like, what am I watching right now?
- [04:06]
Krystal Ball
We're doing what now?
- [04:07]
Saagar Enjeti
Just take it. I might free it. I might just take it. And it's a kind of toddler approach to the world. But, like, I'm sure you have it, too, that you're watching it and you're like, okay, we can't do another day of this. Like, the sun cannot set on another day with this man as the most powerful one in the world. Like, call a manager. Somebody needs to do something.
- [04:33]
Krystal Ball
It's wild stuff. Wild stuff.
- [04:36]
Saagar Enjeti
This has to be stopped.
- [04:39]
Krystal Ball
It's not at all surprising that he's talking like this. But if we steel, man, how Trump, if he were sitting here, would defend this privately? He wouldn't say this publicly. Well, actually, maybe he would say it publicly.
- [04:53]
Saagar Enjeti
He clearly say anything publicly.
- [04:54]
Krystal Ball
It's part of the deal. Right. He's, he's negotiating. He's putting the uncertainty, he's doing the Kissinger madman theory is injecting uncertainty into the situation as, as leverage over Cuba. But I think, actually, Brian, what we're just seeing him there is, he's, he's musing aloud about what could happen in Cuba over the next couple of weeks, after Iran, after Venezuela. So Venezuela goes well from his standard, from his perspective, although that could certainly blow up at any moment as well. We'll see. Goes on to Iran, and now he's feeling he's going to go on to Cuba. Iran is a situation where he also lacked certainty. We know this. Every single day we're learning this. We talked about it earlier in the show. There wasn't some grand 5D chess plan in Iran. And he seems to be perfectly content with how that's working out as a show of American force and power. He clearly doesn't have some grand 5D chess plan in Cuba. He just wants to exert force and let the chips fall where they may.
- [05:55]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, and I'm headed to Cuba this week, this weekend, headed Miami tomorrow and then Cuba Friday for a reporting trip. And so I'll have more on particularly what the Cubans are offering.
- [06:07]
Krystal Ball
Presidente Grim.
- [06:09]
Public Investing Platform Announcer
That's right.
- [06:10]
Saagar Enjeti
I'm gonna be Comrade Grim. CIA is gonna install me in. And so I'll have more on what the Cubans are offering to get this madman to not go to war with Cuba. The group Progressive International funded some polling that we'll talk about on where Americans stand on that. We'll talk about that in a minute. I should have more next week when I come back because what they're offering is quite surprising and maybe actually at this point isn't surprising because they're under perhaps more intense pressure than they've ever, ever been under. There is a crime against humanity unfolding right now, a war crime, an act of war. The US Is actively blockading the island from getting oil shipments. They put out some policy, what they claimed was a policy tweak that would allow private companies to import some oil. It's having very little effect. And was kind of. That policy was kind of always in place. So they're blocking Mexico and everybody else, including Russia and others, from sending oil. And we can put up D2 over the last day or two that has led to a complete collapse of the power grid. Now, I was talking to some Cuban officials yesterday who said that significant parts of Havana now have, you know, have gotten power back on.
- [07:34]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [07:35]
Saagar Enjeti
Relying on, you know, solar for the most, for the most part, some natural gas, what oil. They're able to do ration. You know, they've gotten extremely good at rationing over the, over the many decades that they've been in power. This is leading to nursing homes, hospitals, schools, all, you know, reaching collapse. When you deprive an island of some 9 to 11 million people of electricity that inserts itself into the vulnerabilities of people's lives in ways that can be fatal, you just think about the people that you know in your life. What would happen if all of a sudden there's no electricity? And what things do they need to survive? You know, young people, middle aged, people who are healthy. You know, we can survive, but people who are facing, you know, significant disabilities or difficulties can't.
- [08:37]
Krystal Ball
Well, and they're also turning to China for solar.
- [08:42]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes.
- [08:43]
Krystal Ball
Which the entire Trump administration is supposed to be, of course, undermining the international power of China and its foreign policy or its efforts to make foreign policy inroads, let alone this close to United States. A lot of the solar support now. Washington Post report, the headline, trump has choked off Cuba's Oil supply. China is Stepping in with Solar now coming from Beijing.
- [09:08]
Saagar Enjeti
So many headlines around the world where you're like, who is the good guy? Who's the bad guy in this situation?
- [09:13]
Krystal Ball
What Trump just said in the Oval Office, when people in the United States look at Cuba and they look at Cuban propaganda and they say, this is ridiculous. I mean, it reminds me actually of the Mark Carney speech that he gave earlier this year where he said, basically, the pretense is gone. And the pretense was important. It was kind of a muddled message. Like Trump is. He's proving Mark Carney correct. Because he's just saying, I do believe I have the honor of taking Cuba. And maybe by force, he's just, maybe I'll free it.
- [09:44]
Saagar Enjeti
Maybe not.
- [09:46]
Krystal Ball
Everything that, like a Smedley Butler accused the United States of, Trump is distilling into sound bites explicitly. He's just coming out and saying, you don't need to get him on tapes like Nixon. He's literally just saying it. And it's proving, like, to have the President of the United States talk like that about how maybe he'll just take this country. It's what their propaganda has been telling them the United States is doing for years. And it's what people have been fighting and saying, no, that's not what the US Is doing. This is about the Cuban people. It's about liberating the Cuban people. It's about giving the Cuban people agency. And yet you have the President of the United States. He's not wrong that he has technically the force and the might to just quote, take Cuba depending on what he's willing to do. But he's just saying it.
- [10:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Now. Whether he could hold it would be an interesting question. I think absolutely, they could go in and they could probably, you know, capture the president. But whether or not they could hold it if they actually organized a kind of guerrilla insurgency is a whole other, other question. The Cuban president this morning kind of fired back saying that they would, that they, that they are committed to resisting. You know, if, if the US Is committed to using force against them. Now, Marco Rubio was asked about this in the, in the Oval Office. Let's jump to D4 because I think there's some context to this. So here's Rubio talking about the, the Cuban economy. The bottom line is their economy doesn't work. It's a non functional economy. It's an economy that has survived. It's for 40. That revolution, it's not even a revolution. That thing they have has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela, they don't get subsidies anymore. So they're in a lot of trouble. And the people in charge are, they don't know how to fix it. So they have to get new people in charge. Rubio keeps trying to say that the problems with the Cuban economy are the, it's the communist regime. But I'd like him to try to do a thought experiment. Let's say that Miami, all of Dade county was an island and you had warships around it that blocked oil from getting into all energy from getting into Miami. Now let's say you couldn't use a credit card in Miami because we're calling them state sponsors of terror and we're sanctioning them. First of all, Miami, without credit, you would not have, not have a single Audi on that island. So trying to run. So you often see people saying like, well, okay, it's only the US that won't trade with them. They can trade with the entire world. No, because we've designated them as state sponsors of terrorists. Any other country that does business with them then can't do business with us. So we block them from doing business with everybody.
- [12:37]
Krystal Ball
We just squeezed Mexico from, we just squeezed Mexico not giving the oil.
- [12:41]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. And we also, we even went after their tourist industry. Europeans used to go to Cuba in significant numbers and we put in a rule that said, if you're a European and you go to Cuba for vacation, you can no longer have visa free travel to the United States. If we're so confident that our system is so superior and theirs is so inferior, why not just let it go and see what happens? Well, that's. I mean, how would Miami do if you were told you couldn't have a tourist economy anymore?
- [13:16]
Krystal Ball
I was gonna say, I feel like one of the reasons that Trump should. And we've seen some like, detente style plans. I saw someone referring to it as like perestroika, Cuban perestroika on Axe. That actually don't look bad. They sort of look like Obama era plans, to be perfectly honest. But one of the reasons that you should pursue something like that is precisely because I'm fully confident that our system is superior. You and I may disagree on this,
- [13:40]
Saagar Enjeti
but economics is, yeah, let them run.
- [13:42]
Krystal Ball
That's fine. Yeah, let's see what happens. Liberate the Cuban people. But. Yeah, so this is the best way to actually undermine the regime, might be to let the regime do what you think will undermine it. Yeah, that's the argument, but. And also allow people to have more agency economically and the like. But that's what the plans are on the table right now is basically, they actually kind of remind me you were covering it at the time. But they kind of remind me of what we saw out of the Obama administration, like allowing foreign investments to come in or US Investments to come in along allowing more tourism, that sort of stuff.
- [14:20]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes. And Trump actually has the trademark for Trump Havana.
- [14:24]
Krystal Ball
It lapsed. I checked this. It lapsed in like 2022. But he did trademark it. And that's again, I'm gonna go get it. You should go get it right now. It's wide open. Unless he redid it. But I checked last week.
- [14:34]
Saagar Enjeti
When I go to Havana, first thing I'm gonna do, go down to the. I'm warning you, Trump. I'm going down to the trademark headquarters and I'm gonna patent Trump Havana.
- [14:42]
Krystal Ball
You actually should do this.
- [14:44]
Saagar Enjeti
So put up D3 real quickly. The Cubans are saying, and this is not exactly new, reported as new, let's call it new, if that helps. They're saying that will allow nationals living abroad, so that's Miami Cubans basically, to invest in and own businesses on the island. This is an olive branch to Miami. The problem is if they do that, they will be sued by other Miami Cubans and taken to federal court and their investment will be seized. So ironically, it's not The Cuban government that is preventing investment by using the state apparatus in Cuba, it is the US we don't allow investment because we say that because of the revolution, because there was property confiscated. If there's a new investment that is related to the confiscation and then it's seized. So we're so deeply opposed to confiscation. We confiscate things constantly. So there's some new polling on how Americans feel about this that I wanted to run through the organization Progressive International, which has helped to organize the reporting trip that I'm going on this weekend, did this polling and just a couple of key numbers we can put up when it comes to the US approach to the Cuban government. Which of the following comes closer to your view? The US should use force to remove the Cuban government. US should use diplomacy, or the Cuban people should decide on their own? The support for use of force basically non existent. 8% of Trump voters think we should do what Trump wants to do.
- [16:27]
Krystal Ball
They're all Cuban?
- [16:29]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes, they're all in Miami and some of them in New Jersey.
- [16:32]
Krystal Ball
And God bless them.
- [16:33]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, God bless them. My in laws. And 7% of them, 7% of total people, everyone else is like, either this is up to Cuba or is saying we should use diplomacy. They also asked, how do you feel about this naval blockade? So you've got 28% of Trump voters are supportive of a blockade. So that's a non trivial number. And I think it reflects the kind of hostility that a lot of older people in this country have just towards communism.
- [17:09]
Krystal Ball
But a lot of Cubans as well,
- [17:12]
Saagar Enjeti
but still 39% opposed. So. And among the public overall, you know, 56 to 18 opposed. So it's not remotely close. And then finally put it, the last one, do you see Cuba as an extraordinary threat? And 34% of Trump voters see Cuba as an extraordinary threat. That's the highest number of anybody. 35% say it's not and 30 say they're not sure. Overall, by more than 2 to 1 margin, people say it's not an extraordinary threat. I don't see like how, I guess it's communism. And if you're over 70, you're going to say it's an extraordinary threat. Extraordinary threat of what? Producing like cancer cures?
- [18:04]
Krystal Ball
Well, the threat at this point might be what we're pushing even further, which is China does have spy stations in Cuba. That's not like crazy propaganda. That's a thing that exists. And so you can create a threat if you keep pushing Cuba closer to
- [18:21]
Saagar Enjeti
Manhattan, close to Chinese spy stations, too,
- [18:23]
Krystal Ball
probably in this building. But that's where you could keep pushing Cuba closer, closer to China and create a more significant threat.
- [18:32]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, this Chinese, for, for the kind of Communist international out there. Chinese have been a real disappointment when it comes to, you know, there's been, There was some hope that the Chinese would help the Cubans out. They're doing more than anybody else, but they're not doing much. They're, they're, they're just not, they're not the kind of country that's kind of going out on a limb for people in the way that, say, the Soviet Union used to. But. And look where the Soviet Union is, and look where China is. So, you know.
- [18:58]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, well, they learned.
- [19:00]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. Can't, can't fault them. And we can put up this final element. This was the Diaz Canal post that I had talked about earlier. The US Publicly threatens Cuba almost daily with overthrowing the constitutional order by force. And it uses an outrageous pretext to the harsh limitations of the weakened economy that they have attacked and sought to isolate for more than six decades. They intend and announce plans to seize the country, its resources, its properties, and even the very economy they seek to strengthen, to make us surrender. Only in this way can the fierce economic war be explained, which is applied as collective punishment against the entire people. In the face of the worst scenario, Cuba is accompanied by certainty any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance. Diaz Canal, the president there is not super popular and Castro's are still running the country. Right.
- [19:54]
Krystal Ball
The family.
- [19:57]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't know. I don't know how much that's true. I think, you know, because that's.
- [20:03]
Krystal Ball
The New York Times says the Trump plan is to remove Diaz Canal but continue allowing the Castro family to stay in power, like, in a Delsey Rodriguez
- [20:11]
Saagar Enjeti
way, which is so weird because, like, Cuba transitioned away from the Castro family and we want to put them back in power.
- [20:17]
Krystal Ball
But again, this is where Trump's language of like, well, I'm just going to take it. I'm going to do what I want. And then they're orchestrating this plan from Washington about what should happen in Cuba. He's just putting it into words, making it explicit.
- [20:31]
Saagar Enjeti
But I'll have more for you next week. Yes, when I'm back on that point.
- [20:36]
Krystal Ball
Looking forward to that. We are doing some interesting. Like the oil. Trump is. What was this in late February? There's just so much news, it's easy to forget about this. But in late February, quote, the Trump administration began allowing US petrol products such as diesel to be sold directly to Cuba's private sector, circumventing the longstanding 1960 U.S. embargo. That's for USA Today report about how this is part of a grand plan from Marco Rubio working in tandem with Trump and that just again is Trump going faster than Rubio has This to the extent there is a master plan for Cuba, Rubio has it and Rubio's advisors have it. And this is like again, it's a generational plan for Cuban Americans. And so is Trump just going to be like, yep, Cuba's falling and then undermine this grand strategy? Possibly.
- [21:28]
Saagar Enjeti
And you know who one of the leading advocates of Cuban statehood was throughout the years? Jefferson Davis. You can, you can look up his, you can look up his Senate speeches. It was part of his expansion of slavery plan.
- [21:41]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I remember that.
- [21:43]
Saagar Enjeti
You can go west, but you can also then he said go southeast, down to, down to Cuba. Fun fact. He picked up syphilis there his fond memories when after the Civil War when the union imprisoned him, his syphilis flare up was so bad it blinded him, which there is not much justice in history. But thinking about Jefferson Davis in a rat infested dungeon blind due to the syphilis that he picked up trying to annex Cuba into a slave colony, a little bit of justice.
- [22:16]
Krystal Ball
I saw the Jefferson Davis syphilis infection at Bonnaroo like 10 years ago. It was a hell of a show.
- [22:22]
Saagar Enjeti
This is like, that's a show, that's a band. No.
- [22:26]
Krystal Ball
I look forward to your screenplay about this though because this sounds like something
- [22:29]
Saagar Enjeti
you've one man screenplay. Consider just Jefferson Davis in his blind dungeon.
- [22:34]
Krystal Ball
It's your vagina Monologues.
- [22:37]
Saagar Enjeti
The Davis Monologue. Syphilis monologues. Love it.
- [22:40]
Krystal Ball
Oh boy.
- [22:41]
Saagar Enjeti
All right, let's just cut the show and start writing this.
- [22:43]
Krystal Ball
Yes.
- [22:44]
Saagar Enjeti
Wait, no, we have two more segments.
- [22:46]
American Military University Announcer
Military life isn't predictable, but earning your master's degree can be. With American Military University's 40 flexible online master's programs, you can stay mission ready while you get market ready. Learn anywhere, anytime with an education built to keep pace steady, reliable and always accessible. Plus, military service members, veterans and their families can save up to 45% on master's tuition with AMU's special rates and grants. Learn more at AMU Apus Edu. Steady through every mission.
- [23:16]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Ready to save. It's time for cyber deals. Put a spring in your step with fresh savings that brighten the season. These exclusive week long digital offers on your favorite products are only available when you shop online. Save on eligible items from Kettle Chobani, Quaker Skippy, Hidden Valley, International, Delight, Frito Lay and Signature select. Available now through March 24th on pickup or delivery orders only. Restrictions apply. See website for full terms and conditions.
- [23:46]
Public Investing Platform Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures
- [24:48]
Saagar Enjeti
Ro Khanna vs. APAC and the ADL usually
- [24:51]
Krystal Ball
when Ro is on the screen, it means we have him in studio. We don't have him in studio today. He's here in spirit. We're going to Talk now about E1 put this up on the screen Headline from well, this is actually the tweet from the Jewish Insider writer and the story says Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the adl, called out two Democratic lawmakers, Chris Van Hollen and Ro Khanna, from the main stage of the organization's Never Is now conference in Manhattan, accusing them of perpetuating anti Semitism. Ryan, if you could tell us about so Greenblatt it's not a surprise in any way whatsoever that these criticisms are being leveled. It's apparently over disagreement over the over roe, saying that Israel pushed the United States into war, unclear into war in Iran, that Israel pushed the US into war with Iran. It's unclear whether Jonathan Greenblatt has made similar criticisms of Marco Rubio, speaker Mike Johnson, or perhaps Donald Trump himself. But we could put the next elements up on the screen Here. This became an all out Twitter war yesterday. Ro Khanna a week ago posted, the assault on Israeli Americans in San Jose while speaking Hebrew is horrific. This kind of anti Semitism has no place in our community. I unequivocally condemn these attacks. The assailants must be held accountable and prosecuted. Someone posted on X literally a week ago, this is what Ro Khanna said. We can move on to the next element. Roe replied, facts don't matter to Greenblatt. He is a Trump apologist who attacked Obama's nuclear deal defense. Elon, it is basically a shill for the Trump administration and Netanyahu. Sad to say he has zero respect among any House Democrats anymore. Ryan, you've covered these types of disputes for many years. What do you make of it?
- [26:36]
Saagar Enjeti
Ro Khanna's really taking the fight directly to AIPAC in a way that nobody other than, say, Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar has been willing to do. And they did it because AIPAC took the fight to them when they were like they were elected to Congress in 2018. And AIPAC literally spun off the organization DMFI explicitly to just go after Taliban Omar. So the fight came to them. Whereas Congressman Khanna is like taking it, taking it to them. And he's. And he's what? He's. And he's linking the ADL and AIPAC together. If you put up E4, AIPAC hit back at him, saying they said facts. Like you applauding a group that is trying to drive pro Israel Democrats out of politics or you sitting with a podcaster designer, they're laying out all the things that they're upset with him about. And he responds, when will AIPAC and ADL be merging Greenblatt? You've sucked up enough to the Trump administration. You can probably get the merger approved in this administration.
- [27:49]
Krystal Ball
That's top rope.
- [27:50]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, top rope, that is. Yeah. So because the antitrust division at the DOJ has become a complete kind of pay to play operation with just a shakedown, a corporate shakedown, you want a merger? No, you got to pay the pay the piper at doj. The judge in the Live Nation Ticketmaster case seems to think that that's the case and recently told doj, hold on to all of your communications because I might be looking into this. So that's what Ro Khan is referring to there, that if ADL and AIPAC want to merge and stop the pretense anymore that there's a difference between them, they should do that because Greenblatt is the Anti Defamation League. He's supposed to be combating anti Semitism. That's not what he does. Like he's, he, he does basically what AIPAC does, which aipac fine, like you want to be, you know, you want to support the US Israel relationship and get fund, you know, and spend money in elections. Like that's legal. You can do that. Like if that's your, that's your goal. But that's not what Greenblatt is doing. Like Greenblatt is not doing the inseminant, he's doing what AIPAC is doing.
- [29:05]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I see what you're saying. And I was saying this on after party the other day, but like there are two things that need to be balanced. One is the reasonable, two reasonable, reasonable concerns that need to be balanced. One is the reasonable concern of Jews given that as Ro pointed out the other day, anti Semitism exists. Given that the industrial scale genocide of Jewish people existed in living memory, like it exists in living memory of people who are still here on this earth today. Just like Jim Crow is living memory of people who are still in America today. On the other hand, there's the concern for suppression of speech which this country has a history of and especially younger Americans are very sensitive to. And that's reasonable as well because censorship and suppression are also things that have happened. And so when you balance both of those things, Greenblatt doesn't. Greenblatt is happy to inflate the definition of anti Semitism as a cudgel against political enemies. To the point that you were just making about acting basically in lockstep with groups that advance the cause of the Israeli government. And that's where you've blown up anti Semitism to the point the label anti Semitism to the point where it includes people who are just saying what the Secretary of State said about the war. Yeah, that's really, really not helpful. Is completely counterproductive. And if you actually believe that Ro Khanna is anti Semitic, you are welcome to that belief. You should not be the head of an organization that is policing the definition of anti Semitism because that's first of all offensive, but second of all counterproductive because by a matter of fact, he is not an anti Semite.
- [30:55]
Saagar Enjeti
Right.
- [30:56]
Krystal Ball
And it's happening over and over again with people constantly. And the right is learning what the left has learned for a long time, that you were called anti Semitic. If you're critical of the Israeli government, people on the right, Robert Novak experienced that. Pat Buchanan experienced that for a long time too. But to actually say that somebody has bigotry in their heart is a serious and stigmatized charge in the United States of America, as it should be. Because we have spilled a lot of blood, sweat and tears for victories like Lovey v. Virginia. And to have the multiculturalism that actually exists in the United States is historically crazy. We take it for granted how amazing it is sometimes and how quickly so much bigotry fell away over the course of the 20th century. It's not to say it doesn't still exist. Of course it still exists. But to actually insult somebody and say that they believe somebody is lesser than because of their immutable characteristics, because of their race, because of their ethnicity is a really serious thing. And Ro Khanna's opinions on the Likud Party do not reflect him thinking that anybody is lesser than because of their immutable characteristics.
- [32:05]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And this new thing that Greenblatt's doing where he is saying that if you say that Israel drove the US to war with Iran, that is anti Semitic, even after Marco Rubio himself said that at least the timing was driven by Israel, people are just not going to tolerate that. We did this polling at dropsite last week.
- [32:31]
Krystal Ball
I hope not.
- [32:31]
Saagar Enjeti
That found a majority of. Majority of people believe that, or I think it was 47% or something, believe that Israel drove the decision making, Israel drove Trump's decision making. And like 10% believed it would make their life better. So you can't. Maybe the ADL can claim that 47% of the public is just driven by an anti Semitic conspiracy theory.
- [32:59]
Krystal Ball
Yes, they will.
- [33:01]
Saagar Enjeti
But I don't know how that's helpful to them. Yeah, you can't tell people that they're not allowed to see what they see with their own eyes.
- [33:11]
Krystal Ball
Before Charlie Kirk died, he did a focus group at one of the Turning Point USA conferences that people should absolutely go back and watch, especially people on the right, who I think, by the way, as somebody on the right who was subject to this messaging, bludgeoned by this messaging for years, the way it's used to dismiss the left as like cranks and crazy people has obviously started. We were just talking about this, obviously started being used on the right. And what's particularly kind of productive on the right at this moment was on full display in that Turning Point focus group where everyone said, listen, we like Charlie Kirk. He went to the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem. This guy was not anti Israel. He became increasingly skeptical of the Israeli government. When he was talking to these students at the conference, they were saying a lot of their. More their increasing skepticism of Israel was coming from feeling like they're being told what they can and cannot say. Why might that be? Well, young Americans just went through a 10 year period where they were constantly being told if you say X, Y or Z, you're bigoted. And a lot of that was coming from the left. And so if you're Jonathan Greenblatt and you're looking at this number among even young conservatives who should be pro Israel, because historically that's been the case for the last several decades and you're panicking about that and you're reacting by calling more and more people anti Semitic and broadening the definition further and being even more intense about those arguments again is totally counterproductive because the thing that people are blanching at and that is making them skeptical of that position is literally what you continue to do at an even faster pace.
- [34:54]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. And so AIPAC just spent more than $20 million in these Illinois elections, which we'll talk about in a moment. Put up E5, which will lead us into that. This is a tweet from Shane Goldmark. A New Times reporter says Jan Schakowski, who is a retiring member of Congress, pulls Donna Miller endorsement in 2nd congressional district over AIPAC support. This is back in February. And AIPAC then, quote, tweets last night, and then what happened? And what's notable about this is that APAC hid its involvement in its support for Don and Miller. They created this Lex Chicago women super PAC because they know that using their name aipac, or United Democracy Project, which is their branded super pac, is super damaging to candidates that they support. And then when shows like this or at drop site, we do the reporting that says, oh, actually we've pieced it together. This is AIPAC money that is being funneled into the campaign. AIPAC responds, that's anti semitic conspiracy theorizing that you're doing. How dare you suggest that. And then after their candidate wins, they publicly take support for the thing that a day before they were saying was a conspiracy theory. Yeah. Anyway, so let's move to.
- [36:21]
Krystal Ball
Well, on that, producer Max sent a funny tweet that I want to read on that point. This is from DEI Speedwagon. Shout out to you on X. We're a couple cycles away from AIPAC spending ad money accusing pro Palestine candidates of getting money from aipac probably a
- [36:34]
Saagar Enjeti
couple of weeks away. Yeah, a good one.
- [36:36]
Krystal Ball
We're laughing, but not out of the realm of possibility.
- [36:40]
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- [37:10]
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- [37:40]
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- [38:42]
Saagar Enjeti
we can start with F4 here. APAC spent at least $22 million in four Illinois congressional races that were very closely watched because there was only one race in which they spent openly and acknowledged that they were spending the race. The other three they funneled through kind of made up super PACs. One called Affordable Chicago now another one called Elect Chicago Women. When those got outed as APAC Super PACs, they created a new one called Progressive Funds or something like that that they started funneling money through. So let's go through these four races let's start with the one that everybody cares about the most, even though arguably it wasn't the most important one. When it comes to the kind of gradients of ideological difference between the candidates. That's District 9, which was Laura Fine, who was the APAC candidate. We knew it. It was clear. Even though they were using kind of fake super PACs, Kat Abu Ghazala and Daniel Biss, who's Evanston mayor. And then you had Bushra Amiwala, who was a local elected official who was running kind of to Kat and Daniel's left. And people kept pushing to kind of drop out and endorse Kat. That was probably never going to happen. What I would. So Daniel Biss won and won by about 45, 4,500 votes for four points. Yeah. One thing I think the left should take away from all of these races is that there should be a deep stigma on candidates who cannot win and refuse to drop out. And I'm not just talking about Bush or I'm talking about across the board. There was a failure to consolidate. And when you combine a failure to consolidate behind a single candidate with millions of dollars in spending for the other candidate, it's very difficult to win. And you let then APEC candidates, you know, win with like 30% of the vote.
- [40:40]
Krystal Ball
Fine. Only got 20%, which is pretty interesting.
- [40:42]
Saagar Enjeti
So fine. Just 20%. Millions spent on her, on her behalf.
- [40:48]
Krystal Ball
I just have to pause for a moment, just think about how completely ridiculous ridiculous it is that the people of Illinois's 9th district, suburban Chicago, had their race hijacked into a mandate on Middle Eastern foreign policy.
- [41:06]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. Except none of the ads.
- [41:07]
Krystal Ball
Insane.
- [41:07]
Saagar Enjeti
Except none of the actual ads talked about foreign policy.
- [41:10]
Donald Trump
Right.
- [41:10]
Saagar Enjeti
Even though there was.
- [41:11]
Krystal Ball
That's crazy.
- [41:12]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And also. And I kept telling y' all this, now you can believe me, Bouchra finished sixth. So, like, people were like, no, no, she has a shot. She has a shot. No. So AIPAC put money behind Bushra Amiwallah's campaign, trying to peel votes away from Kat and from BIS to try to boost Laura. Fine. She finished behind multiple candidates that you've never even heard of. She got a total of 6,000 votes. 5%. Every single one of her votes would have had to go to Kat in order for Kat to win. There's just no world in which 100% of votes go from one candidate to another.
- [41:59]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. A lot of them are protest votes anyway.
- [42:01]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And a lot of. A lot of her supporters did not like Kat. Her support was concentrated among South Asian population, which also had Problems with CAT for other kind of optical reasons. So bis, who had the support of J Street and had millions spent against him by aipac or hundreds of thousands at least. I don't know if it climbed millions against, but millions in total spent by AIPAC to try to win this race. So BIS ends up winning. BIS had kind of a Elizabeth Warren Democrat. He had Elizabeth Warren's endorsement, like on day one of the campaign. And this is kind of an Elizabeth Warren district. Yeah, suburban district. So ended up. So he ends up winning. He'll win. He'll win in the, in the. He'll win the general. It's not even close. In his victory speech last night, you know, he mentioned J Street and aipac. Let's roll that. Let me end this simply by saying APAC found out the hard way, black
- [43:12]
Krystal Ball
district is not for sale.
- [43:21]
Saagar Enjeti
So without a pack, may tonight be the last time I utter their name. This victory belongs to J Street. Tooth and nail against unspeakable odds for that point of view that represents the mainstream in this district and the mainstream
- [43:41]
Public Investing Platform Announcer
of the Jewish community.
- [43:42]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. So the question now, Emily, for the left will be, I think, around organizing BIS and putting pressure on bis. There is an argument that. And this unfolded in the Malinowski district in New Jersey 11, where Analia Mejia ended up winning thanks to AIPAC smashing Malinowski. So Malinowski was a former, you know, had been an elected Democrat before he had worked at the State Department. He had a lot of credibility among Democrats in the House when it came to foreign policy. And so what AIPAC said publicly was that even though Malinowski was much milder in his criticism of Israel, his mild criticism was more of a threat to them than Mejia's strong criticism. Because they think they can marginalize Mejia and say, well, you don't need to listen to her. She's crazy squad radical. But Malinowski is harder for them to marginalize. And so that was either cope or the rationale for why they were actually okay, that their preferred candidate lost and they accidentally boosted the squad like candidate. Now I think they miscalculated. I think Ana Lily is going to have a lot more power in the House than they expected. But that was their rationale. That was the same rationale they used to spend millions to defeat Andy Levin in Michigan. Levin was a synagogue president and part of the Levin family dynasty member of Congress. He was redistricted into a race with Haley Stevens and AIPAC spent millions to back Stevens over Levin because they're. And they, they publicly made this argument that it was dangerous to have a guy who called himself a liberal Zionist, who was a synagogue president who was criticizing Israel, who was casting votes against Israel and was supporting Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar when they were being called anti Semitic, he would show up with them and say they are not. They are my friends, they have legitimate criticisms of Israel. And you, and you cannot, you cannot, you know, you cannot weaponize anti Semitism against them because you disagree with them politically. And the fact that he was a synagogue president made it. Made that punch from him land much harder. And so they said we need to get him out of office.
- [46:09]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [46:09]
Saagar Enjeti
And they spent and they got him out of office. And a similar thing is unfolding with biscuits. Bis's mom was Israeli. He's got lots of connections to Israel. He has the support of J Street, you know, which is. Which calls itself liberal Zionist. And so to have BIS out there attacking AIPAC and criticizing Israel and supporting block the bombs, which isn't. Doesn't go far enough, but it is considered to be existential to Israel and aipac, the block the bombs act, they feel like BIS is more. Is a significant threat to them.
- [46:44]
Krystal Ball
You can see how that would make sense.
- [46:45]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And so for them, they're now doing this cope like, ah, we beat Kat and we beat Bushra.
- [46:51]
Krystal Ball
Bushra finished six.
- [46:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Get out of. I'm gonna give me. You spent money to support her.
- [46:54]
Krystal Ball
You're gonna got 21% of the vote.
- [46:57]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And collectively Bis and Gazzela got well over a majority and their candidate got 20%. Yeah. So they got washed. So now what people have to do is organize in suburban streets around this. Yeah. I saw somebody saying yesterday that the kind of anti Zionist movement needs to have more space for these quote unquote liberal Zionist critics of Israel because their argument was in the journey from full on APAC level support of Israel to becoming anti Zionist, it's actually a bigger leap to go from APAC hardcore right wing Zionism to liberal Zionism like that is a harder move to make and more dramatic than it is to go from liberal Zionism to anti Zionism. Because once you're in the liberal Zionist space and you're starting to talk about apartheid and occupation and genocide, the rationale and the logic just pushes you to anti Zionism eventually. It's just a question of how long it takes you to move from there to there. So the argument would be the goal now of CAT supporters and Bushra supporters needs to be to pressure BIS to go further. And I think there's also opportunities to do that in the two other districts where APAC won. But let's do District 7 next, where AIPAC caught just a brutal l. The only race where they spent money with their chests and admitted that they were the ones doing the spending, it was like four to five million dollars they put behind Melissa Conyers Irvin, who is the Comptroller of Chicago currently under investigation for corruption. Like, just like comically corrupt. This was a massively divided field and according to all of the kind of prognosticators, them putting this many millions in the race behind her was going to be enough to just push her over the top that you just couldn't compete with that avalanche of money. She lost. She finished with 20.5%, almost exactly what Laura Fine got. AIPAC's many millions of dollars got her 19,000 votes, which is 3,000 less than LaShawn Ford.
- [49:32]
Krystal Ball
I wonder how much money that was per vote. Brutal.
- [49:37]
Saagar Enjeti
And that's only the money we know about that doesn't count. Like mailers and like C4 and like all the off the books kind of spending. Incredible. Like you could have gone around and paid $1,000 to every person. Like old school Chicago stuff.
- [49:50]
Krystal Ball
So literally you could have done that. You could have paid $2,000.
- [49:53]
Saagar Enjeti
We'll give you two, we'll give you two grand. Please just show up.
- [49:57]
Krystal Ball
Oh my gosh.
- [49:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Instead they gave it to consultants who were going to buy a boat and lost. Now the races they won, we saw that they were bragging about Donna Miller. So in District 2, Jan Schakowski endorsed Donna Miller. And then they, and then AIPAC started doing this, you know, fake, these fake super PACs to support her. And when it was exposed that it was AIPAC money, Schakowski withdrew her endorsement. AIPAC now boasting, Haha, we won. Anyway, as we talked about in the last segment, they sort of deny and call it a conspiracy theory that they're the ones behind these super PACs. But then when their candidate wins, they take credit for the victory, which is there's just. Do you get to do that? I don't think you.
- [50:50]
Krystal Ball
I guess so.
- [50:51]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't think you get to do that. So Donna Miller did win with 40% of the vote. And this is where we need to stigmatize the lack of consolidation. So 60% of people voted against her, but she still won. So Jesse Jackson Jr. And Robert Peters split their vote. Jesse Jackson Jr. Trying to make a comeback. Peters was kind of like the progressive real hope in that race. But Jesse Jackson Jr. Had such a, has such a name and a reputation there that you know, he was always going to do quite well. He got almost 30%. Was it Yvette Brown with 10% pulling another, you know, so those three candidates, one of them needed to. The left needs some mechanism to say no, this is who we're getting behind. Because if it's just this was a
- [51:43]
Krystal Ball
typical Tea Party conundrum. It's tough them Tea Party hitting the same snag.
- [51:49]
Saagar Enjeti
It's tough. The left is not organized enough or ruthless enough to be able to pull this off. And so the same problem hit them in District 8. Melissa Bean, another former member of Congress. Before that she was a top JP Morgan banker. I covered her when she was in Congress last time around they put her on the Financial Services Committee where she played a very unhelpful role when it came to banking reform. Now she's coming back. AIPAC spent heavily and she finished with almost 32% of the vote. Very narrowly beat Junaid Ahmed who had 27% of the vote. So very close, very close race. Ahmed had the support of Justice Democrats. He was the kind of left wing candidate. Now there's a group called American Priorities. This is the kind of anti genocide pac. That pro Palestine pact is spent heavily for NIDA Alam in North Carolina. They've raised like 10 million dollars and they've pledged that they're going to take on aipac. There was a lot of pressure among progressive electoral folks for them to get into this race and get behind Ahmed. And the argument was like he can do this, like he's a serious candidate. What I was told was that they have a poll from like January that showed that they didn't think he could win. And so they didn't. And so they refused to get in the race. They resisted this pressure. Apex meant heavily. And what I think what these results show is that they could have made up 2,500 votes. What is it, 3,500 votes? Maybe not, maybe a million dollars from them doesn't push Achmed over the top, but I think it does. If the race is that close, then you've got multiple other candidates had 6% or more, Morrison at 9, Bankol at 9, Tully at 12.7, no consolidation plus a refusal to get behind. The folks behind this new pack are similar to a lot of people who get into politics who are like people before us. Haven't figured out how to do it, but we figured it out. It's mathematical, it's quantitative. We're going to follow the Data.
- [54:14]
Krystal Ball
We're gonna Moneyball it.
- [54:16]
Saagar Enjeti
We're gonna Moneyball it.
- [54:16]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [54:18]
Saagar Enjeti
And it's not quite that simple.
- [54:20]
Krystal Ball
Yep.
- [54:21]
Saagar Enjeti
But also, emotion ends up playing a role in it. I wonder if, you know, they were outspent by AI and APAC in the NIDA Lam race and lost this, like, brutal, very, very close race. A thousand votes or something.
- [54:35]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [54:36]
Saagar Enjeti
And so I bet that emotion ended up playing a role that they were. They were burned and, like, on their heels then coming into Illinois. And so they lacked the confidence to get in for Junaid. But that. So that's a missed opportunity for them just to be a little ruthless. Love them. But, you know, that's a miss.
- [54:57]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that is a miss.
- [54:58]
Saagar Enjeti
But now there are two opportunities here. Donna Miller and Melissa Bean. I think Miller represents a stronger opportunity.
- [55:06]
Krystal Ball
Why is that?
- [55:07]
Saagar Enjeti
So she won with AIPAC support, but it was the secret AIPAC support. But she knows she only got 40% of the vote. Does she want to face a primary challenger in two years that has consolidated support from the left? Or does she want to publicly announce tomorrow that she will not take AIPAC money, that she rejects their. She's angry about their support. She wishes they hadn't.
- [55:36]
Krystal Ball
Stay away from me.
- [55:37]
Saagar Enjeti
Do not ever elect me to Congress again. How dare you.
- [55:40]
Krystal Ball
Do not come.
- [55:41]
Saagar Enjeti
But that's what Valerie Fouch did, and she's headed back to Congress. And it may have been just enough to keep enough support. So what I would say to activists in her district, Miller represents an opportunity to basically snatch victory from defeat. That if AIPAC secretly goes around and spends millions of dollars to elect a candidate, and then you come in and lobby them and turn them into your ally, that strips away that tactic from aipac. Because once. Look at Max Frost, like down in Orlando, AIPAC and DMFI basically made a deal where they would allow. They would allow. They wouldn't spend against Max Frost if he would back off some of his criticism of Israel once he was in office, he has been a strident critic of Israel, and AIPAC is now kind of screwed because he's popular in the district.
- [56:47]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, yeah, okay, I see what you're saying. They could replicate that.
- [56:51]
Saagar Enjeti
So maybe Donna Miller, if she's watching, like, look at Max Frost, you could tell aipac, I'm not taking your super PAC support ever again. Thank you for helping me get here. Now I'm done.
- [57:04]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [57:06]
Saagar Enjeti
But then she has to do what Fouche did, which is demonstrate it. Sign all the letters that the activists ask you to sign. Vote the way that they want. You to vote on these issues.
- [57:18]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [57:18]
Saagar Enjeti
And then you'll win enough of them that it drains support for a primary challenge in two years. Because, like, it doesn't matter who's in office really. It's what they do in office that matters to people. So if an initially APAC backed candidate turns on them, maybe take that win.
- [57:42]
Krystal Ball
Interesting.
- [57:43]
Saagar Enjeti
So, hey, just something to think about.
- [57:45]
Krystal Ball
Very interesting.
- [57:47]
Saagar Enjeti
And then we've got the. I don't know if you can do that with Melissa Bean, the JP Morgan banker.
- [57:51]
Krystal Ball
That's probably.
- [57:52]
Saagar Enjeti
She's a pretty right wing Democrat, but hey, that one. You probably want to start organizing for Junaid Ahmed like today to challenge her in two years and this time consolidate around a single candidate. So we have, I think. And next time the super PAC American Priorities might not make the same mistake. They will see that perhaps Bean is more vulnerable.
- [58:19]
Krystal Ball
So much going on yesterday in Illinois particularly.
- [58:21]
Saagar Enjeti
Yep. And then we've got this wild Illinois Senate race. You put up F3 here. So this hit Raja Krishnamurthy, Congressman, who raised insane amounts of money from crypto. Like millions, tens of millions. Yeah. Like 20 million ungodly amounts of money.
- [58:47]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [58:48]
Saagar Enjeti
Against Juliana Stratton, who was. Is J.B. pritzker's lieutenant governor. And she had the support of kind of progressives in the state. She heavily won black voters in the state. She did not really have much vocal support from the Congressional Black Caucus, which is, you know, which they should be criticized for and maybe related to the amount of kind of crypto and corporate money that was being spent against her. But Pritzker went in heavy for her and made. Made this kind of a referendum on his own popularity. And, and she, she ended up beating him by what, seven points. So fairly convincing victory there.
- [59:34]
Krystal Ball
Very conv. When you have that level of money flooding into the race and you have a seven point win, that's.
- [59:42]
Saagar Enjeti
And there was. And they spent like the corporate and crypto money went in heavily to support Robin Kelly, who finished third as another black woman running. And their cynical idea was we're going to split the black vote.
- [59:56]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [59:58]
Saagar Enjeti
And it didn't. It didn't work. You may have seen Juliana Stratton. She was the one who did the.
- [60:07]
Krystal Ball
She had a lot of money.
- [60:08]
Saagar Enjeti
F. Trump. Remember that ad?
- [60:10]
Krystal Ball
Yes.
- [60:13]
Saagar Enjeti
So clearly F. Trump works in Illinois.
- [60:15]
Krystal Ball
Well, Abu Ghazali was doing that. But I guess maybe, maybe best. I don't know. But. So the amount of crypto money here, this is the political group Fair Shake. They spent about 99 million. 99 million on ads for Krishna Murthy's opponents. So they were trying to. Yeah, they were trying to have some fun with that.
- [60:41]
Saagar Enjeti
It's nice to see.
- [60:42]
Krystal Ball
Trying to boost him by just smearing.
- [60:45]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. Nice to see the crypto guys lose. That's something.
- [60:48]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [60:48]
Saagar Enjeti
We can take that. Right?
- [60:49]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. So they were spending for Kelly against Stratton in the race.
- [60:54]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. They're cynically trying to lift Kelly to pull votes away from Stratton.
- [61:00]
Krystal Ball
There's just a crazy amount of money on this. I mean. Yeah.
- [61:04]
Saagar Enjeti
And to make an obvious point, whatever this was on display yesterday in Illinois. It's not democracy like all of these. Well, I mean, Israel and corporate and crypto and AI just dumping money in. But not. But not running on their issues. It'd be one thing. It was like crypto rules. Like, we should all like. And you ran your campaign on that. But they're not like. Like you said, they're doing this cynical stuff of like, oh, we actually support Robin Kelly. She's wonderful. No, you don't.
- [61:39]
Krystal Ball
Right, Right.
- [61:41]
Saagar Enjeti
You're just trying to trick people who otherwise would vote for Stratton to vote for Kelly so that Rajah wins.
- [61:49]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [61:49]
Saagar Enjeti
That's like that. It's just so gross.
- [61:51]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [61:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Bring back the Tammany Hall Chicago machine. Stuff like that was much cleaner than this system.
- [62:01]
Krystal Ball
You have more agency in the Tammany hall system. But actually, no. I mean, I think there's glass half empty. You just laid that out very well. Glass half full. Voters said no to the crypto.
- [62:11]
Saagar Enjeti
That's true. Like the voters. Voters saw through it in several of these races.
- [62:17]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [62:18]
American Military University Announcer
Military life isn't predictable, but earning your master's degree can be. With American Military University's 40 flexible online master's programs, you can stay mission ready while you get market ready. Learn anywhere, anytime. With an education built to keep pace steady, reliable and always accessible. Plus, military service members, veterans and their families can save up to 45% on master's tuition with AMU's special rates and grants. Learn more at AMU apus.edu. steady through every mission.
- [62:49]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Ready to save. It's time for cyber deals. Put a spring in your step with fresh savings that brighten the season. These exclusive week long digital offers on your favorite products are only available when you shop online. Save on eligible items from Kettle Chobani, Quaker Skippy, Hidden Valley International Delight, Frito Lay and Signature select. Available now through March 24th on pickup or delivery orders only. Restrictions apply. See website for full terms and conditions.
- [63:18]
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- [64:20]
Krystal Ball
we gotta play this platinum ad. Yeah, we gotta play this anti platinum ad from Janet Mills. This dropped the last couple days.
- [64:29]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, Janet Mills, governor of Maine, is trailing Oysterman Graham Blattner in every public poll for months now.
- [64:36]
Krystal Ball
Governor of Maine with a lot of support from the leadership of the Democratic Party.
- [64:41]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes, from the chairs of the party to the vice chairs of the party. Her support is very deep. We'll get into that in a second. Let's. Let's roll this ad. F7. Did you know Graham Platner wrote that
- [64:54]
Krystal Ball
women worried about rape need to, quote,
- [64:56]
American Military University Announcer
not get so f ed up they
- [64:57]
Public Investing Platform Announcer
wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to?
- [65:00]
Krystal Ball
It's disgusting.
- [65:01]
Saagar Enjeti
Platner wrote, to avoid rape, women should,
- [65:03]
Public Investing Platform Announcer
quote, act like an adult for f s sake.
- [65:05]
Krystal Ball
Graham Platner.
- [65:06]
Saagar Enjeti
Seriously?
- [65:06]
Krystal Ball
We blame the victim. That's a horrible thing to say.
- [65:09]
Saagar Enjeti
Disqualifying. I have not seen this.
- [65:11]
Krystal Ball
He's a bully.
- [65:12]
Saagar Enjeti
This guy gives off a vibe. Just no way I could vote for you. No Graham Platner. The closer you look, the worse it gets. I'm Janet Mills and I approve this message. And so if people are new to that, I highly doubt they are. This was a scandal that emerged many months ago when Platner first ran, where some opposition research uncovered his Reddit posts from years ago. He was a bartender to tune in, and then there he is.
- [65:44]
Krystal Ball
Recovering veteran, struggling with ptsd.
- [65:48]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And you know, so those were his observations at the time as a bartender. Anonymous observations which he has. People can find the video he posted about it. He has said, like he's embarrassed by them. He distances himself from them now. It's not how he feels today. And he has said that, you know, if you're held to the standard of the worst things you've ever said on the Internet, then nobody real can ever run for office. Which nobody real. Gets us to our next element. You can put up this from the main wire.
- [66:25]
Krystal Ball
The conservative main publication took this one out.
- [66:28]
Saagar Enjeti
It looked like Janet Mills had found regular Maine women who were appalled by these comments. The main wire news outlet that you can brief us on in a moment finds that it's Peggy Shaffer, who's a former Maine Democratic Vice chair, Lynn Bromley, former Democratic state Senator, Jill Barkley. Roy is director of Emerge Action Fund, a Democratic aligned group. And Brenda Garand is a consultant and a former longtime member of the main public board. Some Mills couldn't even find actors, I guess.
- [67:00]
Krystal Ball
Incredible, incredible.
- [67:03]
Saagar Enjeti
So just getting pure kind of Democratic establishment figures to say they don't like the guy who's challenging the Democratic establishment. Interesting also that they went with this rather than the like skull and bones Nazi linked tattoo or some of the other stuff.
- [67:21]
Krystal Ball
I mean, because it's.
- [67:23]
Saagar Enjeti
Maybe they've got more in the canon.
- [67:24]
Krystal Ball
I'm sure they do, but it's falling flat on its face because all of the polling coming from this race is showing double digit even Mills is polling, if I'm remembering correctly, is showing double digit margins right now for Graham Platinum.
- [67:35]
Saagar Enjeti
Some are single digits, to give her
- [67:36]
Krystal Ball
credit, but significant single digits, I'm assuming like upwards towards double digits because this is falling on its face and it's falling on its face for a reason that they're struggling to make an argument against, which is he's trying to say, you know, I have all kinds of quibbles with this argument about identity politics, but he's trying to say that is the wedge that elites are using to divide us. He's correct on that point. He's saying this is a class question. This is. It's not even. He's not even talking about like affordability in the kind of cringe sense. He's talking about like actual nuts and bolts, Democratic socialism and what he thinks the. He has like a pretty coherent vision of what he wants the government to look like, the economy to look like. And Janet Mills is just talking about identity politics as he's running the smartest campaign against identity politics, which is this ad where you have a bunch of politically connected women reading his old Reddit posts. She's not even attacking him at. She could argue that she thinks Democratic socialism is bad for reason X, Y and Z. She could. She's welcome to do that.
- [68:44]
Saagar Enjeti
And there's an argument that if. Let's say if he survives this, that he comes out of it a much stronger general election candidate because a, it shows the Maine public that he's not the choice of the Democratic Party establishment, which being the choice of the Democratic Party establishment in any state and in particular in Maine, is something you have to overcome rather than something that benefits you.
- [69:10]
Krystal Ball
Yep.
- [69:10]
Saagar Enjeti
But also, there's this interesting dynamic that I'm pretty convinced unfolded in 2015 and 2016 during the Bernie Hillary campaign, which is that when centrist Democrats attack a candidate, whether it's Graham Platner or Bernie Sanders, as being racist and sexist, what it ends up coding to some moderate or conservative voters is that, oh, maybe they're not as left wing as I thought they were. Like, it makes. So I think that Bernie actually ended up getting some conservative Democratic votes because they understood this identity politics charge from Hillary as deeply left wing. Coded. Left. Left wing, culturally coded. And it made Hillary look left wing and it made Sanders look more moderate.
- [70:08]
Krystal Ball
Totally.
- [70:09]
Saagar Enjeti
And so to the extent that Platner has problems in the general election, it's probably more connected to him calling himself a communist and, like, training.
- [70:17]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [70:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Like paramilitary gun groups, which is hard for the Republicans to hit him on. Well, no, it's kind of cool to train paramilitary, but there's a trans.
- [70:29]
Krystal Ball
I was gonna say it's the trans stuff that's going to be. This is a problem for Mills, too, because Mills has been.
- [70:33]
Saagar Enjeti
The whole thing is the trans question. I'll see you in court.
- [70:37]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, exactly. Mills has staked kind of her political career in this moment against Trump, fighting the Trump administration on bans and, like, trans athletes and bathrooms and that sort of thing. And so, I mean, that is. That will be a hurdle for Platner to overcome because it's not popular.
- [70:55]
Saagar Enjeti
But my argument is that this actually, in a way, helps him overcome that hurdle.
- [70:59]
Krystal Ball
Totally agree.
- [71:00]
Saagar Enjeti
No, I totally agree. The more linked you are to identity politics right now, the more an independent voter thinks you are a far leftist, 100%, rather than being a communist and wanting to seize the means of production and raise taxes on the rich. Left wing has become code for lean in 2020 identity politics stuff. And so having him attacked from the Lane of identity politics codes him as more independent, centrist, and moderate in an unexpected and I think way that most Democratic establishment consultants don't understand.
- [71:42]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [71:43]
Saagar Enjeti
But out of this, like, mishmash, that's what will reach a lot of voters.
- [71:49]
Krystal Ball
Totally agree.
- [71:50]
Saagar Enjeti
We're like, oh, I guess he's not that radical.
- [71:52]
Krystal Ball
No, I think that's right. I think that's right. And just playing straight into his hands.
- [71:55]
Saagar Enjeti
Keep it up, Mills.
- [71:56]
Krystal Ball
Incredible.
- [71:57]
Saagar Enjeti
Do the Nazi one. Because if you do the Nazi one, they will. People are gonna be like, oh, well, he can't be a communist and a Nazi, and he's obviously not a Nazi. And so.
- [72:06]
Krystal Ball
But communists have the right.
- [72:08]
Saagar Enjeti
The communist charge. Just when. If you're calling him a Nazi, it
- [72:12]
Krystal Ball
brings up different mass murder questions.
- [72:16]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. If they want to accuse him of being a Stalinist or something.
- [72:19]
Krystal Ball
We're thinking of, go ahead. That's what's on the table.
- [72:22]
Saagar Enjeti
Collins can try to warn that he's going to create gulags in Maine.
- [72:27]
Krystal Ball
That also might not be super successful, but, yeah, the Mills campaign just. It's incredible to watch them play directly into Platner's hands, because it's all they have. I mean, it doesn't have to be all they have. She could actually make an argument. She could actually lead, or she could
- [72:43]
Saagar Enjeti
be like, I'm losing badly, and I should just. And It's. I'm like, 78. I should just retire.
- [72:48]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, you can't really.
- [72:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Maine's beautiful. Like, just go do something else.
- [72:51]
Krystal Ball
Enjoy it. Have some oysters. She knows a guy who can get some fresh ones.
- [72:56]
Saagar Enjeti
He'll give you a deal.
- [72:57]
Krystal Ball
Oh, my goodness. All right, well, that's probably enough for us today.
- [73:00]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I think that should do it.
- [73:02]
Krystal Ball
Okay, well, thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Premium subscriptions. You can get over@breakingpoints.com. we appreciate it. Ryan's gonna be in Cuba. We look forward to a dispatch. Actually, you'll probably be back in studio Wednesday, right?
- [73:16]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes, next Wednesday. And we didn't get to cover the micropenis debate that I triggered.
- [73:23]
Krystal Ball
That's right. That was you. That's right. Somebody.
- [73:26]
Saagar Enjeti
I was telling Emily, a high school friend posted to a little group chat. Ryan is now involved in a national micropenis debate.
- [73:34]
Krystal Ball
He is.
- [73:35]
Saagar Enjeti
Look that one up.
- [73:36]
Krystal Ball
Just Google Ryan Grimm. Micro penis.
- [73:40]
Saagar Enjeti
We're not going to talk about it here, but you can go search that.
- [73:43]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, just type that in. You know, we could have talked about it in the Greenblatt segment, though, because it's the same.
- [73:49]
Saagar Enjeti
It is. Yeah. It's the.
- [73:50]
Krystal Ball
The same concept, just attacking people for retweeting Ryan. Which, listen, when Ryan and I first started hosting together, I got it all the time. And I'm sure he got it too. From me.
- [74:04]
Public Investing Platform Announcer
Indeed.
- [74:05]
Krystal Ball
So if you are doing the guilt by association thing, when people share legitimate facts, which is all Ryan did.
- [74:11]
Saagar Enjeti
That's all I do in this tweet. It's all I ever do.
- [74:13]
Krystal Ball
It's all he ever does. Then you're losing the argument. Okay, that does it for us.
- [74:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Today we maybe we'll googling.
- [74:20]
Krystal Ball
We could cover it Friday. But you won't be on Friday.
- [74:22]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't think so.
- [74:22]
Krystal Ball
All right. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. Appreciate it. We'll see you on Fridays while Ryan we're just going in circles here. Ryan won't see you on Friday. I'll see you Friday. We'll see you next Wednesday.
- [74:32]
Saagar Enjeti
Bye.
- [74:42]
Donald Trump
Foreign.
- [74:50]
American Military University Announcer
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Ryan Seacrest
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Saagar Enjeti
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Ryan Seacrest
at the top of the standings.
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Ryan Seacrest
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Saagar Enjeti
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Saagar Enjeti
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- [76:22]
Krystal Ball
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [76:25]
Saagar Enjeti
Guaranteed Human.