← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
3/2/26: US Jets Crash, Hegseth Won't Rule Out Ground Troops, Gas Prices Surge, Austin Shooting
01:06:10
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- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
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- [00:35]
Saagar Enjeti
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- [01:20]
Public Podcast Sponsor
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 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.
- [02:19]
Saagar Enjeti
Hey, guys, Sager and Krystal here.
- [02:21]
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 the show.
- [02:28]
Saagar Enjeti
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [02:34]
Krystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:45]
Saagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have a big show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
- [02:57]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, the entire show, as you guys will not be surprised to learn, is going to be focused on Iran. We've got a million updates for you this morning, including three fighter jets being shot out of the sky and what is being claimed as a friendly fire incident. President Trump saying there are going to be be more dead Americans. We're taking a look at the markets this morning as they open. Also, already blowback here in the US and abroad against our illegal aggressive war against Iran. We've got some polling indications that the American people are, unsurprisingly, not behind this whatsoever. And then we have two major gigantic gas. We're so fortunate to get to talk to Professor Jeffrey Sachs this morning and also Professor Zhang. His first appearance on the show he made back in, I think, May of 2024, three bold predictions. One, Trump was going to win, two, that he would go to war with Iran, and three, that the US Would lose that war. So we're going to check in with him about how he thinks that prediction is panning out, if anything has surprised him in the buildup in the early phases of this war. So it's going to be a huge one today.
- [03:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, that's right. All right, let's go ahead and get to the latest updates out of Iran.
- [04:02]
Krystal Ball
All right, guys, we're going to start this morning with shocking images. Let's put this up on the screen. This is a US Fighter jet after being hit allegedly by friendly fire by our Kuwaiti allies falling out of the sky. And this is reportedly one of three fighter jets that CENTCOM is saying hit by friendly fire. The Iranians are saying that they are claiming responsibility for at least one of these jets, but our government is claiming this was friendly fire from the Kuwaitis. Three US Fighter jets being shot out of the sky. Now, as far as we know, all of the service members on board those fighter jets, all of those pilots are safe. There are some crazy videos out there too, of them being recovered. And one of them, the Kuwaitis, who find one of the pilots says, let's call an ambulance. The other one says, he's American, let's just leave him. Give a sense of the way that people in the region outside of leadership, feel about American service members and about this operation overall. But, Sager, I mean, before I even get into any of the other elements, and we have a whole slew of them, just your reaction to this.
- [05:09]
Saagar Enjeti
This is a humiliation on the world stage. This is equivalent to what happened whenever those fighter jets were lost on the carriers in the middle of high seas. And this is what we've been warning about here for weeks, is about military readiness, lack of coordination with allies. You have drones. I mean, by centcom's own admission in this alleged friendly fire incident, by the way, they call it a parent friendly fire. So obviously the facts are still not 100% known is you had Iranian aircraft, Iran missiles, and Iranian drones all in the sky at the same time. Each one of these aircraft has a pilot, a weapon systems officer. That's why there's six crew that have been ejected. And they're at least safe for now, thank God. But these are $100 million aircraft per piece. So the $300 million just got evaporated in the sky. The scale of what is happening here is unbelievable. We are talking about potentially tens of billions already in munitions, in aircraft and other assets which are already lost and have been used in. In this operations. But perhaps more importantly is you don't wanna have these emperor have no clothes moments because you're looking at the seat of the global empire. And look, we're gonna show you plenty of stuff. We are capable of vaporizing a lot of things, but in long sustained kinetic operations, as we're already watching, we have four Americans dead. As of this morning, four Americans are already dead. The president and the top general keep saying more to come, more to come. Maybe there have been more and they're not even telling us.
- [06:36]
Krystal Ball
Well, the president actually indicated in an interview with the New York Times that there likely are already more dead. And in a. I can't even call this really a speech, but a hastily edited statement that Trump gave yesterday, he spoke about how there will likely be more dead Americans out of this war. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
- [06:57]
Saagar Enjeti
Earlier today, CENTCOM shared the News that three US military service members have been killed in action. As one nation, we grieve for the
- [07:08]
Public Podcast Sponsor
true American patriots who have made the
- [07:11]
Saagar Enjeti
ultimate sacrifice for our nation even as we continue the righteous mission for which
- [07:18]
Public Podcast Sponsor
they gave their lives. We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love
- [07:25]
Saagar Enjeti
and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That's the way it is, likely be more, but we'll do everything possible where that won't be the case. But America will avenge their deaths and
- [07:44]
Public Podcast Sponsor
deliver the most punishing blow to the
- [07:47]
Saagar Enjeti
terrorists who have waged war against basically civilization. They have waged war against civilization itself.
- [07:57]
Krystal Ball
Interesting. He doesn't, yeah, interesting. He doesn't send his own military age son into this, into this supposedly worthy cause. And we can put a 2 up on the screen. This is the quote I was referencing to the New York Times. I'll read this whole thing. Mr. Trump spoke from Mar a Lago about 36 hours into the conflict. Soon after he received news of American casualties. Saying he could only speak briefly because he was about to meet with the generals. He acknowledged that his administration expected more casualties based on projections throughout. Three is three too many as far as I'm concerned. And of course, as Sagar said, it's now up to four. One of the wounded service members succumb to their injuries. He goes on to say, if you look at projections, they do projections, it, you know, it could be quite a bit higher than that. We expect casualties. But he professed confidence Iran would in the end bend to America's and Israel's will. The country has been very substantially weakened, to put it mildly. In other comments that he gave recently, Sager, he also was, he was asked, okay, you want the regime, you're going for the regime change. How is this going to work? He offered a number of different theories, including one of them being that the irgc, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, would just surrender their weapons to the population. They would just hand over their weapons and give it up.
- [09:09]
Saagar Enjeti
Look, I mean, it's not time for a victory lap, but it's true. If you've been watching the show, what have we been saying? They're on a sugar high from Venezuela and from Midnight Hammer. They really believed that it would be the same. They didn't want to believe any of the people from the top. General Dan Kaine to many of the other advisors who said, this one is very different. If you wanna know how fucked we are, let's put a three up here. Jonathan Karl At ABC News talked to the President last night and he was asked about possible candidates to take over Iran. They were killed in the initial attack. Quote, the attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates. It's not gonna be anybody. That what we are thinking of because they're all dead. Second or third place is dead. He is enamored at the strength of the US bomb or actually even this case it's the ISRA bombs that were able to take out these leaders. But this fantasy idea of the IRGC just handing over their weapons to the people, yeah, I'm sure that's gonna happen. The very same people that just killed a bunch of the protesters who rose up against them. I mean this is a incitement to civil war. Already there are massive reports coming out of Iran of attacks on border stations. You know, why do you think that you wanna do this is the Syria model. You eliminate the border and you flood it in with a bunch of friendly AKA CIA backed assets. Does anyone who wanna tell me who the great enemies of the Shia people are? Al Qaeda, I mean we've got an Al Qaeda leader sitting on the throne in Syria right over there. Just think this is going to be Libya on steroids. If the Israelis and I guess these Americans now get their way, we're screwed. They had no plan. They really believed some sort of Delsey Rodriguez thing was going to happen. And another way where you can see the lack of coordination, look at the Gulf. And these guys have been caught completely flat footed. The Kuwaitis are throwing things up. This is not a sophisticated military. You have Doha. I mean I used to live in Doha. I am watching places where I know with ballistic missiles falling out of the sky. Some of these hotels, you and I have been to these hotels. Can you imagine Dubai airport? I've slept in that airport a million times.
- [11:12]
Krystal Ball
Closed down, it's gone. It is hard to. I mean the Dubai piece is wild.
- [11:18]
Saagar Enjeti
It's crazy.
- [11:18]
Krystal Ball
And because the whole brand proposition of Dubai is like, oh, we're sort of exempt from any instability from the region. We're like exempt from that because this is where the global elite keep their money, right? This is where you can go and buy these palatial multimillion dollar luxury properties. This is where you can go on your, you know, your exclusive vacation and you know, with the beautiful beaches and the manufactured, you know, super high end luxury hotels and all of this, the tallest building in the world, et cetera, et cetera. Now you've had some of those hotels hit, you've had them Struck. You have all these videos coming out of people who are shocked. And there are tons of Americans there, by the way, but people from all around the world, the global elite all around the world. This is a manufactured playground for the rich that is now taking hits by Iran. The damage this will cause long term to their whole sort of value proposition there you can't even wrap your head around. Then we're going to get to the market fallout. You know, you had Saudi Aramco, you had some of their assets hit. You have Qatar completely shutting down their LNG production already. Massive impacts. The Strait of Hormuz is de facto closed because the insurers won't insure the cargo ships that are going through there because the Iranians have attacked a few ships that are there in the region. And so the insurers say, no, you can't travel through there. So they're defi. That's all it took. That's de facto closed now. Something that Sager. I mean, we've been hearing about threats and how dire that would be because 20%, 20 to 25% of the world's oil passes through there. So. And it happens to be the, you know, the oil that's most influential in terms of setting the price for the market. So it's an extraordinary disruption. You know, you could sort of, I think, equate it perhaps to the level of disruption we saw in the early phases of the Ukraine war in particular. Yes, that's at least where we are already. And we are mere days into this war. So you have US Fighter jets either being shot out of the sky by Iranians or by our own allies. You have damage to our allies throughout the region. We're gonna ask Professor Sachs later on about this clip of a Saudi analyst saying the Americans abandon us and only care about protecting the Israelis. You have already dire warnings and concerns about the number of interceptors that we have remaining. The Iranians, which, look, they're taking a lot of damage. I mean, they've had hundreds of people kill. Huge damage in Tehran and other places in the country. These horrifying images obviously of these schoolgirls, the hospitals that are being hit, et cetera. But they also seem to have learned from the twelve Day War, and their strategy is, we're gonna send out all of these drones, which it's the similar drones to what the Houthis were using, by the way. The Houthis have joined the fight, Hezbollah has joined the fight. These 20 to $30,000 drones that they can produce, mass produce and just send out and you exhaust the stockpile of interceptors of both the Israelis and the Americans. And then later on, you hold your bigger stuff for later on. Now, that's a risk for them because it's possible that their ability to launch those missiles gets destroyed. That's certainly the goal of the US and the Israelis. But it's not a crazy bet that they're making right now. And they know that we have much less stomach for and capacity to take damage than they do. Because for them, it's existential. For us, we don't even want to be doing this shit right.
- [14:38]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. We're already four more lives than this entire thing was worth. And all the people at the top are telling us are that there are going to be more. Why don't we show some of the video just so you guys can see. It's not just us talking. This is a region which is on fire. I mean, nobody has seen scenes like this literally ever. I mean, even at the height of the Iraq war, it was in the middle of Iraq. This is West Jerusalem last night. I mean, that. Look at that. Can you imagine living in the middle of downtown and watching a movie?
- [15:04]
Krystal Ball
Densely populated.
- [15:05]
Saagar Enjeti
Densely populated. I've been to western Jerusalem. That is crazy. Look at this. This is in Kuwait. You can see an American soldier, American service member filming this. Do you hear what he says? They're starting to dial in our buildings. That was a suicide drone. This is from the Straits of Hormuz. This was a skylight, I believe is the. Is the name of the ship which was attacked. There's already been one confirmed death in an attack on a ship which was off the coast of Oman. This is Tehrad. I mean, this is un believable. There were even video coming out late last night, our time, where you could see that the bombs were so light, they were lighting up the mountains behind them. Who knows how many thousands of people are being killed there right now. This is in Israel, in Bet Shemesh. I talked about this in my update. That's the Burj Khalifa, which we mentioned in the middle of Dubai, probably one of the most iconic hotels in the world. Here we have in the middle of Beirut, you have destruction everywhere. Hezbollah has launched attacks into the middle of Israel. Not to mention the F15s that we just talked about that went down. That happened just, you know, middle of the night, our time in the middle of. What was that in the middle of? Bahrain?
- [16:14]
Krystal Ball
That was in Kuwait.
- [16:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Sorry. In Kuwait you have crazy situations playing out in Bahrain, you know, a lot of people may not, remember this. Bahrain has a very significant Shia population, but they're ruled by a Sunni kingdom. Well, guess what? Every single time the Iranian drones are making impact in Bahrain, the local Shia are cheering. This is some Arab Spring stuff, which, by the way, the United States actually intervened on their behalf to actually make sure that they could quash the Shia opposition inside of that country. This is tens of thousands of Americans who are housed there. This is a full blown regional conflict. The price of oil, the price of gas, everything is being affected. I mean, the number of people who are dead now has got to be probably in the thousands, considering the number of casualties which is happening. The vast majority of these are gonna be in Tehran, as you said. I mean, look, these are Gaza level images. We're talking about hospitals and schools and all this, which are getting struck. And I'm not gonna let the Iranians off the hook either. They hit one of the biggest hospitals, and it was a Palestinian hospital in West Jerusalem. But this is war. This is the totality of all of it. And how do you pull back from here? The off ramp? That Trump. Trump, I think, really believed that he could do Midnight Hammer again. He's like, I'll bomb them and then they'll capitulate and negotiate. But he didn't understand, which we did. So it's not like he didn't have this same information. No. Because at a certain point, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Well, you could see all of this playing out right now for them. They're like, I'm not gonna be bombed. You're gonna kill the Ayatollah, and then I'm gonna come back to the negotiating table with you also. The people with a monopoly on the use of force, the irgc, they are the people most loyal to the Ayatollah. They are the. You know, what do they tell us? Oh, they're psychopaths. They're criminals.
- [17:55]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [17:56]
Saagar Enjeti
They hate us. Okay. You think that they're gonna be the ones who have all of this control over the military, and they're just gonna turn around and they're gonna say, oh, Here you go, Mr. President. No. Okay. They'll fight to the death. They have tens of thousands of these people. I mean, the whole thing, this is a disaster. Even if it ends today, it's a disaster.
- [18:14]
Krystal Ball
It's already an utter shameful, destructive, chaotic catastrophe. I was telling you before, Zara, it's hard for me to think of a more reckless action taken by any country, not just our country, but taken by any country in modern history. I mean, in terms of level of recklessness, it exceeds Iraq. I mean, the lies that we're, we don't know what the objective is. We don't know what the goals are. We don't know what the strategy is. Our allies are not with us. They don't even bother to manufacture consent. It's complete and utter insanity. And I think you have to chalk it up to Trump being high on his own supply with Venezuela being a complete fucking idiot. And also, I mean, you have to look at the Epstein files and go, I don't know, maybe that is part of what's driving the calculus here because the whole thing seems so incredibly insane. And now you've got effectively. So the Iranians have engaged what they call their mosaic strategy. So these IRGC commanders are relatively empowered to make their own decisions. So even if you keep taking out Iranian leaders, they are still empowered to keep going. That makes it very difficult to see an immediate term regime collapse. Not to mention, like, look, I'm not saying that the current government in Iran is super popular. I don't think anyone knows what the popularity is. But they do have a base of support. I mean, there were people who came out who were mourning the assassination of the Ayatollah who were deeply upset. And it will predictably have an impact of a rally around the flag effect, stoking Iranian nationalism within the country. So I think what has happened here is Trump thought that their initial salvos would be devastating enough that the regime would either topple or they would be on such thin ice or such shaky ground that they would feel they had to come back to the negotiating table. And that has not happened. That is a fundamental miscalculation that if you were listening to Tarita Parsi, if you're listening to us, if you were listening to Jeffrey Sachs, if you're listening to Professor Mearsheimer, you would have known that is not what is going to happen here.
- [20:25]
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- [21:25]
Public Podcast Sponsor
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- [22:26]
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- [23:14]
Krystal Ball
So now here we are. The President announced this devastating war where now American service members have been killed. Announced this from his golf club down at Mar a Lago wearing a ball Cap and a shirt and no tie. He then went on to a fundraiser, million dollar fundraiser, put his tie on for that part. We have only heard that from him. These little interviews where he's calling up various New York Times or whoever to give them two minute interviews. One other pre edited statement that we just put out, no live address, not taking any questions. You do have Secretary of War Pete Hegseth out this morning as we speak, giving some sort of a press conference. There were no administration officials on any of the Sunday shows. Just think about this. They have brought us into an illegal war with no congressional approval, no public approval, no public support, and then they are hiding from us. They won't even tell us what is really going on, what the goals really are, what the planning for this is and what is going to happen next. They don't even have enough respect to go out and defend their positions on the Sunday shows. And we can put, we have an element to that effect. This is part two, a 11 guys that you can put up on the screen, just showing what I'm saying here. But this is one of the things that is utterly stunning to me. You have now a massive regional war with all of these strikes on allies throughout the route. And they're taking damage in Dubai and the Strait of Hormuz shut down. Four service members at least killed and more wounded. And the Israelis take all this stuff. And they didn't even go on the Sunday shows. Put a 12 up on the screen here as well. White House just called a lid for the day, meaning Trump's not expected to make any appearances before reporters. That was at 4:30 on Sunday. I mean, Sagra, what can you even say about this?
- [25:11]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, we're screwed. And it's not just about screwed. It is reflective of, remember after Venezuela, Secretary Rubio did a press conference the next day. Now you could say, look, I oppose the Venezuela thing, but there was a plan. You kidnap Maduro, put Delsey in power, we're good to go. They don't know what to do. Now. I really believe that they're in way over their head already. It has gone past what they already expected. We have full blown regional war. The coordination wasn't there. You have multiple Americans who are dead. The Iranians did not capitulate. They thought we could just punch them in the face and they're just gonna keep coming back. But what did we say here? Over and over again they have planned that they're gonna take 90% casualties. And that actually did happen. At the top. All of them are dead. All the national. They didn't care. They have it dispersed. They have it ready to go. The entire regime basically at the top of the national security establishment has been killed. Didn't stop a bunch of missiles flying into Israel last night. Israel got pounded yesterday. Remember this, too. Israel has a massive amount of censorship. They're broadcasting the IDF telling, do not post videos because it gives the battle damage assessment. We have no idea what the catastrophe is like inside of Israel. But you look at that image of that missile, and there were videos of ambulances on the way there. God only knows how many people were killed or the damage that happened. So keep in mind that it's already gone past what they expected. And now that's why he's scrambling. He keeps floating these things. Oh, we'll talk to them. Yesterday he said, we'll be talking. Barack Ravid goes on TV and goes, when he says talking, he doesn't mean talking to the current regime. Who's he talking to? The Shah's failson the Pahlavi idiot. Like, that's what we're dealing with. And. And it's catastrophic. I mean, beyond. Because like you just said with Iraq, Iraq was worse, okay, in terms of damage. But the plan was there. Install Ahmad Talibi. We go in, we find the fake WMD done and dusted. The Coalition Provisional Authority. We didn't have a real plan, but we had a, you know, fake plan. This one. They don't even have a fake one. I mean, they truly have no idea what they're doing. The Secretary of Defense is talking while you and I are. Now, he says it's not a regime change war, but the regime shirted change. We did not start this. We did not start this war. This is literally what he says. We didn't start this war, but we will finish it. The aims are not regime change. Even though the regime has changed. We're just gonna kill the Navy. Sink the Navy. We're gonna make sure that they can no longer project power outside of the region. What does that even mean? That's meaningless. So we're gonna replace the government via the air. Which has literally never happened, ever.
- [27:30]
Krystal Ball
Yes, that is worth underscoring because I was listening to Robert Pape on this, who's the. He's an expert on this, right? He studied all of the. Since. In the history of air power being used in military conflict. Do you know how many times it has worked out that a regime has been placed purely through airstrikes? 0.0times. That is how often this has worked out. And yet here we Are with all of this arrogance, with all of this egotism, with all of this idiocy, thinking this will be the one time that it's worked. It will work with a government that has survived so much of us trying to destroy for close to 50 years. This will be the time that does have some popular base of support, by the way, in the country. This will be the time that it works out. What a bunch of fools on these fake negotiations that were going on that were clearly just a ruse in order to buy them time so that they could amass this whole armada in the region and all of the air power that we have remaining, all of the interceptors we have remaining, and all of that. There are reports that Kushner and Wyckoff, they couldn't even understand what the Iranians were offering, because if this was truly about nuclear weapons. And Dr. Tritiparsi, who we've had on this show many times, and he was speaking to another, I think, over on msnbc, he was speaking to them. He said, listen, I was an informal advisor to the nuclear talks back under the Obama administration, and there is no doubt that what the Iranians were offering here went way beyond what Obama was able to achieve. They offered significantly more concessions. So if Trump wanted to just take that win and say, look at what I did, what Obama could never do, blah, blah, blah, that was there. But again, there are. First of all, that was never the goal. I mean, we've heard, oh, we care about the protesters, we care about freedom. Oh, we care about the ballistic missiles. Then we had, oh, we're worried about their navy. And, oh, and by the way, we're still worried about the nuclear weapons, which we told you we obliterated during the last war. So, you know, I don't want to give them credence to any of the lies and bullshit that they've told here. But if it was really about nuclear weapons, if it was really about the nuclear program, they offered far and away beyond what the previous nuclear deal entailed. And there are reports that Kushner and Wyckoff could not even comprehend what was being said to them. And that is, again, it's intentional, because they weren't there to negotiate. They were there to stall and buy time for this preplanned operation.
- [29:59]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, that's right. Now, let's turn to what we have now so far. So one of the. What are the pretexts that the president gave? Nuclear weapons? Here's Senator Ted Cruz saying openly, no evidence they were close to nuclear weapons, also backed up by a Democratic Senator, let's take a listen.
- [30:13]
Bethenny Frankel
In terms of containing the risk, who's
- [30:15]
Krystal Ball
securing the nuclear material that you say still exists within Iran? Who's doing that?
- [30:20]
Saagar Enjeti
Look, the quantity of nuclear material. I didn't say anything thing one way or another on that. What I said is they were building nuclear weapons a year ago and our bombing took that out. They also had an ongoing desire to rebuild them. I don't have present day intelligence on what progress they had made towards rebuilding nuclear weapons since we bombed their facilities. I have no indication that they were anywhere close to getting nuclear weapons because our bombing was devastating. And Margaret, that's one of the reasons I urged President Trump. Now is the time. I think the President has started a war of choice. There was no imminent threat to the United States. So the decision to put our service members in harm's way and bases around the region in harm's way was entirely based upon the President's decision, not an imminent threat to America. I saw no intelligence that Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of preemptive strike against the United States of America. None. None. None. That is from Ted Cruz and said these are two as pro war as it gets. If you think that those people are lying. By the way, if you want a little bit more of a view into how bad the situation is, here's Senator Tom Cotton saying that there will be no large ground force in Iran. Not. Did you hear the word no large ground force? Not no ground force. Take a listen.
- [31:58]
Krystal Ball
The President of the United States warned the American public that there could be casualties. American casualties. Does that mean the US Is putting boots on the ground?
- [32:11]
Saagar Enjeti
No, Margaret, the President has been clear that what we should expect to see is an extended air and naval campaign that's designed not only to continue to set back Iran's nuclear ambitions, but most importantly to destroy its vast missile arsenal. Many more missiles than the United States and Israel have air defenses combined as well as the missile launchers and its missile manufacturing capability. Now, obviously one risk of that kind of campaign is that an aircraft could be shot down and the President would never leave a pilot behind. So no doubt we have combat search and rescue assets in the region that are prepared to go in and extract any downed pilot. But barring that kind of unusual circumstance, Margaret, the President has no plan for any kind of large scale ground force inside of Iran. Large scale ground force. Now, one of the reasons we have to play you clips of Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Tom Cotton is the White House explicitly said we're going to allow the senators do the talking for us on the Sunday shows. As you referenced earlier, it is not a rule out there of American ground troops that will set foot on Iranian soil.
- [33:14]
Krystal Ball
Well, I've got an update for you this morning. In this Pete Hegseth press conference that's going on right now, he got asked by a reporter, are there currently any American boots on the ground in Iran? And he said, no, but we're not going to get into the exercise of what we will or will not do. Let's take a listen to that.
- [33:31]
Saagar Enjeti
I have two questions for you. First, are there currently any American boots on the ground in Iran?
- [33:39]
Public Podcast Sponsor
No, but we're not going to go
- [33:40]
Saagar Enjeti
into the exercise of what we will
- [33:42]
Public Podcast Sponsor
or will not do.
- [33:43]
Saagar Enjeti
I think it's one of those fallacies for a long time that this department
- [33:48]
Public Podcast Sponsor
or presidents or others should tell the
- [33:49]
Saagar Enjeti
American people and our enemies, by the way, here's exactly what we'll do, here's exactly how long we'll go, here's exactly
- [33:55]
Public Podcast Sponsor
how far we'll go.
- [33:56]
Saagar Enjeti
Here's what we're willing to do and not do. It's foolishness. And so President Trump ensures that our enemies understand we'll go as far as we need to go to advanced American interests. But we're not dumb about it. You don't have to roll 200,000 people in there and stay. For 20 years. We've proven that you can achieve objectives that advance American interests without being foolish about it.
- [34:16]
Public Podcast Sponsor
Now, will we be bold about it?
- [34:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Are we willing to be decisive about it? Do we put months and months of
- [34:22]
Public Podcast Sponsor
planning into what kind of effects we want to achieve?
- [34:24]
Saagar Enjeti
Absolutely.
- [34:26]
Public Podcast Sponsor
But going forward, why in the world
- [34:28]
Saagar Enjeti
would we tell you, you, the enemy, anybody, what we will or will not do in pursuit of an objective, we fight to win. We fight to achieve the objectives the president of the United States has laid out, and we will do so unapologetically.
- [34:43]
Krystal Ball
I mean, and Sagar, what's.
- [34:44]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, they can't, because now we're in it. We're in it now.
- [34:47]
Krystal Ball
That's what scares me, is what there is no offering here. I mean, Trump cares about one thing. It's how things look. His ego and how things look on tv, owe and money, you know, those are the things he cares about. And, and for him to have said, we are going to, there's going to be freedom in Iran. And explicitly remember, guys explicitly framed this as a regime change war. And to go in and get your nose bloodied, have American fighter jets falling out of the sky and getting killed, and the Iranians are saying, no, we're not going back to the negotiating table. How are you going to get out of this? And you will not listen to my words. They will not accomplish their goal here of regime change through air power alone. So what are you gonna do? What are you going to do? And now we already have him saying, oh, you know, we can't rule it out. We're gonna do what it takes.
- [35:37]
Saagar Enjeti
Every day that this goes on, that Kuwait thing, I mean, that we're lucky that more people have not already been killed. And by the way, we don't even know what the real number is. It only takes one look at Afghanistan. Do you remember how we would have the deadliest day in Afghanistan? It just takes one Taliban guy, one lucky RPG and you've got like 30 seals shot out of the sky, right? That's it. That's all it takes. And that happened twice in the history of the war of Afghanistan. Helicopters, they're on their way to something. Routine mission, boom. All right, now 25 people are without a SAN. You know, they're widows, Gold star families. That's all it takes. That's all it takes. And then that changes everything. Now don't forget this. This. I mean, one of the pretexts for the war is about what Iran did to the United States during the war in Iraq, which was basically take over much of the insurgency and supply them with the sophisticated means to manufacture these IEDs. It was EFP, if I recall, which is a very specific deadly type of IED that was dramatically more lethal than anything else that was seen on the battlefield. Now look, that's true. It is true. They are responsible for hundreds of deaths in the war in Iraq. We shouldn't have been there in the first place. But I love that this pretext is now currently being used. If you wanted to strike Iran for doing that, that would have been the time. There are people alive watching this show today who probably. There are people who are watching the show today, literally probably right now, who were not even alive at the time when all of that happened. You can't use some 20 year old pretext. If you wanted to kill him, he should have done it then. And you think the Bush administration wasn't up to it? Do you know why they didn't do it? Because they were bogged down in Iraq already and they're like, well, there's nothing that we can really do if we want to branch into Iran. That's really what this is about. But also think about what that means, is that we're supposed to believe that this army, which, yes, has this conventional capability right now of ballistic missiles, and all of that is just gonna go quietly into the good night. If, by your own admission, they were capable of killing over 1,000Americans through all these ID, what, you think they still don't have all that technology? You think the IED still doesn't work? Not even in terms of occupation? In terms of sponsored terrorism, we're talking the blowback segment. There's some very sketchy stuff going on with that terrorist attack. You got a guy with an Iranian flag or Iranian flag underneath his garb with the Praise Allah sweatshirt, got pictures of the Iranian leader in his house, according to police authorities. And this guy is from Senegal. What the hell is going on here? Right? I mean, this is bad. And we had no, like, planning or anything. You know, I had to fly after the day after. It's the first time in I don't even know a decade where I'm like, I don't know, man. You know? I mean, it shouldn't even be a question, right? It's one of those where I was like, hope so, by the way. I was flying from Austin, and in the time that this terrorist attack literally broke out. How many people are gonna have that up there? You think I'm going to Dubai anytime soon? Which is the gateway to much of Asia for a lot of Americans, no. Most people shouldn't. This is the danger in what has now been unleashed. And, yeah, even though it's day three, they're not backing down. Trump says it's gonna take, what, four weeks? Is that what he said?
- [38:40]
Krystal Ball
That's what he said. Four weeks, Five weeks.
- [38:42]
Saagar Enjeti
We'll see already. Just yesterday in the New York Times, he floated cannibalizing global stocks of ammunition. He says it won't be difficult. We have tremendous amounts of ammo. We have ammo stored all over the world. This is a nightmare. If you care about China and deterring Taiwan, we're done. All right? We're done. We're already probably 50% blown through the interceptor stock. We have maybe three or four weeks left.
- [39:02]
Krystal Ball
And last thing here, I'm just seeing this now because European gas prices skyrocketing like 50% because of all the, you know, the shutdown of the Qatari LNG production and, you know, everything that's going on. The EU has now reached a, quote, panic moment as not all member states have sufficient energy reserves. A leading energy analyst says the EU is likely to do what, Increase energy imports from Russia. So congrats, guys. Way to go.
- [39:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, congratulations. Actually. Congratulations. To Putin. The Kremlin doing backflips right now. Oh yeah, oil at 100 will fund the war in Ukraine for five years. For all of you neocon idiots who supported doing the war with Iran and quote support Ukraine, you just bought another 100k casualties on the battlefield. So congrats to you.
- [39:49]
Public Podcast Sponsor
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 ETF 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 this
- [40:49]
Bethenny Frankel
is Bethenny Frankel from Just Be with Bethany Frankel. Most dog food is marketing, not nutrition. That is why Biggie and Smalls eat just food for dogs. Real 100% human grade food with ingredients I actually recognize. And yes, I do see the difference. Better digestion, healthier skin, more energy. Dogs that feel better. My babies. If you've been on the fence about switching, stop overthinking it. What's more important than your furry babies and their health? Go to justfoodfordogs.com right now and get 50% off your first box. No code needed, just try it.
- [41:26]
Public Podcast Sponsor
When people turn to telehealth for weight
- [41:27]
Saagar Enjeti
loss, they're looking for real support.
- [41:29]
Public Podcast Sponsor
That's why more people are choosing orderlymeds.com orderly meds connect you with real doctors and access to proven GLP1 medications like semaglutide and Tirzeptatide. No guessing, just a more supportive experience and all shipped directly to your door in discreet packaging. Do your research, ask questions, then visit orderlymeds.com podcast for an exclusive offer that's orderlymeds.com podcast. Individual Results may vary. Not medical advice, eligibility required. C site for details.
- [41:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Turning now to the global markets absolutely roiled this morning. We'll start with the most important. Let's put this up here on the screen. Qatar Energy has now stopped all LNG production. If they shut down production 14 trains, the statements were suggested, that is 20% of the global output. A single company is the world's largest LNG producer. European markets spiking 50% this morning for liquefied natural gas, indicating that they may have to wait for it buy gas from Russia. In addition, we are now watching oil skyrocket in price. Guys, can we go ahead and put that one up here on the screen from before? Oil markets that are currently at least 10% of a spike and it is potentially headed for some $100 per barrel. Already they are indicating that gas will likely rise within the next week as there's some restock and negotiations that are currently happening. As I indicated to everyone earlier, let's put B2 on the screen. You can see that the insurers have already said that they're going to dramatically raise the insurance price for any ship which is in the vicinity of the Straits of Hormuz at least by as much as as 50%, several hundred thousand dollars per shipment for probably not only the world's choke point for oil, but in particular this will massively impact markets in Asia where they have predominant amount of their oil moves through. Also we have significant amounts of other goods that move through the Straits and the shutdown of that could cause crises in the Gulf very, very soon. Now in terms of our own markets, we're recording this right after the market opened so we can go ahead and put the CNBC tear sheet up on the screen. Keep in mind, you know we are doing our best right now because things may move and change by the end of the day. But at the moment that we are recording this, it looks like the Dow is down by 500 points by down at least 1% about a 1% drop in the S&P 500, a 1% drop in the Nasdaq. The Russell is down by about 1.68% and US 10 year looks like it's down by about 4%. The Vix which is like a volatility index up some 17.9 and gold and Bitcoin both moving a little bit in a higher direction. The dollar also increasing in value. So you can see that there's already been global market reaction. But by far I would say the Number one headline out of this crystal is LNG Liquefied Natural Gas. Remember, this is how we're all getting electricity and so our electric prices might be going up. Energy, LNG and oil are global commodities. So just because the price goes up somewhere else, it doesn't mean that it won't necessarily affect you. And then we also will have to show you this Saudi aramco. Let's put B1B up here on the screen. This was video just coming out this morning. Saudi official telling Al Arabiya that fires at Saudi Aramco are quote, not the result of a direct drawn in strike, but were caused by falling debris from an intercepted drone. But regardless, obviously a drone going after Saudi Aramco, the largest oil refining export facility in the entire world. The refinery has a capacity of some 550,000 barrels per day and a significant portion of the global oil supply in that single field at that processing facility. So the Iranians are waging a full blown economic war I think on multiple fronts. So if we think about the Gulf states outside of Saudi, for them it was energy plus prestige. So they've crippled now the Qatari gas field, now they've already had bombs and things go off in the middle of Doha, falling intercepted missiles. The uae, the way that Dubai was trying to get past its energy image was to become this global powerhouse for the rich. The Fairmont Hotel and the Burj Khalifa literally on fire, right? You've got all these like Western girl influencers who are probably being paid to be over there like hanging out in tank tops at the gym now scrambling to the airport. Oh, oops. Except you can't get out cause the entire airport shut down. Semaphore reporting this morning, the going rate for a PJ out of Saudi today is 350 grand. For a single one way flight. For a single one way flight. So the princes might be able to make it, Some of the people who pay those influencers might be able to make it. But if you're there on a tourist visa, you're stuck for the time being. The entire region's airspace is basically shut down. I think a single commercial passenger plane has left, I think Abu Dhabi like in the last 24 hours. If you look at global air traffic, it's all going around the middle. I mean you got missiles, drones and all this stuff that's flying up there. Don't forget what happened in Ukraine. You remember when those passenger planes got accidentally shot out of the sky? Well, accidentally shot out of the sky, literally. So I mean this is serious stuff. This is danger. This is extremely dangerous. And the global economic impact in the gas market, we haven't seen anything like this since Ukraine. Except now, ironically, we're going to massively fund the Russian war effort. So congratulations to all of the neocons for dramatically enriching the Kremlin.
- [46:50]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, those images of the burning Dubai hotels are crazy. And the theory is that Iran targeted some of these hotels because service members have been kept, had been moved off of bases to be kept safe. And so the Iranians targeted with these, again, these are like 30 to $50,000 drones that they're using en masse, that they mass produce. It's the same thing that, you know, the Houthis were armed with by the Iranians that they're using to attack hotels in Dubai. Crazy, crazy stuff. Let's put this B6 up on the screen. The Financial Times had good analysis about what all this could mean. They talked to an analyst who said, yes, oil could go up to $100 a barrel. They said, how dangerous would that be to US Growth given the fact that we are largely energy self sufficient at this point. It is a different dynamic than in the 70s or whatever. And they say, but that doesn't mean an interruption to Gulf oil flows would be irrelevant to the US Economy given the impact on oil benchmarks. Sharply higher global oil prices can inflict pain on US Consumers and corporate America. This would feed into higher gas prices, placing a visible strain on consumers, many of whom are already complaining about a cost of living crisis ahead of November's crucial midterm elections. Oil of $100 a barrel could push consumer price inflation from 2.4% in this year to January to above 4%. Fed targets 2% inflation as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures. In the short term, it would make the US Federal Reserve less likely to cut interest rates, which of course is something that Trump has been wanting them to do. So you're talking about interest rates staying relatively high. You're talking about inflation overall because of the way, of course, oil prices feed into everything. And you're talking higher prices at the pump. And you know, you'll recall back at the beginning, early days of the Ukraine war, there was polling that people were like, yes, I am actually willing to pay more at the pump because I believe this was an unjust, unprovoked war of aggression from the Russians. We want to support Ukraine. Like, we want to be on their side. We're willing to take some pain. I think we're both a Little skeptical at the time of how long that would last, rightly so. But this time I want to see the polling. Go ask people, you willing to pay four bucks a gallon for gas so that we can do whatever the hell we're doing right now and have American service members killed, et cetera. There is zero appetite for this. I mean, going into this war, you had maybe 20 to 30% of the American public who were like, yes, war with Iran, many of them live right here in the broader DMV region. In any case, you think that people are willing to pay any, like have any pain in their lives because of this. And then you look at the fact, you know, we've had these massive cuts to the social safety net this year. You've had health care cuts, you've had, you know, you had the whole Doge thing and all kinds of, you know, things that were, that have been made more life made more difficult for people. And meanwhile, we're letting hundred million dollar fighter jets get dropped down to the sky reportedly by our allies and God only knows how much is being spent on this whole absolute catastrophe.
- [49:55]
Saagar Enjeti
They'll never tell you. I mean, do you even want to know what the operating cost on a B2 bomber is? That's a 30 mission from the United States over there. It's millions of dollars. Everything, that thing, even every time it leaves the base. Every Tomahawk missile in hundreds of thousands, half of them, not half, but a decent number of them. Sometimes they don't even explode.
- [50:16]
Krystal Ball
In Nigeria, a quarter of them didn't explode.
- [50:18]
Saagar Enjeti
That's what I'm saying. And then you know the amount of money that were spent. General Kaine this morning said more troops already on the way. So we already had tens of thousands of troops who are in the region. Now he's saying more troops. Anybody remember what it was like in the middle of Iraq? God, I really feel already there was a report coming out for one of the guys who was injured. Navy Reservist 911Dispatcher I mean, this purse probably signed up for extra money. I mean, look, I'm not saying he's not a patriot or any of that, but he probably never imagined he's gonna be in the middle of a war zone.
- [50:50]
Krystal Ball
What do they tell you, like one weekend a month?
- [50:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, one weekend a month or whatever. And it's, I mean, just this is what I watched this happen with Iraq. I know people like that. They're showing that fired firemen in the National Guard. Next thing you know, he's pulling a 16 month tour in Iraq, right? Watching people getting blown up by IEDs. We may not be that far away from that, unfortunately. Considering what Secretary Heck, that this morning. But considering, you know, just on the global economic implication here, it's only day three. We gotta shut down here in lng. Even if things quote unquote go back to normal, like if the war ended today. Think about already you have the Straits of Hormuz problem. The Iranians at least have some limited amount of deterrence in that region. You also have a hardline faction in Iran which I'm doubtful is ever really going to truly surrender. Then you've got the Gulf, Arab prestige. What's happened to them? Have we Talked about the UAE stock market? I think we have, yeah. B3, put that one up there. The UAE literally is closing its entire stock exchange for two days in order to stop the amount of drop, in order to stop the losses that they're likely to incur. We'll talk about this later with Professor Zhang. I mean, you had an Amazon data center take a hit in the middle of the UAE that is disastrous for them because their whole economic pitch was, hey guys, we've got plenty of cheap energy over here. There ain't no NIMBYISM out, you know, out in the desert. Build whatever you want, take as much, suck as much oil out of the ground, we'll power it for you. And we've got millions of dollars to boot. You think they're not gonna rethink that? All of these data center companies and others that are gonna be building them out in the Middle East? I mean, this is, I mean, an absolute disaster already. Also, what we have shown for the Gulf, they can't have nearly that much faith in the. For years the trade was we sell you the oil, we buy your weapons, you protect us. It's not working. I mean, at the very least with these drones, there's not much you can do against them. As far as I know, from what I talked to some of the experts, the way that the Ukrainians deal with these Iranian drones, you put a belt fed machine gun and you just fire it at them, that's basically all you can do. Although that requires a lot of ammunition, which even then we're already talking about having to, to cannibalize global stocks. Our companies, our defense base is not prepared for the spin up that was gonna be required. If this lasts more than three months, we're gonna have serious problems. Serious, serious problems. Like we're gonna be down to the absolute scraps. This is what the generals were warning About I just saw a report this morning from inside of Iran. They say so far Iran has declined three requests for mediation. From de Tehran's perspective, the country possesses the capacity and preparedness to sustain high intensity conflict for a period of approximately 60 to 90 days. Within this strategic calculus, accepting a ceasefire in early stage would not constitute an advantage. Rather, it would carry greater long term strategic costs than continuing the confrontation. For them, they're going to say, let's take as many casualties as we can to sustain 60 to 90 days, inflict maximum damage on all of these people, cripple them and bring them to high risk strategy. Right? Because I mean, look at the videos that we've already showed you. Who knows how many thousands of people are dead in Tehran. You think the Israelis care about civilian casualty? They're carpet bombing that place from what we already saw last night. So I mean, it's a catastrophe. Like literally it could end today and already everything has changed.
- [54:18]
Krystal Ball
Absolutely the case. Absolutely the case. And I just can't get some of these images out of my head. That plane plummeting to the ground. There's one going around. We didn't put it in the show because we weren't 100% sure that this is real. But it appears to show an American service member on the ground surrendering as a local Kuwaiti who found him has a stick over his head ready to beat his ass. I mean, humiliation like this is horrifying humiliation. And we're supposed to be. The whole point of all of the foreign adventurism from this maniac of a president that we have is supposed to be about maintaining our status as the undisputed global hegemon. That's what really at its core, you know, and he functions in this like mob boss, ego driven way. That's what it's supposed to be, throwing our weight around. This is what it means to make America great again, blah, blah, blah. You have these images of American service members at the mercy of just random local people in Kuwait or in other places that are supposed to be our allies. It's, you know, how are you gonna persist as the global superpower when this is the level of humiliation that you're already suffering? And listen, I mean, let me be clear. Like, there's no doubt our military is much bigger than the Iranian military like us and the Israelis. We can inflict much more damage on them than they can do to us. But for them, this is existential. They will fight to the death. And by the way, a lot of people in the Iranian government, like they actually believe in what they're fighting for. Like they are actually committed to some principle. It might not be principles we agree with, but they are actually committed to some principle and willing to fight for those principles which we're seeing. Not to mention that they're fighting for their lives and the very existence of their country and their government to continue. They have, I mean, to say they have more skin in the game here is just like an unbelievable understatement. So listen, the economic warfare is going to be just essential to this as the military warfare. And the Iranians know that with our allies in the Gulf, they are incredibly vulnerable. The Israelis and their whole defense tech sector, they're very vulnerable. They think they are actually willing to take some pain in order to take the Iranian government off the map. And let me say something else about our great Israeli friends. Do you think that they care that much if we're weakened? No, no, no. Because guess what? Then we're not as much of a factor in the Middle East. They can be even more of the undisputed heavyweight in the Middle east throwing their weight around. So they don't give a shit. They don't give a shit about American lies. They don't give a shit about American equipment, American hegemon. They don't care. You could argue they have an interest in seeing us get into this foolish war and be humiliated and have our economy tank and collapse on the global stage. So listen, that's why paying attention to what happens here with oil, with natural gas, with the tourism economies that all of these Gulf Arab states have tried to build up, all of that is going to make a huge difference in terms of how long the US is going to be able to sustain any sort of political will for this conflict. And I'll tell you that war powers resolution vote is gonna be very interesting this week if we get to it, as you already see, you know, as you already see, like blowback obviously in terms of the markets, then we're going to talk about the, the global blowback as well.
- [57:45]
Saagar Enjeti
I hope that we get the vote. I'm not sure. All right, let's get to Blowback.
- [57:51]
Public Podcast Sponsor
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 this
- [58:52]
Bethenny Frankel
is Bethany Frankel from Just Be with Bethany Frankel. Most dog food is marketing, not nutrition. That is why Biggie and Smalls eat just food for dogs. Real 100% human grade food with ingredients I actually recognize. And yes, I do see the difference. Better digestion, healthier skin, more energy. Dogs that feel better. My babies. If you've been on the fence about switching, stop overthinking it. What's more important than your furry babies and their health? Go to justfoodfordogs.com right now and get 50% off your first box. No code needed. Just try it.
- [59:28]
Saagar Enjeti
When people turn to healthcare for weight
- [59:30]
Krystal Ball
loss, they're looking for real support. That's why more people are choosing orderlymeds.com orderlymeds connects you with real doctors and
- [59:37]
Bethenny Frankel
access to proven GLP1 medications like semaglutide and Tirzepatide.
- [59:41]
Krystal Ball
No guessing, just a more supportive experience. And all shipped directly to your door in discreet packaging. Do your research, ask questions, then visit orderlymeds.com podcast for an exclusive offer. That's orderlymeds.com podcast.
- [59:54]
Bethenny Frankel
Individual results may vary.
- [59:55]
Krystal Ball
Not medical advice eligibility requires a cite for details.
- [60:00]
Saagar Enjeti
Turning now to blowback, of course, the term coined originally by the CIA back in the 1950s about operations abroad which made blowback on the United States at home, is already materializing as a result of this Iran conflict. Let's start already with a very sketchy and strange incident in Austin, Texas, where I literally was at the time of this shooting. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. The FBI is currently probing a Texas bar shooting that killed two and wounded 14 as a possible terrorist act. So what they say is that the gunman was wearing clothes with an Iranian flag design and the words Property of Allah killed two people and wounded 14 in early Sunday morning at a Texas bar. The FBI already investigating the shooting. Already there's some indications that this man had pictures actually of the Iranian leader in his home at the time of the shooting. Whenever it was busted down by the FBI, he was killed in the incident by the Austin Police Department. However, all of the circumstances around this are extremely bizarre. The perpetrator appears to be a Senegalese, naturalized citizen of the United States, who came back, I believe under Bill Clinton, overstayed a visa, married a US citizen, was able to get a green card and eventually became a naturalized U.S. citizen under several years ago. So he's been a citizen for over 15 years. But I mean, you got a person here who's again literally from Senegal, which I didn't even know there were a lot of Muslims in Senegal, but whatever, who is now apparently some sort of acolyte or inspired by the attack on the Iranians, which has already happened on the very day of the attack. I mean, look, you know, if you ask me, you shouldn't even be here, but you're here now. I mean, what do we do? This is the exact problem that we have right now. I mean, some of the right wing fever dream has always been like, look, there could be like terrorists for other people. No, but like actually, I mean, for real though, this is crazy. You literally have a guy from Senegal who's been a naturalized citizen with pictures of Iraq. Look, he could be crazy, right? I'm not gonna put that past anybody. But of course this is the same problem that we would have during the global war on terror. And I'm not saying that just because people are here and they wanna throw a terrorist start a terrorist act doesn't mean that we shouldn't do something abroad. But you should think about it a little bit and maybe the FBI director shouldn't be chugging beers in Milan at the time. Allegedly around the same go time that the order was issued by the United States government. So did anybody think about it at all? They're like, hey, maybe we should heighten our terror alert. Maybe we should think about potential terrorist attacks here. Or is that gonna happen here at home? Apparently to them, the cost was worth it. Not worth it to me.
- [62:34]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, not worth it to me. And here's the thing. Without buying into, you know, a bunch of unproven whatever about Iranian sleeper cells here in the US Is it any surprise, like, do you think our actions around the globe right now are going to make people love us? Do you think they're going to inspire love for this country and desire to see, you know, to see to our well being. We oversaw a genocide for years. I mean, that was our genocide as much as it was the Israelis just utterly obliterated Gaza. We just bombed alongside the Israelis, we just bombed schoolgirls, murdering over 100 of them. Already there have been something like eight hospitals in Iran that have been bombed. Just a bully. Just a bully throwing our weight around. Might makes right. No care or concern about the barbarism. And look, the Ayatollah was not only the leader of Iran, he was also a spiritual leader for Shia Muslims. Okay? And just imagine if, like, you know, we seem to have this sort of antiseptic view of like, oh, of course we can just like assassinate world leaders. That's fine and good. And by the way, his family, his wife and his grandchildren and whatever alongside it. Imagine that was done for Trump and Melania and Barron. Like, just put it in that perspective. How do you think that's gonna make people feel? And of course, if you can't project your own consciousness onto the situation, you don't have to. Because we lived through the Iraq war. We saw the way that it created chaos and spun up terror groups and caused all sorts of problems, not only for our service members, but created chaos throughout the entire region and dealt a devastating blow to the US in terms of the future and the status of our country. Not to mention the amount of money and obviously the horror and the lives lost of our own service members and also of the many innocent civilians, millions of innocent civilians who were killed in that conflict as well. So, no, I mean, it's entirely predictable that far from keeping us safer, which is what we're being sold, far from keeping us safer or preventing some undefined risk, this has created much more danger and put everybody at much more risk. That is the direct impact of what we're doing.
- [64:45]
Saagar Enjeti
I'm gonna be at risk. It better be for something important. It better not be for some shit like this. Let's continue, by the way, to your point. I mean, already the signs are all around the globe. Let's put this video up here on the screen. This is from Baghdad just yesterday inside of the Green Zone, the perimeter where the US Embassy is the most expensive US Embassy ever built, where you could see thousands of, maybe hundreds of protesters with flashbang grenades and other things that are all going off. Clashes between the security forces. Shall I remind everybody there's a massive Shia population inside of Iraq. That was the whole problem that we had with the civil war that broke out. Well, here is exactly the reason. One of the things we've talked about is that how Iraq became basically an Iranian proxy state as a result of the US invasion. This is prototypical example number one. They have a lot of sympathy. You have US bases, embassy in Erbil. We had video, actually, at least some of. We know for sure that there was some sort of Iranian strike on Erbil in northern Iraq, where there's a significant amount of US forces and ammunition which is stored there. And of course was under attack by purportedly some Shia militias and potentially even some of these Iranian drones. There are also major confrontation that happened in Pakistan. Can we put this video up here on the screen? I mean, what you're watching here was this consulate in Karachi in Pakistan, violent clashes. In two instances where at least 10, 15 people were killed. The Pakistanis are saying that it's by the local security forces. But you could also see, you know, US personnel are behind these walls and these compounds and it has erupted all over Pakistan with violent protests against the United States. You can see very clearly that this is already happening. I mean, look, just read a book. We talked about Israel. Sure. I mean, what. Look, you know, I'm not excusing in any way Al Qaeda, but I do think it's important to understand what led to the attacks on 9, 11. It was US bases in Saudi Arabia. It was this fanatical belief that the U.S. of the great Satan, et cetera, but a lot of it was also about Israel and Israeli attacks. So now we've had just had the situation in Gaza. We've also had now the assassination of the Ayatollah, who was not only the leader of the country, but a literal religious figure inside. For millions of Shia Muslims all over the world, well, all of this is going to be seen as a US attack, not only on the religion. So you could look at it at a secular level about attacking this other country under insane pretenses. You could look at it at a religious level. You could look at the current US support for Israel. You've got these Gulf populations, they're sitting on ticking time bombs, these monarchies. Because the. I mean, Bahrain I talked about earlier, Bahrain has a huge Shia population.
- [67:33]
Krystal Ball
I think it's. Isn't it majority Shia?
- [67:35]
Saagar Enjeti
I think so. And they are literally rioting in the streets where they are cheering on Iranian drones which are landing in the middle of Bahrain. You have Saudi Arabia.
- [67:46]
Krystal Ball
50, 50.
- [67:47]
Saagar Enjeti
There you go. So it's like a 50, 50. I knew it was a decent number, but I wasn't exactly sure. But let's say in Saudi Arabia, they have always had this problem. The deal with the clerics is, you guys say what you want, we get to keep all the oil money and live in London. Cool. All right. I get to have my Ferrari. You guys get to do what you want. Well, the population there is gonna be furious right now, especially not only in terms of Iran, but if this becomes some sort of massive alliance with the United States, and especially if they find themselves fighting on the same side as Israel, they're not gonna like that. Doha, Qatar, same problem. You have this delicate balance of tribes. Kuwait as well, we know with their own population, like, we may have unleashed a literal same level of, like, Arab Spring and re questioning of a lot of the security doctrine that everyone quietly lives with in the Gulf and just accepts. But right now, they're asking big questions. Like, we're gonna talk later about this clip of a Saudi on Al Jazeera who's like, america has abandoned us. They're letting us get struck so that they can strike down Israel. And this is the other problem. With constraints on our military, we literally have to choose. And of course, we're choosing Israel, which we have to do by law.
- [68:53]
Krystal Ball
I mean, think of the UAE. Okay? Somewhere around 90% of the population in the UAE are foreign expats, right? It's wealthy foreigners, but it's predominantly actually the poor laboring class that are brought in and treated horrifically like indentured servants effectively. And so, you know, if the wealthy, you know, the wealthy foreigners are like, I'm gonna find some other destination for my money that's not getting bombed. How about that? If they leave, then you have an economic collapse. And by the way, the indentured servant class who are there driving the taxis and doing the door dash and all that sort of stuff, you think there aren't other places in the world they might prefer to go also that isn't getting bombed? And by the way, if the economy collapses there, there may not be so much work for them there anyway. You're talking about a very precarious system here. And again, I come back to that photo that I don't know if it's real or not, but I do know the video of the service member who got picked up. And the local Kuwaitis are like, ah, he's American. Just leave him there were we've got video also of Bahrainis who are celebrating as they're watching their own country get bombed by Iran because it's, you know, US Assets that are being hit. Like, that's what we're talking about here in the region. Just like here, the view of the leaders do not necessarily represent the view of the public. And you know, we've had to sort of pressure and cajole the Europeans to go along with this at all. They're all issuing statements at the top that are like supportive in general, but. But they're not exactly. They weren't excited about this fight either. And their populations are gonna be even more opposed to it. And they're the ones who are facing 50% spike in LNG prices right now. Like, I guess we're gonna have to buy more from Russia at whatever prices is on offer there. So. No, I mean, it's unbelievable. It is absolutely unbelievable. And these are just like. We're in the early days here, guys. We're just seeing the rough edges of what is going to come to pass, you know. In Pakistan alone, it wasn't just that one incident at the embassy. There have been 30 for this. According to Drop Site, 35 people killed in Pakistan amid protests over U S. Israeli attacks on Iran. At least 35 civilians have been killed across Pakistan after protests erupted denouncing the joint U S. Israeli strikes on neighboring Iran that also killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Death toll was 16 people in Karachi, seven in. I'm gonna screw up these names. Gilgit. Six in Skardu, six in Islamabad, according to local journalists. And local journalists are claiming that it was not just local police that killed the ones at the protesters at the embassy. That Marine security guards were also involved in that. So I don't know whether that's true or not, but that is what's being reported locally.
- [71:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, exactly. We're not exactly sure what's happened. I've looked for the Marine stat. Because it would be INSANE NEWS if U.S. marine opened fire on a crowd. Hasn't been any confirmation. The Pakistanis were saying various different things that were out of their mouth. But regardless, it's bad, right? I mean, what you're watching is a heightened alert. And think about this too. You know how many. I don't even wanna know the number of American citizens who are stuck in Dubai International airport or Doha International airport or Abu Dhabi's airport. I mean, do you know how many people fly from here to Asia via the Gulf? They tens of thousands of people probably per day that are moving through the country. Just think about that entire choke point where all of these people are now stuck. When I lived in Qatar, the number you couldn't even like throw a. This was 2008, you couldn't even throw a brick without hitting another American citizen or somebody from the uk. Dubai is even more British and American, right, and foreign than even where I was. The expats are everywhere. They're all over Jordan. There are, I mean, anywhere where there's oil in the uae. All of these people, their lives, I mean, they're probably. They're gone, right? They're going to be selling their houses and their cars within a year. I don't think any of them are going to keep living there. This has dramatically shifted that. The blowback section too, I think is really important just to consider. And look, I wasn't even talking about Iranian sleep. Although, again, I still think it's weird, the circumstances of all this. It's still bad if it's just like a quote unquote, lone wolf attack, which you could easily expect as a result of this. Absolutely right. Especially with the population and all these people that we have in the country. We have no idea in some cases who any of these people are. And you've got that and then you've got the international situation. Every US base is now on a heightened alert. We've got confrontations with Turkey, which is a NATO ally. I mean, there are Americans who live all over the world. And it only takes a single thing. Think back to, you know, the Al Qaeda days of what all the various bombings that took place on various different installations. It can't protect everything all the time. And things will crop up like nobody thought that the embassy in Kenya was gonna get bombed in the 1990s. They never even dreamed that such a thing would happen.
- [73:34]
Krystal Ball
I mean, this guy who showed up at Mar A Lago with intending to kill Trump Secret Service took him out. Apparently he was a former Trump supporter, right, who was concerned about the Epstein files and the economy. So, I mean, yeah, when you listen, you have a president who has taken this country into a war that we did not want, Right. And who is covering up for some things in the Epstein files. And everybody's gotten a glimpse now of how the world really works. You don't think that's gonna be a radicalizing experience for some people and including in ways that could. And obviously this is analysis, not. This is a horrifying direction that we're going in. Right, but you'd be crazy. We're a country full of guns and untreated mental illness and being led by a mad king who doesn't care about anything but his ego and his money and his corrupt regime. It is a recipe for disaster. On every single level. And the fact that we're already starting to see that blowback is. Is unbelievable. You can't control the whole world with the barrel of a gun. You just can't do it. It's not gonna work. So as much as he thinks he can just throw his weight around the world and he's got the biggest guns and might makes right, et cetera, the people of the world are going to have their say as well. And effectively, the only ones that support it are a small Iranian diaspora, mostly here, and the Israelis. That's. That's pretty much it. The rest of the citizens of the entire world are like, what the fuck is wrong with you right now?
- [75:34]
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Saagar Enjeti
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Saagar Enjeti
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Saagar Enjeti
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Saagar Enjeti
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- [77:19]
Krystal Ball
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