← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
3/24/26: Israel Pushes Lebanon Annexation, Airport Chaos, AI Bubble Collapse
00:43:04
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Podcast Host (e.g., Danielle Robay)
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Krystal Ball
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Saagar Enjeti
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Krystal Ball
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Saagar Enjeti
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Krystal Ball
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Krystal Ball
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Brendan Steinhauser
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Saagar Enjeti
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Saagar Enjeti
Hey guys, Sager and Crystal here.
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Krystal Ball
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
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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.
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Krystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
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Saagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com
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Krystal Ball
so as we of course continue to focus on Iran, we did not want to lose sight of some of the other fronts in this war, in particular Israel's invasion of Lebanon and some ongoing pogroms in the west bank that are truly horrifying. Let's go ahead and start with Lebanon. Here we can put this these images up on the screen. I mean here you see effectively an entire village that is just completely Destroyed, blown up by the Israelis. You now have a level of mass displacement in Lebanon that approaches some of the worst conflicts in the world. And obviously this just happened in a very short period of time. So you have over 1 million people in Lebanon, civilians who are internally displaced from southern Lebanon. And you can see just the absolute destruction here. Of course, there have been very high death tolls and very high civilian death tolls as well. Let me go ahead and put this up on the screen, though, because this will not be a surprise to anyone who watches this show. But just so you know, Israeli officials making it very plain what their goal is here with regard to this invasion of Lebanon. Smotrich urges Israel to annex southern Lebanon as assault intensifies. Israel's far right Minister of Finance Bezaleel Smotrich, has urged his country to annex southern Lebanon as the military has destroyed bridges. We'll come back to that. And homes in an intensified assault on the area. In an Israeli radio interview on Monday, Smotrich said the bombardment of Lebanon needs to end with a different reality entirely, which includes a, quote, change of Israel's borders. Quote, I say here definitively in every room and, and in every discussion too, the new Israeli border must be the Litany, he said, referring to the Litany River, a critical waterway that cuts through southern Lebanon about 19 miles from the border with Israel. His comments come as Israel continues to carry out deadly attacks on Lebanon, striking residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure, which the UN has already said amount, may amount to war crimes. So, Sagar, Greater Israel Project, here we go. And it's not just listen. People love to dismiss him as some just like, oh, he's just some far right crime. No, this is a government. He is a part of this government, a very influential one, by the way, who has gotten his way in many other instances. And oftentimes characters like him are the ones who will just say it outright, what is actually happening, what the thinking and what the goals are behind the scenes. So you should absolutely believe him when he says that this is the goal and this is what they're going to try to achieve.
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Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, look, if you've been watching the show, we talked about this literally last week. We said, what is that? The Israeli security people were putting out calls. We have to evacuate the population from the Latani river or above the Litany River. And that means usually what? Mass ethnic displacement. Then they said, what? Well, you will not be allowed to return until Hezbollah is no longer a threat. De facto annexation and security control. And now, oh, let's just annex It. Do you see how this, all this is in the span of one week. And he's saying, you know, all the classic stuff. We cannot return to October 6, where the enemy is on our fences. We will push them away on all fronts and create a sterile security cordon that will separate the enemy from our citizens. The yellow line is the point within the Gaza Strip. So they basically want to recreate the Gaza situation and turn it back into, into this. There you go. I mean, it's all out in the open. The politicians are not willing to go as far as Smotrich, but de facto annexation is basically the same as annexations like the west bank, which we're about to talk about here in a second. Like if you control the area, if you're militarily occupying it, and if you've expelled the population or ongoing efforts to do so, you basically do control the entire country. So here we go. We can add just another few square mile. Not a few square. I mean, a lot of people live there, but, you know, more square miles into the Greater Israel project since October 6, 2023. It's unbelievable.
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Krystal Ball
Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen because this relates to what I was saying about the amount of displaced people. So this is the current ongoing level of displaced people as a percent of total population. You can see 1 million people have been displaced in Lebanon. This is equivalent to 20% of their population. This has happened in just three weeks time. And the person who posted this says Israel has pushed Lebanon into the ranks of the world's worst displacement crises almost overnight. Syria and Somalia took years to reach this level and Israel did this in three weeks. Let's put the next piece up on the screen. You've got yet another bridge over the Latani river that was destroyed in an airstrike. This is just the, the latest one. Put the next image up on the screen where you can see a map of all of the bridges that they have already destroyed. So you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 bridges over the Litany river that have been destroyed. What is this? This is an effort to separate southern Lebanon from the rest of the country. So again, if you're looking to annex this area and, and not just temporarily, but permanently displace the civilian population, what would you do? You would destroy the civilian infrastructure. Check. They're doing that. You force people to leave, obviously under bombardment that's already been done, then you would destroy the ability of them to be able to come back so that you can totally control the space that's exactly what is going on here. And, you know, you can see it really clearly when you take a look at this map. The next piece we wanted to get to is the West Bank. We're also gonna have Jasper Nathaniel on, on Friday to talk more about what is in the west bank, because he has done such incredible on the ground journalism and activism with regard to that. So put D6 up on the screen. Obviously, these pogroms in the west bank are just sort of permanently ongoing, but there has been a spike in violence recently, and it appears to have been sparked by this incident. So you had an Israeli settler who was riding around on an ATV or in a pickup truck, I can't tell which. It looks like a pickup truck there, trying to menace Palestinians, you know, roving through the land, trying to intimidate them and gets in an accident. Okay, keep this up on the screen. So what this footage shows is the very Palestinian residents who were being menaced by the settler when the settler was in trouble went over to try to help these settlers who were injured, and one of the settlers ended up dying in this accident. Then you had some of the settlers and ministers in the Israeli government falsely label this as a murder, claim that the Palestinians, you know, intentionally caused this crash and attacked these settlers. And that is what helped to incite this uptick in pogroms against these Palestinian villages. So think of how sick this is. These Palestinians who were under direct threat from these settlers, when the settlers were in trouble, went over and tried to help, brought in Palestinian Red Crescent teams, and then they got blamed for it, and it incited these, you know, this violent race attacks from the settlers. So we can put the next piece up on the screen to see. You know, Griffin put together a whole compilation of some of the images that are coming out of the region here. And it's just absolutely horrifying. You can see these. These fires that are on. This is. Okay, this is settlers who are lined up on the road outside of a Palestinian village where waiting to come in. These are settlers rampaging through the streets as they go on their violent attack and attempt to steal land. Here you can see Israeli settlers and west bank rampage through Palestinian villages. More images of this infiltration which leads to attacks. You can see buildings being set on fire here by settlers as well. More damage, destruction, fires, et cetera. And there's a whole. It's what some of the people, like, I've seen, you know, Richie Torres and, you know, Batya Angar Sargon and others who are, you know, big Zionists, Coming out recently to condemn these attacks. And they love to paint the settlers saga as this sort of like fringe rogue element. And that could not be further from the truth. These settlers are performing the actions the government wants them to perform.
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Saagar Enjeti
And they're protected by them.
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Krystal Ball
And they are protected by them. They're protected by the government, they're protected by the IDF when they commit these crimes, when they kill people, when they, as we're gonna show you later, when they rape people, when they assault them, when they steal their land, when they burn down their homes. Are they held accountable in a criminal court? No, not at all. If anyone in the exchange is gonna be criminalized, it will be the Palestinians. So if you see people who are out there doing a little perfuncture. Oh, these settlers, they have to. Israel needs to crack down on them. They are covering for the fact that this is a systematic, intentional campaign that is supported both overtly and covertly by the Israeli government. And that is not just me saying that is a well documented fact. I don't know if you saw this JD Vance, he said to Netanyahu, you need to cut this out. It's like, bullshit. I mean, if you're not going to do anything about it and there are going to be no penalties, this is utterly, utterly meaningless. You know, in the same way that, you know, when Biden was in control and you would have the finger wagging, it was also utterly, completely.
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Saagar Enjeti
The point that they were apparently upset about actually proves the point which disproves all of these people who are allegedly upset about it. The government does not use administrative detention against these Israeli settlers. They only use it against the Palestinians where denial of rights, they basically kidnap you, right? Put you in prison and all that. They never use it or haven't used it very recently, except in extremely rare cases they might. Now, because of all of this pressure, I don't really know why everyone woke up one day and was like, wow, this is so horrible. I'm like, this has been going on for years. Accelerated. Like, what's the theory?
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Krystal Ball
I saw a theory from Shael who was like, the reason is because since the IDF has to get involved over there to like protect the settlers or whatever it takes away from their ability to invade Lebanon. So it's like a, you know, it's a, A forced distribution issue. Not actually a. More.
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Saagar Enjeti
Oh, like October 7. Oh, like October 7. Whenever all those guys were in the west bank protecting the settlers and not on the border. Oh, shocker.
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Brendan Steinhauser
Wow.
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Saagar Enjeti
Weird. Never happened before. I mean, and also, look, these people are sick. Let's put D8 up here on the screen. Story after story after story. Palestinian man recounts brutal sexual assault by Israeli settlers. The man said that his attacker stripped him naked, beat him, zip, tied his genitalia. An account that was corroborated by family members and rights activists who were also beaten. And I mean, there is family, the
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Krystal Ball
children, they were all beaten by these settlers. They sexually humiliated him in front of the entire family. The only one who escaped unscathed was a young, you know, several month old baby because she was like hidden and slept through it. What a miracle. But everybody else was assaulted by these settlers.
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Saagar Enjeti
And listen to this. They also stole the family's 400 sheep, its entire livelihood, along with wedding rings, other jewelry, cell phones, cash and identification papers. Has there been any punishment? Not currently.
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Krystal Ball
Now ask yourself, just ask yourself. Let's say the roles were reversed.
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Saagar Enjeti
Oh yeah.
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Krystal Ball
Let's say it was a Palestinian who did this to an Israeli. You. Every, every mainstream media outlet would cover it. It'd be all over the place. You could, would not be able to escape it. You would know every, every detail of it and some additional that they invented. I mean that. And so. But when this happens with the Palestinian. Thank you to the New York Times for actually covering this. But you know, the level of violence that is just current, you know, consistently ongoing in the west bank in which there has been a significant uptick since October 7th. I mean, you've had multiple deaths in the west bank, people being murdered by settlers. Just in this year. I think it's, the number is already up to seven or eight. Do you see that in the mainstream news coverage? I saw Chris Cuomo come out and be and share one of these articles. It might have even been this article. And like, wtf? It's like, dude, you are at CNN for how you call yourself a journalist and you're like shocked and surprised by this. This is the program, this is what they're doing all the time. And, and of course he's this big Zionist defender and now acting like he's so surprised and shocked by this horror that is consistently ongoing.
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Saagar Enjeti
In my opinion, at this point, you have to be willfully ignorant. I think pre October 7th, it's fair enough. You know, you don't know a ton.
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Krystal Ball
You're not paying attention.
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Saagar Enjeti
Not paying attention. I was in the, I didn't pay a bunch of attention. It was kind of like, whatever. I know people care a lot about it. But you know, after this point, especially if you work in the news business, you're a normal person, you're forgiven. But if you work in news, if you just read the Israeli press which details some of this and over and over again we've got these rampaging settler attacks. The Jasper Nathaniel, multiple incidents. The multiple American citizens who've been killed in the west bank, the actions of the way that these people are treated and defended by the government. Didn't they arm them, they gave them guns, they protected them. There've been murders on camera which we played for here on the show. Rape. Yeah, good luck to our YouTube monetization.
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Krystal Ball
Yeah, whatever.
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Saagar Enjeti
Okay. We do the news because we have to.
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Krystal Ball
By the way, in this attack where a Palestinian man was, you know, was raped, the activist there is an American who was also assaulted. By the way, where is our State Department? Where are the politicians? You know, whose constituent is she? Jasper obviously was. Was menaced by a mob of settlers. His congressman is Dan Goldman. Currently Goldman is one of these who suddenly. He's an arch Zionist. He suddenly put out a statement, these settlers attacks need to stop. It's like your literal constituent was attacked by these people and you had nothing to say. You did absolutely nothing. And you expect me to believe that now you're so sincerely concerned by it. But I mean the reason for him is that he has a primary challenge from Brad Lander and so suddenly he's trying to signal though, oh no, no, I care about humanity. Sure I do. So anyway, that's what's going on there.
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Brendan Steinhauser
Great.
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Saagar Enjeti
All right, let's get to airports.
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Podcast Host (e.g., Danielle Robay)
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Krystal Ball
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- [19:18]
Brendan Steinhauser
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Krystal Ball
in yesterday's show, we mentioned all of the chaos ongoing at American airports, in part because of the DHS shutdown, which has meant all kinds of TSA workers calling out of work because they're not getting paid. We also had though, this horrific collision that occurred. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So this was an air Canada flight AC8646 colliding with a Port Authority fire truck. This happened at LaGuardia Airport. Both the pilots were killed in this horrendous crash. You had a flight attendant who was actually ejected from the plane. You had dozens of passengers who were injured. You know, the two on the truck were also injured. Miraculous that they're frankly that they're alive. There was some audio that came out yesterday. Sagar too, I don't know if you saw of apparently what happened is you had air traffic controllers who are short staffed. You had an emergency with a different plane where they had they suspected there was a fire on Board. They were trying to send this fire truck over to that other airplane, gave it clearance to cross the Runway at exactly the moment this Air Canada plane is landing. I also read a harrowing account of one of the passengers who survived the crash. It was on the plane and they said that there was a bumpy landing anyways, a lot of turbulence. And then when they hit the Runway, they could hear this grinding screech of the brakes as the pilots tried to do everything they could to avoid this collision, which obviously there was nothing they could do. And our hearts go out to their families.
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Saagar Enjeti
It's so bad. Let's put E1B guys, up on the screen. Shows the pilot and some of the damage. It's just. Yeah. So heartbreaking. The pilot who died from Quebec, 30 year old and. Yeah, I mean, I think the co pilot also was very, very young. So it's just. I mean, it's not just tragic, but it shows like the precarity of a lot of commercial air travel right now. And I think all of these together. Look, remember, there are millions of flights all around the world every day. You only hear about things like this when they go bad. But when you combine it, it just feels like things here are falling apart. You got airport closures, Runway, you know, LaGuardia was closed all day.
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Krystal Ball
Yeah.
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Saagar Enjeti
I mean, you used to live in New York, you know. This is insanity. Oh, yeah, close LaGuardia.
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Krystal Ball
Yeah.
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Saagar Enjeti
You know you had a fire in Newark Liberty. Newark Liberty, I mean, it's a united hub. Literally a gateway to the globe. You could fly direct to like Singapore and New Delhi from Newark. I mean, literally, like millions of people fly through that airport every single year. Then you've got the TSA situation. We got some of the vo. We could put some of this up here on the screen and it is madness. I thank God I have a baby now. I don't fly very much anymore.
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Krystal Ball
I feel so bad for these people with little.
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Saagar Enjeti
Look at that. Yeah, look at that kid in the stroller. 5:02am, Hartsfield Jackson, where they told everyone yesterday to show up four hours early. Bush interconnected. I used to live. This is my own home airport, but Iah my old stomping grounds, New York City. Apparently there's no pre check, there's no clear. There's just one line. New Orleans, multiple hour lines. All the videos here, you got people. I mean, think about it at one point, this is my personal nightmare. They're now doing live entertainment for the lines. Like people, like bands and I'm good. Okay.
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Krystal Ball
All right. It's worst entertainment.
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Saagar Enjeti
It's like whenever the Southwest flight to Hawaii passed around Ukulele's, I'm like, you might as well take that ukulele and beat me over the head with it rather than have to listen to other people.
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Krystal Ball
But I mean, think about that.
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Saagar Enjeti
That's madness to have to sit in some of these lines. I'm joking, but it's not funny. Like it's absolute insanity. And yes, it's a result of the, of the tsa, of the DHS shutdown. And honestly, this is the irony and we'll get to some of the political impacts. If, if Iran was not happening, this would be the biggest story in the country. Every day on CNN or on our show, we would have line updates like we were doing with gas prices. It was one hour and a half yesterday. Now it barely rates at the very end of the show. And for good reason because we're literally in the middle of a go goddamn war. But this is the problem for Trump. There was potential to try and have some national debate. I think they would lose, but they could try dhs. Democrats are holding us hostage now. Nobody cares. It's literally like, you know, a five in the New York Times or something. If you think about the old newspapers and that is massively to the Democrats benefit because this is like a poly crisis now for Trump. You have a war. We have to spend the vast majority of his resources. Gas prices are going up. Everybody's very concerned about all of the pressure now with TSA breakdown. Americans have heard nothing about DHS or any of this other stuff about what the, you know, the contours of the debate are. Yeah, they're like, I need this shit to end now. Now they're like, I don't care what you have to do. It needs to be over. And so the political pressure on the White House is immense. It actually looks like this morning we might get some sort of deal. Chuck Schumer said that they're talking the likelihood of that deal would basically be to carve ICE funding out of everything else and then fight about that later on. Kind of makes sense because ICE is already fully funded. That's part of the reason the agents are in the airports, because they're the ones who are getting paid. But yeah, I mean, politically nightmarish for the White House. Yeah, stuff like this always will fire back on the chief executive because he's the person who's in control.
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Krystal Ball
Of course they have the House, they have the Senate, they're in control of the White House. So especially on an issue where I do think that this kind of caught people off guard because it's not a full government shutdown. So you haven't had all this discourse about, okay, what are the contours of the debate and what are they asking for and what's the holdup? Whatever. People are just like, this sucks. I blame the President. And then the President went out of his way to go ahead and take on that blame because there was actually a deal that Democrats were willing to strike that John Thune was negotiating, and like Sager said, it would carve out ice separately, they would fund the rest of dhs. That means TSA agents would start getting paid. That's the crux of the issue, is that TSA agents are not getting paid, but are still expected to work well. There's gonna be some certain percentage that is like, I need to earn a paycheck. I will not be at that job where you're forcing me to work for free. I will be at an actual job where I need to get paid because that is the reality of life. So you're having mass call outs of TSA agents, which is leading to these lines. So in any case, Trump came out and was like, no, no deal. Because I want you to not only fund dhs, but I also want you to pass the Save America act.
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Saagar Enjeti
We have E7.
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Krystal Ball
Yeah, put E7 up on the screen. This is just the Punchbowl report. Trump to Thune. No deal. He made it very clear. You had. Actually, let's go and play E3. Senator Kennedy, who is a Republican talking about the dynamics here. And I believe this was over on Fox News talking about, okay, well, Trump is the one who said he doesn't want to deal. Let's take a listen to that. Senator Cruz and I came up with a plan.
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Brendan Steinhauser
We said, look, it's a two step process.
- [26:03]
Krystal Ball
The Democrats have offered to open up everything but ice.
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Brendan Steinhauser
Ted. And I said, okay, let's accept their offer.
- [26:10]
Krystal Ball
And then at the same time, we
- [26:13]
Brendan Steinhauser
would offer a bill for reconciliation where
- [26:16]
Krystal Ball
we don't need any Democratic votes to do whatever we wanted to do with ice. And that way we're out of the shutdown and DHS is back open. We submitted that. Senator Griffin submitted that to President Trump,
- [26:31]
Brendan Steinhauser
as is his right.
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Krystal Ball
He said, no, no deals with the Democrats.
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Brendan Steinhauser
It would have worked.
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Krystal Ball
We could have had TSA paid by
- [26:40]
Saagar Enjeti
the end of the week.
- [26:41]
Brendan Steinhauser
But the President said, no deal.
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Krystal Ball
Would have worked. But the President said no deal. Sure enough. But E8 up on the screen, this is the President directly saying, no Deal, I think, I don't think we should make any deal with the crazy country destroying radical left Democrats unless and until they vote with Republicans to pass the Save America Act. Far more important than anything else we are doing in the Senate. That includes giving these same terrible people, the Dems who are to blame for this mess, a $5 billion cut in ICE funding a deal which even when disguised as something else, is unacceptable to me and the American people. Unless it includes their approval of voter ID with picture citizenship to vote. No mail in voting with exceptions, all paper ballots, no men in women's boards, which just randomly got thrown into this thing too. And no transgender mutualization, which is not a word of our precious children. Put it all together. And also let Leader Thune clearly identify those few Republicans that are voting against America. They will never be elected again. In other words, lump everything together as one and vote. Kill the filibuster and stay in D.C. for Easter if necessary. Make America great again. I mean, obviously, like, he's clearly shouldering the blame for this chaos at American airports. It's happening during a time when many families are traveling for spring break. So it's going to impact more than just the business. It obviously would. But right now is the time of year when you're going to have more just like ordinary middle class families who are planning their Florida trip or whatever for their kids spring break. And you also see the high priority he puts on this Save America act, which he thinks is going to give him more, and it will, will give him more power to mess with the midterms where he knows he is politically screwed.
- [28:16]
Saagar Enjeti
If you look at it right now, I mean, the irony too is about the filibuster. You and I are like, yeah, do it. You know, kill it. Yeah, yeah. We're like, great, okay, sure. You can pass it now and then, you know, in the future, other people who are in power can pass whatever they want.
- [28:27]
Krystal Ball
So let's go in the fall.
- [28:30]
Brendan Steinhauser
I'm ready.
- [28:30]
Saagar Enjeti
All right, kill it. I'm happy to see it gone. You want to pass Save America for two years? We can actually get some things that, you know, happen. I used to be somewhat of a defender, like, I understood, but at this point, it's just, it's too much. And I've even seen this restoration of. What is it called, the talking filibuster. I think it's reasonable type of deal. That's too wonky. But the point is, is it actually would make it so that, yeah, the party in power would be able to, to do what they want. And if you don't like it, you can elect whoever you want in order to actually pass what they want. Same thing, what you were talking about. If the Democrats take the Senate, then, yeah, every piece of Trump legislation literally ever will be dead for the entire President. There would be like a two year long government shutdown, basically, if they wanted it to, under the administration. That's the point. It would actually make the government more responsive. But as of this morning, it actually does look like there could be some deal. A bunch of senators huddled with Trump last night. Potential breakthrough last night where Trump met with Senator Katie Britt and a few others. Chuck Schumer said both sides are talking in a serious way. Pressure's growing. It would probably come down to what we just said, passing funding for everything but ice. And because ICE is already fully funded, it would push it out to the future. Under the potential deal, it would be restored. Under the HSI investigation team would apparently be restored, requiring them to have, what is it called, more investigatory actions and not reassigning the HSI agents to immigration enforcement on top of a few other deals. So there might be some contours around it, but like right now, from what we can tell, it actually does look like this might be ending. And it's simply because of all of the chaos with TSA and in the airports. I also think Trump, I don't know what they're thinking with the ICE deployment because, look, you guys know my feelings about immigration. I've got my problems with ice, but at the very least, like, the one thing politically I would tell you not to do is to take the most politicized law enforcement agency in the country and then put it in front of all of the people who are flying. You don't wanna be seeing that. You know, you don't want that in front of your own eyes whenever you're. It's like, imagine if you could take the most, one of the more unpopular parts of your presidency and then just remind everybody constantly that it exists and that they're like, you don't want that. All right? You kind of want it out in the shadows. Do we have the images? Can we show everybody?
- [30:51]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, and I mean, there's just. It's an idiotic idea on every level. And it's also doing nothing to help the situation because they're not trained as tsaa. All the images that I've seen of them, guy hanging out are them just hanging around doing absolutely nothing. Have you guys seen that meme of the guy who's like pushing, like, trying to make it look like he's pushing the subway car. They're like, those are the, you know, the ICE agents.
- [31:14]
Saagar Enjeti
We gotta get some height. I'm just gonna say it. We gotta get some fucking weight requirements in this, you know.
- [31:18]
Krystal Ball
Oh, yeah. Neil seems has arrived at the airport. In any case, they're basically just standing around doing nothing except making people uncomfortable and angry, which, you know, they're already standing in a long ass line feeling uncomfortable and angry. So there you go. Steve Bannon says this should be a trial run for sending them to the polling stations in November, which I certainly don't think is completely off the table. But I did see one person say Sagar, that this made sense to them because they've often wanted to be shot in the face when they were waiting in a long airport line.
- [31:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, do we have time for me to rant a little bit here? All right, can I just say this? If you. Where are you going that's so important to stand in line for four hours? I'm just gonna say it. I understand the spring break and all of that. Look, flight credit exists. You can cancel. I guarantee if you bitch and moan at a company enough, they will give you a refund. Stay home or drive. I was telling you somebody lady that tweeted this morning, she's like, my daughter waited in line for eight hours. And Mr. Fly sleeping in an airport. And just to make sure. Where are you going that's so important? Like, outside of a family emergency? Don't go. You know, just don't go. If you have to go for work, I guess even then, like, can you not talk to your boss? You're like, yo, man, I'm not waiting in line for six and a half hours. Yes, I know that's from a point of privilege. I just. I feel like there's probably a way that is.
- [32:34]
Krystal Ball
But imagine, okay, this is your one vacation. You have booked your stuff. It's not refundable. You can't get it back. We're waiting for this.
- [32:43]
Saagar Enjeti
I told you, there's no such thing as non refundable. There's no such thing.
- [32:46]
Krystal Ball
There is, of course, a thing of non refundable.
- [32:48]
Saagar Enjeti
It says it in the fine. If you call the credit card company
- [32:51]
Krystal Ball
challenge a transaction, book an Airbnb, they're not giving you your money back. It's not happening. No, you can't figure it. So if people have dropped a bunch of money, they're like, all right, well, I guess I'm going to suffer for a day. So that I can get this vacation that I saved up all year, so I have some empathy. I will say. Tim Dillon did a very funny bit on this.
- [33:05]
Saagar Enjeti
What did he say?
- [33:06]
Krystal Ball
He was like. He was talking about Americans traveling abroad while we're like, destroying the world. He's like, get your ass. No one wants to see you right now. Like, you're going to go on your. You know, you're going to watch us drop a bomb on a school, and then you're going to go and enjoy, like, a vineyard in Italy. He's like, stay home. Do not go anywhere. No one wants to see your face. I mean, I vacation, go to Florida.
- [33:28]
Saagar Enjeti
I feel confident. I feel like. Because, you know, I hate the Euros, too, and their snobbishness, you know. You know, Iran, it's like as if your bases aren't being used right now. Your governments aren't sucking on the teat of the usa and you don't need those tourist dollars to float your shitty economy. So I'm not gonna give too much to them. The only thing that I will sympathize with the Euros is whenever they complain about how Americans will go to Europe, like, in the middle of the summer and they'll wear, like, gym clothes while all the other Italians are wearing, like, so. And you know what? They're right. It's gross.
- [33:57]
Krystal Ball
That would be the thing you would have.
- [33:59]
Saagar Enjeti
Can you imagine sitting in a Tuscan shop and you're wearing an Italian linen cut fine suit, you're like 76 years old, and then some guy walks in with an under Armor T shirt that says protect this house with a T shirt and one of those sunglasses that, like, wraps around in the back and then mispronounces the word like latte and then fumbles with Euro coins or something. That would disgust me, too. All right, so I'm with them. I'm with them on that front.
- [34:25]
Krystal Ball
You gotta be comfy when you're a tourist. No? Doing a lot of walking?
- [34:27]
Saagar Enjeti
No, no, they walk plenty in leather shoes.
- [34:31]
Brendan Steinhauser
It's not hard.
- [34:32]
Saagar Enjeti
All right. You could buy some decent shoes.
- [34:34]
Krystal Ball
They're made for that. We're not.
- [34:35]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay. All right, let's get to the next. Next guest. Brendan Steinhauser. Standing by.
- [34:39]
Podcast Host (e.g., Danielle Robay)
This is Danielle Roubaix from bookmarked by Reese's Book Club. Okay. You've got a lot going on, and choosing the right Probiotic might not be at the top of your to do list. So let's make things simple. Garden of Life is the number one women's Probiotic brand for a reason. It's specifically designed for women to support the immune system, vaginal health and overall women's health. You can feel good knowing that this is the brand so many women trust for their gut health. Garden of Life transforms 16 diverse probiotic strains and 50 billion CFU to support digestive health and a flourishing gut flora. And if you're worried whether Garden of Life Women's once daily probiotic is the real deal, don't they're certified, non GMO and Dr. Formulated for women's unique needs. To put it simply, this is an easy way to prioritize your gut health. Garden of Life formulas for feeling alive Available on Amazon Disclaimer Number 1 based on Circana 52 week multi outlet unit sales ending 113025 these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease Ever
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Krystal Ball
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- [36:46]
Saagar Enjeti
Adobe Acrobat, your team's home base. Collaborate within a shared PDF space. You've got your docs, your plans, your
- [36:52]
Krystal Ball
specs, and then invite the crew to build what's next.
- [36:55]
Brendan Steinhauser
Talk off the teamwork.
- [36:57]
Krystal Ball
They think that this design could be a contender. When somebody wonders what's the next steps,
- [37:03]
Saagar Enjeti
AI helps you finish the rest.
- [37:05]
Krystal Ball
Bolts are tight now your plan's refined. Run a smoother business when you're all aligned. Do that with Acrobat. Learn more@adobe.com dothatwith acrobat. So we've covered here extensively the battle between anthropic and the Pentagon. We've also talked about some of the ways AI may be deployed within the Iran war and previously and currently still in Gaza. Joining us now to speak about those concerns and a lot more with regard to AI is Brendan Steinhauser. He's the CEO of the alliance for Secure AI. Great to meet you, Brendan.
- [37:37]
Saagar Enjeti
Good to see you.
- [37:38]
Brendan Steinhauser
To see you.
- [37:39]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. So let's go ahead and put this element up on the screen. This is some reporting from Lever News that effectively what they're finding here is Trump is trying to push the requirements they were trying to force on Anthropic. They're trying to push this government wide at this point. So the headline here is Trump contracting clause would override AI safeguards. I'm just going to read a little bit of this article so people get a sense of it. The Trump administration's quietly advancing a sweeping new contracting clause that would empower federal officials to force AI companies to scrap safety protocols, eliminate privacy protections, and follow other Trump directives as a condition of doing business with the government, according to a draft text reviewed by the Lever. What do you make of this and what did you think was sort of the central fight or the importance of the battle between Anthropic Independent Gone?
- [38:28]
Brendan Steinhauser
I think the central fight was that Anthropic has certain principles and red lines as a company that it doesn't want to cross. And those include making sure there are safeguards on having a human in the loop on autonomous weapons. They don't want to see so called killer robots just going around and striking targets without a human being in control and making those decisions. And then also they don't want their technology used for surveillance of the American people. They don't want to see a police state created in the United States of America, especially powered by Anthropics technology. And so that's where they drew their red lines. They've had those principles for a while, but the Department of War decided that they were going to basically bully and browbeat the company into getting what they want. And ultimately Anthropic was designated a company that was supposedly a threat to national security, a supply chain risk, which I think is pretty ridiculous. And then OpenAI came in and said, okay, well, we'll adhere to those, to those rules, essentially, even though we claim that we have the same red lines, they decided to make the deal. But I think it's a very concerning thing for all Americans who are concerned about our civil liberties and concerned about big tech getting too close to a government that has shown some, you know, quite authoritarian tendencies.
- [39:42]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, this is what I worry about right now. We're in a. We're in a war. This is a literal wartime. And the very day that this was all happening, the next day we launched the operation against Iran. So what's your assessment now? Currently, we've already seen all of these. I mean, the very first day of the campaign, a girls school is struck. We know that we don't know yet whether AI was used in that, but it does highlight some of the problems with target packages. And this is with alleged human oversight. So imagine if you're hallucinating, you know, hallucinating answers. You could hallucinate targets in a situation like this. So does the fact that we're already in a war amplify your warnings and your analysis here?
- [40:22]
Brendan Steinhauser
Absolutely. I think we rushed to integrate AI into the Pentagon, into everything we're doing. Certainly there were reports of Claude, the. The tool that Anthropic has created being used in the raid on Maduro in Venezuela, and by all accounts, that went quite well. But to your point, when you have a problem with control over AI, when we basically have acknowledged we. We can't control it, there are times where it not only hallucinates, but it kind of does what the opposite of what its owner is intending for it to do. That's a real problem. And so, yes, you can lead to. You can see things lead to targets, innocent civilians being targeted and killed. You could see eventually a situation where AI decides to kind of override its human overseer. We've already seen that in other arenas. There's no reason to think that it won't happen in the military. And so when you talk about losing control of the most powerful weapons powered by the most powerful technology with artificial intelligence, we're entering some very scary territory. And I think there have to be guardrails imposed by Congress.
- [41:21]
Krystal Ball
Brendan, can you tell people a little bit of your backgrounds just so that they understand the political perspective that you bring to this? You were an organizer with the Tea Party. You know, how did you come to this particular fight?
- [41:32]
Brendan Steinhauser
Yeah, I have a long background in Republican politics as a strategist and the grassroots organizer. I also have a master's degree in statecraft and international affairs from the Institute of World Politics. I've always had an interest in international affairs, and I kind of saw these worlds collide a little bit with the rise of artificial intelligence. I've been reading about the topic for some time, and then one of my good friends actually was in the Trump administration, the first admin at the Pentagon, and his job was at the Joint Intelligence Artificial Intelligence center there. And so he's one of the people that recruited me into this space. He's telling me to read this and read that and talk to this person and talk to that person. And he has expressed a lot of these concerns publicly. And it really convinced me that I needed to get involved in this because it was going to be the fight of our time.
- [42:17]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, BRENDAN so within that context, we have watched now White House, which effectively is joined at the hip with these AI companies, I think for a variety of reasons. First and foremost though, really is valuation. I mean, after Liberation Day, the valuations of these AI companies and their financial engineering has been propping up American gdp, the data centers, our stock markets. But part of the issue that we see right now is that the Iran war may be threatening all of that. So let's put F1, for example, up here on the screen. The FT is reporting that even without energy shocks, there's a good chance that the closure of the Straits of Hormuz will pop the AI bubble and lead to a stock market crash. This is from energy costs, high tech valuations, a lot of the Gulf Arabs who are invested in these VC companies. So if we do see some sort of burst, what impact do you think that will have on this situation and the issues you're carrying, you care about?
- [43:09]
Brendan Steinhauser
Well, I think it's very demonstrably true that AI has propped up the economy, that a lot of the, the numbers that we see that are often kind of bragged about might be somewhat artificial and driven by a lot of circular financing between these various companies. And so if there is an AI bubble and it bursts, it could be very bad for the American people, very bad for the world economy, in fact. And look, the other thing that's happening right now is we're seeing job losses occurring and hiring freezes due to AI. In fact, we rolled out a website called Jobloss AI to track those numbers. And we've already seen 100,000 jobs lost due to AI this year and going back into last year. And so it's a really concerning situation. And yeah, if we have the straight up Hormuz closed or even contested and not fully open for some time, you could see energy prices continue to rise, you could see people paying more money at the pump, you could see supply chain risks, of course, related to not only oil and gas, but semiconductor chips, because so much of the manufacturing relies upon some of these minerals that are coming out of the strait as well. So it could be a really dire situation economically. And my hope for the president, look, as a Republican I mean, my hope for the President is that he sees all this and gets ahead of it and Republicans in Congress sort of wake up to what's going on and get ahead of it. I haven't seen a lot of signs on that so far, but we're starting to hear a few things here and there in Capitol Hill that do give us some hope that they will figure this out and get ahead of it.
- [44:37]
Krystal Ball
Can you talk a little bit more about. You said the website you run jobloss AI to track the direct job loss from artificial intelligence, which I imagine is a tricky challenge because I know a bunch of these companies have said, well, basically what we're going to do is just not hire more people and allow people to naturally leave. That's something that Amazon has talked about in some internal memos, for example. But based on what you can see, what are the industries where displacement is occurring at the fastest rate?
- [45:06]
Brendan Steinhauser
Certainly a lot of the technology companies are utilizing AI themselves. And especially in a lot of this white collar work, whether it's administration or sort of operations, you're seeing a lot of the white collar jobs actually being some of the first to be automated. But the thing that the industry that got hit already the hardest right now is kind of the software engineering side of things as well, because now something like 90% of coding is being done by AI. So we're seeing that happening. We're seeing white collar work getting, getting hit. And a lot of these companies are saying openly, you know, they think a lot of the consulting world, accounting, you know, even eventually paralegals and lawyers, especially young lawyers, are going to face hiring freezes. They're going to face very, very difficult situation in terms of getting a new, getting a job. And so I think a lot of entry level work is at risk and that's what we're seeing kind of now. But I think we're going to see massive job losses this year and it's going to be due mostly to AI. Some companies are hiding that fact, other people are actually saying it openly and it's very hard to track. But we have a methodology that attempts to get as close to the truth as we can on that.
- [46:13]
Krystal Ball
The last thing I wanted to ask you about is you've had a crazy amount of AI already destabilizing reality. All you need to do is go on Twitter and try to figure out what the hell is real and what the hell is false and try to program a show, by the way, and figure out sort fiction. It has never been more difficult and you have probably the two biggest examples of this is you had all the we put F2 up on the screen all these rumors that Bibi Netanyahu had been killed. And everybody was analyzing this video in particular, but other ones as well. This was a video he put out explicitly to say, guys, I'm alive. Here I am getting coffee. And even with this, there were all sorts of anomalies where people looking at this and going, no, no, no, this is AI. You had Trump talking about how the new Ayatollah Mujtaba that he's not sure he's alive. And so far, we haven't seen any images or video of him. There's just been statements that are put out. So there's a theory that and some of the images that have been put out of him have actually been AI enhanced. The other theory is just that he is in hiding because he would be assassinated, likely, if there was any ability to tell his. But in any case, I'd just love for you to speak to that social impact of the way that already reality has been completely destabilized by this technology. And no one seems to be grappling. Our lawmakers do not seem to be grappling with what that means and how to get this under control so that we don't get into this totally postmodern world where literally you can invent your own reality, believe whatever you want to believe.
- [47:48]
Brendan Steinhauser
And it's a really big problem now. It's going to get worse. You're going to see it more and more in political ads in the midterms this year. The, you know, the words disinformation and misinformation get thrown around a lot. They become very politicized, but they do have a real meaning. And misinformation, you know, just things that are untrue, that people are spreading, sometimes not by their own volition. They're just, it's information that's out there that someone heard or made up or, you know, maybe they made a funny video. They weren't intending to mislead anyone, but that's happening. And then there's disinformation coming from governments, coming from political actors, coming from political parties and figures, and that's, you know, information that's knowingly false meant to mislead people. So lying about someone being dead, for example, and then creating a video or creating content to share to get people to spread that information, that's disinformation, those are both big problems. They're going to get worse. And I think the best advice that I have to people is to really be skeptical and really check your sources and figure out who are the journalists and who are the thought leaders that you trust to tell you the truth. That's going to become more important than ever. You know, people that you know that have character and integrity that will at least give you their their best analysis and their best information that they have, that's what you're going to have to rely on because looking at random accounts on the Internet is going to get worse and worse in terms of trying to get good and accurate information. And so AI is just going to make this so much more difficult and state actors and non state actors are participating it. So we have a lot to be worried about.
- [49:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Brennan, thank you so much for joining us, man. Appreciate it.
- [49:20]
Brendan Steinhauser
Thank you.
- [49:22]
Saagar Enjeti
Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. Great Wednesday show for everybody. Tomorrow I think Ryan's going to detail his Cuban travels.
- [49:27]
Krystal Ball
Oh my goodness. Lot to say about that.
- [49:29]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, that's right. All right, we they will see you all then.
- [49:37]
Krystal Ball
Foreign.
- [49:52]
Podcast Host (e.g., Danielle Robay)
Hi, this is Danielle Robay, the host of Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, a podcast by hello Sunshine and I Heart Podcasts. I'm partnering with Simple Mills and I've just found my new Go to Reading Stack. Simple Mills Almond Flour Crackers Think of this as a quick book style review because these crackers deserve it. The premise A snack that feels light, not heavy. Made with almond flour, sunflower seeds and flaxseeds. Nutrient dense ingredients your body can use. Not empty carbs. And the taste? Crunchy, classic flavors that leave you feeling energized. For a good plot twist, try Popums Cheesy, airy, poppable crackers packed with veggies. Final Verdict these are a shelf staple. Find simple meals at your grocery store.
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Brendan Steinhauser
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Podcast Host (e.g., Danielle Robay)
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [51:41]
Krystal Ball
Guaranteed Human.