3/26/26: Trump Econ Numbers Flop, Oil Spikes, Professor Pape Dire Warning, Cuba Makes Offer To US

Summary

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Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode: 3/26/26 - Trump Econ Numbers Flop, Oil Spikes, Professor Pape Dire Warning, Cuba Makes Offer To US
Date: March 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti analyze the fallout from President Trump's controversial war in Iran, its profound economic and political ramifications at home, skyrocketing oil prices, and deepening political divisions. Professor Robert Pape joins to offer a dire warning about the "escalation trap" and the likely consequences of the current American path in the Middle East. The episode also features firsthand insights from Cuba, where Ryan Grim interviews a Cuban deputy foreign minister regarding renewed diplomatic overtures.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Young Americans and the Iran War

[02:21 - 09:51]

• Trump's War Message to Young Voters:
  • Trump administration claims military action is for America's youth and national security.
  • Krystal highlights the economic struggles young people face: high gas prices, grim job prospects, bleak housing market.
  • Quote:
    “Young people, he’s doing this for you. Have you told him? Thank you. Aren’t you so delighted this is what the president has decided to do for you?” — Saagar Enjeti [03:42]
  • Public opposition to the war grows rapidly; over 52% now oppose it, unusual for a conflict at this early stage.
• Betrayal of Campaign Promises:
  • Both hosts recall Trump’s previous anti-war appeal, characterizing his current actions as a deep betrayal.
  • The war is seen as a "breaking point" for many young voters who feel deceived by Trump’s initial promises.

2. Political Fallout: Approval Ratings & Electoral Shifts

[09:51 - 16:58]

• Trump’s Approval Plummets:
  • Trump’s approval at an all-time low (36%); his economic approval (29%) is even lower than Biden’s worst.
  • Majority believe the Iran war makes America less safe; administration rhetoric is not persuading the public.
  • Quote:
    “Only 29% of the country approves of Trump’s economic stewardship. That is the lowest rating in either Trump administration and lower than any time in the Biden administration.” — Krystal Ball [12:36]
• Electoral Shifts and Special Elections:
  • Democrats have flipped 30 seats in special elections since Trump won; Republicans have flipped zero.
  • Deep red districts (e.g., Trump's Mar-a-Lago district) have swung blue, indicating wide dissatisfaction.
  • Independents are acting like partisan Democrats, fueling fears for Republicans ahead of midterms.
• Generic Ballot Shift:
  • Quinnipiac poll: Democrats lead by 11 points, up from a 4-point lead in December.

3. Economic Chaos: Oil, Gas, and Supply Crises

[17:23 - 34:33]

• Energy Market Upheaval:
  • Trump boasts about receiving an “oil and gas present” from Iran, revealed as safe passage for certain foreign tankers—unrelated to US efforts.
  • Actual tanker passage tied to countries (like India) negotiating directly with Iran, not US diplomacy.
  • Quote:
    “It had nothing whatsoever to do with Donald Trump, his administration or negotiations, period.” — Krystal Ball [23:41]
• Broader Energy Crisis:
  • Major declines in global oil exports due to Ukraine’s attacks on Russian infrastructure and the US conflict with Iran.
  • Iranian and Russian oil exports rise, while Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi exports plummet.
  • Strikes on Qatar’s LNG facilities disrupt global fuel supplies for potentially five years.
• US Vulnerabilities:
  • US refineries are outdated and few in number; recent fire at Valero Port Arthur refinery highlights fragility.
  • Even if oil markets cool temporarily, persistent high prices of $100/barrel+ for oil and $4/gallon+ for gas likely, fueling inflation and economic pain.
  • Memorable Moment:
    Krystal recounts searching for flight tickets: “A direct flight from JFK to New Delhi is going for $2,500 in economy… I remember when those cost, like, $1200. Right?” [17:24]

4. The Escalation Trap with Professor Robert Pape

[34:33 - 57:14]

• Theoretical Framework:
  • Pape explains his “Escalation Trap,” outlining three stages:
    1. Bombing and targeted strikes.
    2. Retaliation and closure of strategic zones (e.g., Strait of Hormuz).
    3. “Limited” ground operations that quickly become open-ended wars of attrition.
  • Warns US is approaching the irreversible threshold of direct confrontation with Iran.
  • Quote:
    “Both sides, I believe Iran and the United States, believe they're managing this conflict. However, they are heading into a wider war, a longer war, and a more disastrous war.” — Prof. Robert Pape [38:56]
• Echoes of Vietnam:
  • Draws parallel to Vietnam War: each escalation aims for a ‘final blow’ that never materializes, intensifying public divisions.
  • “This is Vietnam on steroids… because Iran has a grip on the throat of the world’s economy.” — Prof. Robert Pape [45:06]
• Risks of Fractured Legitimacy:
  • Predicts “fractured legitimacy” as public support divides sharply; warns of potential for unprecedented political instability.
  • Casualties would cause remaining pro-war support to harden, deepening splits in US society.
• No ‘Limited’ Solution:
  • Dismisses the idea that any ground operation could remain “limited” or controlled.
  • “The only equilibrium point is if the Iranians say, ‘Oh, we changed our mind, we’re suddenly going to give up the Strait of Hormuz.’ We’re just seeing no sign of that in this regime.” [56:05]
  • Warns that further escalation will result in months-long war with bigger economic and political consequences than Iraq.

5. Cuba: Blockade, Negotiations, and US Policy

[59:55 - 77:54]

• On-the-Ground Reality:
  • Ryan Grim reports from Cuba, where US sanctions and Trump-era policies have crippled infrastructure; hospitals lack power while hotels for tourists retain it.
• Official Cuban Perspective (Interview with Vice Minister Carlos Cassio):
  • Openness to Negotiation:
    Cuba is actively seeking to resolve issues through respectful, internationally lawful dialogue.
  • Compensation for US Property:
    Cuba is open to compensation arrangements via “lump sum” agreements for American property nationalized post-revolution; US has repeatedly refused previous offers.
    • “We’re ready to sit down. Now, we also have another experience... in previous engagements with the United States... Cuba fulfilled all of the commitments on which we agreed upon. The US Failed on most of them.” — Cassio [64:08]
    • “We are sure... that our economy needs to transform, because the demography of the country has changed, the world has changed, the composition of the Cuban workforce has changed...” — Cassio [76:08]
  • Impact of Sanctions:
    Describes the embargo as “huge cruelty against a whole nation,” limiting Cuba’s economic innovation and capacity for reform.
    • “Time is not on our side and the pressure is building on our people and the suffering is going to.” — Cassio [74:25]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Saagar, on the message to youth:
  “Young people, he’s doing this for you. Have you told him? Thank you. Aren’t you so delighted this is what the president has decided to do for you?” [03:42]
• Krystal on broken promises:
  "This is a breaking point, like for real, for so many young voters, that I actually think this will fundamentally change a lot of ways that people vote in the future." [09:31]
• Professor Pape on escalation:
  “Both sides, I believe Iran and the United States, believe they're managing this conflict. However, they are heading into a wider war, a longer war and a more disastrous war.” [38:56]
• Krystal on the reality of modern war:
  “This is why you never want to get into a war. Because the war is always going to be the most important story. It should be life and death, literally.” [17:24]
• Professor Pape’s warning:
  “This is not just simply another international problem, it's actually the worst international problem. This will be bigger than Iraq, could be more costly in American military lives than Iraq.” [49:25]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Young Voters and Iran War:
  [02:21 – 09:51]
• Trump Approval and Political Shifts:
  [09:51 – 16:58]
• Oil & Energy Crisis:
  [17:23 – 34:33]
• Professor Pape Interview — Escalation Trap:
  [34:33 – 57:14]
• Cuba Policy & Interview with Carlos Cassio:
  [59:55 – 77:54]

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Overall Tone and Takeaway

The tone is blunt, urgent, and deeply critical—uniquely breaking down the political, economic, and geopolitical fallout of the Trump administration’s Iran war. The hosts convey anger on behalf of young and working-class Americans, skepticism toward official narratives, and a sense of historic danger as escalation looms. Through interviews and grounded economic data, the episode reveals the interconnected crises—war, economy, geopolitical instability—that define this moment, warning listeners of the long-term stakes for American society and the world.

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Transcript

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

were just discussing how young people may be forced into this cause whether they want it to or not through a potential draft that this administration has never ruled out. Let's take a listen to Caroline Levitt talk about why exactly Trump decided to launch this war.

[Krystal Ball]

In my reporting, speak a lot to young voters, many of whom voted for

[Saagar Enjeti]

President Trump for the first time in 2024. You know, hoping to have no more wars and to have lower prices now with the war taking place and with

[Krystal Ball]

gas prices going up.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Curious what President Trump's message would be to those voters who kind of swung into his coalition in 2024, but maybe

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don't feel the administration is going as they had expected.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

President Trump is doing this for you. He's doing this for young people so that we are no longer threatened by a rogue terrorist regime in the Middle east that seeks to kill the brave men and women who serve in our country in the Middle east, many of them young people themselves, young men and women who serve this country honorably in uniform and have been threatened, killed and maimed by the rogue Iranian terrorist regime regime for 47 years. President Trump finally had the courage to step up and do what's right by our national security, our homeland security. As for the temporary short term fluctuation in gas prices, the president has said once these combat operations are over, this administration is going to continue to unleash American energy dominance. We're continuing to do that every day and we're going to see prices at the pump go back down just as we have over the past year because of this president.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Young people, he's doing this for you. Have you told him? Thank you. Aren't you so delighted this is what the president has decided to do for you at a time when. Let's put the next piece up on the screen. The job market for young graduates is the grimmest in years. Young people, most of them, cannot hope to afford a house. This war is making that worse because mortgage rates are going up. Again, she referenced there gas prices. I'd say that's a pretty significant importance part of the budget for most young Americans who are trying to get their, you know, get their bearings in the job market and get themselves on their feet and up and going. Pretty devastating for them on that front. And the polling reflects the fact that not just young people, but the population in general, but especially young people, are not in support of this war. Let's put C3 up on the screen. Nate Silver has started doing a tracker of support or opposition for this war. And, and every day that goes by, that opposition number ticks up bit by bit. So right now, currently, again, this is an average of all polling, 52.1% oppose and 40% roughly support. Okay. Historically, Americans are very pro war, Especially at the beginning of war, they're very pro war. They rally around the flag, they drink the Kool Aid, they listen to the mainstream press, they see the American military doing its thing, looking badass, dropping bombs, et cetera. Usually the population is overwhelmingly in support of these wars. At the beginning, they were for Iraq. They certainly were for Afghanistan. Yes, there was a vocal opposition in the Iraq war, but it was nowhere near a majority of the population. It was a fairly small minority of the population that opposed the Iraq war from the jump. And we are just weeks into this thing, and already you have quite significant and clear opposition to this war. It is a really extraordinary thing. And there was no real attempt even to build support for the war because they don't think that what you think about it really matters. They don't care what you think, and they don't believe that there's going to be any sort of real democratic check on what they're up to here.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I just think that if you look at. Think about that new job number for young graduates in comparison to the Iran war and what the administration said. I've even seen Mark Levin. Mark Levin going around being like, wouldn't you all pay an extra 50 cents a gallon just to make sure that the Ayatollah could never have a nuclear weapon? I'm like, no, actually, I wouldn't. And neither should anybody else.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Not to mention, you have made it more likely that they're going to have a nuclear weapon. You've made it more so we're paying more, and they're more likely to have a nuclear weapon. So congratulations. Way to go. You killed the guy who had issued the fatwa against the nuclear weapon.

[Krystal Ball]

So you killed the only man who actually was keeping Iran away from a nuclear weapon. Congratulations. And now his son, who you've murdered basically his entire extent extended family. That guy definitely is gonna keep to the traditions of his son. What would you, if you took the lesson away, if your father spent his entire life at this leader of a country, it seemed indecisive. And all the people around you are telling you that's what happened. And then he died after an Israeli bomb exploded him while you're. What is it? His wife, his daughter, and all of these other extended family members all got killed. And by the way, you also probably got your face, like, scarred as a result of the explosion. What would your mindset be, just from a normal human perspective on the young

[Saagar Enjeti]

it's like a villain origin story, right?

[Krystal Ball]

Literally. Yeah. It's like, what's the guy, batman2face. It's like that's how you become a villain. And it doesn't. It's not an endorsement to say that that would be a very normal human reaction and then to understand that we have to deal with the consequences of that. But coming back to the young person front and generally the reason why this war is. Is so extraordinary. It actually warms my heart to see so many people up in arms and people really against it is because for the first time we see and have. We have alternative views. Our show is exploding. It's not just about us, obviously. There's entire ecosystem of people who are out there and who are trying to actually bring this thing to a close. The second thing is that the government at this time really showed its hand. They felt so arrogant, Trump and others, that America would follow them into this war that they didn't even bother trying to sell us. It also has exposed how much, how little faith we should have in our members of Congress who are fundamentally cowards. It has reset a lot of people's understandings of the political system. You and I know this. A huge part of Trump's appeal was being anti war and appearing to be anti war. Can we say that? Yeah, a massive part of it. You can't deny it. From the podcast to, I mean, so many people who I spoke to, and it was a huge part of it for me as well. I'm not saying I expected, you know, Pollyanna peace. I did think that the Ukraine war and that this Iran war would never happen, I can tell you that. I think a lot of people thought that. And so for them, it is a visceral, scarring experience. It was something directly violative of what they actually said they were going to do. And a lot of the advisors of the people who are around them and so to watch them, that will breed genuine rage inside of you. I can say that on my part, and I do definitely think that's the case for a lot of other people who voted in the election. And so to have it so that they have such contempt for all of us to put us into this war and at the very same time tell us that they're doing it for us. That is a breaking point, like for real, for so many young voters, that I actually think this will fundamentally change a lot of ways that people vote in the future. Not for the extended future, but in the next election. This will dramatically change the way that we evaluate our candidates, because clearly for a lot of people, myself included, our framework for evaluation was wrong. So how does that. You have to re engineer the way and the standards of which you hold people and promises and you know, the old sayings of like, politicians always break their promises, like in some ways always going to be true, but there, there's degrees of where we go.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yes, very true. Yeah, there are degrees indeed. Let's put the next piece up on the screen because this speaks to your political point here. Trump's approval rating is in the toilet. I mean, you can see this trend line. So this is the Reuters poll. And you can see at the beginning, Trump, for one of the first times in his political career, actually had a net positive approval rating. And that has just been squandered over and over again, and now it's all the way down. This is a new low, 36% approved. I mean, this is near the basement of as long as his base, like hangs in there with him, which they largely continue to do. You know, there are all these silly polls. They're like 100% of MAGA approves of MAGA, you know, anyway, I actually believe

[Krystal Ball]

that, by the way. Yeah, I believe that, sure.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Because MAGA has been defined as Trump, like whatever Trump wants. So if you're still defining yourself as I'm maga, you are. The definition of being MAGA is whatever Trump says. I trust him. I trust Trump. So Trump wants to go to war in Iran even though he said he wouldn't do that. Sure, let's go along for the ride. You saw the way that the partisan sentiment on like whether or not you support Iran war completely flipped once Trump decided to do it. But in any case, the rest of the public, anyone who's not maga, I mean, this is really unpopular. So Trump's approval rating is clearly taking a hit. And it's not just this poll, by the way. There have been a bunch of polls that have come out in the past week that have him in the 30s, from 36 up to 39, and some in the low 40s. I think there's a Fox News poll that just came out that I believe had him at 40%, which again, very low for any president and even low for this president who has been very unpopular. And if you dig into some of these numbers, I mean, it's really quite extraordinary. So 46% of respondents say the war in Iran will make the US less safe in the long run. Only 26% believe the rhetoric from the administration and from the war defenders that it's going to make the country safer. So you have a near majority that are like, this whole war and death and destruction and money that's being spent, all this stuff, this is making us less safe. So that makes sense of why you see his approval rating so low and approval of the war so low. Also, you know, the numbers for his economic handling continue to be extremely dire. Only 29% of the country approves of Trump's economic stewardship. That is the lowest rating in either Trump administrations and lower than any time in the Biden administration. So Trump has now plunged way below where even Joe Biden was at the worst parts of his administration. And all of it is based on, like, not any, you know, there was no Covid. There's no major emergency, no terrorist attack. Like, no. It is all based on his own horrific decision making that he has plunged us into an economic crisis, obviously a global security crisis. And, you know, the American people saying, we are not down with this. Even a significant number of Republicans, like, you're not doing a good job on this front, which was previously his un.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, actually, can we flip ahead to C7, please? This was. Sorry, no, C6. I meant the Mar A Lago flip. How the Democrats were able to win Trump's hometown Florida House district. So I was looking at a political analyst and what they said, which is the most remarkable, is that what they were able to do in this election, not only is flip a. What was it? Trump +14 district here, this was a very significant Trump victory district. Back in 2024, the GOP incumbent won,

[Saagar Enjeti]

I think it was plus 12, and they won it by two. So it was a 14 point swing.

[Krystal Ball]

So he won it by 19 points. The GOP incumbent in 2024, and obviously a Democrat just won. So how did that happen? Well, it's not just over performance of Democratic turnout. Almost the same number of Republicans who are normally identified as Republicans came out to vote. What does that tell you? They switched their vote. They actually switch from Republican to Democrat whenever they decided to vote explicitly as an act of protest. And I think that's what's not being captured in all of these MAGA Republican polls is that there are actually genuine swing voters, people who voted Republican, not only, what, less than a year or more than a year ago, rough 15 months, something like that, and are now actually willing to straight up just vote for a Democrat in an act of protest.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, what I saw is that it was less that the Republicans flipped and more that the independents are so overwhelmingly opposed at this point that if you have Obviously, the Democrats are very energized. And then you have independents flooding the zone, basically acting like partisan Democrats at this point. How are all your little gerrymanders gonna work out? I actually saw a report this morning that I guess Florida did one of these new maps. I'd kind of forgotten about that. Yeah, I know. But in any case, we've talked a lot about the Texas gerrymander and there are some new numbers out about the way Latinos have fled Trump in terms of approving of his presidency after voting for him for Republican, very strong numbers. So that Texas gerrymander we've talked about, but the Florida gerrymander we haven't talked about as much. And there's reporting this morning, Hakeem Jeffries announcing they're targeting, I think, six new seats in Florida because of the strength of these results that they just had and that a bunch of Republican members are getting a little nervous about how these midterms are going to go for them. So you can put C7 up on the screen. You know this isn't a one off, right? It's obviously very symbolically important that the district that literally contains Mar A Lago just went blue. Is very symbolically important. Democrats have now flipped 30 seats in special elections since Trump won, Republicans have flipped zero. So the scorecard is Democrats 30, Republicans zero in these special elections. And I know there'll be all kinds of cope about. Well, special elections are different than midterm elections, blah, blah, blah. Many of these elections have had very high turnout, very high turnout. And I think that the trend is very clear. Will the midterms be on average, the shift has been like a 14 point swing towards Democrats. If it's anything approaching that, it's going to be just a historic. Even beyond some of the recent tidal wave elections that we've had. And if we can go back to C5, this generic ballot test just came out from Quinnipiac. And so this is where they just say, in general, would you prefer a Democrat or Republican? Democrats or Republicans control Congress. And in this particular poll, you have Democrats by an 11 point lead. The last poll that this same pollster did back in December had Democrats only plus four. Plus four is, by the way, still very significant number if you're looking at the entire country. D 11. Again, that's some wild stuff. So that's why Republicans are increasingly getting very nervous about this. And especially as the economy worsens and Trump's approval rating only goes down and he's launched this unpopular war, which not only is a problem because the war itself is unpopular, but it also broadcasts everyone. Like, he doesn't give a shit about your cost of living. He doesn't give a shit about the things that are making your life miserable and difficult. In fact, his choices are making things worse because I see it every single time I go to the gas pump.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, exactly. And what I've been looking at, you know, with what I've been looking at for the war, is that people will look at it and connect it rightly to gas. And also, fundamentally, what have we been talking about here? For an entire month, we've been talking about the war. This is why you never want to get into a war. Because the war is always going to be the most important story. It should be life and death, literally. You know, the entire ability of our country to project power.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This is, like, existential.

[Krystal Ball]

It is literally existential. That's why we want to avoid them at all costs. And in the absence of that, we're not talking about TSA lines, which are falling apart. I mean, your country is at war, and you gotta stay in line for four hours. Nuts, right? I mean, you're gonna be mad, and then your ticket's gonna go up. I did a little testing. I've been thinking about taking a trip to India to go see my grandparents, to take my daughter over there and to meet them. And I was just looking at the price. I mean, it was literally like a direct flight from JFK to New Delhi is going for $2,500 in economy. Like, in the back. 2,500 each? You're like, oh, okay, got it. I remember when those cost, like, 1200. Right? And so, sure, no one's going to weep for me, but I'm just giving an example of how exorbitantly expensive air travel is about to become with $200 jet fuel. Because that's almost certainly why the ticket price was where it is. If you want to go visit your sister or something like that. This normal in a country which is literally the size of a continent, it's falling apart. When you get there, you're going to have high inflation with rental cars. And then when you have to fill up the gas tank or they'll charge you $10 a gallon, and you happen to roll up and you just see the 450. Somebody in California sent me image yesterday of 730 a gallon that they were filling up. I'm sure that's one of those outlier stations, but still, that shouldn't even exist, period. Like, wherever we are as a country. So you have all of that happening as a result of the war and drawing attention or even political pressure or political capital from any of the more basic stuff, not to mention even the interest rates. You talked about bonds and the bond market. We're looking at 7% interest rate right now. I mean, that is a nightmare. And then the inability for new graduates enter into the economy. So parents even who they may have some money, but I mean, ultimately, like, what are we all doing here? We're trying to make a better life, you know, for the next generation. And then you don't feel that. So like, it just feels like everything societally is slipping away and that's in, you know, as a result explicitly of this war. And that usually leads to major political outcomes. So it's all in the White House. It's all on Trump. They decided it. And what's the craziest part is that so many of them were like, we're not going to do this. This is the one thing that we're not going to do. And then they did it. Which really makes you question like how that even happened in the first place.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Sure does.

Yeah, sure does.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's move on.

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[Krystal Ball]

Turning now to Oil so as Crystal said earlier, Trump said at one point that Iran had given us some big present, but he couldn't tell us what it is. Just to remind you all, here's what

[Saagar Enjeti]

he had to say because they're going to make a deal. They're going to make a deal.

[Ryan Grim]

They did something yesterday that was amazing, actually.

[Saagar Enjeti]

They gave us a present and the President arrived today. It was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money and I'm not going to tell you what that president is, but it was a very

[Ryan Grim]

significant

[Saagar Enjeti]

prize and they gave it to

[Ryan Grim]

us and they said they were going to give it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So that meant one thing to me. We're dealing with the right people. No, it wasn't nuclear related.

[Ryan Grim]

It was oil and gas related and

[Saagar Enjeti]

it was a very nice thing they did.

[Krystal Ball]

It was oil and gas. So everyone was like, what's the present? So let's put this up here on the screen. The Times of Israel has learned the present was safe passage for several fuel tankers through the Straits of Hormuz. Here's the thing, though, that was not as a result whatsoever of US Diplomacy. Those tankers which were able to gain passage are largely countries and or companies which have been making deals with the Iranians directly. Had nothing to do with America. I read a very interesting interview with India today yesterday with a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry and he was like, yeah, we're good with India. All your Indian tankers, they can go through, but that's because India's dealing with them. And they explicitly said, and we're doing this because you have nothing to do with the war that's being waged against us. This had nothing whatsoever to do with Donald Trump, his administration or negotiations, period yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And I wonder, does he believe this?

[Krystal Ball]

I don't know.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Is someone selling him this?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, that's. See, that's nonsense. That's more likely. Is that somebody. Look, and if this is true, let's give him credit, foreign leaders are probably like, sir, they did it because of you, because of your negotiations, even though it's because of them, to make them think he's closer to a deal. So I could see that that's possible

[Saagar Enjeti]

because obviously, I mean, we've been following this as closely as we can, but we know, and it's been public knowledge that Iran, and Iran announces this routinely. They're like, the Strait of Hormuz is not closed.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

If you want to pay us $2 million and you're not involved in the war and you want to denominate in Chinese yuan, come on down. And they've been exporting their oil, you know, at even higher rates than they were previously. More money and making more. More money. I mean, they've had effective sanctions relief. So they're actually making bank in this war, which is just, you know, wild also. And that's with the, you know, ascent of our leadership, because they want to keep the oil markets calm. By the way, oil's back up now this morning. Brent is over, you know, $100, and the stock market is down, et cetera. But in any case, it has always been the case that they've said, hey, we'll let tankers through. The street is not closed, it's just closed for you. So if you want to deal with us directly, no problem. And so what looks like it happens is someone came in and convinced Trump of this idea that this was like a gift to him, that they were letting these tankers through when this has always been the policy that they have announced from the onset.

[Krystal Ball]

Maybe we should just let it stand then. Let's. Let's let him believe it if he needs to.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I don't think he's watching the show anyway, apparently, because I'm not sure we'd be getting this decision making. I don't think he wants to hear what we have to say.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's get to D3, then. Let's put this up here on the screen. At the same time, there has been major movement in the energy markets. At least 40% of Russia's current oil export capacity has now been halted as a result of Ukrainian attacks. So we actually. This is so ironic. The United States is now literally selling, arming, or enabling the closure of oil across the world in the. In Ukraine, vis a vis Their attacks on Russia and also our current attacks on Iran. You can't even make this shit up. Now why would the Ukrainians be doing this? Well, they're mad because the Russians are making billions of dollars right now. After the United States lifted sanctions on Russian oil that was already at sea, the Kremlin had booked billions from India, who is already gobbling up as much Russian oil as they can. I also want to make this clear. The Ukrainians right now are in a desperate spot. Because literally just this morning the news broke that current deliveries that were supposed to be made to Ukraine are very likely going to be made, are going to have to make their way to the Middle East. A lot of these are interceptors, Patriot batteries, you know, munitions. Other things that have been very useful to the Ukrainians, which the US has continued to supply, even though we said we weren't going to do that. Well, a lot of those deliveries are now currently having, or at least considering being rerouted for the conflict with Iran. So that would leave Ukraine less defenseless. So their only thing that they're trying to do is use their drones to attack all of this Russian oil infrastructure and to make sure that the Kremlin won't make a lot of money. Here's the thing. Ukraine doesn't care if we all pay more at the gas pump. They're in an existential war of survival. But for the rest of us, this is a disaster. We're literally enabling the Ukrainians going after, you know, the crown jewel currently of the Russian economy. The only reason that they're even still in this fight. So thank you, Ukraine. I also wanna mention, the more desperate they get, there's some crazy shit that they've been up to. So you probably haven't seen this story. In India, they arrested a bunch of Ukrainian nationals and a US mercenary, this guy named Matthew Van Dyke, who I actually knew from back in the day is old mercenaries. Talk to him on Twitter. Cause he was a good source. Well, it turns out he was arrested by the Indian government for allegedly trying to train Indian separatist groups with a bunch of Ukrainians to conduct drone warfare inside of India. So who is the number one buyer of Russian oil? India. All right, who Ukrainians are very upset with? Ukrainians are using drones to lash out and to go after all this oil infrastructure. The more desperate that they get, they could be up, you know, Nord Stream, which they obviously did with our help. We should be worried because for them, if they see the arms delivery start to dry up and all this money going to the Kremlin. That's where they're gonna do the craziest stuff. Yeah, this really worries me.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And there's new reporting that we are, I mean, predictably going to shift some of our resources sources from and military over to the Middle East. And yeah, I mean, Russia has been one of maybe the biggest beneficiary of our war on Iran because they're able to sell their oil at a premium. We lifted some of the sanctions that are letting more countries buy their oil. So, yeah, the Ukrainians are seeing that and going, okay, we've got a big problem. So now they're trying to take more barrels of oil offline. I was just looking at a Wall Street Journal article. The other problem is that previously in different energy crises, LNG was kind of the backup, but the backup itself has been degraded and is under threat. The Wall Street Journal writes, a war in Iran has fractured every node of the regional LNG supply chain. Iranian strikes on Qatar, one of the world's top LNG producers, have damaged its Ras Lafan facility, knocking out some 17% of its capacity for up to five years and delayed the country's massive expansion plans. On Tuesday, Qatar Energy declared force majeure on some of its LNG supply contracts, including customers in China, South Korea, Italy and Belgium. Meanwhile, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which usually carries around a fifth of global lng, is paralyzed. Buyer confidence in Gulf supply has also been undermined. Then they say even if, even if Trump and Iran agree to end the war soon, the consequences for the LNG market will be long lasting and even more profound than for oil. So even if it ends tomorrow, they're saying this is going to reverberate. I also saw an estimate today of, you know, inflation, significant inflation already, based on where we're already at in the

[Krystal Ball]

war for the year and you the current track, remember, let's take Iran at its word. Who knows if they'll be able to achieve it. They want 200 a barrel. So let's put D4 up here on the screen. There's been some interesting movement actually, and I do want to flag this. There actually has been a overall decrease in the price of physical oil. And the reason I'm flagging it is there's no real explanation as to why There is some theory that there was a single buyer that was bidding up the price and now it's coming back down to reality, which is where around $110 a barrel, which is roughly where the price of Brent is right now, like at 100 and I think what is West Texas, something like 89, $90 per barrel. But the bigger issue is that the physical supply problem does eventually have to catch up with market. And the current expectation for a lot of these markets is that all of these signals from Trump about oh, we're gonna back down or we're gonna have some sort of deal. It's the jawboning from the administration, from the Israelis about potential ceasefire. All of that is to buy them as much Runway as possible. And for some reason that's what a lot of people believe. But. But at the end of the day, the LNG and the oil math will eventually catch up in some respect to where things are. And even though that may not result in 200 a barrel, if we're going to live for the next two years at 90 to 100 to 120, something like that's still really bad. I mean, $4 a gallon for gas for years is a serious economic problem and actually will cause very high inflation. Not to mention the jet fuel problem I talked about earlier, as well as diesel, which remains well over $5 a gallon actually to this point. Let's put D5 up there on the screen. They make this exact point in the New York Times. High oil and gas could outlast the war with Iran. He's promised rapid relief. Americans will feel the financial sting for some time after it ends because they point exactly to this massive increase in oil price as well as diesel with no real supply. That will be able to make up all of the backlog in the near or the interim period, especially with a global commodity. You can do your best with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with gas taxes and the Jones act and all of that, but it's just not going to be able to do very much. And our own aging infrastructure has a problem. Let's put D6 up here. Many of you may have seen this. The Valero Port Authority, Port Arthur refinery had a big fire at the diesel hydro treater. I don't know what that is, but I did ask around. It's like a specific, very important part of the, of the actual refinery. Remember, we have not built any new refineries in the United States in decades. Most of them are operating on very old technology. There's a lot of environmental regulations, etc. Around it. So we're super reliant on a very few number of refineries which are not in the best condition. And so whether this is industrial accident, industrial espionage, who knows, we have no idea. But it is something. And of course it's an Indicator, especially at a time when we're out here threatening the entire energy infrastructure of all of Iran. Yeah, that's what's scary.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's another vulnerability. So in a filing they said it was due to an unforeseeable release of process fluid in complex two. So whatever that means, some sort of industrial accident. But in any case, the refinery issue is also the reason why even if an export ban was implemented, it likely wouldn't solve the problem for us and obviously would completely screw the rest of the world because we just don't have the refinery capacity to deal with the specific type of oil that we have here in the U.S. last piece here. Let's put D8. We've got new Iranian threats against the Red Sea was the other one, which obviously a very significant thing to watch and another escalation potential that they obviously have. In any case, this is the decline in crude oil exports across any number of countries. So Kuwait is down 72%, Iraq north is down 49%, Iraq south is down 76%, Saudi is down 52%. And then you have some increases, some small increases from Iran, LOL, Oman plus 7% and Russia plus 14%. Although I suspect that will be hindered by this Ukrainian attack. But in any case, this is comparing this month versus the first 23 days of February 2026. So month over month, how are we looking? That's the, you know, that's the reality. And you can, you can talk a good game as much as you want. You can do as much market manipulation as you want to try to do if you're President Trump and Scott Besant and the rest of the team. But at the end of the day, this is a physical good that, you know, has a, a tangible reality associated with it. Unlike most of the stock market.

[Krystal Ball]

Exactly right. All right, let's get to Professor Robert Papy, standing by.

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[Krystal Ball]

Joining us again is Professor Robert Pape over the University of Chicago. He is also the author of the Escalation Trap on Substack, a great substack which we highly recommend and we have a link down in the description. But he's joining us once again to talk specifically about the theory and framework which he has invented and now popularized, the Escalation Trap and how many of the current events in Iran fit very specifically into the frameworks and systems he's laid out. So sir, first of all, thank you so much for joining us again. It's great to see you.

[Professor Robert Pape]

It's really great to be here again. And thank you for all the explanation here that we're able to give to this audience. I see a hunger for this and I really appreciate what you're doing, of course.

[Krystal Ball]

And likewise, because we wouldn't be able to do it with somebody like you. So we did actually flag a very interesting segment that former CENTCOM commander Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis actually gave at a recent conference where he warned very much of how you should not confuse target tree with strategy. Let's take a listen to what he said and we'll get your reaction.

[Professor Robert Pape]

A situation where target tree never makes up for a lack of strategy. And by that I mean 15,000 targets have been hit. There have been significant military successes, but they are not matched by strategic outcomes. Now, some of the strategic outcomes early on, unconditional surrender, regime change, we're going to dictate who the next supreme leader is. Those were clearly nonsense. Those were delusional.

[Krystal Ball]

Clearly nonsense and delusional. Professor, these are sobering words from the former secretary of defense here, Jim Mattis, and how does it fit with the current option set that we have in front of us for what's going to happen next in Iran?

[Professor Robert Pape]

Well, what we are watching now is not a path to peace. It is the escalation trap. Both sides, I believe Iran and the United States believe they're managing this conflict. However, they are heading into a wider war, a longer war and a more disastrous war. What you're seeing with Secretary Mattis is an indicator. He almost never speaks publicly. And when he speaks, he almost never criticizes his former boss, President Trump. So the fact that he's speaking at all and criticizing Trump is important. Second thing to note is this framework that I've been offering here, the difference between tactical success and strategic success. I think in part to your program, other programs, the substack, this is helping to make sense of what otherwise appears chaotic to so many people, which is how can our bombs hit targets? And yet we're getting sucked into what appears to be this wider, longer war, the administration asking for $200 billion more. How does all that make sense? Well, these simple frameworks that I'm offering you're seeing, it's not just helpful for me, not just for a professor, it's really helpful to make sense of what's otherwise just a confusing situation and he's using them.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Let me go ahead and get your reaction to this new report that just came out this morning from Barack Ravid, who is very close with US officials and also Israeli officials usually sort of prints the things that they give to him. And so it says here, Pentagon prepares for massive quotations, final blow of Iran war. The idea here seeming to be another, you know, escalate to de escalate idea. They floated four different options. Number one, invading or blockading Kharg Island. Number two, invading Laroccan Islet. That helps Iran solidify its control of the Strait of Hormuz. Number three, seizing a different strategic island named Abu Musa and two smaller islands which lie near the western entrance to the strait and are controlled by Iran but also claimed by the uae. And number four, blocking or seizing ships that are exporting Iranian oil on the eastern side of the Hormuz straight. They also theorize that there could be some sort of an option to try to go in and seize loose nuclear material, which is something we have heard before as an idea. So what do you make of this report? And also how does it fit in with the claims from Trump that we're negotiating with the Iranians and Netanyahu apparently leaked to his breast that, oh, we think there's going to be a ceasefire this weekend.

[Professor Robert Pape]

So what this is is very strong evidence that we're heading towards stage three of the escalation trap that I outlined on the sub stack days before the first bomb fell. So I explained stage one would be bombing attack. The leaders. We would hit target, likely kill leaders. Stage two would be Iran would lash back and they've now lashed back, not just hitting the GCC countries, but taking the Strait of Hormuz. They are more powerful than they were before, both dangerous and powerful. And then I said this would drive us to stage three and I said it would be framed as limited, limited territorial conquest. And that idea of limited, we should understand what that is, is not anything like a final set of moves. That's the beginning of stage three, which will then become irreversible. The true red line here that makes it really impossible to walk back from is going to be any of those options you just laid out that now they're going through, and it doesn't really matter which one, because all of them are going to include deaths by our troops much more than we have. And as those troops die, and we will try to keep this to a minimum, I've taught for the U.S. air Force, I have confidence we'll try. But as they die, the 35 to 36% of the public supporting this war will harden. They will themselves psychologically double down. This is what I deal with. I deal with Military action and politics, not just in the enemy country, but in our own. And this is how you get that hardening. Because that 36% will say to themselves, quietly or publicly, those hundred or 200 Marines, 80 parachuters, died for me and I don't want their deaths to be wasted. That's how you get the continuous double down. That's how then this becomes really politically almost impossible to stop. And you end up with likely something like starting with a limited operation that expands to perhaps a three to six month war of attrition. That is where stage three, that's that red line of stage three. I've been laying this out and you're seeing strong indicators that this is not a path to peace. We're heading right to stage three. And stage three is a cliff. And it is not like the other stages. Each of these three stages is a phase level, not just more attack phase level of the escalation trap. And this will be the key red line.

[Krystal Ball]

Professor, I've been thinking about you so much, especially with those words final blow. I'm like, oh, I've never heard that before except in every conflict ever. You have a tweet here, E6 we can put up here on the screen, which is North Vietnam, how they were able to use negotiations to deepen divisions in the U.S. i'm just wondering if you could lay out the historical parallel of where we are to that political aspect of our population.

[Professor Robert Pape]

There are so many parallels to the Vietnam War, it's stunning. Pete Hegse sounds just like Robert McNamara where the Pentagon inching up, ratcheting up, moving up the escalation rung. We're just about just one more blow and we will find the breaking point. That was the famous phrase used in the with McNamara and the Johnson administration in the Vietnam War, we're going to get their breaking point. Well, notice this is exactly the same rhetoric almost word for word out of the President and Pete Hegseth. And then if you look at what is occurring at each stage of the incremental escalation, which we swore we would never do again, at each stage of the incremental escalation, you have tactical success. We win a tactical outcome, but we don't get a strategic outcome. The other side is not collapsing, it's in fact hardening. It's doing things to hurt us in really powerful ways. And even worse than the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese never control 20% of the world's oil. So this is Vietnam essentially on steroids now, because you have not just the escalation Dynamics of the Vietnam War playing themselves again right in front of our eyes. But the stakes are much bigger than the Vietnam War and it's because Iran has a grip on the throat of the world's economy. 20% of the world's oil is huge. And what have they been threatening just in the last 24 hours? They're going to expand that to the Red Sea, they're now saying, and it could be with the Houthis. Keep in mind, a year ago, when President Trump did a one month air campaign against the Houthis, he failed. He's had to give it up and say, oh, can't beat the Houthis, gonna have to go find something else. So this isn't like we haven't beaten Iran and the idea that now we're about to beat, we haven't beaten the Houthis yet. And now they are on deck here. So think about this. They're on deck. That's another 5, 7% of the world's oil. This is. Now, we're not going to be able to talk down the price of oil much longer at this rate.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Let's put E5 up on the screen because you're talking about the political dynamic of this, which obviously is extremely important. We have, you know, we're already in midterm season. There's all kinds of primaries going on. People are begging their candidates, you know, is truly right around the corner. And to your point, the war is already very unpopular and usually wars are actually pretty popular when they start. It's only later that they become unpopular. But you can see the opposition number ticking up day by day at the same time. We talked about this some earlier in the show. President Trump's approval rating is ticking down day by day. There was a new poll that had him out at a new low of 36% approval rating. So as you know, if we move into this next stage, you're saying that the support that exists for the war will harden. What about with the rest of the public? What will that look like?

[Professor Robert Pape]

It will fracture even more so. I realize you may not know, but in September I have a big book coming out about American political violence. And my nightmare scenario has been for several years that we would have this trajectory of what's happening in America domestically. And you can already see we had Chicago, Minneapolis, et cetera, et cetera, and a mega international crisis like Iran happened at exactly the same time. And what you are seeing here is the evidence that this was a real, this was right to have the fear. Because that chart you just Showed that's historically unprecedented here. As long as we've been doing polling now, we don't know what happened before the 1930s, so we don't have polling going back that, you know, 150 years or 200 years. But nonetheless, if you go back here to when we started polling, we don't see that the American public normally rallies around a president when they use force and has in all these other cases and air power in particular, there's the promise of quick victory, no cost. So you tend to get even more rally around the flag with air power. That's not happening here. So we're starting already. And what's. Unfortunately, we're heading toward. And this is if we go off a cliff internationally, there's an iceberg we're going to hit as a country in the fall. That's what I'll be talking about then, because I will explain. We're heading to what I call fractured legitimacy, a new term. So remember, I do the frameworks. You're about to get a new framework, I'm sorry to say. And it's the books already coming. They're already being printed. They're already coming out. It's the new press. So they'll be very glad I'm telling you about this right now. They're waiting for me on the other end of this call. And so I'm just pointing out that unfortunately, this is not just simply another international problem, it's actually the worst international problem. This will be bigger than Iraq, could be more costly in American military lives than Iraq. That was 4.4. That was 4400. But it will surely be more costly geopolitically and with the world economy than Iraq. And so what we are heading toward are these lines crossing in September. And this is really unprecedented for our country, beyond unprecedented. So I'm very concerned about those numbers.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Just thinking off of the top of my head, like some historical parallel, what are you thinking? October 1917, you know, Russia, like World War I. I mean, I don't want to go crazy.

[Professor Robert Pape]

No, I'm going to explain that again.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You're.

[Professor Robert Pape]

You're trying to get me to get the book out. I understand. No, I don't know. The, the nightmare scenarios people are talking about, the Civil War scenarios here, they're just not helpful because they're not realistic. The movie, you know, battle after battle, you know. So what we have here right now is you have people that are novelists, you have people following this. They're making money on this here. You just don't have the escalation framework person or people who've been focusing that for 30 years. You have people say, oh, I can catch that. I can catch that wave. This isn't what this book is about. This is not a Johnny come lately. I've been working on this book for five solid years and that will be clear with all the data. There will be five years of opinion poll data that I've collected here and we have Nobody has that. 20 years of 20 national surveys over five years on the support for political violence in the United States. So, so again, this isn't just a quick book to kind of catch up to a wave you will see when the book comes out. This is a complete this, this is again like the escalation trap. What you are seeing is not the product of instant reaction. You are seeing that there's somebody who's been focusing on these issues for years. Iran war 20 years, American political violence five years. Well, that and then is married to frameworks and you're seeing the frameworks are valuable and that I will offer even more frameworks down the road. But for this crisis, I just want to point out we really need to just understand that when we hit that stage three as we're heading toward, we haven't hit there yet and I'm doing everything I can to try to pull us back from that. But what that's going to do to that 36, 39% you showed is it's likely going to harden it initially and see the public. The bottom did not fall out by the public in the Vietnam War like overnight. And it's not a linear thing exactly with casualties, although it does tend to sort of go there. Need to understand that there are people supporting this war and as people die for them for their position, they will be sticky, much like there were people very angry when we withdrew from Afghanistan. So you will see a similar dynamic here now over time it will likely come down, but that may not happen for a period of months. We just need to be aware that's the stickiness here because we're going to permanent losses and that's going to have a political role. Now the other 60%, they're going to harden too. So this is what, what what we're facing. It's facing a fracture. But as that fractures, you are still have a president in office. That president controls the use of force. And so you may well see this doubling down. And I think you're in, you're heading toward if we cross into any of those ground scenarios here, no matter who allies, no matter who else comes, you are likely to see this months long war of attrition and then you haven't seen anything yet with the global economy. The shocks we've seen so far, these have all been mitigated by talking down the price. That's not going to be possible once we cross phase three.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Wow.

[Krystal Ball]

Professor, just last question for you I think here as we prepare for the end of the deadline, you're saying that any sort of ground scenario basically enables stage three to begin, that it will probably have an attrition. Is there simply no way, you think in your framework where there could be some quote, limited operation and.

[Professor Robert Pape]

Well no, because what you would do like let's imagine, let's just take one of those four scenarios. 82nd Airborne, that's about what you would need a thousand paratroopers to take the airport on Kaj island. Then you would try to reinforce that. But it's 1000. So let's say you only took the airport on Karrs Island. Let's say dozens, maybe even 100 die as they're coming down because they're being shot at as they're coming down in the parachutes. So you've now got the cost. But then are you just going to leave them there and how are you going to get them back? You see, are you going to fly in C130s to get them out? Are you going to fly in ospreys to get them out? What exactly are we going to do once we got them there? Because see they can, they're the pointy end of the spear, meaning they take the entry point but they don't hold the entry point, they don't reinforce the entry point and after a few days they're going to run out of food and water. So you really can't, you got to make a decision. So you now have 1,000 people and yes, you lost some portion just to get them there in the first 24, 36 hours or so forth, but now they're there and are we going to walk from a thousand people? Because it seems like the Iranians are up for kill on every single one. So I think this is really how you. Then why that word limited I think is really disingenuous. I do use it, I put in scare quotes because that is how I thought it would be sold to the public. It is how it's being sold. But I think we should be under no illusion that there's an actual equilibrium point. The only equilibrium point is if the Iranians say oh we changed our mind we're suddenly going to give up the Strait of Hormuz. Welcome you in with open arms here. We're just seeing no sign of that in this regime and the regime just killed 20,000 to 30,000 of its own people to stay in power. Why are they not going to kill Americans and every single one they can get?

[Krystal Ball]

Well, scary stuff. But as always, we enjoy talking to you sir. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Professor Robert Pape]

Escalation thank you very much for letting us explain this to your great audience. Thank you.

[Krystal Ball]

Thank you sir.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Pleasure.

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[Saagar Enjeti]

so as you guys know, Ryan is just back from Cuba where he was there on a reporting trip along with a group that was bringing significant amount of aid to the island which is blockaded by the choice of our own government with catastrophic consequences for all Cubans there on the island, which he was able to document some of and talk to Emily about yesterday. I'm sure Sagar, you've seen like all the shit he's taken over the. I've seen dumbest possible things ever.

[Krystal Ball]

What is it? Staying in hotels. Which you're required.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Which you're required to stay in. Yes. And the fact that the hotels have electricity but the hospitals don't, which is a choice of the Trump administration which is allowing fuel sales to private businesses but not public entities like the hospitals which are of course publicly owned. Famously.

[Krystal Ball]

And I'm sure Ryan would have happily had the hospital have energy as opposed to.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Oh my God.

[Krystal Ball]

It's not like exactly. It was a. It was up to him. He also went there. Just try and report and get information. Information. What he's brought back is honestly harrowing. And look, everyone needs to pay attention because. Did you. Have you noticed how these Cubans, they're like, hey, you did Venezuela and you did Iran, we're next.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And if you go outside Mar a Lago, you've got all of these Cuba signs that are all up right now. They're all living in Florida. Remember there's a very powerful political lobby. You got a Cuban who's literally the US Secretary of State and said, I think his father's dying wish was to make sure that communism was ridiculous of Cuba. You've got these ultimatums that are happening. So we are not ruling this out. Also very under noticed. Two new amphibious. I forget exactly the term. The specific type of ship on their way to the Caribbean.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Oh really?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. So just because we. Just because we withdrew some. There are still US naval assets which are Actually moving back to the Caribbean and to keep some sort of force posture there in the case that we go after Cuba. Trump. What did he say?

[Saagar Enjeti]

He said, it will be our privilege. It will be my privilege to take it.

[Krystal Ball]

Right, to take it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He said, I will take Cuba. It will be my privilege. Many presidents have wanted to. It would be my privilege to take the island. Reporters were like, what does that mean? And here's the thing. Well, one other update to give you guys before I throw this interview that Ryan did with a high level Cuban official, Carlos Cassio, who is the Cuban deputy foreign minister. Yesterday, some of the activists who were part of that trip were coming back, flying through Miami, and they were all detained and interrogated and had their phone seized by US Immigration authorities here. Obvious and blatant attempt at intimidation. So these are the type of authoritarian tactics that this administration is happy to deploy. But I'm gonna throw to this interview. But one of the things Ryan wanted to make sure that we note is that unlike Iran, where they're like, we're done negotiating, you're gonna have to feel pain. And, no, we're not coming to the table with you again so you can murder us again. The Cubans are open to making some kind of deal. You know, sort of similar to the Venezuela situation where Maduro was like, I will give you literal gold. I will do business with you with the like, I have lots of things we can do together. Come and let's make a deal. But Trump preferred to just like, kidnap him and, you know, in this very colonial way, effectively take over the country. I know. Who was it that just came back with a bunch of gold from there? Oh, Doug Burgum, I think, came back with a bunch of gold from Venezuela. So in any case, it's a similar dynamic where the Cubans are like, no, we will work out a deal with you. But the Trump administration is apparently wholly uninterested in that. So in this interview with Carlos Cassio, the Cuban deputy foreign minister, you'll hear him talking about how they're open to offering even compensation to American companies as part of a broader deal. So with all of that being said, here is Ryan interviewing that Cuban official.

[Ryan Grim]

Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. I really appreciate it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Pleasure.

[Ryan Grim]

So as you're, as your country is entering into negotiations with the United States, I'm wondering how much it is in the back of the mind of negotiators that the United States twice entered into negotiations with Iran and in the middle of those negotiations started wars recently, and then back In June, Palestinian negotiators have also been attacked. What has that done to the structure and the psychology of negotiations with the United States? Is it something that's in your head?

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's very present in our mind. We see what happens. We have experience and we take that into account. The problem is that we have, or the issue not the problem is that we have a standing position of trying to find our problems or to solve our problems with any country, and that includes the United States, through dialogue, through respectful and responsible dialogue based on international law and respect to sovereignty of both countries. And one would ask, do you trust it? We see no alternative. We believe it's the only way in which we can find solution to the issues between Cuba and the United States. And we truly believe that they could be found. We don't think that our two countries should live forever in hostility. There's no animosity from Cuba to the United States. To give you an idea, there's never been a burning of American flag in Cuba that I know of or that anyone knows of. There's no conflict of an ethnical, of a cultural nature with the United States. In fact, we have quite a close relationship with many people in the United States that visit us directly or indirectly and that engage with us in many areas in arts, culture, sports, science, in many areas. So we were ready to sit down. Now we also have another experience which is that in previous engagements with the United States, including the most meaningful one in 2015, 16, 17, Cuba fulfilled all of the commitments on which we agreed upon. The US Failed on most of them. And it's not that we say it. People who participated in that process acknowledge it. And the government of the United States declared openly that they would not feel that they were bound by those agreements and that they would break it. So we also have that experience, but that does not stop us from exploring and accepting an invitation by the US to sit down and have a dialogue.

[Ryan Grim]

You recently talked about how Cuba is open to allowing Cuban nationals or Cuban Americans to live in the United States or investors from the United States investing here in Cuba, which isn't necessarily new, but it was reported in the United States as if that was new. But one of the chief obstacles there is that as you know, if there is that investment that is made, you will then have other investors go to US Courts and claim that no, that's compensated, that's stolen property. That is my property. You go to court, Helms Burton, and the court will say, okay, well now Euroed a billion dollars because they traded your stolen property. So how does Cuba envision moving past that kind of catch 22? There can't be foreign investment from the United States if other investors can go to US Courts and seize that investment.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, first, it's not totally new, but the scope with which we're doing it and the openness which we're doing it today and the facilities that we're putting in place is new. And also I say this quote because we're talking about small investment but also big investment.

[Ryan Grim]

What would be an example of infrastructure

[Saagar Enjeti]

in highways, in parts of electricity, not the national grid, in big buildings and tourism in agriculture, in industries. Big industries. Tourism, tourism. The sugar industry, the rum industry. We're open to that for foreign investors, including Cubans that live abroad, not necessarily in the US but also in the US that would want to invest in Cuba.

[Ryan Grim]

And that's new.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And that the scope with which we are doing it, the openness and the facilities are new. In other words, it's more active towards Cubans specifically. Not all property in Cuba belong to the us A lot of it and the most productive, but all of it. So there's a lot of areas in Cuba in which you can invest and nobody could claim that they were a former owner nor go to court. Thirdly, based on Cuba's law, that has no problem. It could have a problem in the United States. What Helms Burden as a law has proven its false. None. None of the demands that have been made, put in place, and there are very few, has been successful up to now. Last, the last effort has gone to the Supreme Court because he has failed. It's with Exxon. It has failed in previous courts. We know the politics in the United States. We understand how politics and policy of the government influence the courts. So we are expecting to see what's happening. But up to now, they have not been successful. And in addition to that, the U.S. government, if it wants it can make exceptions so that whoever wants to invest specifically or in general would never go to court.

[Ryan Grim]

Is there a holistic agreement that could see compensation for some of the property that was American so that that issue is no longer dogging efforts to grow and develop the country?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Holistic agreements are the approach that the world has. And it's the one that we had in the early 60s. We had a holistic agreement. It's called lump sum agreements. They're called with the governments. There were six governments of the countries whose property were nationalized in Cuba. All of them had compensation schemes. All of them were compensated with the exception of the US because the US Government simply refused the terms that were proposed by Cuba and refused. Then when Cuba said, well, let's sit down, let's find an agreeable solution between. And it refused to sit down. Naturally, we learned later that they were planning the Bay of Pigs invasion at the time. So they said, why would we negotiate? But the rest were done. And today studies have been made that if the agreement would have been accepted by the United States, all of them would have been compensated by the mid-80s, all of the Americans which were the larger some. But the only solution for this is through lump sum. Now we're ready to sit down in the United States and discuss these issues. But Cuba also has claims. We believe the Cuban people and the Cuban nation requires or deserves to be compensated for the damage done by the economic blockade, by the invasions, by terrorism, by assassinations, by actions, violent actions against the economy. And so we're ready to sit down. And in fact, during the Obama years, we sat down. We believe we can still sit down, perhaps not follow the same approach. We can innovate a new approach, but we need to sit down government to government.

[Ryan Grim]

So lump sum would be back on the table in any holistic.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It would have to be in a holistic in which, again, our claims would be at the same table.

[Ryan Grim]

What is, what is your sense of what happened with the Biden administration? There was a, There was a sense in Washington that, okay, Trump, he undid everything that Obama did, but Biden, when he comes back in, he will faithfully follow Trump.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, in economic terms, not another. He had more diplomatic opening, but in economic terms, and economic punishment to Cuba faithfully followed Trump.

[Ryan Grim]

Is there any analysis of why that is?

[Saagar Enjeti]

We've had, we think that there are people that the democratic government at the time listened to, some of Cuban origin who ill advised Biden, tell them, look, don't make anymore. There's no need. This country is going to collapse and Biden is already gone and Cuba's still here.

[Ryan Grim]

So I've only been here a couple of days at this point, but even yesterday after the power was restored and yesterday again, blackout over much of Havana with no oil has gotten in since, what, December? So my thought was that this is just no way to live. This feels unsustainable. From your sense how, you know, you can be creative, you can be innovative, but how long can a situation like this go on before. And then, I don't know before what? Because people still wake up every day and go about, you know, and live. How do you think through what the near future looks like?

[Saagar Enjeti]

First we believe that some oil should come in. The US Has a lot of power, but is it forever sustainable for the US to be able to coerce every country in the world to not export fuel to Cuba? Will that be absolutely acceptable for the US Government? Will no clearer mind in the US Government think we're committing huge cruelty against a whole nation? So we expect, and we could be naive about it, but we have to hope that at some point someone's going to say, you do not do this to people. You do not this to a whole society, trying to kill them by suffocating them as a whole. So we still hope that some oil would come in from some other countries or even from the US if they're ready to do it. And meantime, we continue to prepare, as I said, to be less dependent on fuel than we've been. But it should not be confused. We have a very clear mind of the challenge in front of us, and we have a very clear mind that time is not on our side and that the pressure is building on our people and the suffering is going to.

[Ryan Grim]

And so the American government often pushes for economic reforms, political reforms, and so on. So do a lot of Cuban people. What I've heard from some is that if that the embargo, the blockade, the terrorism designation, the pressure has severely limited Cuba's kind of range of motion, that it's very difficult to innovate and experiment in a situation where you're under so much pressure. Is that true? And do you suspect that people who want to see various reforms would be strengthened inside the Cuban government if the embargo were lifted, if the pressure were lifted, and if Cuba could trade with other countries in a normal fashion like anybody else.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The question is that if we feel that who would be strengthened?

[Ryan Grim]

People inside the government who want to reform either the economy or the political system, who want to try something different, who want to allow for different economic experiments in certain areas, Would that be more likely or less likely? In a world where the embargo is

[Saagar Enjeti]

lifted, the steps that we take are collectively analyzed. We reach a consensus to carry them out. So normally it's not this faction thinking of this faction.

[Ryan Grim]

The faction doesn't want to do anything and always say, now's not the time,

[Saagar Enjeti]

because we've thought about some old things, some things we need to accelerate and some that we have been thinking of because of the level of pressure, we have to put a stop on them for the on pause. Because under these conditions, we cannot. We simply do not have the. Some require money to give you an example, some require a level of energy that we don't have. So we put some important reforms, I would say on pause.

[Ryan Grim]

You give an example or two.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I prefer not to go into that because I don't want to give expectations but have to be put on pause against our will, but because of the conditions in which we are but we are sure, and we've been aware of that for years, that our economy needs to transform because the demography of the country has changed, the world has changed, the composition of the Cuban workforce has changed, the opportunities that we have to carry out some issues, some things that we did in the past are not there anymore. So we need to transform the economy and also things that we took for granted, that we studied in books. We're very good in books. But materially no country was successful doing that. So life has shown that are things that we need to do and with the problem that there's no blueprint in any country, there's no example that we can follow exactly, because no other country has been given the same set of cars that we have been giving, including fundamentally U.S. hostility. But our aim is to take steps as fast as we can, but with caution because mistakes can cost and we made some during some transformations that were taken out of time without the right condition. They have cost, have derailed us and has taken some time to get back on path.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, thank you Vice Minister, really appreciate your time.

[Krystal Ball]

Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. This might go down as the longest show ever in BP history, but sometimes that's what the news calls for. Obviously we'll all be on Deck Friday show and we're watching for any potential ground invasion over the weekend, so make sure that you stay tuned. Thank you to everybody who watches and we'll see you all later.

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