← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
3/4/26: Trump Panics After Israel Blamed For Iran War, US Pushes Iran Civil War, Spain Rebukes Trump, Gas Prices Soar
01:19:21
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- [00:00]
Jill Winterstein
This is an I heart podcast, guaranteed human. Hi, it's Jill Interestine, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible.
- [00:20]
Ryan Grim
Dance with the change.
- [00:21]
Jill Winterstein
Dance with the breakdowns. The embodiment of Pisces intuition with Capricorn power moves.
- [00:28]
Ryan Grim
Just so. I'm like delusionally proud of my chart.
- [00:30]
Jill Winterstein
Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast.
- [00:40]
Krystal Ball
This is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards. Live from south by Southwest, March 16th. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. Creativity, know and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is. See all the nominees now at iheart.com podcast awards. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award.
- [01:13]
Murtaza Hussein
Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts
- [01:16]
Krystal Ball
and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial@audible.com this is Ryder Strong and I have a new podcast called the red weather. In 1995, my neighbor Anna Trainor disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. So, no, I am not your guru. Back then I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to the Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:56]
Ryan Grim
Hey, guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:57]
Jill Winterstein
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.
- [02:04]
Ryan Grim
This is the only place where you
- [02:06]
Krystal Ball
can find honest perspectives from the left
- [02:07]
Ryan Grim
and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [02:10]
Jill Winterstein
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:21]
Ryan Grim
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we
- [02:24]
Krystal Ball
hope to see you@breakingpoints.com Good morning and welcome to Breaking Points. And welcome to all of our apparently new viewers who are looking for somewhere to get actually reasonable and honest reporting about this war.
- [02:40]
Ryan Grim
An escape from the propaganda.
- [02:41]
Krystal Ball
An escape from the propaganda. And so we have set up a one month free for people if they, they are, if you haven't yet become kind of premium subscribers. So the promo code is BP free 26. Go to breakingpoints.com and then type in BPfree 26. You get a month free. What that does, it gets you the show emailed out to you before it goes out to the public and in full.
- [03:06]
Ryan Grim
It's the whole show, right?
- [03:07]
Krystal Ball
In full. And without the ads, everything else is going to be available. We don't keep anything behind a paywall, but it comes up later and then you have to skip the ads. And.
- [03:15]
Ryan Grim
Well, we keep Friday shows. The second half of the Friday show is behind a paywall.
- [03:19]
Krystal Ball
And what's actually most important about that is it's supporting independent journalism.
- [03:22]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, right.
- [03:23]
Krystal Ball
And it supports our ability to do this because during a lot of the Epstein coverage, a lot of that stuff was demonetized. A lot of this is going to be demonetized, which means YouTube and the other platforms don't run ads up against it. And then we don't get revenue out of it. We don't care because we have an enormous number of premium subscribers who keep it going. And so the benefit is nice. It's better to get the whole show and not have the ads. But really what you're doing is signaling support for journalism that is just going to be honest and tell you what's going on. This morning I woke up and opened up the New York Times app. And the first thing was like, it
- [04:00]
Ryan Grim
said, sick man, Ryan Graham.
- [04:02]
Krystal Ball
It said, US and Israel attack Iranian military installations. Like, okay, well, that is true. It's not the whole truth. And we're going to talk about later in the program what is being done to one of the oldest and most populated cities on the planet. Indiscriminate carpet bombing.
- [04:19]
Ryan Grim
We have a lot of video that you're going to want to stick around for a video from Dubai that we're going to get to in just a moment as well. All around the Middle East. And Donald Trump was speaking again in the Oval Office yesterday, answering questions from the press that are a little bit all over the place. That's probably not a surprise to anybody, but we will be synthesizing those with what other people in the administration have said. What people said walking out of a briefing on Capitol Hill yesterday. What members said walking out of a briefing on Capitol Hill yesterday. Ryan and your colleagues, Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussein are going to be with us.
- [04:49]
Krystal Ball
Jeremy flaked on us. It's going to be Maz, though, Jeremy.
- [04:52]
Ryan Grim
We got to. We had to. But now we get to call him out.
- [04:55]
Krystal Ball
Yes, that's right. No, he's actually interviewing a top Iranian official at the moment. And the journalism always takes precedence over the punditry, so we're not actually angry with him. So that's fine. But Maz would be great. My colleague Murtaza over at Dropsite a couple years ago, he said he spent his whole life learning about geopolitics, international law, human rights, thinking that that was the thing that he needed to understand to be a foreign policy reporter. Several years ago, he was like, that's not it, actually. It's weapons systems and it's kind of military doctrine, because it is force that is going to be reshaping the world in the decades ahead. And the last several years have absolutely borne out his own professional assessment. And so he can talk to us about how things are actually going, as far as we can tell, in this regional conflict.
- [05:50]
Ryan Grim
And then we're also going to break down the conflict from the two separate. I don't want to say vantage points, but two separate categories or sub conflicts that are roiling right now, Europe and gas prices. So we have two different blocks where we're going to dig deep into both of those aspects of this. We also, of course, are excited to have election coverage because it is a Wednesday after major primaries around the country, particularly in Texas, where I'm spoiling this, but Dan Crenshaw lost his. Brian, Mary Ryan was crying all night. Yeah, we hardly knew you. But anyway, there's a lot to break down on that. And Dave Weigel and David Sirota are both going to be joining us. A little Double Dave action.
- [06:31]
Krystal Ball
Last week we had two Daves, Dave Dan and Dave Hogg. Our new policy is we are only interviewing Dave's, apparently. That's just it. That's only Dave's.
- [06:39]
Ryan Grim
I don't know when that happened or whose idea it was, but we're okay.
- [06:42]
Krystal Ball
Maz slipped through somehow.
- [06:43]
Ryan Grim
This is why Jeremy dropped out, actually. Nothing to do with nothing else. All right, everyone, well stick around for that. And BP Free 26 is the promo code for free access to Premium Breaking Points and to a Premium Breaking Points subscription. Let's turn now to video coming out of Dubai, Ryan, because this is. We can put a 2 up on the screen. This is the US Consulate in Dubai getting hit. If you need an example of how serious I Mean, you don't need an example, but if you want to have a visual of how serious this conflict continues to be, I.e. the US Consulate in Dubai going up in smoke. Surreal imagery.
- [07:25]
Krystal Ball
Yes. And this comes after it appears that this CIA station was hit in Saudi Arabia. The Defense Department officials, War Department, I guess they call them now, much more accurate, were hit in a hotel in Bahrain. And Jeremy had actually reported that the Iranians were telling him that they had tracked American officials and troops, you know, to these particular hotels and instruct these particular floors of particular hotels. And a lot of people dismissed that reporting. Like, come on, you're joking. They didn't actually do that. And then it emerges. Oh, yes, actually, it does appear that they did that. Which just to make one side point, we spent two years being told that Hamas uses human shields and is deplorable for that. As soon as conflict breaks out in this region, the US Sends enormous numbers of its people literally into civilian hotels.
- [08:27]
Ryan Grim
And this was in Saudi Arabia.
- [08:29]
Krystal Ball
That was in Bahrain.
- [08:30]
Ryan Grim
Bahrain.
- [08:31]
Krystal Ball
But they've been hit.
- [08:31]
Ryan Grim
The CIA station in Saudi Arabia, and
- [08:33]
Krystal Ball
they hit the CIA station in Saudi Arabia, the American consulate in Dubai. This. And we'll talk more about this with Mads. The Gulf region is not set up to withstand economically this type of violence. It is based on an expat. You know, it's based on oil, gas, and an expat community. And this. This is not what they signed up for, any of them.
- [08:59]
Ryan Grim
Even though the Saudis were pushing the Iran strikes.
- [09:04]
Krystal Ball
And we can talk about that, too, with Moz. That was a Washington Post report that everybody is dismissing as not credible. That. So the Post reported that MBS multiple times pressed. Pressed Trump to attack Iran, even though publicly he was saying, don't do it. Some reporting that I've done on this, it seems like what happened is that Lindsey Graham went to Saudi Arabia at the end of last month, met with mbs, and publicly said, like, he made the set, made the sell to mbs. I think that what happened then is Graham came back and told Trump, the Crown Prince wants you to do it. But the Crown Prince never told Graham that. Graham just told Trump that. And then Trump told other people that, who then told the Washington Post that.
- [09:59]
Ryan Grim
And that wouldn't be surprising.
- [10:00]
Krystal Ball
Saudi Arabia is saying, we absolutely did not say this.
- [10:02]
Ryan Grim
That wouldn't be surprising at all if that's what happened, because this is gonna
- [10:05]
Krystal Ball
wind up with their oil fields on fire.
- [10:06]
Ryan Grim
Lindsey Graham playing telephone with everyone. He's been all over the place.
- [10:09]
Krystal Ball
And a very malevolent, deliberate Game of telephone.
- [10:13]
Ryan Grim
Incredible. Let's actually listen to Trump himself, who was pushed yesterday in the Oval Office about comments that Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Not just Marco Rubio, though Mike Johnson also had made on Capitol Hill the day before, talking about how the immediate and Sagar and Kristal covered this yesterday. The immediate precipitating factors that we knew we got intelligence that Israel was going to strike, so we had to join preemptive action. Otherwise we would have been behind the eight ball and he would have, Rubio said, you guys would have been doing hearings about why we didn't join with Israel in this attack. Now, Rubio said we had to do it anyway. And Johnson has said stuff to that effect as well. But they did say the immediate precipitating factor. It almost sounded like cope. It almost sounded like they were trying to scapegoat Israel for forcing their hand while also trying to own the attack. So here's how Donald Trump responded to comments A3 did Israel forced your hand
- [11:13]
Krystal Ball
to launch these strikes against Iran?
- [11:14]
Murtaza Hussein
Did that not pull the United States into this war?
- [11:17]
Krystal Ball
No, I might have forced their hand. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn't do it. Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first, and I didn't want that to happen. So if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand. But Israel was ready and we were ready, and we've had a very, very powerful impact.
- [11:46]
Jill Winterstein
What's the worst case scenario that you have planned for in Iran?
- [11:51]
Krystal Ball
Well, I don't know if there's a worst case. We have them very much beaten militarily from the military standpoint. They're still lobbing some missiles. At some point, they won't even be able to do that. I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person. Right. That could happen. We don't want that to happen. It would probably be the worst. You go through this and then in five years, you realize you put somebody in who is no better.
- [12:20]
Ryan Grim
Just very casually, it could get worse.
- [12:21]
Krystal Ball
Could get worse.
- [12:22]
Ryan Grim
The government could be worse.
- [12:23]
Murtaza Hussein
Yeah.
- [12:23]
Krystal Ball
So a lot of Democrats emerged from a classified briefing yesterday on the Hill, and all of them said, I went in concerned about this. I came out frightened. They have no plan. They can't even in a classified setting keep their own stories consistent from the beginning to the end. And if you see Trump talking there he clearly does not have. He has not spent much time thinking this through. The messaging, through the idea. Not forget the messaging. Why, like what happened, like why he attacked and what the goal of the attack is going to be said. We're negotiating with these lunatics. No, Iran was negotiating with lunatics. Trump was negotiating with Iran. The Omani foreign minister, I think he
- [13:08]
Ryan Grim
was also negotiating with lunatics.
- [13:11]
Krystal Ball
Well, maybe they're all lunatics. The Omani foreign minister. Lunatics who turned out to be correct. Sometimes you can be paranoid and correct.
- [13:18]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, that is.
- [13:18]
Krystal Ball
Yes, that's the Omani foreign.
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Ryan Grim
Many such cases.
- [13:20]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. The Omani foreign minister went on air and said. And he said, here's what they're offering. No enrichment, no. No stockpiling. Open to talking about ballistic missiles, but you want to promise first that you're not going to attack.
- [13:36]
Murtaza Hussein
He.
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Krystal Ball
Because he sensed that Kushner and just either didn't understand or weren't being serious about receiving the offer. He went on TV and like told the entire world public what was. What was on offer for Trump to say, oh, they were actually about to attack. It just doesn't pass the Smith, the smell test, sniff test.
- [13:58]
Ryan Grim
No, it's not what anybody. And it's also not what anybody's saying. It's not what the intelligence is saying. Like, it is. Marco Rubio wasn't.
- [14:03]
Krystal Ball
He's alone making that case.
- [14:04]
Ryan Grim
No, Marco Rubio was saying they would have gotten past the point of immunity very soon, meaning if it would have been much harder to take out. This is Rubio's argument, it would have been much harder to take out the military capacity degraded drones. Exactly. And so that's not even.
- [14:18]
Krystal Ball
How does this even do anything about that?
- [14:20]
Ryan Grim
Well, yeah. And on what timetable? Right. So is this going to. Are you able to degrade their military to the point where, I mean, when we were talking about their nuclear capacity being obliterated in June, that was a ten year timetable. Allegedly. They'd been set back a decade. They can rebuild missiles quickly. You can't get rid of their ability to make missiles. They know how to do it. They have the knowledge.
- [14:41]
Krystal Ball
And get the drones from China, they're pretty cheap.
- [14:44]
Ryan Grim
So are we going to be right back here in a year, in five years? Because fundamentally, it is an ideology. There is a. I mean, the. Since the IRGC in the last 10 plus years has particularly been emphasizing this idea that there's an eschatological element to Israel's existence, that if you get rid of Israel, you can bring in the. Like. There are, of course, some far right Israelis who think that. There are some dispensationalist Christian evangelicals who think that too. But that is also something you can't eradicate with bombs in Iran.
- [15:19]
Jill Winterstein
Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver, the Irish traveler said when I was 16. You're gonna have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives and I find a lot of people strong. Placements in Aquarius like are Misunderstood A Sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity and real life, this episode is a must. Listen Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast.
- [16:24]
Krystal Ball
This is Ryder Strong with a podcast
- [16:26]
Ryan Grim
called the red weather.
- [16:28]
Krystal Ball
In 1995 my neighbor Anna Trainor disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs.
- [16:35]
Murtaza Hussein
So no, I am not your ulur.
- [16:39]
Krystal Ball
And back then I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. You can now binge all episodes of
- [16:49]
Ryan Grim
the Red weather on the iHeartRadio app,
- [16:51]
Krystal Ball
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [16:54]
Jill Winterstein
A ambitious, well intentioned, ferocious and wealthy
- [16:58]
Krystal Ball
mother looks like in the black community
- [17:00]
Jill Winterstein
this Women's History Month. The podcast Keep It Positive Sweetie celebrates
- [17:03]
Krystal Ball
the power of women choosing healing, purpose and faith. Even when life gets messy, love is not a destination.
- [17:10]
Murtaza Hussein
You have to work on it every day.
- [17:12]
Jill Winterstein
Keep It Positive Sweetie creates space for honest conversations on self worth, love, growth
- [17:17]
Krystal Ball
and navigating life with grace and grit
- [17:19]
Jill Winterstein
led by women who uplift, inspire and tell the truth out loud. I have several conversations with God and
- [17:26]
Krystal Ball
I know why it took 20 years to hear this and more.
- [17:31]
Ryan Grim
Listen to Keep It Positive Sweetie on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts
- [17:35]
Krystal Ball
or wherever you get your podcast. Rubio's claim that the reason that the US attacked now is because Israel was going to attack and we were going to be attacked as a result of that. So we had to attack like that was the claim that he made. It's one of the most consequential public omissions made in decades. I would imagine that the Israelis are absolutely livid that he said that publicly. And so Rubio is now doing a tiny bit of cleanup around that. So let's, let's see how he's kind of finessing this with a four. Yesterday you told us that Israel was
- [18:14]
Jill Winterstein
going to strike Iran and that that's
- [18:16]
Ryan Grim
why we needed to get involved. Today.
- [18:18]
Krystal Ball
The President said that no, Iran was going to get. Yeah, your statement is false.
- [18:22]
Murtaza Hussein
So that's not what he.
- [18:22]
Krystal Ball
I was asked very specifically, were you there yesterday?
- [18:24]
Murtaza Hussein
Yes, I asked no. Did you. Were you the one that.
- [18:27]
Krystal Ball
Because somebody asked me a question, did we go in because of Israel? And I said, you asked me that follow up and I said, no, I told you this had to happen anyway. The President made a decision and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program, that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks. That decision had been made. The President systematically made a decision to systematically destroy this terroristic capability that they had. And we carried that out. I was very to close clear in that answer. This was a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a joint operation, not the question of the intent. Once the President made a decision that negotiations were not going to work, that they were playing us on the negotiations and that this was a threat that was untenable, the decision was made to strike them. That's what I said yesterday. And you guys need to play it. If you're going to play these statements, you need to play the whole statement, not flip it to reach a narrative that you want to do.
- [19:15]
Murtaza Hussein
All right, Is there a plan in
- [19:17]
Jill Winterstein
place to evacuate Americans before the attack?
- [19:20]
Krystal Ball
That's the plan we're trying to carry out. The problem is, or the challenge we
- [19:23]
Murtaza Hussein
are facing is airspace closures.
- [19:24]
Krystal Ball
If a country closes their airport, for example, in some cases the airports have been hit. So the airport in Kuwait was hit. So if an airport's been attacked or the airspace is closed, then we can have the planes lined up to go, but we can't get them to land because we don't have the permissions to land there. So that's the challenge. It's going to take a little time because we don't control the airspace closures. That said, there may be more people out there that need help. We need to know who you are. So please, I'm asking the media, publicize the phone numbers and the website, because we need people to call in. So we have their name, we have their contact information, we have their location and their request. The context there is that there are thousands of Americans who want to be evacuated from this war zone. If you put the two pieces together, Rubio is effectively saying that because of the timing of when this happened, which was driven by Israel, that he can't get these Americans evacuated at this point. So Senator Tom Cotton was also trying to clean this up a little bit, but just ended up reiterating the point. Let's do a five. Israel faced an existential risk, and they were prepared to strike Iran alone.
- [20:35]
Murtaza Hussein
If that happened.
- [20:37]
Krystal Ball
Iran was very likely to target our troops. That may address the question of why now? Why not two weeks ago? Why not two months from now? The president, though, did not want to put our troops in harm's way. The more fundamental question, though, is why? Why did we have to carry out this operation against Iran? And as I said, that's because they have a vast missile arsenal that far exceeds our combined missile defenses, and it gets worse every single month. That is an unacceptable threat to the United States. So, Emily, so we were. We were going to do it anyway at some point in the next maybe few months, even though we were pretending to do these negotiations, but Israel just decided to do it. So we went with them.
- [21:17]
Ryan Grim
And Trump also maybe forced their hand. Remember, that's his argument.
- [21:21]
Krystal Ball
Trump forced their hand. Yes. Israel, the peacemaker in the Middle east, absolutely did not want to attack Iran for sure, even though Netanyahu put out this gloating video saying, I have been yearning for this attack on Iran for 40 years now. 40 years ago, by the way, as you know, Israel and the United States were arming Iran.
- [21:44]
Ryan Grim
Oh, yeah.
- [21:44]
Krystal Ball
So the yearn to attack Iran was happening at the same time that we were literally sending weapons to Iran. So setting all that aside,
- [21:55]
Ryan Grim
would we
- [21:55]
Krystal Ball
move to the classified briefing, or do you have any thoughts on how this, like, incredibly historic admission on the part of Rubio and Johnson and others is going to factor in politically, especially if and as this becomes a complete economic catastrophe and also American lives and thousands of other people's lives get lost as a result of it?
- [22:21]
Ryan Grim
I mean, I think that's a great place to go next because this is what Democratic senators were saying after emerging from the briefings that Marco Rubio was on Capitol Hill to do. And I think you're totally right also to pick up that the emergent narrative seems to be, we were going to do it anyway. We had to do it now, like, that's what they don't, they clearly don't want to say that because it's been, they've seen how it's played. That's why you saw Rubio rolling out there frustrated yesterday, saying, play the whole clip. Play the whole clip. And it's like, well, you said that. You literally said that the precipitating factor was because our intelligence said Israel was going to do something or we knew Israel was going to do the strike. So, yes, play the whole clip. Great. Happy to have this broader picture understanding. But you're also, even when you're doing the broader picture understanding, reiterating exactly what everybody actually took issue with, which was that Israel forced our hand and the president, United States is saying something different. We have kids from Minnesota coming back in boxes. That's a disaster. That's a disaster. It is a moral disaster. It's a disaster for the administration. The messaging has been atrocious, and I think it's because it reflects the strategy is muddled to begin with. You could hear that in Trump's comments, the point that you made, Ryan, where he's like, well, I don't know what comes next. Maybe it'll be worse. I hope it's not worse. Maybe it'll be worse.
- [23:39]
Murtaza Hussein
Could be worse.
- [23:40]
Krystal Ball
So what?
- [23:40]
Ryan Grim
Hey, here's Dick Blumenthal, senator from Connecticut, walking out of the briefing yesterday. Ryan, would it be fair to characterize him as somebody who's, let's say, hawkish on Israel, Supportive of Israel?
- [23:51]
Krystal Ball
Yes.
- [23:52]
Ryan Grim
Here we go. Let's roll it.
- [23:53]
Murtaza Hussein
I just want to say
- [23:56]
Krystal Ball
I am
- [23:57]
Murtaza Hussein
more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on
- [24:02]
Krystal Ball
the ground and that troops from the
- [24:06]
Murtaza Hussein
United States may be necessary to accomplish objectives that the administration seems to have. But I also am no more clearly on what the priorities are going to
- [24:20]
Krystal Ball
be of the administration going forward, whether
- [24:23]
Murtaza Hussein
it is destroying the nuclear capacity of Iran or simply the missiles or regime change or stopping terrorist activities. And I think the administration owes it
- [24:36]
Krystal Ball
to the American people to have briefings
- [24:39]
Murtaza Hussein
not just for members of Congress, but for the American public.
- [24:44]
Krystal Ball
Nothing here should have been classified.
- [24:47]
Murtaza Hussein
It should be available to the American people.
- [24:49]
Ryan Grim
Let's roll another hawk. Chuck Schumer walking out of the meeting. This is a seven. Do you think Israel, you know, forced the U.S. s hand here, boxed the
- [24:58]
Krystal Ball
U.S. in on this? Look, no one wants a nuclear war. No one wants a nuclear Israel. But we certainly don't want an endless
- [25:06]
Murtaza Hussein
war, plain and simple. What did I say?
- [25:11]
Krystal Ball
Nuclear Israel.
- [25:12]
Murtaza Hussein
Oh, no. Got it.
- [25:14]
Krystal Ball
Let Me say that again.
- [25:16]
Murtaza Hussein
No one wants an endless war, but we certainly don't want a nuclear Iran, that's for sure.
- [25:21]
Ryan Grim
Okay, listening audience, what you missed was Chuck Schumer started to walk away after he said nobody wants a nuclear Israel. Reporters were like, wait, wait, wait. So he goes back to the camera, says, let me do another take, let me say that again, and corrects himself to say nuclear Iran, but and Israel
- [25:37]
Krystal Ball
for context, has nuclear weapons, but pretends that they don't. And it's this bizarre decades long situation where journalists and policymakers are supposed to sort of pretend like they don't know that they do, even though they absolutely do and have tested, tested them and worked with the apartheid South Africa on helping them develop one. It's like, I wouldn't say nobody wants a nuclear Israel. Israel does. But other than that.
- [26:03]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, well, so these are two, I think if people are listening, they've identified two different layers of muddled messag way too charitable term of mixed messaging, of contradictory messaging, which is, is it nukes or missiles and was it Israel or was it our decision? And that moment, did we do it at that moment on our own or because we knew Israel was, was going to strike? And there's been contradictory and mixed message on both of those layers. And those are, those are predicate level questions, foundational questions about this new war. Is it even a war? The president said war in his speech. So of course, yes, it's a war. But then you have Mark Wayne Mullen, for example, also he was standing right where Chuck Schumer was standing in the video we just played. Say this is a war. Reporter said, you know what, you know, you just said that it's a war. And he did a Schumer and said, I need to correct myself. This is, I misspoke. That was a misspoke.
- [26:58]
Krystal Ball
What is it? It's a combat operation.
- [26:59]
Ryan Grim
They're saying major combat operation.
- [27:01]
Krystal Ball
Combat operation.
- [27:03]
Ryan Grim
Preemptive.
- [27:03]
Krystal Ball
Yes, proactive. And Schumer can't get out of his own way and become a real opposition figure because of his hostility to Iran rooted in his like, you know, decades long support for Israel. If you notice in that clip, he leads with nobody wants a nuclear Iran rather than what is kind of more pressing at the moment, the massive war that might spiral into World War three.
- [27:30]
Ryan Grim
It punts.
- [27:31]
Krystal Ball
And also I thought this was obliterated last June. And also they were at the table offering to have no stockpiling. So today there will be a War powers resolution vote in the Senate. It looks like John Fetterman will join Republicans. Graham Platner has been pushing Susan Collins very hard on this, pushing her to condemn this, to turn her concerns into actions and join Democrats in opposing this. You might know better than me. I don't think she's going to do that. We'll see how she ends up voting. If I were her, I would just throw. Her vote is not going to be decisive. I think it's going to lose. You've got 53 Republicans plus Fetterman. Right. So they can lose a couple of Republicans and still defeat the War powers resolution. So if I'm Susan Collins, I would just take a cynical vote and vote for the War powers resolution. I don't think she really will, though. What do you think?
- [28:32]
Ryan Grim
Well, yeah, I mean, it depends on whatever agreement is happening behind closed doors with Trump world, National Republican Senatorial Committee
- [28:41]
Krystal Ball
world, and whatever they think is smarter for her.
- [28:43]
Ryan Grim
Well, and also if Donald Trump is going to be sensitive about people voting against him or if they.
- [28:48]
Krystal Ball
Oh, then if he starts attacking her and you lose money, lose money and lose hardcore MAGA votes, who then? Yeah.
- [28:56]
Ryan Grim
Otherwise, if you telegraph you're taking a
- [28:58]
Krystal Ball
cynical vote so she'll go with the
- [29:00]
Ryan Grim
war, or if you telegraph taking a cynical process vote, maybe you can alleviate that and you can work on that again behind closed doors. But one of the big takeaways from what you just said, actually, is that Platner's already moved on to Susan Collins, which I think is hilarious. It's like Janet Mills is yesterday's news primary is over. Moving on to Susan Collins. But.
- [29:19]
Krystal Ball
And he really is, if people don't live on Twitter. There was like two or three day hissy fit where a whole bunch of like establishment Democrats all in unison telling Graham Platner to drop out. It was like the funniest thing. It's like, I'm sorry, what? Yeah, are you looking for the manager?
- [29:35]
Murtaza Hussein
Like
- [29:37]
Krystal Ball
it's a primary. They're going to vote like you're. It was, it was so undignified and so embarrassing and then it just like faded.
- [29:46]
Ryan Grim
Well, let's finish here with this clip of Lindsey Graham. Get a little bit from the right. We're going to splice up here Lindsey Graham and Tim Burchett. So report Republican member of the House Freedom Caucus. Guy, you've probably seen Burchett around, but here's Graham and then Burchett. It's worth watching these. These both back to back.
- [30:03]
Krystal Ball
So I'm calling on President Trump today. Join Israel to attack Hezbollah, avenge the Marines. America never forgets those 220 Marines and 18 sailors, families. We want to go after the infrastructure that killed your loved ones, their IRGC assets in Beirut. As I speak, President Trump come up with a new operation called Semper Fi. Fly with Israel and go after Hezbollah who has American blood on its hands. Not only take the mothership of Iran down, also take the proxy of Hezbollah, settle the score. Even the account Lindsey hadn't seen a fist fight. He hasn't won, wanted to turn into a bombing.
- [30:47]
Murtaza Hussein
Right.
- [30:48]
Krystal Ball
So I just take it with a grain of salt. Take it with a grain of salt as a Republican. If you didn't gauge from the accent.
- [30:54]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, well, he also said, you know, he said to a reporter in that same press conference, we do expect the public to hold us accountable as the war goes on and you should hold us accountable. He's a Freedom Caucus guy, so he's not like your average establishment person and obviously feels heat from corners of the base that are uncomfortable with this. Now, what I can tell so far, vibes on the right, very supportive. There are a couple of skeptical high profile voices, but I think Republican voters are very supportive of what's happened. So I think maybe there's, there's probably more skepticism and criticism on the online right than there is the, the offline or the partially online right. So I don't know how much heat people are going to be feeling, but if it goes on longer, you know, Burchett's going to hear from people who feel like Marjorie Taylor Greene in his own district probably already is hearing from a decent chunk of people. I mean, even 20, 30% of the Republican base, that's a lot. And it'll, it'll grow as this continues.
- [31:50]
Krystal Ball
And just to be clear there, Lindsey Graham was saying that the US should bomb Lebanon to avenge a 1983 bombing which took place before. I would assume most people in Hezbollah were born, including my esteemed co host, right?
- [32:06]
Ryan Grim
That's right. Yes. A decade. Me and Those Hezbollah guys. 90s kids.
- [32:12]
Krystal Ball
90s kids. All right, up next, Trump sites. Bertazi Hussein is going to walk us through some more of this, including us signaling that they're going to try to start a civil war in Iran by arming Kurdish proxies.
- [32:26]
Jill Winterstein
Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller and unapologetic Aquarian visionary Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are Misunderstood A Sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms on different houses and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity and real life, this episode is a must Listen Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast.
- [33:31]
Krystal Ball
This is Rider Strong with a podcast called the red weather. In 1995, my neighbor and a trainer
- [33:37]
Ryan Grim
disappeared from a commune.
- [33:39]
Krystal Ball
It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. So no, I am not your guru. And back then I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. You can now binge all episodes of
- [33:57]
Ryan Grim
the Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app,
- [33:58]
Krystal Ball
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [34:01]
Jill Winterstein
Ever feel like you're being chased by the marriage police? Welcome to BO and Girls, the podcast where dating isn't dating. Arranged marriage is basically a reality show, except the contestants are strangers and your entire family is judging. You're sipping coffee with one, maybe grabbing dinner with another, and praying your karmic Ken or Barbie appears before your shelf life runs out. Trust me, I've been through this ancient and unshakable tradition. I jumped in hoping to find love the right way, and instead I found chaos, cringe and comedy. And now I'm looking for healing. Boys and Girls dives into every twist and turn of the arranged marriage carousel. The meet awkward, the near misses, the heartbreak. And let's not forget all the jokes. Listen to boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [35:03]
Krystal Ball
The Trump administration is signaling that it plans to arm Kurdish proxies to start an uprising in Iran, which is actually kind of an unusual thing to telegraph publicly if you're going to try to keep it clandestine. So we're going to talk about where that comes from and what that means in a moment with my job site colleague Murtaza Hussein. But first, we have a one month free premium offer that we're doling out to everybody so that you can get coverage of this war without having to pay for it. Go to breakingpoints.com, it's BP free 26. All right. And maybe in post we can add a little map here because I think it's important here. When Sykes Picot drew the lines of the Middle east, they took the Kurdish region, the Kurdish population, and split it basically right down the middle. They put, but they put a quarter of it over in Turkey. So there's a large Kurdish population in eastern Turkey. There's then a large Kurdish population in northeast Syria. Then there's a large Kurdish population over in northern Iraq. And then you have a smaller but non trivial Kurdish population in Iran. And so it is the Iranian Kurds that are now the focus of, of the US Attention and affection and weapons supplies hoping to further destabilize Iran. So, Emmaaz, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Very much appreciate it. And we can put up, what do we have, B2 here? This is from CNN. This is the US intelligence officials signaling that they plan to spark an uprising in Iran, which obviously has some level of psyop psychological operation to it because the CIA is also capable of sparking uprisings without telling CNN that they're about to spark an uprising. And if we had the map still up there, we could point out that down in the southern part of Iran there's a large Baloc population, there's a Balochi population in neighboring Pakistan which has all sorts of kind of intelligence connections and also their own kind of drive for independence or autonomy. So there's a lot of concern that the southern area as well could become a place for some sort of uprising. So what do we know so far about the kind of Trump outreach to the Iraqi Kurds? And, and whether or not the Kurds see this as in their interest.
- [37:46]
Murtaza Hussein
Yeah. So Ryan, as you pointed out, the Kurds have been a stateless population or a state population without their own state for their ethnicity, at least since Sykes Picot. They're spread out among a few different countries, countries of which they're citizens, but they don't have a Kurdistan of their own per se. And so there's always been this tension with these states and so forth about how Kurds will fit in. And now I think this report, there's been militancy in the political movements in Iranian Kurdistan for a long time. But I think that this report is very fascinating because as you said, it's very strange to telegraph so loudly that you're about to do this imminently. I think some of the reports said that an offensive could start in a few days, and that's a very strange thing. To identify in that way. But that said, there have been reports that the US has made intelligence contacts with the pjak, which is like there's Iranian branch of the PKK effectively in Iran. Also reports of weapons transfers and so forth. So I don't find it completely beyond the pale or I don't find it completely outlandish that they could be doing this. But I think it's very clear that if they were to do this, it would not be to really help the Kurds per se. It would be kind of an inversion of the Iraq war situation where the US basically accidentally started a civil war by creating a security dilemma. In this case, it's like they're deliberately trying to start a civil war and maybe try to drain the attention and resources already stretched of the Iranian military. They may impose a no fly zone over this part of Iran to try to break the territorial integrity of Iran in that sense. And I think those are all things that are very plausible. The one thing is if you talk to Iranians, they're very divided and polarized about many different things in a kind way. One thing that really unites them is the territorial integrity of Iran. They're very patriotic across political divisions. So I think that one byproduct of this, it may actually make people rally around the country and the flag or even the government because it's the nightmare scenario of pretty much every Iranian and even the most Shah Pahlavi supporting Iranians milted about the subject. They don't accept it. So it's not to say it won't happen and they're not going to try it. But I'll say one more thing. It would also require much more U.S. involvement. It's not just passing it off to the Kurds and walking away. You probably tremendous U.S. special forces presence in Iran ongoing, as I said, air cover for these troops, these Kurdish forces to protect them and so forth. And I do think we're heading down the road if we're doing this, of much greater US involvement, including ground involvement in Iran.
- [40:14]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. On that point, actually, Ryan highlighted this clip of a Kurdish imam that we can put it up on the screen that said to Pahlavi, quote, let me make this clear. When your dictator father executed Qazi Muhammad, there was only one Qazi Mohammed. But now millions of Qazi exist in Kurdistan. We promise we will not allow you to enter any part of Kurdistan in Iran. Maaz, what do you make of that? What does that tell us? What more does that tell us about the dynamics you were just laying out?
- [40:44]
Murtaza Hussein
Well, one Thing to keep in mind is that Iran is an ethnically heterogeneous country. I think maybe like half or 60% of people are Persian background, but there's a huge population of people with Turkish background, Kurds, Baloch and so forth. Even smaller ethnicities throughout the country as well. And Reza Pahlavi really speaks to the Persian segment of the population, the more urban, you know, plurality or slim majority of the country. But there's a very big country. It's a country of 90 million people. And these people, many of them, did not have a very happy experience with the previous shah. And they view the imposition of another Pahlavi as a return to, like, a straightforward Persian ethnic chauvinism, in their view, so that they would not view that as a liberation at all for the vast majority of them. The current government is very polarizing and probably has a support of a segment of the population and not the majority. But the theory, it's sort of intended to represent the entire country. It's not an ethnic party per se. It's a national party, national government. So I think that introducing. I don't think that even really, people are thinking about these dynamics and thinking about sending the Shah back. It's a very romantic ide. Just nailed the king back to the country. Monarchic restorations have a history in Europe in the past as well, too, but it's a very, very complex situation. And as many US Officials, many foreign officials have said, have spoken with the US Counterparts. It doesn't seem as a plan per se. And I do get the impression that Reza Pahlavi is more of the Israelis guy than the Americans because he's much more closely embraced by Netanyahu than he has been by the US which has kept him, at least in public, at arm's length. Yeah.
- [42:23]
Krystal Ball
And Trump yesterday was asked about Reza Pahlavi and pretty much dismissed him in a similar way to the way that Maria Machado seemed to be kind of dismissed by Trump. So, yeah, he seems like a nice guy, but I don't know if he's the one. There's some other people that he thinks could run Iran. And to your point, the Shah restoration plan runs kind of in direct conflict and contradiction to this. Like, we're gonna spark armed uprisings all over the place because, you know, the Shah, the crown prince, whatever he calls himself, has been. Has been very clear that, you know, it's one Iran, and he will be the king of all of Iran, and then it'll be a democratic transition at some point in the future. But he's not tolerating, you know, separatist movements. You know, his. You know, his father, you know, executed people who kind of pursued that similar line. So those are two strategies, as you said, that cannot work together. We were originally told by Trump that this was going to be a regime change war. It seems like they're starting to realize that it's not quite as simple as they thought. And as many people have pointed out, just changing the regime, you know, through an aerial bombardment campaign isn't quite possible, so it seems. Now, this is what I wanted to ask you about. And we can roll B1 here while I'm asking this question. It seems like a kind of split the baby, split the country strategy is, okay, we can't do regime change. This is Tehran. These are images coming out of just apocalyptic scenes coming out of Tehran. Okay, we can't do regime change, but maybe we can do complete regime destruction, complete regime collapse, and make it so. This country is just simply rendered a failed state, dropped from the ranks of a struggling country under sanctions to one that more resembles Gaza, and that can adopt the approach that the Israelis have taken to Gaza, which they call, you know, mowing the lawn, which would mean, you know, every six months or so, they come in with a bombing campaign. As soon as a little bit of reconstruction gets going and life starts to get back to normal, you bomb them back to misery again. And so if you can have the bloke people rising up, you can have the Kurds rising up and a constant bombardment of this, one of the oldest and most populated cities in the world, then maybe you can just destroy the regime. So what are you seeing, just as a matter of strategy, what is being done to Tehran as we speak?
- [45:15]
Murtaza Hussein
Well, I think, Ryan, you hit the nail on the head. I think that they're not doing regime change per se. And if they were trying to hypothetically impose a neoliberal, pro Western government, maybe Reza Pahlavi, to control all of Iran, that would be one of the more relatively benign outcomes, actually, or benign intentions, because you're trying to preserve something called Iran, even in a very bloody and brutal way. I don't think that's what they're trying to do here. I think they're trying to do regime destruction, regime dissolution. They would like to turn Iran into something like Iraq in the 1990s where it had been heavily damaged, it was very poor, and sanctioned sovereignty was basically irrelevant. You could bomb it anytime you wanted, keep it on the back foot. And then one day, 10 years later, if the circumstances arose, you can go in there and knock it off, and people wouldn't really object to it at the time. The impression I get from listening to Trump administration officials is that they consider the entire. The major mistake of the war on terror was not the killing and destruction, but it was the attempt to try to engineer something out of that. It seems like the war on terror was very progressive and woke or something. It was too involved in human rights and state building and stuff like that. What they would like to do, and they're pretty much open about this, they like to destroy Iran in very extreme, vulgar terms. They describe that, including Secretary Texas today. And they don't plan to rebuild it or they don't plan to put someone new in charge. If someone new comes in who maybe supports the U.S. great. If not, no problem. And causing the dissolution of the country is something which is very harmful to countries around Iran. It's bad for Turkey or Pakistan or the Gulf Arab states and so forth. It could be very bad for Europe if there's a major refugee crisis, which I think Iran is a country of 90 million people. I think it would absolute a refugee crisis at that point. But the US Is far away. Even Israel is pretty far away. So they could probably weather the weather, the blows from that. And, you know, that's kind of, I think the plan, such as it is, whether that will be successful or not, I don't know because, you know, Iran is a very large, coherent, cohesive country. It wasn't really like Iraq or even Syria that was created by, you know, syco, colonial borders that has like, actual country with actual, like, historic, civilizational sort of containment that it had. So I don't think it's that easy to destroy it. But that said, you know, you can do tremendous harm. You could kill tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. Millions of people could be killed. It's not by any means off the, you know, out of the realm of possibility. And I do think we're heading somewhere like that. So I think that that's unfortunately the trajectory. And, you know, the Iranian government could have options and how it responds and manages to maintain power and so forth, but they're in for a very, very challenging period. And I think we're only sadly at the beginning of this.
- [47:57]
Ryan Grim
Well, let's roll this footage from Lebanon. This is B4, because actually, Maaz, we played a clip of Lindsey Graham at the Senate yesterday calling for Trump to join Israel, strike Hezbollah, avenge the Marines. But everything you're just saying probably rings in many people's minds as what happened After Iraq, particularly what happened after Iraq with the rise of isis. And I guess that's my next question is where you were saying, if you have this dispersed or you have this power vacuum, what could come next is not what anybody predicted when we went into Iraq. I mean, it's remarkable to look back on that and think of how little understanding there was of what could come next. But this seems utterly insane for the United States to be completely confident that what comes next is going to be potentially inevitably better than what was before, which is again, something they're saying over and over again. It couldn't possibly get worse. It couldn't possibly get worse. What could get worse, if anything? Maaz?
- [49:09]
Murtaza Hussein
Well, you know, you could have, as I mentioned earlier, the refugee crisis. The refugee crisis was hugely destabilizing to Europe, had a tremendous impact on politics all over the world. That's very impossible. Even Iraq and Syria. Syria, they're only in the 20 million in the population and so forth. Iran is 90 million people. That's a tremendous number of people, even a fraction of whom may become refugees who would wind up in Europe. That completely changed the politics of the continent again and less than a decade. So I think that's a very important possible consequence. But also Iran, there's a tremendous amount of knowledge and material, militarily, nuclear stuff in there as well, too. You could have a breakdown of state authority. You could have different factions fighting over nuclear material, people trying to develop nuclear weapons outside of cohesive state structures such that no one could see that they could be cooperating with people outside the country. They can cooperate with people in Russia or elsewhere in the world to do this, conceal these activities. The way Iran is right now, especially with the government trying to engage with the international community in various ways. There's a great degree of transparency that affords. Because you know where Iranian nuclear sites are, you know, for the most part, where the nuclear materials are. What if that whole structure breaks down? What if people, a small group of people, armed people and some organization go to the mountains, it's a very mountainous country, and develop a nuclear weapon up there, a dirty bomb or something like that? You know, a million nightmare scenarios could happen if you open turn a gigantic country like that into an apocalypse.
- [50:42]
Ryan Grim
And you're not bombing the. Well, I was just going to say, because you, you know this very well. You're not bombing the. What's the right word? The theological persuasions or the ideological persuasions of some chunk of the Iranian population away. In fact, you could actually be radicalizing more and more People into IRGC style ideologies. I mean, that's again, it's part of what happened with isis. You hear how ISIS was recruiting people, some of these videos that are coming. I mean, what happened to the school in the first, what, 24 hours of the bombing, that's a recipe for another potential ISIS like recruitment boon, it seems to me, at least. But you would know this better, Moss.
- [51:22]
Murtaza Hussein
Well, I think it might be likely to revivify a very hardline Iranian nationalism, maybe channel to the current government. That's a very significant possibility because the whole message of the government was that America is bad and America has pushed us around in the past. It did a coup in the 1950s, did Baram Saddam was saying in the 80s. And a lot of people actually didn't really believe that anymore. Younger people and so forth. And however long this goes on, violence naturally has a polarizing effect. People start to get radicalized by it, as you said. They start to get noticing or they say hurt or their family members are in danger changes their perception. Then the government was not very popular before this. It was maybe 30%, 25%, something like that. People thought back of the envelope calculations of the level of support in society. If you continue bombing them, you'll gener patriotic sentiments that they can challenge. So maybe the US is indifferent to that. Maybe they're not trying to engineer a new Iran so they don't care. But that would strengthen the Iranian government. Absolutely. Because the one thing that would make it very easy to resist or easier to resist this onslaught or attempts to break up the country on an ethnic basis is to revivify support in the government. And the government would have to do things too. It would have to change the way it engages with people, maybe change some of its public messaging and the way it makes decisions, be more inclusive in that sense to a degree, but it's giving them an opportunity for that. I don't see necessarily a totally extreme ISIS like movement emerging from Iran. I think that there was kind of like a unique constellation of factors in Iraq and Syria that resulted in that. But I do think that it would transform people's opinions in ways which could be politically adverse in the long term.
- [53:04]
Krystal Ball
And last question for me, what is Iran doing differently this time? That they're clearly getting absolutely pummeled by Israel and the United States. The bombing campaign seems to be exceeding what was done during the 12 Day War. But what is Iran doing differently when it comes to their response and what is working for them and what's not working?
- [53:28]
Murtaza Hussein
Well, it seems like this time they're relying more on these shorter range one way attack drones, the shahed drones that they're firing at us positioned in the Gulf states states and sometimes the targets in the Gulf states as well too. That's been the predominant focus of their retaliation. So you know, the interesting thing is that most of Iran's ballistic missile force is actually not developed to hit Israel. It's developed to hit these targets in the Gulf. So you know, they're using more of those and obviously they're under much more fire this time to suppress these launchers, to destroy them before they can be fired and so forth. But still, as I said, it's a very big country and around the Persian Gulf littoral area they have caves, they have small launch sites and so forth. It's very difficult to get all of them. And they're doing regular stream of attacks on these targets. And there was actually a New York Times story about this and it was on social media as well too. But they were mapping out all the radars that the Iranians hit in the Gulf states. They've actually destroyed billions of dollars of US equipment on these bases and very sophisticated anti ballistic missile radars and other radars and so forth. So they are actually hitting things which matter. They also hit a CIA station, Saudi Arabia, they hit embassies and so forth. So this is not completely trivial response. But that said, given the depletion of stockpiles from the last war, and also this time the fact that the US not just involved hitting Iran, but also giving fuel support to the Israelis so they can hit Iran more regularly, it's difficult to maintain the large level ballistic missile salvos that took place in the last war. This means that the US and Israeli interceptors are probably depleting at a slower rate than before. But also they can't really hit these targets as hard as they did before. So I think from the Iranian perspective, they also may be trying to preserve their capacities not to fire them all in the short term, but to fight a long war of attrition. Because if the US and Israel can only fight for a few weeks at this capacity, but they can go for months and months and six months or something like that and keep firing, then the perception of who is really on top here may start to shift. And I think that's usually the strategy of the weaker party in a war. And many Iranian officials have said this. And I will say one last thing. It was seen as is the biggest mistake that the Iranians made last year when they stopped firing after 12 days because in the Iranian system, they said, we finally figured out how to get past the missile defenses, we shouldn't stop firing. But also if the war is going to come next year anyways, now the Israelis on the back foot and the US Is not clearly going to get involved. We should just have it now, press our advantage now rather than wait another year and we'll see what they did in the end.
- [55:57]
Ryan Grim
All right.
- [55:58]
Krystal Ball
All right. Well, Maaz, stick around for a moment because we're going to talk about what the European response has been and what the US Response to the European response has been. And so we'll stick around after the break for this.
- [56:11]
Jill Winterstein
Hi, this is Jo Winstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver, the Irish traveler said when I was 16. You're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood A Sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're natural navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity and real life, this episode is a must. Listen Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast.
- [57:16]
Krystal Ball
This is Ryder Strong with a podcast called the red weather. In 1995, my neighbor Anna Trainor disappeared from a car. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs.
- [57:27]
Murtaza Hussein
So no, I am not your guru.
- [57:31]
Krystal Ball
And back then I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. You can now binge all episodes of
- [57:41]
Ryan Grim
the Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app,
- [57:43]
Krystal Ball
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [57:46]
Jill Winterstein
Ever feel like you're being chased by the marriage police? Welcome to Boys and Girls, the podcast where D Dating Isn't Dating. Arranged marriage is basically a reality show except the contestants are strangers and your entire family is judging. You're sipping coffee with one, maybe grabbing dinner with another and praying your karmic Ken or Barbie appears before your shelf life runs out. Trust me, I've been through this ancient and unshakable tradition. I jumped in hoping to find love the right way. And instead I found chaos, cringe and comedy. And now I'm looking for healing. Boys and Girls dives into every twist and turn of the arranged marriage carousel. The meet awkward, the near misses, the heartbreak. And let's not forget all the jokes. Listen to boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [58:47]
Krystal Ball
So a diplomatic and trade war is breaking out between the United States and Spain over Spain's refusal to allow the United States to use its bases to attack Iran. Trump was asked about this and said that, you know what, maybe he'll just cut off Spain completely. Let's roll this. The right was given to us by the Supreme Court and we have the right. As an example, we talked about Spain. I could tomorrow stop, or today even better, stop everything having to do with Spain, all business having to do with Spain, have the right to stop it. Embargoes, do anything I want with it. And we may do that with Spain. But some of the European, like Spain has been terrible. In fact, I told Scott to cut off all dealings with Spain. Spain, first of all, it started when every, every European nation, at my request, paid 5%, which they should be doing. And everybody was enthusiastic about it. Germany, everybody. And Spain didn't do it. And now Spain actually said that we can't use their bases. And that's all right. We don't want to. We could use their base if we want. We could just fly in and use it. Nobody's going to tell us not to use it, but we don't have to. But they were unfriendly. And so I told him we don't want to. Spain has absolutely nothing that we need other than great people. They have great people, but they don't have great leadership. And as you know, they were the only country that in NATO would not agree to go up to 5%.
- [60:16]
Murtaza Hussein
I don't think they would have agreed
- [60:18]
Krystal Ball
to go up to anything. They wanted to keep it at 2% and they don't pay the 2%. So we're going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain. All right, so Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez pushed back against Trump, saying that he's not going to be bullied. Now, Trump is probably correct. They probably could just fly in. I don't think Spain's going to shoot a, shoot the US Planes down. But Sanchez is saying that he's standing by it we can put up his post here. He said, the world, Europe and Spain have faced this critical moment before. In 2003, a few irresponsible leaders dragged us into an illegal war in the Middle east that brought nothing but insecurity and pain. Our response then must be our response now. No to violations of international law. No to the illusion that we can solve the world's problems with bombs. No to repeating the mistakes of the past. No to war. Emily, how are people feeling about this on the right? This just. Trump kind of decided that we're gonna go to war and decided the entire world has to go to war with us, and now we're gonna cut off Spain. What does that mean?
- [61:29]
Ryan Grim
It's Trump. It's just. It's Trump's tactics that people have become accustomed to. And I think some people on the right actually, frankly, enjoy Trump coming in. It's like people see it almost as Reagan coming in after Carter malaise, as it's kind of remembered in the American imagination and saying, it's morning in America again. And, you know, Trump is a much darker version of that, saying it's America's morning again. Like, we are the ones who are in charge, are in control, and you have to deal with it. We're actually, like, wrangling the world as is our right. We have the power, and you're not going to tell us no. So let's put C2 up on the screen. This is Poland saying they will now work on getting their own nuclear weapons. We have France that we can put up on the screen as well. This from the New York Times headline, Macron expands French Nuclear arsenal and vows protection for neighbors. This is all what's transpired in less than a week. And I want to roll also Mark Carney, sort of the. What's the right word? Arch nemesis of Trump, ostensibly. Here's what he said. We can rule this.
- [62:43]
Krystal Ball
We support efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace security, because Canada is taking the world as it is, not passively waiting for a world we wish to be. We do, however, take this position with regret, because the current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order. Despite decades of UN Security Council resolutions, the tireless work of the international Order Atomic Energy Agency, and the succession of sanctions and diplomatic frameworks, Iran's nuclear threat remains. And now the United States and Israel have acted without engaging the United nations or consulting allies, including Canada. So where to from here? With a rapidly spreading conflict and growing threats to civilian life. Canada reaffirms that international law binds all belligerents. We condemn the strikes carried out by Iran on civilians and civilian infrastructure across the Middle east. And we implore all parties, including the United States and Israel, to respect the rules of international engagement. Canada calls for a rapid de escalation of hostilities and is prepared to assist in achieving this goal.
- [64:07]
Ryan Grim
To your question, Ryan, this is how Trump world sees it, like, okay, nerd international relations. This is real politic. Donald Trump has brought, brought this transparent, naked realpolitik back to the White House where it always was. This was always a pretext used to weaken the nation state and particularly the United States, to undermine US Hegemony by people who want to control the world out of Davos and Brussels as opposed to letting countries thrive or fail on their own might and power. And I think that's how, if we were trying to flesh out the meat on the bones, that's how people would say they're interpreting it. They're not particularly concerned about losing support of allies, to be honest.
- [64:51]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. And Mark Carney is a particularly good example because he gave this like, famous speech at Davos where he said, you know, it's time for us to denounce this, you know, American belligerence and hegemony and like the fraud that is the, you know, international rules based order. And then within hours of, of the U.S. attacking Iran, he put out a statement basically in complete lockstep support for it. Now he's out with this new thing which you heard him say, where he's like, well, I support it, but it's also, it's kind of hypocritical and bad and I shouldn't, but I do.
- [65:22]
Ryan Grim
Right.
- [65:23]
Krystal Ball
It's like, okay, it's unclear whether he's
- [65:26]
Ryan Grim
saying, he's saying the pretext is good. The pretext of international law is good
- [65:30]
Krystal Ball
and the war is good, but the war is not being done legally.
- [65:33]
Ryan Grim
Right? Yes.
- [65:34]
Krystal Ball
And so I want to talk about the role of the Europeans a little bit more with Maaz Hussein. Let's bring drop site's correspondent back here. Maz. I want to talk about Europe's role here because they kind of get, I mean, good for Spain and Spain is not the one that I'll be talking about here when I bring up last year's events which walk through how so how we wound up here in this war connecting to the snapback sanctions that the Europeans applied to Iran. So when the US in 2017 walked out of the Iran nuclear deal, there was still a lot of sanctions relief from the Europeans to the Iranians, because Europeans had also made a nuclear deal deal and Iran was abiding by the nuclear deal. But fairly recently, the Europeans, under pressure from the United States, went pretty directly and harshly at Iran when it came to economic sanctions. So what has been the kind of European posture here? Because they're going to present some level of, of concern over violations of the UN and international order. But what was Europe's role, as you understand it, in pushing us to this situation?
- [67:04]
Murtaza Hussein
Well, the original Iran nuclear deal that was signed in 2015 was involving the European countries. While it's a very critical role in mediating that. And when Trump left the deal, when he violated it, they were very upset about that because they viewed the Iran nuclear deal as a great diplomatic achievement. They wanted to avoid another Iraq. Iraq war was extremely bad for Europe. And so they were upset when that happened. And they tried to keep the deal alive to a degree the years after 2018 when Trump left, it tried to give the Iranians some other channels that could trade with them. But despite that, for the most part, they did abide by the Trump sanctions, the secondary sanctions, the bag and so forth. They wouldn't break those and go against those and continue dealing with Iran. They kind of threw Iran under the bus for the most part, although they tried to maintain some sort of life preserver to keep the deal at some degree above water. And that continued for a while. But two things happened in this time. When the Trump reneged on the deal and he reinfolded the sanctions, the Iranians stopped completely complying with the deal. They started to enrich uranium beyond the limits set out in the deal itself, up to 60% enrichment. I think 90% is weapons grade. So they were clearly trying to signal that they had leverage. And if you keep doing this to them, they could maybe develop a weapon one day without actually doing that. But basically they were not in. Just like Trump was no longer abiding by the deal, they weren't also completely abiding by the deal. They were at least skirting up against the edges of it a lot. So that put them technically out of compliance. But then the other thing that happened, which is a huge, I think, impact on the European view of the situation, is that when the Ukraine war broke out, the Iranians started arming Russia and Ukraine. They started arming them with these shot head drones. They have built shahed drone factories in Russia. That became a very, very big part of the war. In fact, the shahed drones had a huge impact on the war for a Time. And they were Russians improved them as well too. And they kept developing them. And that relationship really radicalized Europeans, I think, on this subject, because before that their relationship with Iran was they were like a middleman between Trump, the Iranians, between Trump and the Iranians. But now they've become completely hostile and they openly talk about regime change in Iran. I do think that that decision by the Iranians to do that, that contribute to that a lot. And now this is the sort of strange quandary because now all these European countries have basically said that we are done with Iran, we expect a new government to emerge there. But they haven't explained how that's going to happen. They haven't really. They've kind of put Trump in the driver's seat and Trump doesn't seem to have any intention of doing that. So it's kind of like leaves it in a very strange position. And the speech by Mark Carney is very interesting because first of all, he gave this very forced, very revelatory at the time and very popular speech at Davos about the New World Order. But now he's back to saying all the same things again quite quickly. And I think there's a couple of things here. First of all, there's the big Iranian diaspora in Canada. It's very politically vocal and very, very anti government. They're very pro the Shah for the most part. But also I think that Canada doesn't really have many options actually, because if you are going to be a non aligned, multipolar, that's the message if you're trying to send, then you don't really have the power to do that for the most part. You kind of are just left to signal back the same international laws and rules. There's that you were saying were irrelevant. And I think that the Canadian position really does mimic the European position in many ways because they both are sort of dependent on whatever the US Is doing and reduced to kind of giving a commentary on that. But I do think that if the US does go ahead with destroying Iran entirely, that will not end well for Europe. Europe will definitely be impacted even if America is not as directly because of the geographical proximity. And the Iraq war was devastating for Europe, as I mentioned earlier, the Iran war will be much, much worse. But the fact that they don't really have the autonomy, they don't really have the vision of how to act independently, it means that they're just going to sit back effectively and watch this train hit them if it does.
- [70:55]
Ryan Grim
Havib Riddick Gurr wrote a whole piece in the Free Press about how this is actually specifically just about China. This is all Trump can't say it for whatever reason because he doesn't want to. I guess the reason that Havib gives is that he doesn't want to antagonize. But this is actually, at the end of the day, all about China. Mark Carney has been in hot water for what Trump World sees as overtures to China. And I'm curious, Maz, how you see the BRICS China dynamic playing out in the minds of like a Mark Carney or Davos World as they consider international law in regard to what's happened over the last week. Because obviously that's something brics country is China. They use examples exactly like this to say what do you mean international law? So could you give us some perspective on how that could play out in the weeks and months ahead?
- [71:49]
Murtaza Hussein
Well, I read Chinese media and social media on a regular basis and there's not really a tremendous interest in the subject. For the most part, the Chinese government does not have huge trade ties with Iran. It's quite limited and lopsided. The trade that they do have with Iran, the one thing they do trade is oil. They buy oil from Iran, but it's like a, it's a fungible resource for supplies. But it's also kind of a warped relationship. They kind of abide by the sanctions for the most part, vis a vis Iran. They don't have a defense partnership, they don't have a defense cooperation. They don't sell Iran advanced weapons. They don't seem to have, they don't have a historic trust with them and so forth.
- [72:22]
Ryan Grim
They buy a lot of oil though, right? It's like 90% of Iranian crude exports or it's the Chinese market.
- [72:28]
Murtaza Hussein
Yes, but it's only about 10 to 15% or 10 to 12% of China's imports. So it's much more important to the Iranians than it's the Chinese. It could be replaced for the Chinese, worst case. Or they would even buy it from a different Iranian government. Or if the Iranian government collapsed and still sold oil, that's fine with them. They don't have a strategic partnership with them, the country they have a strategic relationship with North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and Belarus. And Iran is not really on that list in any way. So I think they're trying to say it's about China is attempting to make this seem like it's about America in a way because China is very important to America, but Iran is not important to China. And that's manifested in the lack of support and lack of, of any kind of material aid that they provide to the Iranians or even attempts to try to stop the war from happening. So I don't think that. And I think that one thing, it's doing it. I think it's already done this before. But the idea of international law, it's becoming ridiculous in a way, like international law in sense of war and crime and things like this. The Chinese are not expecting that's going to protect them. That's why they're building tons of missiles and that's why they're expanding their navy and air force at a tremendous rate, because they know that they're not expecting this to take something that's going to. They can rely on. One thing that they have noticed about the Iran war is the way that the US Dealt with the Iranians during negotiations. They use negotiations as a stalling tactic to mass more forces, as a tool of deception and so forth. And they will assume that in a negotiation with the US in the future, potentially over Taiwan or an issue like that, that they may do the same to them. And they will treat any negotiation with that suspicion and with that cynicism about what the actual goals are. But beyond that, they're not emotionally invested in the Middle east, don't have bases there. They don't have any real footprint per se. As long as the oil keeps coming from the few select spots that it comes from, that's fine. And they really have much more deep economic ties with the Gulf states. To be honest, that's much more important to them than Iran is. So I don't really find that this is targeted towards China because China is just not that impacted by oil.
- [74:29]
Krystal Ball
It.
- [74:30]
Murtaza Hussein
It's really hurting everybody else, though, especially the people in the Gulf states who are directly bordering Iran.
- [74:34]
Ryan Grim
Yeah.
- [74:35]
Krystal Ball
And just to connect a few dots from this segment, we talked about Poland saying that it's going to now race for nuclear weapon. We talked about France saying that it's going to kind of expand its nuclear capacity. And that's all related to Russia and to their Europeans concern about Russian aggression toward them. So it's interesting that the way that you talked about the Iran and Russia relationship developing more tightly as a result of Trump walking away from the Iran nuclear deal and then Iran supplying drones and other military technology to Iran and tightening that link. So in a world where Trump doesn't walk away from the Iran nuclear deal, do you imagine that the US And Europe would have had more leverage at the time and presently to say to Iran, look, this is a war between Ukraine and Russia. See your way out of this. We don't want you supplying these drones. Look, your economy is booming. We've released these sanctions. This nuclear deal is where everybody's abiding by it. Don't. So don't rock this apple cart. So I'm kind of trying to figure out, like, was that a decision that actually heightened tensions between Russia and Europe in a way that wouldn't necessarily have happened if Trump hadn't just gone in? And because Obama's name was on the nuclear deal and because the Israelis wanted him to rip it up, they just ripped it up.
- [76:13]
Murtaza Hussein
Yeah, there's no doubt about it. And you know, this strategic cooperation that the Iranians and the Russians have, specifically the shahed drones, that was not even reciprocated in a strategic manner by Russia. They just paid for them. The Iranians need money to their sanctions, so they gave them gold transfers and maybe cryptocurrency other ways that they paid them outside the international financial system. That was what the Iranians got out of it. The Russians are not rushing to defend Iran or even arming Iran with Russian weaponry. Tremendous degree in a strategic way. Maybe they're selling them something, but not in a way which is out of line. So really it was just out of economic first to stick it to the Europeans, I guess, that say that we have leverage too, but also for economic reasons. That was the overriding reason really why they started selling weapons to Russia. And this is actually one of the most important things about this entire issue. The Iranian nuclear program has never been used as a tool of ensuring Iranian national survival by developing a weapon. Nor has it even been really used as a tool for developing power in Iran per se, like electricity. They have huge electricity storage shortages in Iran. The number one reason for the Iranian nuclear program has been as leverage to negotiate their economic reintegration with the West. That's why they didn't develop a weapon. That's why they didn't actually integrate into the national grid and so forth. They were trying to use this as a tool that we're on the outs, need to get back in. How do you generate leverage? We can do it this way. And I think it's a very poor decision. And I think that if you're going to develop a nuclear program and even enrich outside of normal bounds, you pretty much are locked in. You better go all the way and build the bomb or don't build the program at all. But they tried to go halfway in this way, which was very typical of the governing style of the former supreme leader Ali Khamenei. He tried to beat a situation of lukewarm sort of nuclearization and lukewarm hostility with Europe and so forth, and even the U.S. so I think that that is the ultimate error that the Iranians made. If you compare that to countries like North Korea or Pakistan and so forth, who treated the nuclear weapons as a tool of natural survival and ran for it at any cost. There's a famous quote by a former Pakistani prime minister. He said that we will build a nuclear weapon even if we have to eat grass for 100 years after this. And that's what they did. Pakistan did suffer a lot for that. But Pakistan exists today, whereas maybe Iran won't. And I think that this is a broader subtext of this sort of weird negotiation that taking place with the Europeans and Americans over many, many years and which is now culminating in this disastrous outcome for the Iranians.
- [78:41]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I kind of hate knowing stuff about the world because it just makes it that much more miserable knowing that it could be different. It's bleak anyway. Very bleak. Maaz, thank you so much for joining us. People can check out your reporting over at Dropsite News. Appreciate you being here.
- [78:58]
Ryan Grim
Thanks.
- [79:01]
Jill Winterstein
Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver, the Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're gonna have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are Misunderstood a son and and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity and real life, this episode is a must. Listen Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast.
- [80:06]
Krystal Ball
This is Ryder Strong with a podcast
- [80:08]
Ryan Grim
called the red weather.
- [80:09]
Krystal Ball
In 1995, my neighbor Anna Trainor disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs.
- [80:17]
Murtaza Hussein
So no, I am not your guru.
- [80:21]
Krystal Ball
Back then I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. You can now binge all episodes of the Red weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Jill Winterstein
Ambitious, well intentioned, ferocious and wealthy mother
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Krystal Ball
looks like in the Black community this Women's History Month.
- [80:43]
Jill Winterstein
The podcast Keep It Posit Sweetie celebrates
- [80:45]
Krystal Ball
the power of women choosing healing, purpose and faith. Even when life gets messy, love is not a destination.
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Murtaza Hussein
You have to work on it every day.
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Krystal Ball
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Jill Winterstein
Sweetie creates space for honest conversations on
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Krystal Ball
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Jill Winterstein
with grace and grit led by women who uplift, inspire and tell the truth out loud. I have several conversations with God and
- [81:08]
Krystal Ball
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Jill Winterstein
to hear this and more Listen to
- [81:13]
Ryan Grim
Keep It Positive Sweetie on the I Heart Radio, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, as we're recording this, it's 9:25am The CNBC headline is S&P 500 Futures Tick Higher as Crude oil trades lower after Iran conflict surged. That's again what it's showing right now. By the time you see this, markets will be open. But Ryan, I want to roll this clip of Donald Trump responding to questions yesterday in the Oval Office about oil prices. It's a midterm election year. He's focused on cost of living as his team continues to say D1. This is Trump on what could happen, what that might mean for him in the near future with oil and gas prices.
- [81:58]
Krystal Ball
I'll tell you what, I have never had more compliments on something I did. People felt it's something that had to be done. So if we have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe lower than even before.
- [82:15]
Ryan Grim
And he rolled out his plan for the Strait of Hormuz on Truth Social. Let's put the next element up on the screen. Writing Effective immediately, I've ordered the U.S. development Finance Corporation to provide at a very reasonable price, political risk insurance and guarantees for the financial security of all maritime trade, especially energy traveling through the Gulf. This will be available to all shipping lines if necessary. The US Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible. No matter what, the US Will ensure the free flow of energy to the world. The US Economic military might is the greatest on earth. More actions to come. Thank you for your attention to this matter. And D3, we can go ahead and put latest oil barrel prices up on the screen. So this would actually be as of yesterday, I think is when we got this graphic in. So, yeah, crude oil prices surge above $77 a barrel to their highest level since January 21, 2025, one day after President Trump's inauguration. And then Kobesi letter says on X commentary, the entire oil price decline under President Trump has now been erased. So you can see why he's eager to downplay any concerns or to undercut concerns by saying, well the is this is great for other reasons. Oil prices is something we might have to put up with. Ryan, reaction to Trump's comments yesterday.
- [83:36]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, and it's tick I just noticed it's ticking down a couple of bucks down about 73 or 70, $74. It'll much depend on, on, you know, if and when, if and when this ends. As you know, Trump's promise that he is going to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuzzi and also reinsure them is quite an aggressive step. Reinsurance basically runs the world. That is the actual cabal that runs it. If we stop insuring properties in Florida, for instance, forget it, that's it. And so the way that this works is these massive oil tankers have insurance and it costs a particular amount to get get through a particular part of the world. And the reinsurers once Iran said the Strait of Hormuz is closed, said forget it, we're not backing these up because for obvious reasons. And so Trump is saying, all right, two things. We'll send in the navy and we will use our own basically tax dollars through this development finance corporation to, to offer the insurance itself. And so then it's up to the ships to risk it. Now, the navy has subsequently said, actually we don't really have a whole lot of capacity to do this escorting. So all of a sudden they started getting calls, hey, I've got a ship stuck, help me out. Like, no, that's just, we didn't really mean that. But if you here's the process to get some insurance. So Iran has been attacking a couple tankers and hitting and it doesn't take much to completely, to completely seize them up. Meanwhile you can put up D4. They've said, and we'll see how effective this is. They've said that Chinese and Russian vessels can get through, which would be ironic if then the US says well no, no they can't, we're closing them. And or do these, do these oil tankers that are stuck reach out to the Chinese and re flag themselves as Chinese and China then gets half of it or something and maybe we'll see. Meanwhile It's, I think so it's March, right. We're going to be talking about primaries next with David Sirota and Dave Weigel. Midterms are coming. I don't, I don't know if it's true that the public thinks that this is the greatest thing anybody's ever done and that they're willing to pay higher gas and energy prices because independents definitely don't and won't.
- [86:21]
Ryan Grim
Yeah.
- [86:22]
Krystal Ball
And it's not just that you're pushing. You might push to like $4 a gallon or something like that. It filters through the entire economy. Trump actively smashed, very deliberately and proudly, any attempt to move to renewable energy. And so everything in the economy runs on fossil fuels, as though if you push up that price, everything then gets more expensive. And I can't imagine that people are going to be like, oh, well, that's good, because at least Israel got to have its war with Iran.
- [86:54]
Ryan Grim
Well, that's why they were so freaked out about the messaging as we covered earlier, which I think we're arguing is reflective of a conflicted, muddled, inconclusive strategy itself. Sort of sprung that. Well, but that's why they're freaked out about it, because now when people are looking back on, huh, why are these prices higher? Well, there are these clips that are going to ring in their minds if they follow the news very closely about Marco Rubio saying, well, we heard Israel was going to strike, or Mike Johnson saying, we heard Israel is going to strike. Democrats will use that. Sympathy for Israel among voters has plummeted. And that means independents, particularly if you need them to turn out in a place like North Carolina for Republicans, you have a problem. So let's turn, turn to developments from Qatar. This is the next element. Qatar Energy to stop downstream production. Qatar Energy values its relationship with all of its stakeholders and will continue to communicate the latest available information.
- [87:50]
Krystal Ball
Natural gas.
- [87:51]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, yeah, yep. Lng. And then the next element, this is the Reuters headline, Qatar smelter shutdown exacerbates. Iran wore aluminum fears. The impact of the US Israeli attacks on Iran on the aluminum sector deepened on Tuesday after Qatari smelter Katalam began to shut down and shareholder Norsk Hydro issued a force measure to customers. Ryan, everything's going according to plan, right?
- [88:19]
Krystal Ball
So this is the way that things cascade through the economy. And so the South Korean market, which has been surging throughout the year, had an absolutely massive, massive sellout, sell off, hit one of those circuit breakers where they're like, okay, just stop trading. This is an absolute catastrophe. You've had Other Asian markets selling off as well. So far, the US Markets have, they're volatile, but they haven't been completely rocked yet. We'll see what, but we'll see what happens today. But this stuff then starts to become self reinforcing. If you are leveraged in a market that dives and now you've got margin calls coming in, you have to meet that, then you have to sell off other assets in order to pay that, and then that dives and then you have to sell off those assets. So that's why. And then you have all of these AIs out there trading in ways where they're trying to find little arbitrage around the world. And so that can produce some kind of runaway moves once you break through thresholds that people expect to be stable.
- [89:37]
Ryan Grim
And bear in mind, there is no regime change plan. Donald Trump just said that in the Oval Office yesterday. He said, we don't know if it'll be better or worse. We don't actually know if it's Pahlavi or someone el else. And so the certainty for people who are trading and trying to make financial decisions here is absent. Nobody has any. I mean, this is already in the broader tariff climate, which is putting a lot of uncertainty, injecting a lot of uncertainty into the markets right now. So incredibly shaky global economy that's, I mean, it's always shaky, but right now the fragility is at another level.
- [90:10]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. And I think to me, this is the markets and, and the economy and oil prices are everything. And I think Iran understands that. The only language that Trump really understands is this is money is affordability, which he's called a hoax and which his advisors, I'm sure every time die inside when he says that. And when he says things like, yeah, people can handle a little bit of pay a little more.
- [90:34]
Ryan Grim
Because I've never gotten so many compliments.
- [90:35]
Krystal Ball
I've never had so many compliments, sir. Just absolutely incredible, sir. I weep with joy every time I pay more at the pump just so that I can sacrifice on behalf of your genius and brilliance and bravery.
- [90:49]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, that'll go well in North Carolina and Texas.
- [91:07]
Jill Winterstein
Hi, it's Jill, Interesting, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible. Dance with the change, Dance with the breakdowns. The embodiment of Pisces intuition with Capricorn power moves.
- [91:31]
Ryan Grim
So I'm like Delusionally proud of my chart.
- [91:33]
Jill Winterstein
Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast.
- [91:42]
Krystal Ball
This is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 I Heart Podcast Awards live from south by Southwest, March 16th. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. Creativity, knowledge and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iheart podcast award is. See all the nominees now@iheart.com podcast awards Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award.
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Murtaza Hussein
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Krystal Ball
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- [92:21]
Murtaza Hussein
Audible.
- [92:22]
Krystal Ball
There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial@audible.com this is Ryder Strong and I have a new podcast called the red weather. In 1995, my neighbor Anna Trainor disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. So no, I am not your guru. Back then I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years.
- [92:47]
Jill Winterstein
30 years.
- [92:48]
Krystal Ball
I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to the Red weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [92:58]
Jill Winterstein
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.