4/11/25: Dollar Plunges, SCOTUS Orders Return of Deported Man, Douglas Murray Beclowned By Dave Smith

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – Episode Released April 11, 2025

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar dives deep into the tumultuous economic landscape, significant Supreme Court decisions, and heated debates shaping the current sociopolitical climate. In this episode titled "Dollar Plunges, SCOTUS Orders Return of Deported Man, Douglas Murray Beclowned By Dave Smith," hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti dissect pressing issues with sharp analysis and fearless commentary.

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1. Market Turmoil: Dollar Decline and Bond Market Concerns

The episode opens with a comprehensive analysis of recent unsettling movements in the financial markets. Krystal and Saagar discuss the significant drop in the US dollar and the persistent instability in the bond markets.

Saagar explains the gravity of the situation:

“The dollar is at one of its lowest levels for international currencies... this is a loss of confidence in reserve currency.” (07:30)

They highlight how China's new tariffs are influencing global trade dynamics and contributing to the market's volatility. The conversation touches upon Jamie Dimon's grim outlook on the S&P 500 earnings, indicating a potential recession as companies retract their financial guidance.

Krystal adds:

“There's a lot going on with the bond market and the dollar, which are spilling over into global confidence.” (06:54)

The hosts analyze how Trump's tariff strategy aimed at isolating China is faltering, noting that European Union’s side deals with China are undermining the intended economic pressure. They delve into the failing strategy of attempting to isolate China while simultaneously engaging in trade conflicts with other nations, leading to market instability and decreased investor confidence.

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2. Supreme Court's Landmark Decision on Deportation Case

A pivotal moment in the episode is the discussion of a Supreme Court unanimous decision regarding the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Krystal and Saagar recap the legal battle where Garcia, an immigrant wrongfully sent to a prison in El Salvador, fought for his return to the United States.

Krystal summarizes:

“The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the administration must facilitate Garcia's return. This is a significant victory for legal accountability.” (29:40)

They explore the implications of the court’s order, emphasizing the importance of the terms used:

“They have to facilitate his return, but what does that truly mean in practice?” (32:12)

Saagar questions the administration's next steps:

“Can they simply deport him elsewhere or severly limit his return in a way that ignores the court's mandate?” (34:02)

The hosts express skepticism about the administration's willingness to comply fully, suggesting potential tactics to sidestep the court’s directive. They highlight the broader impact of this ruling as a check on executive power and a step towards upholding judicial authority.

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3. Government Case Against Mahmoud Khalil: A Critical Examination

Another critical issue addressed is the government's case against Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident and Columbia student. Krystal and Saagar scrutinize the minimal evidence presented for his detention and deportation.

Krystal points out the lack of substantive charges:

“The only thing they cite is his participation in anti-Semitic protests, without any concrete evidence of wrongdoing.” (49:55)

Saagar elaborates:

“How does an idea illegally cross the border? This argument is fundamentally flawed and lacks legal grounding.” (51:46)

The discussion raises concerns about due process and the abuse of deportation policies for political persecution. They argue that the administration is using vague claims of “disruptive activities” to target individuals without legitimate criminal records, highlighting a trend of overreach in immigration enforcement.

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4. Douglas Murray vs. Dave Smith: A Debate Beclowned

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting the debate between Douglas Murray and Dave Smith on the Joe Rogan podcast. Krystal and Saagar provide a detailed critique of Murray’s argumentative tactics and the broader implications for public discourse.

Saagar voices his frustration:

“Douglas Murray’s argument that you must have been to Israel to speak on it is preposterous and exclusionary.” (59:35)

They highlight Murray’s use of ad hominem attacks and his attempt to delegitimize Smith’s insights by questioning his firsthand experience. Krystal emphasizes the anti-democratic nature of such tactics:

“You can't dictate who gets to have an opinion based on their personal experiences. It's fundamentally anti-democratic.” (73:07)

Krystal and Saagar argue that this approach to debate shuts down meaningful dialogue and perpetuates elitism in expertise, where only those with certain credentials are deemed worthy of contributing to discussions. They commend Dave Smith for maintaining composure and challenging Murray’s flawed premises.

Saagar concludes:

“This is the purest form of wokeism, shutting down any dissenting voices unless they fit a narrow definition of expertise.” (71:18)

The hosts assert that public discourse should be inclusive, allowing for diverse perspectives without gatekeeping based on personal experiences or academic credentials.

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5. Final Thoughts and Upcoming Announcements

Krystal and Saagar wrap up the episode by reflecting on the interconnectedness of economic policy, judicial oversight, and public discourse. They underscore the necessity for accountability in both government actions and media narratives.

Paige Desorbo teases future content:

“We have some big announcements coming next week. Stay tuned for more in-depth analysis and exclusive interviews.” (82:37)

The episode concludes with a reminder of the importance of critical thinking and holding power to account, aligning with the podcast’s mission to challenge the establishment and empower listeners with informed perspectives.

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Notable Quotes:

• Saagar: “The dollar is at one of its lowest levels for international currencies... this is a loss of confidence in reserve currency.” (07:30)

• Krystal: “There's a lot going on with the bond market and the dollar, which are spilling over into global confidence.” (06:54)

• Krystal: “We can't dictate who gets to have an opinion based on their personal experiences. It's fundamentally anti-democratic.” (73:07)

• Saagar: “This is the purest form of wokeism, shutting down any dissenting voices unless they fit a narrow definition of expertise.” (71:18)

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Conclusion

This episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar offers a multifaceted exploration of economic instability, judicial affirmations of individual rights, and the pitfalls of gatekeeping in public debates. The hosts provide incisive commentary, urging listeners to remain vigilant and critical of both governmental policies and media narratives. By holding the powerful accountable and fostering inclusive discourse, Krystal and Saagar continue to lead thoughtful conversations on pressing societal issues.

Transcript

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[Crystal]

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[Crystal]

Happy Friday everybody. Take a look. We got everybody in the house. Nice to see you guys. Wow.

[Ryan]

Nice to see you, Sagar.

[Crystal]

Right.

[Sagar]

Well, thank you. No, I appreciate it. We had to move some things around, but definitely had to be here.

[Crystal]

Sagar is crying crew now.

[Sagar]

I just have a very rigid. I have a very rigid schedule. And as you guys know, with my sleep, sleep schedule and other things, I'm very reluctant to move things around. But sometimes that's what, that's what things, that's what things get called for here.

[Crystal]

Yeah, well, there's a lot of things going on. What many market moves that are kind of disturbing. And China's announcing new tariffs and so we'll take a look at that stuff. We've got big Supreme Court unanimous Supreme Court decision last Friday. We actually talked to the lawyer for Kilmar Abrega Garcia. He is the immigrant who was wrongfully, the administration even admitted wrongfully sent to that prison in El Salvador. The question was whether or not they would have to do anything to come back. The supreme court in a 9.0 decision says you have to, and this word is key, facilitate his return. So really significant there. We're also getting a look at the government's quote unquote case against Mahmoud Khalil, which is revealing in the many things it doesn't say and doesn't argue. So we'll take a look at that. And then Sagra in particular, very, very interested in this Dave Smith, Douglas Murray debate on Joe Rogan. You want to give a little preview? Sagar?

[Sagar]

I'm, I'm heated. You know, I, as I said, I've got my schedule. You know, I'm at the gym ready for my cardio and so I see this thing flash on my Spotify. I was like, you know, Douglas Murray can't really, I don't really like the guy, but I'll decide within the first 10 minutes. I'm, I'm so, I'm texting Dave. I'm furious. I'm tweeting, I'm furious. My entire workout has been screwed up and I'm enraged. I had to sit there and just work out harder. I did. Afterwards. Yeah, afterwards. Because my blood was so, it was so hot over this entire thing. It was every characteristic. And I've been so reluctant to enter this so called woke. Right debate because I find it so tedious and annoying. Emily, I'm sure you find it similarly, but this is the best example to me of somebody who is, you know, double standards, all of the tropes of actual wokeism, like in terms of lived experience and ad hominem attacks and expert, you know, trolling or whatever when you yourself are not even an expert. So we'll get to it. But yeah, I'm, I'm upset about it.

[Crystal]

I guess I'm just like, I don't know how it's even a debate at this point about the quote unquote, woke. Right? Like, how is it even a debate. I mean, they've gone way further than the, the craziest wokesters could have ever imagined with regard to, like, using the apparatus of the state to achieve their goals.

[Sagar]

Yeah, but the thing is, Crystal, is that as you understand it, the people who are pushing it, like Douglas, are the woke. Right? The crazy thing is they're the ones who coined the term for people who are against or not even against, who want.

[Crystal]

They're.

[Sagar]

They're the ones who coined the term for people who are like, hey, like, maybe we can talk about Israel or Ukraine or immigration.

[Paige Desorbo]

Immigration.

[Crystal]

I don't even understand.

[Sagar]

They are the ones who created it. They're like. And that's, that's actually part of what makes it so maddening. And like I said, I don't generally engage with like, like low IQ individuals like James Lindsay. But you know, just like just the other day or just yesterday, he tweeted and he was like, gosh, they're calling Douglas Murray a neocon. And I'm just like, am I the only person who reads books or, like, knows anything anymore? Because he wrote a book called Neoconservatism why We Need It. And it's like. And you're accusing people.

[Paige Desorbo]

How dare you.

[Sagar]

Right, Ryan? Like, you know, for. You've been in this game for a while.

[Paige Desorbo]

Yeah.

[Sagar]

What? You know, if someone was like, hey, Douglas Murray's in neocon, you'd be like, yeah, we know, bro.

[Paige Desorbo]

Us that.

[Sagar]

He told us that. I read that book in high school.

[Crystal]

You're very animated this morning. Your mic is still, like, peeking a little. So. See, I'm sorry.

[Sagar]

Okay, all right, I'll turn it down.

[Ryan]

Very high function on the mic. He needs like a Douglas Murray James Lindsay button on his microphone. When he gets mad, he hits that and it.

[Crystal]

Right. And we go to the, the proper setting to bring back our tones. Okay. All right. Well, with all that being said, let's get to the markets. I'm just going to pull up the CNBC main page now so we can see it's 9:15am Markets that open in 15 minutes. We can take a look at the futures. So also, this headline has been important. Jamie Dimon says he expects S&P 500 earnings estimates to fall as companies pull guidance. And apparently Jamie Dimon, like, basically runs the country since he's the one that Trump allegedly listened to about the potential for. The potential for a recession. You can see here up at the top, though, futures basically flow flat at this point. But saga, let me, let me throw it to you a little Bit here for what we saw yesterday, you know, originally, obviously Trump makes his announcement. Okay, we're keeping the tariffs on China. What are they now? 145%?

[Sagar]

Yes.

[Crystal]

But we're rolling back other terrorists to quote unquote, just 10%, except for Canada and Mexico, which are staying with whatever they were before. Markets get really excited. There's a huge gain, one of the largest single day gains in history. And then the next day looked very different. So a lot of those gains rolled back and then overnight we were seeing some really troubling indications in terms of bonds, in terms of basically the world being like, you know, I don't know if the US Economy is really the place where we want to put our money with any regard. So, Sagar, why don't you go ahead and speak to a little bit of that.

[Sagar]

Yeah, sure. Is my mic okay now? I'm talking a little.

[Crystal]

Yeah, it's better. Yes.

[Paige Desorbo]

Okay.

[Sagar]

All right, Sorry. Sounds good. I apologize, everyone. I'm still a boomer in terms of my home setup. Yeah. The dollar, there's been some major sell off in the dollar. It's actually one of important things that's happening aside to the bond market. The dollar is at one of its lowest levels for international currencies, including in the European Union. This is not necessarily like de dollarization, but it's generally like a loss of confidence in reserve currency. I don't want to overstate the case, but obviously with trade instability, that's going to be a big part of it. The bond market continues to be a big problem. And the funny thing is it wouldn't be as much of a problem if the administration had not said from day one that their stated goal was to lower the yield on the 10 year, specifically to try and reduce the amount of debt servicing that would require from the federal government. And so the fact that the bonds have spiked in terms of the yield and actually even the 90 day reduction did not have any general reaction on the price, basically means that the administration's. The administration strategy is failing on all fronts. From the bond strategy, we also have like this attempt to try. And what is it? The attempt is to try and isolate China with the rest of the world. So not only do we still continue to have the 10% tariff, but we're actually starting to see some interesting deals getting cut. Right. So you could see there that you brought it back about the long term yields. But I actually think one of the more interesting stories is about this European Union side deal that's been cut with China. So actually the last 24 hours has been very clarifying for US markets and that's why I don't really think it's a surprise that we saw such a significant reduction overall yesterday. And yeah, as you said, it's 9, 15 here on the east coast. We have a general decent idea of where things are and the S P basically is flat to yesterday. So you know, the total bump quote unquote from the 90 day pause, it's like maybe 4 to 5%. I mean don't forget we're still almost what, 15, 17 down from the all time high on the S and P 500. There's still some. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

[Crystal]

Part of the deal, Ryan. One of the things this morning, so China announced they're lifting tariffs to I think 125%. But they also said, and I think this is part of why futures are basically flat up a little bit. They also were like, that's all we're doing, like whatever Trump does, like we're just staying here. We're not doing this whole tit for tat thing. And so I don't know, I guess that's giving people comfort of like, well, I guess it's not going to get worse than it already is. But I also saw, I think Wiesenthal was tweeting that the, the like discount store five and below canceled all their orders from China. Five below? Yeah, five below.

[Paige Desorbo]

Because you can't sell it for five below.

[Crystal]

It's, I have to say they have some kind of cool stuff in there anyway, if you ever need a gift.

[Sagar]

Like a white elephant gift or something, it's a great place to go. I've bought a lot of stupid shit from there before.

[Crystal]

Yeah. But anyway, Ryan, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the China dynamics here because I feel like there's a lot of overconfidence among the leadership of this country that we're positioned to win a trade war with China whilst also fighting trade wars apparently with the rest of the world.

[Paige Desorbo]

I don't know where that confidence comes from. China has basically, you know, all of the cars, as Trump, as Trump likes to put it, like they have every, they have, they have the Treasuries, they have the manufacturing capacity, they, they have the supply chains. We buy things from them like that's, that's our entire leverage. And if they can find audiences, consumer bases for that pro, for that manufacturing capacity, then we're screwed. And so they're, they're already pivoting domestically. They have a billion plus People, they're trying to grow their domestic consumer base. They're, you know, there's the European Union, there's, there's Southeast and South Asia. You know, they have, they have, they have political problems with all of these different entities of various ranges, but nothing like what they have with us. So it makes, it makes their differences with Southeast Asia, you know, pale in comparison to us. And just so people understand the, the, the profound implications of these, of these yield numbers going up. I remember when I was taking the Series 7, like 25 years ago or whatever, one of the, you know, the, on the bond.

[Crystal]

Why did you take the Series 7?

[Paige Desorbo]

I was a broker, I was a broker back in. Yeah.

[Crystal]

When have you lived like eight lifetimes?

[Paige Desorbo]

How is this right out of College? What year? 2000. 2000. 2001.

[Sagar]

So the dot com crash got you out of the business? Got it.

[Paige Desorbo]

I was, yeah, I was there while it happened, basically. It was actually, I got there a little bit.

[Crystal]

I did not see.

[Sagar]

That's wild.

[Paige Desorbo]

That's my first article ever. Yeah, my first article ever was an expose of the place where I worked.

[Sagar]

That actually, that comes out, I won't.

[Paige Desorbo]

Hire this man, which was a mobbed up shop. And they're like, they're gonna kill you for this. I was like, no, they're not gonna kill me. And they didn't kill me. But on the Series 7, this is a key thing, that there's a seesaw effect with bond prices and interest rates. When bond prices go up, interest rates go down. When bond prices go down, interest rates go up. Because when you, you need to entice people with a higher interest rate to get them in. And so it's supply and demand. When there's more demand for a bond, the price of it goes up. And so when people sell stocks, they move money. This is the orthodoxy. When people sell stocks, they move money into bonds. Because there's now more people trying to buy bonds. The price comes up and the interest rate goes down. And that was what the Trump administration was counting on, that, that if you tank the stock market, you drive up the price of bonds and then you reduce the interest rate and then boom. We can, when we roll over all of our debt, our debt payments are going to go down. But something broke. The orthodoxy is not working. People sold out of the market and they're going somewhere else. They're also selling their bonds. Japan selling a bunch of bonds.

[Crystal]

A lot of it is into gold, by the way. Gold prices are going up and up. So I mean, there's a lot going on.

[Paige Desorbo]

They're looking for equities around the world too.

[Crystal]

That's right.

[Paige Desorbo]

Somewhere other than the US that they can sell. So we are screwed.

[Ryan]

Well, so, I mean, throughout the week I have been, I have probably had a different take from you guys in that I've like, this stuff is so hard to predict it to the point that Ryan just made kind of like jury's still out. And I think Sagar just said the last 24 hours have been clarifying. That is, I mean, what we're, what we're starting to see is maybe this is no surprise, but the Trump administration said this is going to be a bet. We're going to, as we do this 90 day pause, we're going to just jack up the China tariffs and this is going to force countries, and Weisenthal pointed this out, like Cambodia and Vietnam to choose finally between the United States and China. Nobody can have it both ways anymore. And so this is going to bring a rash of investment back into the US and it's going to be great. Everyone's going to be happy. And I do think there's just been a lack of evidence of any of that happening. You know, it's not like, that's not shocking or controversial, but they are not able to point to very many examples. And this is something we saw this in a cnn, wasn't this a CNN panel last night where like actually pointing to examples of how this has panned out over last week, like investments that have actually come into the United States, deals with those 75 countries that have actually been struck. Listen, I am still open to hearing great deals are coming through with these countries because we do have the leverage over things like the eu but they can also just decide to go to China.

[Crystal]

And if the EU decides to China, that's already happening. Yeah, it's already happening.

[Ryan]

That's the bet.

[Crystal]

That was the bet. And think about it. But like if that's the bet you're going to make, okay, then why are you running around the world like insulting everyone needlessly and you know, picking fights with Denmark and sending JD Vance to like shake his finger at the Europeans for their censorious ways, which there is some legitimate critiques there. But then, you know, you have no room to talk given what you're doing back home. Right. And so if, if, okay, if you wanted to do this intelligently, which Sagra was saying this, like, in some ways I hate even indulging in intelligent conversation about this because there is no intelligence behind this. Right. If you wanted to do this intelligently. And you wanted to force the world to pick between you and China, and you actually wanted to win in that. Why would you tariff the entire world? Right? Why would you go around insulting all of these people, picking a fight with Canada, picking a fight with, picking a fight with Denmark over Greenland, picking a fight with the eu? No, you would want to isolate China. You would want to try to make that deal appealing for your allies. And they've done the total opposite of that. You know, I think part of it comes from Trump's like, he's an old man and his formative years when he was like, at the peak of his powers were like the 80s and early 90s. Okay. The US is in a very different position now. The world has moved on. Right. We have a true economic competitor in China who is in many ways surpassing us at this point, especially on technological development and their ability to, you know, build and deliver for their own people and have some sort of, like, unity and program and long term thinking behind all of that. And I, it just seems to me like he didn't reckon with any of that because, you know, I'm not a financial genius. I did never, I never took the Series 7. I'm looking at this all from, like, a political macro perspective. And it does not surprise me at all that as the stock market is tanking and as we are taking these insane, like, positions and total chaos, they're on, they're off, they're on their big, they're small, they're whatever. We're doing it again in 90 days that the rest of the world is going like, we already were moving in the direction of moving away from the dollar. Did we learn nothing from the fact that we threw every sanction in the book at Russia and they were like, yeah, we're still okay. Like, we're actually, we were able to manage that. And China is so much better positioned than Russia and such a wealthier place to be able to withstand what we have to throw at them.

[Ryan]

Well, I just want to say quickly, like on the. So Scott Besant was making the point on Tucker last week that the mark, a lot of the market dips started with deep seq, which is super interesting if you're making this bet about. And I think what the reason that they were doing the Penguin tariffs and the reason that they were, like, being so chaotic. I'm not saying that there was, like, a method to the madness. I think people were on different pages. I think Trump allowed that to happen because he was like, the more people have no idea what my strategy is. The more that they bet with the United States, it creates this complete state of total chaos and uncertainty. And we are the steady hand and it where the study.

[Crystal]

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?

[Ryan]

Compared to China?

[Paige Desorbo]

Shaking the world compared to China.

[Ryan]

But this is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying with the Besant point. He's making the point that the deep seek leap is baked into the market decline at the same time as they're saying the uncertainty will cause people to bet on the United States. I think there's something if you are Canada or Mexico and you were treated a little bit differently in all of this, but still got some attacks, although I know we have. Yesterday, Trump said nice things about Queen Claudia Sheinbaum, friend of the show.

[Paige Desorbo]

Everybody stands.

[Crystal]

Yeah, yeah, he's part of that 95% approval rating she has or whatever.

[Ryan]

But for some people, like for some countries, there's logic for Trump flexing his muscles and saying, you don't want to be doing this with China. Like this is. This is the U.S. you're safer with us. Well, it didn't. It's not turning out that way.

[Sagar]

One thing I just want to put on quickly, just to show you guys, like why China is so much better positioned, is this story which I was just reading this morning. This will not really make sense to most people, but this is an example of what real estate capacity looks like. So JD.com for people who don't know, is one of the biggest companies in the Fortune or in the Global 500, and it is, according to the Wall Street Journal here, what the Chinese government has said is that this is effectively like forcing Amazon to then pump $27 billion of money into their economy to force that company to buy exclusively Chinese products and to boost their domestic manufacturing. So I just want to show people, like, when you have a wholesome strategy, you can absorb 125% tariffs. If this was a strategy that was pushing something like this, I would be behind it. But I don't see a dollar for dollar investment credit here being pushed in the United States. Instead, the Trump administration currently endorsed a one trillion dollar cut from the United States government budget, while we're also simultaneously increasing the pentagon budget by $150 billion. So there is actually a reduction in state capacity and cutting taxes. Yeah, Doge Project cutting taxes, reducing state capacity. We're actually cutting manufacturing tax credits and extending them for corporations, all while trying to levy a massive tariff. China, on the other hand, when they absorb a massive tariff, what do they do? They're like hey JD.com aka Amazon or retailer or whatever. They're like you're pumping 27 billion into the economy and they can do that to every single company in their entire country simultaneously. They don't have some idiot Jerome Powell just like reading the tea leaves on a Magic 8 ball. They're like the rates are getting cut now. They also, they don't have Congress. They can just pump money into their economy. They are 10x better positioned in my opinion right now than we are because of these cross cutting forces. All of this is actually possible in a democratic system but it would require a whole of government approach, manufacturing tax credits and more. And I think that is really the most like black pilling thing about all of this. And yeah, just reading that, I was, I'm like in awe that they can just go imagine summoning Bezos. The way that they imprisoned that guy was a Jack Ma. And they're like, yeah, you're putting 27 billion off the top. It's going straight into the economy. They, there's no yes or no. They're just like this is what you're doing. And in that my admiration for that is that it's yes, often they use their authoritarianism capriciously and to crack down, whatever. But like in this sense it is so obviously intelligent in knowing exactly how to make sure that the Chinese customer is not, you know, broadly affected, keeping their supply chain. They don't care if it's going to impact JD Stock or JD.com stock, which ironically it actually went up as a result of this.

[Paige Desorbo]

But yeah, yeah, but I'm just saying.

[Sagar]

They don't care about these short term, you know, you know, even quarter by quarter basis. And that's why they're well positioned for strength and frankly even more like the autarkic protectionist vision that the Trump administration wants. You can have that but then you have to do stuff like this and you'd have to do it via Congress. You have to, you'd actually have to endorse a $1 trillion, a $1 trillion investment tax credit that would be giving to all of companies that want to build in the United States. Phase ins. But you need, then you can't be cutting the epa. You know, a friend of mine, I'm very into nuclear energy just sent me this DOGE is trying to ax the entire team that would be responsible for green lighting new nuclear reactors. Right. So what are we doing here? That's actually about if you know, abundance. We talk a lot about abundance. That's a key part, I think of the abundance agenda. Meanwhile, you know, over there everything is so vertically integrated that yes, they obviously have inefficiency, but whenever it's like hyper focused on something very important that is, they're ready to spring into action. They've studied the US Economic playbook for years. Russia is the greatest thing that ever happened to them. They got to battle, test it and they got to observe exactly how it all works. I mean, I remember screaming this at the time. I said why, why would you blow it all here on a, on a stupid conflict like Russia and Ukraine? Whenever China is just sitting there and watching this entire.

[Crystal]

We talked about this, we talked about this. I mean Ryan, we can't, we can't beat the Houthis in Yemen. We can't, like we stayed in Afghanistan for 20 plus years and the Taliban just immediately like we think we're going to be able to go toe to toe with China at this point. I'm sorry, it's delusional. It's delusional.

[Paige Desorbo]

Yeah. And we're like, we're shocked at what China was, has been able to build development wise from 2000 up until 2025. And we're like, China is cheating us. You know, we are, we are such victims. How on earth could China have done this to us? We never should have let them into wto. And PNCR was such a mistake. It's like, well, where did the, what did the US spend its trillions of dollars on from 2000 until today? We spent all of our money in Iraq and Afghanistan. And during the, during the Cold War, the US Actually did have the capacity to organize its foreign and corporate policy in, in a uniform ish way similar to how China can today. Because the parties were, the parties agreed on what US Foreign policy ought to be taking on. The Soviet Union establishing American hegemony and the corporate CEOs were on board. They would like just pick up a phone like all right, this is, these are your marching orders. And the corporations, they, they would not China style, but they would, they would follow the directions that they were getting from, from a White House that, that had the buy in from the other party. Now Trump is fighting a two front war. He's trying to basically eradicate the Democratic Party and all of its constituent elements with universities, research union, you know, teachers unions, federal workers. Like he's trying to basically destroy his, his domestic enemies while he is also then waging war, trade war on all of these countries around the world. And that means you don't have a Unified center of power on which to take on China. Like, you can't. Maybe he can win, you know, a 285 front war, but it's a little bit more difficult.

[Ryan]

We also have a corporate class compared to mid century, post war period.

[Sagar]

That is not.

[Paige Desorbo]

They're not pro American, they're global and they're more.

[Ryan]

There's. They're so much more powerful. I mean, you have somebody like Mark Zuckerberg running a company that is significantly more powerful than most.

[Paige Desorbo]

Right. And he speaks Chinese like, like, he's not gonna like, be like, all right, let's. Let's rally around the flag. He's like, what flag?

[Crystal]

Yeah, Elon Mobile company.

[Paige Desorbo]

Yeah, same.

[Sagar]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, vast majority of meta users are not American. That's. People forget that. Like, it's actually not. I mean, it's American flagship company, but the absolute. I think they have 3 billion users. So you do math. I mean, it's not that difficult to figure out what percentage of people do use their platform just broadly. I think Ryan is absolutely correct. And on all of this, look, I mean, I don't want to understate the great strengths of the United States. Like, the one thing we have going for us is that we are the greatest consumer market in the history of the world. Probably not a good thing. But that does mean that we have a lot of leverage.

[Ryan]

Below.

[Sagar]

Yeah, shout out to five. Below. That's what makes America ticket. Who am I to say otherwise? TJ Maxx, Home Goods and all this other stuff. But. And a lot of that does come from China. So they're obviously going to have an effect. I'm not going to say they won't make it. It's just like the Russians. No one will say that the Russians are materially better off than whenever they invaded Ukraine. But the idea that you can just overnight like crush them or something, when they have such incredible state capacity in China and they also have their own ability to act as well as a much more unified population. I mean, I don't know if you guys saw this, but that JD clip of him calling the Chinese peasants.

[Crystal]

Yeah.

[Sagar]

Talking about Chinese, that has gone massively viral in China. Massively viral. On. I forget what it's called. Weibo or something like that. And the state censors are actually. Usually they crush clips that get circulated around. They're like, oh, let fly, let fly. And that is rock.

[Crystal]

Some of the entire country spokespeople are sharing old clips of Mao being like, we will never give in. It's like, oh, boy, right And I mean, but that's a real phenomenon. Like, look at what happened in Canada with the trade war. Suddenly it flipped politics on its head. The Conservative dude was ready to romp. And now Carney the Liberal has an 80% chance of being the next prime minister. Like, there was a real. There was like a spark of Canadian nationalism maybe at like, historic levels. And it's going to be the same thing in China. Like, they are unified behind. We're going to win. Our country is not unified, but our country does not want this. If you had to vote, I mean, I think a majority of probably even Republicans would be like, I don't know about this direction, but certainly majority of the public. Based on all of the polling that we've seen, Trump himself, he has squandered, like, his honeymoon period is over. The approval ratings now are back down to where they were in the first term, low 40s. You know, he has expended the sort of, like, political capital that he had accumulated with an impressive victory and, you know, Republican wins and all of that sort of stuff. Like, that's over and gone. So even just in terms of the political positioning, they're in much better shape. The last thing, just before we move on, because the picture has changed just in the time that we've been speaking. The markets are now open and you can see there's, you know, the, that they're down a bit. So, you know, this is going to be. Who knows what things are going to look like today as we're moving forward.

[Sagar]

But I love that Chiron at the top. Wall street wraps one of the wildest weeks ever.

[Crystal]

There you go.

[Paige Desorbo]

For no reason.

[Crystal]

I love giving everybody insight into what the E Commerce folks want me to buy.

[Sagar]

Stop seeing this ad.

[Crystal]

All right. Unless you guys have some final thoughts, let's go ahead and get to this Supreme Court ruling that was pretty significant. Anybody, any last thoughts on the tariff economic piece?

[Sagar]

No, go ahead.

[Crystal]

We're good. Okay. All right. So last week, on Friday, we actually got to talk to the lawyer of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, M.D. father, immigrant, deported, wrongfully administrative administration had admitted, like, they called it an administrative error. He was sent to this prison, this notorious torture dungeon, Bukele's dungeons in El Salvador. And so the administration was like, yeah, we up, but we're not going to do anything about it. And you can't make us District Court judge said you need to do what you can to get him back. They said you need to facilitate and effectuate his return. Appeals court agreed. Went to the Supreme Court, Supreme Court initially issued an administrative stay saying, okay, well, the deadline that you have to bring them back tonight, like, we're putting that on hold because we're going to take a look at this, and now we have their answer. And it's pretty remarkable because all nine justices sided with the lower courts saying, you have to, in this wording, again, is key, facilitate Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return from this prison in El Salvador. So, again, everyone from Justice Alito and Justice Thomas to, you know, Sonia Sotomayor, they all were on board with this. It's an unsigned order. And as I mentioned, these two terms are important. Effectively, what the order here from the court said is they have to facilitate his return. But the district court needs to clarify the term effectuate to make sure that it is not overstepping its bounds with regard to the executive's prerogative to conduct foreign policy. The lower court has now amended its order to just take out the term effectuate. So I think this is being seen, rightfully so, as a major victory, certainly for this, you know, for this individual, for his family. Also an indication of, you know, the Supreme Court's willingness to stand up to this administration on some fronts. But I also don't want to celebrate here too early, Ryan, because what does it technically mean to facilitate his return? Like, if the Trump administration just goes to Bakali and is like, wink, wink, nod, nodded, can you send that guy back and be Kelly's like, sorry, can't do it. They could. Can they go back to the court and be, oh, well, we tried. We did our best, and you know, what. What can be done? I guess he just has to stay there now and be, you know, tortured and sold out for slave labor for life.

[Paige Desorbo]

And it's also worth noting that the administration fired the attorney who submitted the brief that acknowledged the administrative error and which suggests, like, where they are on this situation. I wonder if it's simply that they are. They do not want this guy giving interviews if he comes back and talking about the conditions of the prison that, that he's been, that he's been living in. To, to prevent that. I suppose they could, you know, facilitate his return, put him in detention and then deport him somewhere. You know, just keep him in definitely in detention and try to end while they try to either get the, get the stay lifted on the ability to deport him to El Salvador or try to deport him to some other country that would, that would take him or maybe to send him to Guantanamo. There are all kinds of like evil options, you know, that Stephen Miller has before him. And so which, which to me means it's probably unlikely that they're going to do the non evil one, which would be our apologies, please send this guy back. And, and then if they want to go through the deportation process, they could, you know, they could, they can do that and, but you know, do it on the up and up.

[Sagar]

One thing I wanted to flag here while you guys were talking was this. A friend of mine, Jay, I would swear your guys thoughts? My friend Jason Willock says this, quote, it is probably not unintentional that the SCOTUS order refers explicitly to Abrego Garcia's release custody rather than his return to the United States. I was. Is that what you guys saw in this? Because it says the order properly requires the government to facilitate release from custody and to ensure his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.

[Crystal]

I don't think so. Because the thing is he is specifically barred from being sent to El Salvador. Specifically. That was what the. I have. What is it called, like an order, withholding order, something like that.

[Sagar]

Temporary hold I think is what it called.

[Crystal]

So it specifically. That's where they messed up is they could have gone through the court process. He has an ongoing asylum claim too that, you know, his attorney at least thought that he had a good shot at being at prevailing. And whether or not that's the case, we don't really know. But you know, he had, they had found, okay, you've got credible fear. You can go through the asylum process. So he has an ongoing asylum case, but specifically the judge said he cannot be deported to this particular country. So if you're just releasing him from custody, you are still in very clear blatant violation of what a US judge had prohibited and what this administration admitted they were prohibited from doing. So I think I don't, you know, maybe I'm missing something. I'm not a lawyer, but I think it. That doesn't follow logically to me. What. To me more of the gray area is sort of similar to how the Supreme Court had ruled. All right, you can go forward for now with this Alien Enemies act while this is working its way through the lower courts. But you have to provide some level of due process. They have to be able to file habeas petitions and they have to be given quote, unquote reasonable notice. But they left it to the administration to define, well, what do we consider to be reasonable notice. So I sort of feel like this is a similar deal where it's like you're leaving it to the administration to determine what does it mean to, quote, unquote, facilitate his return. And I think Ryan is 100% right. I mean, I think it's not just that they don't want him back and going on 60 Minutes and talking about the reality. I think it's also, you know, they, they want to maintain the, the image that you, you know, we can just send you if you want. They want to maintain that hard line image and that there's no recourse. And they certainly don't want people really getting a sense like, you know, you're, they, they've called him, they've alleged he's a human trafficker and like a leader in MS.13. There is just zero evidence to support any of that. And so they certainly don't want the public to get a look at this, you know, seemingly innocent man with no criminal record that they sent to be indefinitely tortured.

[Sagar]

I think it's the latter. Crystal, go ahead. Emily, you can.

[Ryan]

What was going to say is Jason making the point that they could get Mexico to accept him?

[Sagar]

I don't know. I just would, I did not understand because I was like, well, as an El Salvadorian citizen, I was like, so would they just release him from custody? And I was, you know, but if.

[Paige Desorbo]

If that's how the, that that seems plausible that they could say, okay, legally we can deport him to Mexico if Mexico will take him.

[Crystal]

But he, but it also says in the order, though, if you want to put that back up on the screen, it also says the case has to be handled as if this had never happened. So it says the language is such like you have to pretend, go back to what you would have done and you know, handle this in the way that it would have been handled had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. So I, you know, I certainly, he can't just be deported without again, some sort of due process. There was no due process here. That would be in violation of the other thing that the Supreme Court said that indicates you have to give these people due process.

[Sagar]

So they have to bring him back, give him a habeas petition in Texas or Louisiana or whatever. Right, that makes sense.

[Ryan]

That's what's interesting about this particular case is that one of the reasons they're sending Venezuelans to El Salvador is because obviously Venezuela is not accepting deportations. And so I think the administration, the error here, and it is incredibly stupid, is that they didn't realize his petition specifically was barring him from going back because of the asylum claim of credible fear. And so I think they keep trying to make the point that they can boot people to wherever they want to boot people, so long as that country accepts them. Because they're struggling to do the, quote, mass deportations. And one of the ways that they're able to get more deportations is having Bukele, for example, just take in people who are Venezuelan. So, I mean, I wonder if they will pursue some other deportation option. I don't know the legality, but I think that's what Jason was saying.

[Sagar]

I think the reason that they won't admit it is because it takes off the venue right now. Obviously, the administration's lost a lot of credibility. I actually think. Crystal, did you guys cover the case? Case? The MS.13 case here in Virginia, the one where this is important? Yeah.

[Crystal]

Okay. Yeah, I was gonna pull out, so talk while I'm. I'm actually looking for that right now.

[Sagar]

This is an important case because the administration keeps trying to do these flagship arrests where they'll be like, this guy, Ms. 13, literally here, not far from where I live, they arrested this guy and they're like, he's a major leader of MS.13. They charged him with all of this. The governor of Virginia was there. The Secretary of Homeland Security was there. Like, this was a major event. And then in the charging documents, basically all they said in the charging documents was like, we caught him in possession of an illegal firearm. Okay, I mean, listen, fine, but that is a crime. And definitely, you know, it'll get. It'll get you sent to prison. Not necessarily an MS.13 quote, gang leader. And it seems that the administration now is going to be dropping the case and instead pursuing deportation. Now. Okay, like, you can pursue deportation based on, like, oh, he was charged or whatever with a. With a possession of an illegal firearm. But that's pretty far from human trafficking, orchestrating murders, and being a gang leader. And it's pretty obvious that either A, bad intelligence or B, this was literally just like, made up. Like it was a PR stunt. And I think that is now what's happening where if you see in the case here of Abrego Garcia and the government has to admit in writing and then facilitate the return, everyone's going to be. Because there's a lot of MAGA people who are still like, oh, it doesn't matter, whatever, you come here legally, etc. They're going to be like, well, hold on. Like, if you have to bring somebody back because you screwed up, it's like, well, how many other screw ups are there in the bundle? Right? And so, not to mention. Go ahead.

[Crystal]

It, I mean, it just, it makes it clear, like, there's nothing about this. Just grab someone and throw them in the prison. That would preclude U.S. citizens or anyone else from being caught up in that as well. But I mean, to your point, Sagar, about this, this guy, like, they did a whole thing and they pretend he's the east coast leader of Ms. 13. Okay, well, don't you want to have that guy in prison? Because if you just deport him and he doesn't serve any time in prison, what's to stop him from coming right back? So, you know, even Fox News was giving Caroline Levitt a hard time about this one because they're thinking about it from that perspective of like, if this guy's such a big criminal, like, of course you want to prosecute him, of course you want to get him behind bars. So let me just play a little that exchange so you guys can hear how that went down.

[G]

Can you shed some light on this? Because it was a story that we all covered that he was the east coast leader of MS.13. So what was the evidence that supported that proclamation by the Department of Justice and the FBI here at the White House?

[H]

We applaud the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, our FBI Director, Kash Patel, for working hand in hand with local law enforcement on the ground in the Commonwealth of Virginia to detain and arrest this Ms. 13 ringleader. There was sufficient evidence to do so, and now the case is in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security, who will be deporting this individual from our country. These agencies are working together in a collaborative way to follow President Trump's direct directive to eradicate MS.13 and foreign terrorists from United States soil. So this is an individual who was detained and arrested because of the President's policies, and he will no longer be residing in the United States of America and our country.

[G]

I'm just trying to get some clarity on it, Caroline, because, you know, if indeed he is what we were told he is, the east coast leader of Ms. 13, wouldn't it make sense to prosecute him for crimes related to that? I know he was held on a gun charge, but to make sure that any victims of Ms. 13, through his leadership, get their day in court here in the United States and then send him to an El Salvador in prison if he is deported and found guilty on those crimes?

[H]

Well, again, this administration is doing things differently, Martha. And this president has made a directive to his Agencies, particularly the Department of Homeland Security, to remove foreign terrorists from America's homeland, to protect American citizens. And we have an incredible diplomatic relationship with the president of El Salvador and his government who have been detaining these Ms. 13 ringleaders and violent gang members in their prisons. And American taxpayers don't have to foot the bill for that cost. And so again, the bottom line here.

[G]

The Supreme Court said that the Alien act could be used to remove people, but they had to see due process first. I'm only pressing on this because it was a huge story and we covered it. Obviously it would feel like that person could lead to a lot of other evidence. The DOJ would be pressing to see this in court so that other people could be exposed. And suddenly none of that's happening. So can you explain why the change of course in this particular case?

[Crystal]

She doesn't explain the change of course, but in any case that's, you know, in Fox News, like, okay, if this guy's such a big deal, what are we doing here?

[Sagar]

I do at least appreciate that because they got fooled, right? They sent camera crews out there like they took it seriously. They covered the arrests. They made this into a huge thing. And you're like, so what, you just drugged me out there to cover a gun charge? You know how many gun charges there are in this country? It's like, be serious, right? And look, okay, you want to deport somebody for a gun charge, okay, yeah, fine. But you know, be make going around federal cases like acting like this is some RICO mob boss and then just saying, oh, actually we're going to drop the case. We don't actually have to prove any of this stuff in court. There's a huge credit. I'm going to use an old school Vietnam term, which Ryan will love. Credibility gap. There's, there's a credibility gap that is opening with this White House.

[Ryan]

But wait until Fox News gets a hold of drop site. This is me teeing it over to Ryan because that's what should really be infuriating. I mean, it infuriates me the way there are clearly deals being struck and these guys are being used as pawns and a bigger drug.

[Sagar]

Yeah, Ryan, I read the story and I still don't fully get it. So can you just explain it?

[Paige Desorbo]

So basically what's going on here? And we don't know if that's, this is exactly what's going on with this kid yet because he's 24. And so Bukele and Ms. 13 struck a deal back around 2019 where Bukele would give better prison conditions to Ms. 13 members who were already locked up and other, you know, other favors. You can see this story that Jose Olivares and I wrote for Dropsite News. And in exchange they would stop killing and kidnapping people. And this is not an uncommon tactic among South American or Central American presidents. To FMLN had tried to do the same thing like back in 2011 or something like that. Part of the deal was that then ms.13 would support bukele in his, in his next election. And they did that and he won in a landslide. And then you saw this kind of breakdown of the, the deal and he, you know, he's become this much more aggressive, you know, anti gang dude. And so he has, he has denied up and down that these negotiations ever took place, but the negotiations absolutely did take place. And so there has been this push and pull tug of war between the US and Bukele. Bukele wants all of the MS.13 members who know about these negotiations in his dungeon. He does not want them in open court in the United States talking openly about the, the negotiations that they had with Bukele, which are a real lightning rod, a real political lightning rod in El Salvador. They wouldn't get attention here, but if they had testify in court up here in the United States, it would get a lot of coverage in El Salvador. And he generally has the media locked down. But if, if this, you know, the media would cover something that happened in a US courtroom in El Salvador. So this would be a big problem for him. So the, the, the price that Bukele demanded to take these Venezuelans was I also want these Ms. 13 guys that I've been trying to get from you and that you've been keeping from me. And so that's why we sent Ms. 13 people along with, along with these Venezuelans. So, and in order to send them, they had to dismiss the charges. And they did that with a bunch of them, you know, back when they first sent them down. So that's what this looks like. We don't know the details yet. He would have been like 18 when these negotiations were going on. So maybe he has knowledge of the negotiations subsequent or they just stitched up some random guy in Virginia and the thing is all now falling apart, but that's the backdrop that it, it, it could be part of this Ms. 13 leadership roundup that Bukele wants Trump to help him effectuate and facilitate.

[Sagar]

Interesting. Wow. Crazy stuff.

[Crystal]

Emily, you're muted.

[Paige Desorbo]

You're muted.

[Crystal]

Emily. Not working. Okay, it's all good. All Right, let's talk quickly here about Mahmoud Cleo, because this was important too. So, you know, the administration has made it pretty clear for a while that, I mean, they have never said that Mahmoud Khalil, who of course was the Columbia student, legal permanent resident green card holder who was arrested by ICE and shipped down to. Was he Louisiana, I believe he was shipped down to. And he was the real first big high profile case of like anyone who said anything about Israel that we didn't like. We're going to round them up. If they're, you know, here on a visa or a green card holder or whatever, we're going to round them up and we're going to detain them and we're going to deport them. He was the first big high profile example of that. And the administration has never argued that he committed any crimes. Even though many of their defenders have insinuated or insisted that this was because of illegal activity. They have never indicated that. And so the court has been asking them to provide their evidence of why they believe that he should be deported. And effectively, you know, they, they. So the, the government files, you know, this, this submission, and there is really no there, there. I've got the, the key paragraph here. It says, pursuant to these authorities I've determined the activities and presence of these aliens. The US Would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences, would compromise a compelling US Foreign policy interest. These determinations are based on information provided by the DHS IC HSI regarding the participation and role and role of someone else we don't know and Khalil in anti Semitic protests and disruptive activities which foster a hostile environment for Jewish students in the U.S. my determination for the other person is also based on some other citations for unlawful activity during these protests. But that's not Khalil. That's this other person they're claiming. Engagement, unlawful activities, the public actions and continued presence of these two in the U.S. undermine U.S. policy to combat anti Semitism around the world in the U.S. in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States. So literally the only thing that they cite here for Mahmoud Khalil Sagar is his participation in what they describe as anti Semitic protests and disruptive activities.

[Sagar]

Interesting, isn't it? Definitely also fits with our anti Semitic screening that we're doing now. Ryan, I'm sure you saw that story. Oh, wait, do we have the ICE thing? I haven't gotten to react to this yet. The thing about ideas.

[Crystal]

Ideas. Oh, I'll pull that up.

[Sagar]

Ryan, you talk while I Pull it up. All right, let me find that.

[Paige Desorbo]

No, like, yeah, they, they asked, they were told they have to have come up with some evidence that he did something wrong. What's your case? Why is this permanent resident married to an American citizen whose wife is about to give birth in, like, in indefinite detention without charge? And yeah, they finally came back with, because Marco Rubio can lock up anybody who he wants who isn't a citizen for any reason. And the reason that he's claiming is that he's anti Semitic, which is wild because he could bring, if they actually wanted to try that, which apparently they don't think they have to, he could bring countless, it sounds like Jewish colleagues of his from Colombia.

[Crystal]

That's right.

[Sagar]

Yeah.

[Paige Desorbo]

To be like, fought antisemitism. Yeah.

[Crystal]

They've already submitted, like, letters attesting to his character. And, you know, he was going to Shabbat dinners, he was fighting anti Semit. When there was somebody who did say something anti Semitic, he was the first to intervene. So polar opposite of the way that he's being portrayed.

[Paige Desorbo]

Right. Which leads them just to argue, well, if you're critical of Israel, we, we did. We, we believe that that is anti antisemitism.

[Sagar]

Bingo. Exactly. Let's. So, as you guys could see from the screen, this was a real thing that was put out by ICE Quote. If it crosses the border illegally, it's our job to stop it. People, money, products. Ok, ok. Understand. Ideas. Hold on a second. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Crystal]

We talk about that a lot. Last one.

[Sagar]

What was that last one? Ideas. Like, what does that mean exactly if it crosses our border illegally? Ideas. How does an idea illegally cross the U.S. border? Now we're entering some difficult, difficult territory, aren't we, Ryan?

[Paige Desorbo]

And that's true. Yeah, yeah.

[Sagar]

In the trunk of our car, I've.

[Crystal]

Got Smuggling in your shine bomb literacy ideas. Yeah.

[Sagar]

What is going on?

[Crystal]

Apparently.

[Sagar]

Yeah.

[Crystal]

What magic does this woman have, though? For real? I don't know. We're all referring to this. Trump in the Oval Office was like, she's a fantastic woman. She's doing a great job. We had a wonderful time. She has. She's very dignified.

[Paige Desorbo]

She's very elegant.

[Crystal]

Very elegant.

[Sagar]

I think he probably just has good. She probably is just a good diplomat. She probably talks to him. Well, on the phone. I mean, honestly, I can't really think of a alternative. But, Emily, we're talking about ICE saying that they want to stop dangerous ideas from entering the country. We just put that graphic up from yesterday and you're just.

[Crystal]

I Mean, I know it's the most cartoonish it's. And that's what it's like. It's the most obvious point to make. But can you imagine if the Biden Harris administration had done half of the like. You cannot. There would be such a meltdown over it and understandably so. Like, it is truly un American. It is a truly un American thing to say and position to hold. And then the fact that you are clearly. We also just pushed put up the Mahmoud Khalil court filing. That's like, oh, he was at a protest. That's why we're going to deport him. No allegations of illegality. No even. I thought they come up with something he said that was a little edgy, you know, that they could put in the. Nope, none of that. Just like he was.

[Sagar]

Yeah, they didn't even put like from the river to the sea. They didn't even be like the well known anti Semitic phrase, from the river to the sea.

[Ryan]

Well, that is their definition. I mean, it said like even by their own definition. Right. So they've accept. Accepted that definition. So they, they haven't even used that successfully to. I mean, it's just the ideas thing. If you flip it around and you see the Biden administration coming in and using this on Christians or people who are opposed, like TERFs, I mean, it's just like the possibilities are endless. The mind boggles.

[Sagar]

But we do need some more turfs. We need more turfs. By all means, I call for more turf.

[Ryan]

When I was reading through the document that they submitted in evidence, the Rubio memo, I was just like, it's so. It's not surprising, but they really do have nothing.

[Crystal]

Well, and Ryan, they had said some, some maybe Pam Bondi, I don't remember one of these people said that the reason he was being deported was because he aligned with Hamas. This document doesn't even mention Hamas.

[Paige Desorbo]

Right.

[Sagar]

No, good point.

[Ryan]

That's a DHS spokeswoman. Yeah. Trisha McLaughlin, who said that.

[Paige Desorbo]

Right. They can't even prove that.

[Sagar]

Or. You guys want to know what's funny?

[Paige Desorbo]

Attempt to demonstrate.

[Sagar]

You know where Trisha came from? She used to work for Vivek. Mr. Ideas and Mr. Debate. I'm just saying, you know, some of us, some of us remember things. These are, It's a curse to actually remember anything in this business and just be like, what the are you talking. You imagine she mixes it up.

[Paige Desorbo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sagar]

It's like he went from that to Ms. Idea. Mr. We need to ban ideas and.

[Ryan]

Well, can I say such A great.

[Sagar]

Point, Crystal, about the Hamas thing is they didn't even mention that. They just said he was anti Semitic. Go ahead, Emily.

[Ryan]

Well, no, but that's why this is all so frustrating because, Krista, do you remember we interviewed Mama Do Tall on the show back in. Well, his case is interesting because after he had gotten his visa, he had been tweeting things about how the US Empire, he hates the US empire, his goal in life is bringing down the US empire. And he's like the one person from all of these cases, like Oz Turk, for example, and op Ed. He's the one person from all these cases. Right. Like, granted, he said all of that after he got the visa, but I was like, could you have sussed that out in your interviews with him? Like, did you know that he wasn't super pro America when you said here's a student visa? Like, there are arguments that would be within the realm of like, reasonable debate. And these are not them. These are like insane examples of op EDS and trying to tie him to these posters that were handed out at protests. Trying to tie him to protests that got like, like violent.

[Crystal]

He was.

[Ryan]

He wasn't there. He didn't do it.

[Crystal]

You know, wasn't it funny with Khalil? Wasn't there also an allegation that he had lied on his green card application or something like that?

[Ryan]

He omitted.

[Crystal]

That's not here either.

[Sagar]

Yeah, he omitted that there was something about the embassy. UN for the. No, I thought it was the un like unra.

[Ryan]

I thought it was the UK embassy in Beirut.

[Paige Desorbo]

Well, because he had a joint job. Like he had a UK security clearance while he was working for unrwa, which like, I can't imagine why, like working for the UK would be disqualifying for us. An American, like somebody applying for a.

[Ryan]

Fees in the United States, espionage or something.

[Sagar]

Yeah, maybe he's a spook. What if he's a spook but he's a.

[Paige Desorbo]

He's a British spy. He's 007.

[Crystal]

Yes, they should put that in the application for his DNA then. But that's a good reason. It was thinner. I knew it would be thin because the right has been digging through everything this man has ever said to try to come up with something to paint him as like, oh, he's an anti Semitic, terrorist loving monster. And they came up with nothing. So I knew it would be thin. This was thinner even than I expected because I thought they'd have the thing in there about, oh, he was lying on his application and oh, he said from the river to the sea and oh, here's the Hamas pamphlet. Remember Caroline Levitt did that whole thing of like, I can't even bring that literature into the briefing room because it was so horrible.

[Sagar]

She said that to me. She did say it to you.

[Ryan]

That was you.

[Crystal]

I forgot that.

[Sagar]

I was like, yeah, for sure.

[Crystal]

The horrible literature that we, you know, can't even, like the innocence of the American people had to protect saga from it. Saga sensibilities couldn't handle it.

[Sagar]

It's true.

[Crystal]

It's a delicate flower.

[Sagar]

I actually wanted to see it. I was like, yeah, you know, it'd be great actually.

[Paige Desorbo]

She's protecting you from it, though.

[Sagar]

Show me this stuff. But, yeah, it's all right. That's what I need my government for. Should we move to Dave Smith? Should we talk about Dave? Okay, I got two clips. So what do you guys want to start with? Do you want to start with his lived experience thing about how you have to be able to have been to Israel. Yes. Before you're allowed to talk about it.

[Crystal]

Okay, let's start with that.

[Ryan]

Can we just say, though, at off the top here that what happened in this conversation is that Douglas Murray, who probably was under enormous pressure from pro Israel folks and people who are pro Ukraine and neoconservatives to stand up to Joe Rogan, he starts the interview by asking Joe Rogan if he can ask him a question about why he doesn't. So I just. It's sort of like the Oval Office meeting. That is genuinely important. Context for this three hour conversation is that it started with Douglas Murray challenging Joe Rogan about why he has he had an agenda.

[Sagar]

Yeah, yeah.

[Paige Desorbo]

He.

[Sagar]

He coming into this, he's mad at Joe, he's snippy and he's. Or what did Trump say? Yippee. He's yippee at Joe for, quote, not having enough pro Israel or pro Ukraine folks on the show. Which, by the way, is not even true. There are definitely a lot of.

[Ryan]

He didn't even know some of the guests. Yeah, Joe ticked off all these guests. He's like, I've had dad sad.

[Sagar]

He said, we've had pro Israel folks. And you know, this one guy and I can't remember his name. And you're like, oh, so you can't remember the name of the guy you're calling anti Semitic. But okay, well, anyway, so what he does in the beginning is he first of all starts off with chastising Rogan for not having enough pro Israel and.

[Crystal]

Pro UK folks on it would just preposterous so much. If a guest came on our show and was like, actually, I think here's how you should produce your show. Here's how you should do your job. Like, there is no worse way to start a conversation with. With anyone.

[Sagar]

Yeah.

[Crystal]

So that really.

[Sagar]

Let's start with that.

[Ryan]

And he accused Dave of hosting Ian Carroll. Like he just.

[Sagar]

Yeah, he started.

[Ryan]

He had no information and was a little bit. It was a little bit off. I thought Joe handled it really well and it turned into a pretty interesting discussion.

[Sagar]

Joe really held his cool. I will say that Dougl Douglas is one of the smarmiest people I've ever seen on this because he spends the entire thing trying to. He tries to attack Smith's character. Basically implies that Dave Smith is doing this for views or for clicks. Ridiculous. Dave has been in this business for a long time. Dave's most viral moment is not even anything to do with Israel. It's about vaccines from five years ago. Not that Douglas would know anything about any of that. But he's like, oh, Dave, you're shtick is Israel. Right? Like implying that he's doing this for career purposes. You know, someone should tell me that because I don't remember my career doing all that well because of any Israel criticism. In fact, it's the opposite of Mr. Murray who went from, you know, this flitting about neoconservative has been to, you know, little flak jacket tour vests all over Israel.

[Paige Desorbo]

And so projection every accusation.

[Sagar]

Right. That's the context is the concern trolling about, quote, expertise. And we'll get to that. But the really the best part was this where he tries to use a literal WOKE style argument of if you've never been to Israel, then you're not allowed to talk about it. Dave handled himself incredibly well, in my opinion, in this back and forth. So let's go ahead and take a listen to some of it.

[I]

Was no deficit of goods coming in. I've been plenty of goods.

[J]

There's no deficit.

[I]

No, there are plenty. There are plenty. How many have you been to the Crossing Points? No. When were you last there at all?

[J]

I've never been.

[I]

You've never been?

[J]

Well, am I not allowed to talk about it now? I've never been to. Have you ever been to Nazi Germany? Are you allowed to have a few?

[I]

You can't time travel. Right, but you can.

[J]

Okay, but so what? So what's the point?

[I]

Like, no, I find that lots of.

[J]

People have been there and agree with me. And lots of people have been there and agree with you.

[I]

Yeah, but I don't know, half talking about a place, you should at least do the courtesy of visiting it.

[J]

All right, it. I just think this is a non argument. No, I think it's a non argument.

[I]

But if you're an ex, would you.

[Sagar]

Have to go and touch the ground?

[I]

No, I think you have to see. I think it's a good idea to see stuff, particularly if you spend a career talking about something. Yes, I, I have a journalistic rule of trying never to talk about a country, even in parsley, unless I've at least been there.

[J]

Okay.

[I]

It's sort of normal in. It's a normal thing to do. You're talking about. But hang on, you're talking about crossing points. And not only have you never been to a crossing point in either Egypt or in Israel, but you've never even been to the region.

[J]

Okay, again, I think this is a non argument.

[I]

No, no, it's not a non argument.

[J]

Yeah, it is.

[I]

It's not a non argument. If you're insisting that you're an expert of some kind, or not claiming you're an expert but still talking about it, about the provisions going into Gaza or not. If you've never seen any of this going on.

[J]

So you're not allowed to speak about things that you've read about.

[I]

You have.

[J]

You can only speak about things that you've seen with your own eyes.

[I]

You can talk about what you want, as you're proving, but that is a different matter from spending an awfully long amount of time talking about an issue in a region you haven't even had the courtesy to visit whilst developing all of these views about it. I mean, now I slightly get an idea of where you're coming from. You've read about this blockade and so you imagine that that's what it is. I imagine you've read all the people who say that Gaza was a concentration camp.

[Sagar]

All right, we can call it there. This. This is the dumbest form of argumentation. And there's. There's a layer to this, too. I actually texted this, Dave, and I was like, I kind of wish you'd said this, Douglas. Yeah, I just want to be like, hey, Douglas, why do you think you got to go to the crossing points, my guy? Is it because you're on an Israeli BB sponsored tour to go and to see this so that you go on the biggest platform in the world and say everything is fine? Why don't we call Ryan? Why don't you enlighten me and call as you have some of the people who live there and tell me what they have to say who are not members of Hamas. Go ahead, Ryan. Tell me what the people who are on the other side of that crossing point have to say.

[Paige Desorbo]

They say they can't find food. Oh, okay.

[Sagar]

Got it.

[Paige Desorbo]

And they have phone numbers. Has, has he spoken to them? Has he.

[Sagar]

Have you ever been to Gaza, Douglas? Have you ever been to Gaza?

[Paige Desorbo]

He shouldn't say anything about.

[Crystal]

Oops.

[Paige Desorbo]

Great point.

[Sagar]

Yeah, yeah.

[Paige Desorbo]

They, they blocked on March 2nd. They said we're not letting any aid in. They said it publicly.

[Sagar]

Okay.

[Paige Desorbo]

Why does Dave Smith need to go fact check the claims by the Israeli government?

[Sagar]

Yeah.

[Paige Desorbo]

And the Palestinians on the other side confirmed it. We have both sides saying we're not letting aid in. But.

[Crystal]

Dave doesn't.

[Paige Desorbo]

Weird.

[Sagar]

Go ahead, Crystal.

[Crystal]

It does remind me so much of like, it truly is like a very woke reminiscent argument because one of the things, the tactics that is used to shut down debate is like, well, if you're not a member of that marginalized group, you can't speak on issues related to that marginalized group. And I'm not going to say that there's nothing to like hearing someone's quote unquote lived experience. But that is a common tactic to just say you're not allowed to have a say at all. Don't care what you've read, don't care what your opinion is, what your moral compass is. Don't care if you don't have these particular characteristics. You don't get to weigh in. I've always objected to that, whether it was on the woke side and it's the exact same thing here. It's also very like, you know, I, I don't know if he's all, if he's always debated this way, but it's a very Piers Morgan panel debate tactic to just, they spend so much time just like attacking each other's character. You're a racist, you're an anti Semite, you haven't even been there. And, and you know, it's the type of thing that can play well in that format when you just have like 15 minutes of yelling to filibuster and try to like out alpha the people on the panel. But when you actually have to sit there and explain yourself for hours on end and everyone gets a chance to see Dave be like, this is a non argument. What are you talking about? It doesn't quite hit the same way as when you're just on some like Piers Morgan yell festival.

[Ryan]

Well, that's really interesting because they actually started the entire Podcast by Joe saying, the reason we wanted to do this is because so many of these debates are held on shows like Piers Morgan. And basically it's so theatrical and it's a. It's actually somewhat so it's expert. It's just this deification of expertise, which is very disappointing from Douglas Murray, by the way, who on wokeness on media corruption, all of that. He actually was with Taibbi side by side in an Intelligence Squared debate against Malcolm Gladwell and Ryan columnist in the New York Times, Michelle Goldberg, and wiped the floor with Malcolm Gladwell and Michelle Goldberg and Douglas Murray did some heavy lifting in absolutely excoriating the corporate media and its corruption. And here he's flipping around and saying that because Dave lacks expertise. My favorite moment of this entire conversation is when Dave goes, I'm a free American, I can say whatever I want. And I just was like, felt like wrapped in the American flag was going to shotgun a Miller Light when he said that. It was glorious. Because that's his point. His point is that the audience is smart enough to make up their own minds. If they are listening to a comedian who's really interested in history or a, you know, ex military guy who's really interested in history do 30 hours of a podcast, the audience is smart enough to make up their minds to do additional research. They don't need to be protected by expert gatekeepers in every situation. And it's just, I found it very unfortunate to see that flipped. Again.

[Crystal]

It's also very selective because it's not enough. So he's decided Dave Smith's not an expert, but he's also decided that it's not sufficient for Dave Smith to read experts.

[Sagar]

Yes, exactly.

[Crystal]

Have studied this, been to the region, et cetera. So it's, you know, it's all very selective and very convenient when you get to be the expert, when the expert opinion matters and can factor in and when it doesn't, in his view.

[Sagar]

Yes, this is the expertise part of whis which drive drove me crazy. And so there was a specific, you know, part of this. Let's take a listen to that.

[J]

Do also think that one of the bigger kind of the bigger picture dynamics to all of this is that we have at least since 911 been in a state of perpetual war. And all of these wars have been disasters. They have been so many lies involved in selling all of them. I mean the whole Iraq war, the whole war in Afghanistan, just lying the whole way through. I mean, I remember literally having conversations with Green Berets in the middle of the war in Afghanistan. And they're like, george W. Bush is telling you that the army we're building up there is really successful. This thing's gonna fall in a week without us. And then all through the Obama administration, it's just like lie after lie after lie with disastrous wars. And so this does create a fertile ground for people to say, I wonder if they were lying about all these wars.

[Sagar]

Sure.

[J]

Again, I'm not really trying to argue about.

[I]

I think the interesting question is whether you're busy watering it.

[Paige Desorbo]

Which.

[Sagar]

Should you not talk about mistakes that were made overall?

[Paige Desorbo]

Absolutely.

[Crystal]

Okay.

[I]

You should absolutely.

[Sagar]

Right.

[I]

All four. Go back and looking at mistakes.

[Crystal]

So what are you.

[Paige Desorbo]

What is your argument then?

[I]

It's a very weird thing to go back, zone in on a man, say this one thing is a mistake and should characterize him, and you ignore everything.

[Sagar]

You're taking him out of context when you're talking about Daryl, who's done. What was it? 30 plus hours.

[Paige Desorbo]

So what?

[I]

30 plus hours.

[Sagar]

But you. You take.

[I]

You do that in a week.

[Paige Desorbo]

I mean, yeah, it's a very.

[Sagar]

It's a very, very different.

[J]

Very different.

[Sagar]

He's not doing a podcast, like, talking to people.

[J]

Okay.

[I]

Nor is he doing scholarly work. Nor is he working in the archives, clearly. Come on. I mean, this is. He is not the historian of our era.

[Sagar]

He's not complaining me to be then racist historian.

[I]

This is like punching jelly.

[Paige Desorbo]

No, but you. You don't always work.

[I]

I'm saying. Because I don't need to consume endless versions of a revisionist history. I understand, but it's revisionist history.

[Sagar]

Okay, so that was about the Daryl Cooper thing. But that pop part I found very illuminating is this. He produced 30 hours of POC. He goes, so what? What you do that? In a way, it's like Douglas is acting as if he is like one of the professors at Oxford that he got his undergraduate degree in English from. You are not that, bro. You have written books about multiple different subjects. You are the definition of, like, a journalist. Yeah, yeah, Dylan, you're literally a. Yeah. You are an influencer dilettante. You are a literal dilettante who flits about the world, writes neoconservatism and why we need it, and now madness of crowds and the strange death of your. It's like, are you a fucking expert on immigration? Are you an expert on Western civilization? Because you.

[Ryan]

Have you ever been to Martyr Maid?

[Sagar]

Yeah. Have you been to the Martyr Maid podcast?

[Ryan]

Have you listened? He said he didn't listen. He said he didn't listen.

[Paige Desorbo]

Right? It's comical.

[Sagar]

Sheer arrogance. And, you know, Ryan, that was another thing that I really found about these Zobots. Like, Like, Murray is that this guy is pushing, like, completely debunked stuff about October 7th. Like, it was fact. Like, he talked about, like, mass rape on October 7th. He was like, this close to talking about the babies thing, right? And it was so obvious to me that he has not engaged with any even, like, surface level, Haaretz level criticism of Israel. And that, you know, his expertise, right? His expertise is that he's been there. It's just the purest form of wokeism, of, like, concern trolling about expertise when you yourself have absolutely none. And I will say, like, outside of Twitter, like Zionist Twitter, if you go look at the YouTube comments or the general reaction or anything, this Murray's getting cooked. People can see this level of, like, sneering and concern trolling. And just people are like, oh, I wasn't in the studio with Douglas, so I can't have an opinion about how much of a he was. You know, just like. Like, that's the level of argumentation that he has, you know, that he brings us down to. It's ridiculous.

[Paige Desorbo]

And it is comical in one breath to say that, you know, Dave can't comment on Israel because he hasn't been there, but he can comment on a podcast that he's never listened to.

[Sagar]

Yeah, right.

[Paige Desorbo]

Because I actually disagree with the other point. Like, you actually probably should listen to a podcast if you're going to have an opinion on the podcast.

[Crystal]

Right? Because the whole thing of having an opinion on the podcast is like, the content of the podcast.

[Paige Desorbo]

The podcast. The content of the podcast. That's kind of the whole point, if you want to.

[Ryan]

And nobody has done, like, listen, I disagree with Daryl on Churchill. I disagree with him on a lot. But if you listen to the podcast, absolutely nobody is doing what he is doing. The level. And Joe pointed this out, his Fear and Loathing in New Jerusalem starts from the emotional visceral perspective of Jews who are fleeing pogroms. It's just absurd to act as though that is being put in the box of Pat Buchanan. It's not Pat Buchanan. It draws from Pat Buchanan, but it's not Pat Buchanan. And you don't know that unless you listen to it.

[Sagar]

That's another thing. I'm not even gonna go into the I, by the way, I love Daryl. Daryl's one of my brothers. Yes, I disagree with him. I actually text him often and be like, dude, you're totally wrong about all this. He he's, you know, the guy who will send me books, obscure books about that he has on the battle of Singapore. And so that, you know, it's beyond the character assassin. Beautiful friendship. It is a beautiful friendship, just like Shine Bomb and Trump. But like beyond even the, the like surface level criticism, fine, if people want to have it. For me, is that arrogance of Murray. And a lot of these pro Israel folks who resort to the most ad hominem and emotional attacks concern trolling about expertise. And then someone like you, Ryan, who actually has reporting expertise, like knowledge and all that of the region is dismissed completely out of hand. And if someone like Dave, who is a consumer of your work or of Haaretz or any of that is laughed out of the room, you know, the idea is, you know, and I genuinely would say this, is that the mean critic of Israel and of Israeli policy, and I mean this in the commentariat space, in my opinion, is 10 times more informed on the conflict than anybody who is just mindlessly sucking up their propaganda about October 7th or the war in Gaza or the ends. You know, I mean, the other thing that I found preposterous, Ryan, is that throughout the podcast, he's like, Qatar is pumping money into our university system, Ryan. Does he even know that Netanyahu is literally facing an allegation over. Probably not. That's my point. He doesn't even know anything about the place that he spent so much time.

[Paige Desorbo]

Right. And that's a huge. It's like the number one story in Israel right now. But it's structurally, if you are on the Dave Smith side, you must constantly engage with the pro Israel side because it is the water that we're swimming in.

[Crystal]

That's right.

[Paige Desorbo]

If you are on Murray's side, you can actually just not read dropsite. You can not watch this program. You can seal yourself off and just never encounter that. And so that's how you wind up with people repeating things that everyone already knows has been actually debunked by like even say, like the BBC or somebody, but like not done it in a high profile enough way that it penetrated the pro Israel bubble. So he can live that life and.

[Crystal]

They just want, or they don't care and they just lie and don't expect to get called on it because it's emotionally uncomfortable to be like, well, actually there wasn't a mass rape on October 7th. And then you look like you're, you know, being a Hamas apologist or whatever. Like, there's some of that going on too. Let's not deny Many of these people are happy to just lie or just believe a reality, even though it's been debunked, you know, because it fits with their view of what's going on here. And I just want to drill down on this point a little bit more. I mean, two things. Number one, it seems to me I didn't watch the whole podcast. I just watched the clips that you showed. So I don't. I don't want to opine on a podcast that I listen to.

[Sagar]

By the way, Crystal, don't subject yourself. It's three hours.

[Crystal]

Plan to.

[Sagar]

You will get everything you need.

[Crystal]

But, you know, with the invoking of Ian Carroll, the invoking of Daryl, it also feels like rather than dealing with the arguments of the person who's right in front of you, you want to construct a straw man. You know, I mean, Ian Carroll, there are some things. Daryl Cooper, there are definitely some things. Okay, they're not there. Dave Smith is there. What is his argument? Deal with his arguments rather than these other superfluous people who have been in the Joe Rogan podcast universe. Okay? That's number one. Number two, I want to say this in this view, and this is the same thing I said when the arguments about. You can't have an opinion on certain things if you're not part of that marginalized group, whatever. It is fundamentally anti Democratic. Small D Democratic. Our government is sending our money to bomb these babies. We're not allowed to have an opinion because we haven't fucking been there. Are you kidding me? Seriously, we're all about to pay taxes. Taxes are due in what, four days?

[Sagar]

Yeah, that's right.

[Crystal]

We can't have an opinion on that. Be for real. We are obligated, obligated to have an opinion on what our government is doing in our name with our money to a trapped, starved, bombed population. We like. If you are a. A citizen who cares about the direction of the country in the world, yes, you should have an opinion about that. And it doesn't require you going to the region, going to Israel, going on Bibi's press tour, going to the crossings, auditing what goods are. No, you get to have an opinion because this is a fucking allegedly democracy. So that is why that thing pisses me off so much. And especially this is the way also, by the way, that, like, liberal Zionists shut people down, too. Oh, it's complicated. And you just don't understand. This is what they do on, you know, monetary policy. Oh, this is complicated. Just let the experts handle it. You just don't understand I got this.

[Ryan]

All of the time on gender stuff, like, from the, from the left all of the time. And in all seriousness, it's too many.

[Paige Desorbo]

Genders for you to understand.

[Ryan]

Well, no, it's very similar. So you are not. Are you a. Are you a neuroscientist? Are you a biologist? Yeah, yeah. Are you a psychiatrist? No, it's. It's. It's a thing. That's a thing. It's just like this blocking with the expertise.

[Crystal]

I. Look, I think that we experts are important. I think it is really important to have people who have deeply studied fields, medicine, science, history. I think it is important to take in that information. But they can't tell you what your values are. Right. They can't, like, chew up your democratic food and spit it in your mouth and eat it for you. Like, like, you have to engage with that content and think about the world for yourself. And yes, you are allowed to do that. That is like the base. That is like the, the foundation upon which this country is allegedly built. And we fall short in many, many ways. But when you just. When you try to dumb down the population, don't worry your pretty little head. The experts over here, they get it. You don't. It's too complicated. You don't get to have an opinion that is fundamentally anti Democratic. It is anti populist. It is like the, you know, I am just repulsed by that whole direction. And by the way, think of when Dave Smith is talking about these experts that got us into the Iraq war, right? How did that go? These experts who, you know, kept us in Afghanistan for decades. How did that go? These experts that were part of, you know, deregulating the financial industry. He didn't make these arguments. I'm making these arguments and crash the entire, like, global economy. How did that go? How has deferring to experts and not worrying your pretty little head about these overly complicated topics. How has that worked out?

[Sagar]

Yeah, Covid, you know, we can go on forever. Well, and that's a great.

[Ryan]

Douglas talked about COVID in that Taibi debate, if I'm remembering correctly. And the last thing I want to say is that I'm sympathetic to a point that Douglas makes about losing the forest for the trees. I think that's sometimes what we get into when we're debating, like, Gallipoli campaign and Churchill and all of that.

[Sagar]

I get it.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sagar]

Keep Gallipoli out of your mouth. Yeah, go on.

[Ryan]

But you know what I'm saying, You're.

[Crystal]

Not an expert, Emily.

[Ryan]

I wasn't there, but I think that we do sometimes lose the forest for the trees because some of these trees have not been, you know, have not been well evaluated over the course of the last century. And so in revisiting them and saying, oh, the experts lied, we sometimes assume that when we're looking at a tree, we're looking at the whole forest or we get lost, man. This is a tortured metaphor. So I'm sympathetic to that point. But the problem is the experts are the ones that continue to just completely lose trust because they're wrong about certain things. And then so to defer to experts, to say the experts got Covid wrong, but then to defer to them on Ukraine and Israel and act like anybody who is challenging those official narratives is siding with anti Semites or with Putin. It is so unfortunate. And it's very telling.

[Sagar]

I think that's a great place to leave it, I think. Great show, everybody. Thanks for having me.

[Crystal]

Well, it was good to have you here too. It was nice having the whole crew. Any more stuff? Anything last? Ryan in particular? Are you looking at anything, working on any reporting you want to highlight?

[Paige Desorbo]

Oh, no, I should send this to Phil. Emily. But very cool story in job site that we published yesterday afternoon. Interview with a top Houthi leader basically responding to Trump and Hegseth who said, hey, if the Houthis stop bombing American ships, we'll stop bombing the Houthis. And they told Dropsite, we will stop bombing American ships. Then if you'll stop bombing us, they said, we will continue to bomb Israeli ships. They're not welcome through, but American ships, fine. We have no problem with America. So now the question will be, did Trump and Hegseth mean Israeli ships under the definition of our ships?

[Crystal]

We all know the answer to that.

[Sagar]

Yeah, we know the answer to that.

[Crystal]

But it's good to have it clarified. Indeed. All right, guys, thank you so much. Thanks to everybody out there. Appreciate you guys. We're gonna have some announcements next week. I'm just gonna tease that. Some big announcements all around. So stay tuned for that and have a great weekend. We will see you back here Monday.

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[Sagar]

Amazon One Medical presents painful thoughts do they ever actually clean the ball pit at these kids play gyms? Or is my kid just swimming in a vat of bacteria, catching whatever cootie of the day is breeding in there? A cootie that'll probably take down our whole family. Luckily, with Amazon One Medical 24. 7 Virtual Care, you can get checked out for whatever ball pit itis you've contracted. Amazon won. Medical healthcare just got less painful. Hey, Janice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz. We're the hosts of Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories produced by Ruby Studio and Intuit QuickBooks. Catch up on seasons one and two and join us for a brand new season of the podcast as we talk to small business owners about how they manage and grow their businesses with the help of platforms like Intuit QuickBooks books.

[Paige Desorbo]

Listen to Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.