Sagar Enjeti (2:46)

Have you been to the Crossing Points? I really resent that form of argumentation. When were you last there at all? Sure, I really resent it. You should at least do the courtesy of visiting it. This is not an attractive invitation. I think it's a good idea to see stuff, particularly if you spend a career talking about something. I have the right to talk about whatever the hell I want and no one's going to stop me or try to intimidate me. And I think that if I said to somebody else the other way around, it would be equally reprehensible. I have a journalistic rule of trying never to talk about a country, even in passing, unless I've at least been there. If I said shut up. You have no right to criticise anything that Douglas Murray says because. 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. Okay, it's not an exact comparison, but seriously, is that a reasonable form of argument? No. In that case, nobody can talk about anything. We might as well pack up, go home and isolate ourselves. If you're insisting that you're an expert of some kind, or not claiming you're an expert but still talking about it. If you've never seen any of this going on. I mean, there are some people who've written about the. I mean, there are people who've written about the Holocaust who didn't experience the Holocaust and have written about it better than people who did. 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. This idea that the lived experience has to triumph over everything else is not always correct. Should at least know what it is, what the territory is, what the situation is in the region. There's an irony to this, but let's skate over the irony.

Dave Smith (4:33)

Dave, I'm sorry to subject you to that again, but you gotta. I mean, what's it like, you know, on the other side of nearly three hours of this and now seeing some of this past lived experience argumentation from him?

Sagar Enjeti (4:46)

Well, I wish that guy was there at the debate. He did a Better job than I did. It's funny. So once I saw this. Cause I brought up my first thing was I go, you've never been in Nazi Germany, but you can still have an opinion about that. And then I was like, oh, he made the same point. He made it better than me. Yeah, you know, like, yeah, exactly. A lot of people have written about it and explained it better than people who actually lived through it. I mean, look, it's the, the expert thing and the. Have you ever been to the region? Like, as I said on the show, these are just non arguments. Like, objectively speaking, you don't win points in a debate for saying this. Like, if you, if you were to take the most generous interpretation of. Of his point there, and which, you know, and it's not just the obvious logical fallacy that it is like an appeal to authority, but if you were to take the most generous interpretation would be like, okay, it's important to know what you're talking about, and you can gain insights into something by traveling there and seeing it firsthand. Now, I wouldn't disagree with either of those claims, but the point is that then you got to demonstrate that, like, okay, if you have a level of expertise that I don't have, and you have insights because you've been there that I don't have, then, okay, let's have the debate. And that should show. You know, I said the other day, it was kind of like, it was almost like if you're like a fighter, like you're a UFC fighter or something, and so you agree to fight someone else, and you're like, at Madison Square Garden, the fight, you know, you get introduced, you're about to fight, and like, I put up my hands like, okay, let's fight. And then the other guy puts his hands down and goes, I'm such a better fighter than you. I'm just so much better at fighting.

Krystal Ball (6:22)

You're not even really a fighter.

Dave Smith (6:23)

Yeah, you don't even count as a fight. It's your shtick fighting.

Sagar Enjeti (6:27)

But it's like, so come show me. You know, and then the rate my shit, it's just all these like, look, it became clear when I was there that Douglas Murray came to do anything but debate me.

Krystal Ball (6:40)

Yeah.

Sagar Enjeti (6:40)

You know, like, in my mind, I was like, oh, we're going to debate Ukraine and Israel. And then it was like, oh, that's the opposite. And you know, I did resent, you know, because on the whole topic of like, being an expert, I do think it's important, and I think it's lost on some of, like, the casual viewers, because people will think they'll be like, yeah, Dave's an expert on this and I'm not. And I was quite comfortable saying that there. Like, I'm not. I'm a commentator. I'm a standup comedian, you know. But again, Douglas, as you could see in that clip, he doesn't really believe any of the things he's saying.

Krystal Ball (7:11)

That's right.

Sagar Enjeti (7:11)

He's. Look, if you really had a. Like, commentators who aren't experts permeate the media and not just like the new media, like the, the old legacy media, what do you think? Chris Matthews is an expert on? Israel, Palestine, you know, does he have, does. Does Douglas Murray have a problem with Bill Maher having a show? Does he have a problem with Dave Rubin having a show? By the way, I'll put my tease up against those guys any day. And so it's like, you don't really mean this. You don't really have an issue. He didn't have an issue with Coleman Hughes going on Rogan's show and talking about Israel. He's not an expert and he got everything wrong when he was on there. His issue is that there's people who disagree with Israel coming on. His issue isn't with the level of experts, any of these people.

Krystal Ball (7:54)

Well, and I think it's actually quite revealing, in my opinion. Two things I want to say. Number one, what I find so troubling about that line of argumentation is I'm a US Taxpayer, we're all US Taxpayers. Our money is going to fund this. I would consider genocidal onslaught in Gaza. I don't get to have an opinion because I haven't been to the crossings. Like, get out of here with that. Like, be for real about what you're actually suggesting here. And it's actually a very common tactic. You hear it from a lot of, like, people who would describe themselves as like, liberal Zionists. Well, it's complicated. You just don't understand. And it's a way to completely shut people down from engaging with this debate at all because they feel like if I don't have a PhD in every in and out of this history, which you know much more about, and you have the mind to hold all those facts in your heads much more so than I do, but that you feel like if I don't know every single fact that has ever happened and what Bibi Netanyahu said in 1993 in this speech or whatever, then I don't get to have an opinion. Wrong. Wrong. This is a democracy. I get to have an opinion about my money going to drop these bombs on children and women and aid workers and hospitals and mosques and level this whole place and set up a situation where now Trump is like, we're gonna take it over. So that's number one. Number two, I think it's actually very revealing that in your language, he came here wanting to avoid a debate with you, because there is no debate at this point. There is no debate. Look at the way that. I mean, the public who is consuming this through a very biased media, media outlets with, you know, very slanted coverage, how much they have turned on Israel, how much their sympathies have changed. The only group that still, like, has a majority support of more sympathy for Israel or Palestine is, like, basically older Republicans. Every other demographic group has shifted. So I think, to me, the hollowness and the resorting to effectively rhetorical tricks to try to come out on top, to me, it's just emblematic of the fact that if you're out there arguing like, oh, Israel isn't blocking aid at this point, I mean, you're just. That's a ridiculous. That's a ridiculous stance to try to claim. So instead you have to go to like, oh, well, you haven't even been to the crossings and personally inspected all the goods that are coming in. Get out of here.

Sagar Enjeti (10:19)

Yeah, well, that was. Yeah, I completely agree. And that was one of the things that was infuriating about it because he makes this. This accusation to me that I, I claim to be an expert, but then I have kind of like this, like, get out of jail free card where I'll go, oh, I'm just a comedian or whatever. And that's just. Both of those are not true. Like, I never do either of those. I never claimed to be an expert. And you guys, I mean, I don't. You guys seen all my stuff, but you guys have seen enough of my content. Has there ever been a time once where, like, I made a point and then someone countered the point and I went, well, I'm just a comedian, so I don't do that.

Dave Smith (10:56)

I actually debate that. You did for over two hours. You didn't do that once. I, I can literally attest to that personally.

Sagar Enjeti (11:01)

And I smoked Dennis Prager in that debate.

Dave Smith (11:04)

I couldn't say at the time, but you definitely did. Yeah.

Sagar Enjeti (11:07)

I mean, at least he came to debate, though, you know, like, at least I. We actually debated the issues. So the thing that was so infuriating is, like, Douglas Murray is accusing me of using this get at like this escape patch, you know, oh, I'm just a comedian. But then. And he was the only one who did that through every single point. Like, every time it came to, oh, we're actually talking about the issue. If, like the most pedantic, semantic. If I went, we've been at war for 20. There was one point where he literally goes, I said, we've been at war, you know, for the last 25 years. And he goes, you have not been at war. And I went, I went, oh, because it's not a war here. I go, yeah, we're picking on third world countries. And then he goes into. He said, well, in Afghanistan, you were there to take out Al Qaeda. And I was like, yeah, maybe that sums up the war through the end of 2001, but after that it was a 20 year regime change war against the Taliban. And then his next line is, that's because you got sucked into war. And it's like, so we just did this whole thing just to come back to you saying the same thing that you had. And I mean, it would be like, I'd say, okay, so when we were talking about Ukraine, at one point, I go, I go, well, look, Joe Biden's CIA director wrote the net means yet memo. He was the CIA director for all four years of Joe Biden's administration. And he's the one who told you that this is what caused the war. And then I said, the head of NATO said the same thing that he sent a draft treaty to. And then his response to that is, the war wasn't about Ukrainian entry to NATO. And you're like, just objectively speaking, look, maybe there's a counter to my point there. But he didn't offer it, he just asserted it was. And then when I make the point about when we were talking about the war in Libya, he goes, well, that was a humanitarian intervention. They thought he was gonna go genocidal. And I was like, well, that's kind of interesting because didn't four star General Wesley Clark claim that he had already seen the plans 10 years earlier when no one was claiming he was about to go genocidal? Now, maybe there's a counter to that. Maybe there's an answer to like, you know. Well, yes, he did say that, but those plans were scrapped. And then it really was a humanitarian. Like, maybe there's a counter. But he just goes, you can't say the name Wolfowitz. Or people might.

Dave Smith (13:20)

That was the dumbest thing.

Sagar Enjeti (13:21)

Like, what? What is it? So to accuse me of, like, Hiding behind being a comedian when you're unwilling to debate any of the topics. And, and by the way, for the record, which I probably should have said at the time, but, you know, I would argue that, you know, if he's going to say that, like me pointing out that Paul Wolfowitz had these war plans is going to lead to anti Semitism, I would say that saying you're not allowed to say that is going to lead to a lot more anti Semitism. Like, to say that, like, you're not allowed to criticize Jewish people. Like, I don't know if you've ever listened to any of the people who don't like Jews very much, but that's a huge part of their beef. And like, they kind of have a point on that front. I don't think they're correct to like hate Jews, but they got a good point on that. Like, it shouldn't be. Nobody who has that type of power should ever be absolved from criticism. It's just, it's absurd.

Dave Smith (14:11)

You're exactly right. Yeah. His idea was, it was something, I've never even heard this level of argumentation, which was that Wolfowitz was like some low level bureaucrat. It's like, dude, read a fucking book. Like, September 12, 2001, he's at the table with George W. Bush and he's the first guy to mention Iraq. This is a fact. But whatever. I don't even need to get more into that. It is important, though, for us to see where Douglas still has a lot of friends in power. Let's go and put this one up there on the screen. Donald Trump, literally the day after your debate, truthed out. Can we put that up there, please? Yeah. My friend Douglas Murray just released a new book, my Friend, on democracies and death cults. It's quickly becoming a bestseller based on his firsthand reporting, quote reporting. Yeah, we could call it that. Documents the barbarity of Hamas's brutal attack on Israel on October 7th and Israel's heroic response. I mean, Dave. Yeah, I mean, this is something you've delved on a little bit in the past and some of your past discussion just with the Trump administration and their current posture on Israel. And we'll get to the deportations in a little bit. But what was it like to see Trump just put this book out like that with. Obviously it's not his own behest. It's either the donor class or somebody around him.

Krystal Ball (15:24)

But somebody drafted that for him.

Dave Smith (15:26)

Yeah, somebody drafted it for him, but it was still enough. Somebody powerful enough to put that out there kind of as a counter signal to the moments after your debate.

Sagar Enjeti (15:34)

Yeah, I mean, look, I don't have any more insight than what you guys have. I'd be speculating about what it is. I just. It was amusing to me. I don't know. It's like, I feel, you know, a lot of people were telling me, you know, for. For quite a while. I hear, like, you know, the Zionists on Twitter being like. Like, Douglas Murray is the guy you gotta debate because he'll smoke you. And, like, after the debate, I'm like, this is the best guy you guys got, like, who can't even argue the topic. Okay. But I did think it was. I don't know, I just thought it was kind of amusing. But look, it's the. It's the worst thing about Donald Trump, you know, it's just the worst quality about him. It was true in his first four years, and it's true this term, too. The absolute worst thing about him is that he is just terrible on the issue of Israel and Palestine. And then that, of course, undercuts everything else that could be good about the Trump administration. And that is you just. You just can't be America first while being more loyal to a foreign country than to your own. And it's never, I mean, it's never been so blatant as it is right now. You know, coming off the last 25 years of terror wars on behalf of Israel, every last one of them being a disaster. Every last one of them we were sold based off lies. Every one of them, you know, none of. None can even defend them at this point. I remember when my, My good friend you guys have had on the show, Scott Horton debated Bill Kristol, and he goes, when was the last war? Or someone in the crowd asked, what was the last war you could justify? And I think. I can't remember. I think you start talking about the Balkans or something like that. Like, even Bill Kristol can't pretend to justify one of these interventions over the last 25 years. And now, right now, we're flirting. We're. We're killing people in the poorest country in the Middle east, in Yemen. We're flirting with a. With a war with Iran. And it is so obvious that this is. Neither of these countries are any threat to us. No one's even pretending. There isn't even, like, the Al Qaeda argument. They don't even have, like, the. Saddam Hussein was in on 9, 11, and he's got nukes and he's going to pass them off to al Qaeda. No one's even presenting an argument that this could be a risk to the United States of America. It's just simply like, oh, well, people are upset about what Israel's doing, so we're going to go bomb them. Every morning brings a fresh new energy. This is Today, and no matter what.

Krystal Ball (18:00)

The we come to the Today show for all of it.

Sagar Enjeti (18:03)

When things are tough, we talk about it. When there's something to figure out, we dig into it. And when there's joy, we celebrate it.

Krystal Ball (18:11)

Because today is where it's all happening. We get the best start to every morning because we start it together.

Sagar Enjeti (18:18)

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Sagar Enjeti (19:44)

That's JLo Beauty.com Deluxe to get that JLO glow.

Krystal Ball (19:49)

That's obviously all horrendous. You also have now a mass crackdown on dissent at home. Trump obviously positioned himself as some free speech champion in the campaign. And you know the way that the tools of the state have been used against student protesters, have been used against universities to force the expulsion of certain professors, certain students who engaged in wrong. Think we can put the latest images up on the screen here of a Columbia student who has gone out? This is D1 guys, that we can put up on the screen. This is a Columbia student who they arrested during a visit to the immigration office in Vermont. He's a Palestinian. His name is Mohsin Madawi. There's a picture of him. And, you know, they throw around these words like, oh, they're supporting terrorists, or they're terrorist alliance, et cetera. I just want people to take a listen to this individual and the way that he personally spoke when he was interviewed by 60 Minutes about October 7th about Jewish people. Just take a listen to the way that he spoke and the way that they are demonizing student protesters such as himself. Listen to this.

Sagar Enjeti (21:02)

What was your initial reaction when you.

Dave Smith (21:04)

Heard about the Hamas attack on October 7?

Sagar Enjeti (21:09)

I could not believe what my eyes were seeing, where I see Hamas members getting into settlements and so on. But also the first moment I saw that, I put my hand on my heart and I started praying, knowing that there will be a huge level of revenge from the Israelis. And I was praying that this will not be the result because it would be disastrous.

Krystal Ball (21:42)

The.

Sagar Enjeti (21:43)

The night of the rally, I believe someone in the crowd said something very anti Jewish.

Dave Smith (21:51)

Not just anti Israeli, but anti Jewish.

Sagar Enjeti (21:53)

Yes. This was a walkout on November 9, and a person who's not affiliated with Colombia, we've never seen him. We don't know who is. This guy comes down the stairs yelling, death to Jews. I was shocked. And I walked directly to the person, and they told him, you don't represent us because this is not something that we agree with. And directly what I've done, I took the megaphone and they gave a speech, and they said, we here are conscious, educated students, and we know how to separate right from wrong. And what this guy has said is wrong. What this guy has said is clearly anti Semitic against Jews.

Dave Smith (22:54)

Anti Semitic.

Sagar Enjeti (22:55)

To be anti Semitic is unjust. Is unjust. And the fight for the freedom of Palestine and the fight against anti Semitism go hand in hand because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Krystal Ball (23:14)

So this is someone who they're saying is undermining their foreign policy because of his raging anti Semitism. We also know the State Department had actually internally put out a memo about one of the other, the young woman who was disappeared. We also the video of these masked officers, five or six of them, coming and taking her because she wrote a student newspaper up. Ed, I mean, what do you make of this direction and what it means not just for these students, but Dave, for all of us?

Dave Smith (23:42)

Yeah.

Sagar Enjeti (23:42)

No, that guy sounds like a terrorist to me. Right. I mean, it's all just so ridiculous. And I have not seen that before. And that was, like, exactly what you'd want someone to say. I don't know. Sounded perfect to me. I think it's, you know, okay, I'm not, like, trying to, like, you know, go down a conspiracy rabbit hole or something like this. Like, I don't know. I'm just speculating. But I do know, as we all know, I mean, there were so many attempts made in Donald Trump's first term to undermine him, like, by his own government framing him as a Russian spy, for God's sakes. And it does just seem to me that it.

Krystal Ball (24:21)

It.

Sagar Enjeti (24:22)

If you wanted to undermine mass deportations, like, if you want, you couldn't go about it in a better way than what the Trump administration is doing. By the way. Mass deportations are not happening. Yes, but if you, you know, like, if you're. Let's say you're an immigration restrictionist, which I am, and you. You think that Biden's, you know, immigration policy was, like, suicidal and insane, and you were like, you finally won the day. You know, it is unbelievable how far to the right the American population has. Has been moved under the Joe Biden administration. I mean, mass. Super. Majorities of the American people support mass deportations. Donald Trump, it is his signature issue. He won every swing state and won the popular vote. You've won the day. And so then you're like, okay, well, how do we go about doing it? Because obviously this is a very tricky thing that you want to get, right? So let's wade into the most controversial issue and start deporting legal residents for having the wrong opinion on an issue where the majority of Americans are with. I mean, this. It's insane. And so that's just from. From the perspective of even being pro mass deportation, but just then from the perspective of just being a human being, I mean, it's like, okay, yeah, if people entered your country illegally, they don't have a right to be here. There probably should be some type of order of, you know, operation and some hierarchy of who should go first. And, you know, we probably all agree with, like, violent criminals and gang members and things like that. But, you know, to do it with, because someone is like an eloquent defender of one side of a conflict is just, I don't know, it's horrific. It's also, it, you know, an incredibly scary president to. To set, you know, this idea that we can label you a terrorist. You know, it's one. Because this is the game that they Always play. It's like, oh, well, it's only if you're a pro terrorist group or if you hate Jewish people or something like that. And just like with all speech regulations, it's like, fine, but who gets to decide that? Because I don't know. I mean, there certainly are a lot of people out there who hate Jewish people. And there certainly are a lot of people out there who. Maybe less people, but there are some people out there who defend Hamas. But I get accused of that every single day and I've never done either. So like, who gets to determine this? And it does seem to me just like more of a continuation of kind of the worst of the post 911 tradition in America where we just get to label something terrorism and then that shuts off the Bill of Rights or that shuts off critical thinking. It's just, man, it's terrible. It's just so terrible.

Krystal Ball (27:07)

I mean, just to address your. What you're floating, that feels like almost directly undermining the other things that he ran on, that a more sort of rigorous and law abiding, constitutionally compliant deportation process. But he did run on. He said multiple times he was using Palestinian as a slur. He said multiple times he wanted to deport pro Palestine protesters, that he wanted to kick them out of the country. We covered Bukele being here and the Alien Enemies act and how they shipped. 90% of the people that they sent to this notorious prison in El Salvador had no criminal records whatsoever. He ran on the Alien Enemies Act. So what would you say to people such as myself, as others to say he did say he was gonna do this stuff and he is very proud about doing it too. There's no, like, oh, this person screwed up. Now he's out there owning it, saying, hey, the US citizens, they're going to Bukele next.

Sagar Enjeti (28:08)

Yeah, I mean, I'd say you're right. I don't know. You know, I don't really have a counter to that. I mean, the thing about Donald Trump is that he's always on every side of every issue and so you just never really know what he's get. Right? It's always like, end the wars in America first and bomb the crap out of them and go after their families. And I mean, he's always just so you never, you kind of never know with Donald Trump. Like, like what is he really thinking or what is he just floating out? No, listen, it was obviously he's terrible on Israel and that was clear throughout the campaign. I think that for many people like Myself, the calculation was essentially that unfortunately we were caught in a binary and it was going to be Kamala Harris or Donald Trump and she was going to be just as awful on Israel. Now she may not have gone as far as some of this stuff that we're talking about, but in the big picture there wasn't like a true anti war choice. There wasn't a real non interventionist and you know, I'd say there, from my perspective at least, there were, there were a lot of cultural benefits, I believe that came from Donald Trump winning. I also just thought the Democrats had to lose this one. It's just too crazy. I mean, I don't know, it's just they're, they're, the policy in Ukraine I view as the most reckless foreign policy in the history of the United States of America. I really think nothing is a close second to this. The idea of like flirting with a proxy war of choice on the border of the most nuclear armed country in the world, I mean, it's just absolutely, throughout the entire height of the Cold War, there was never a policy as crazy. Like we always, you know, we fight a war in Vietnam or something, but there's a whole China in between, you know, Russia and, and Vietnam that to fight on their border is just insane. They funded this, this catastrophe in, in Israel throughout the, you know, the whole last year of their term and they had a brain dead senile president and lied to the American people. So it was just like I felt like they needed to lose. But yeah, I can't defend any of this stuff. And you're right and Trump did, did talk about it during the campaign and it is so let's hope it doesn't get much worse.

Dave Smith (30:19)

I'll tell you this, Dave, you're an honest guy and you can't say that for most people. And so I appreciate you. I always look to you, man, and thank you for coming on the show.

Sagar Enjeti (30:28)

Well, thank you so much. I really do appreciate that. And as I've told you guys, publicly and privately, I love Breaking Points. I watch it every day and I think you guys are doing an amazing thing with this show. So thank you very much.

Dave Smith (30:38)

We appreciate it.

Krystal Ball (30:38)

Thanks Dave. Good to see you.

Dave Smith (30:39)

We'll see you later.

Sagar Enjeti (30:40)

You too. Every morning brings a fresh new energy. This is today. And no matter what this, we come.

Krystal Ball (30:49)

To the Today show for all of it.

Sagar Enjeti (30:51)

When things are tough, we talk about it. When there's something to figure out, we dig into it. And when there's joy, we celebrate it.

Krystal Ball (30:59)

Because today is where it's all happening. We get the best start to every morning because we start it together.

Sagar Enjeti (31:06)

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Prolonlife.Com iheart Crystal, what are you taking a look at?

Krystal Ball (32:24)

Without a doubt, the biggest Liberation Day breakout media star has been Free Press columnist and self described MAGA lefty Bhatia Ungar Sargan. Whether the tariffs are on or off or reciprocal or with exemptions or no exemptions, Bhatia has dutifully defended Trump's trade war tactics to Piers Morgan, Bill Maher, CNN and is of course a regular for the North Korea level propagand over at Fox News. No matter the current state of the tariff roller coaster and Bacha's telling they are all part of Trump's glorious revolution against the elites in favor of the working class. Let's take a listen when somebody has the courage to show up and say.

Dave Smith (32:59)

To Wall street, screw you.

Krystal Ball (33:03)

I am waging class warfare on behalf of the American working class. And you elites in Wall street, you do what you need to do because I'm not gonna stop fighting for the American working class. Suddenly everybody is sitting around going no, the stock market.

Sagar Enjeti (33:18)

Yeah, the stock market looks like that.

Krystal Ball (33:20)

Because the rich are punishing Trump for siding with the neglected and humiliated American working class over them. So she is correct that Trump's tariffs are class warfare. She just gets the direction completely wrong. In fact, Liberation Day is direct class warfare against the working class in favor of Trump aligned oligarchs. This should be no surprise. Of course, Trump is himself a billionaire. His administration is stocked with over a dozen billionaires. The nation's billionaire class has made a great show of aligning and pledging fealty to him. And his entire economic project, of which tariffs are a key part, has revolved around catering to the rich. Trump has all but ended white collar enforcement. He's gutting the IRS so they cannot audit the rich sufficiently. He's engaged in a massive regulatory rollback so that big business can act with impunity. He is cutting the social safety net while handing out a giant tax cut to the rich and is destroying the last remaining remnants of labor power. As just one but very telling example, how do you square Trump's supposed war on Wall street with the fact that on the day he rolled back some of the global tariffs, he hosted billionaire Charles Schwab at the White House and then bragged about how Schwab had been able to make $2.5 billion in the markets that day alone. This is Charles Schwab.

Sagar Enjeti (34:44)

It's not just a company, it's actually an individual.

Krystal Ball (34:48)

He made two and a half billion.

Sagar Enjeti (34:49)

Today and he made 900 million.

Krystal Ball (34:53)

Now that is about as close to an admission of insider trading as you could possibly get. While Main Street's 401ks were puking and retail investors were getting clobbered, a group of billionaires at the White House just happened to be positioned to cash in on the massive Trump triggered rebound. That should be enough to convince you that Trump's primary ideological motivation is to accrue wealth and power for himself and for his ring of aligned oligarchs. But there is so much more. Here is the definitive proof that Trump's tariffs are class war against the 99%, the likes of which we have perhaps never seen before. All right, number one, massive corporations are being liberated from Trump's tariffs while the little guys are getting screwed. Stocks were up yesterday after the Trump administration announced significant exemptions to their 145% China tariffs that would be particularly beneficial to so called Magnificent Seven companies like Apple and Nvidia. This is of course no accident. Nvidia's CEO recently paid at least a million dollars in order to attend a Trump Super PAC dinner where he was presumably able to have an audience directly with the President. Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a million dollars to the Trump inauguration and has been quietly courting Trump for years with his shitcoin development properties around the world. Blatant political favor selling. Through these super PAC dinners, Trump has created an industrial scale bribery factory where anyone with the cash can lobby the king for a favor. The fear of this exact dynamic, by the way, is precisely why the power to raise revenue was left to Congress in the Constitution. But while the big guys get the world, the small and medium sized business owners, they are getting the shaft. Meet Beth, an Iraq war veteran and the founder and CEO of Busy Baby.

Dave Smith (36:40)

A problem solver by nature.

Krystal Ball (36:41)

I decided to create something to keep our kids entertained and to save our backs and sanity. Parents, keeping your babies busy just got a whole lot easier because of the Busy Baby, Matt. So Beth was living the small business dream story. After that Shark Tank appearance, our sales skyrocketed. She was expanding Walmart and Target came knocking. She was even honored by Trump's Small Business Administration as Minnesota's Small Business Person of the Year. But now, thanks to the 145% China tariffs, all of it, the business, the dream, even her house, which she had leveraged to finance her expansion into Walmart, all of it is on the line. She recently spoke to the Daily about how for her business, the tariffs mean certain death. I cannot bring this product into the US Now.

Dave Smith (37:31)

I don't have that kind of money.

Krystal Ball (37:33)

And what that means then is if I can't bring in that product and I run out of what's in my warehouse now, then I no longer have.

Dave Smith (37:40)

Revenue coming into my business.

Krystal Ball (37:41)

And what that means is I can no longer pay my employees, I can no longer pay my loans, loans to which my house is leveraged against. And in about six months, I could very, very possibly lose my home. Now, I want you to understand, Beth had actually planned for some level of tariff. She was ready for that. But right now, she's got a shipment in China of roughly $150,000 worth of product. It would now cost 229,000 to bring that product to the U.S. she doesn't have that cash. She sure as hell doesn't have the cash to spend a million dollars to plead her case directly to Trump. Here's the thing. I'm not in a face off with the administration because I'm not a player in the game.

Sagar Enjeti (38:24)

I'm a pawn.

Krystal Ball (38:25)

There's literally nothing I can do. And I was coming up with strategies, but then any strategy I came up with, I'm afraid to execute it because the policy changes every 24 to 36 hours. Now, this is no small bump in the road for Beth. At one point, the interview actually turned extremely dark.

Sagar Enjeti (38:41)

I'm not okay. I'm scared for my friends. I'm scared for myself. Like, they don't understand. This is certain death for us.

Krystal Ball (38:50)

It is certain death for so many of my friends. And myself.

Sagar Enjeti (38:55)

Not in the literal sense of. Actually, no, I'm not even going to.

Krystal Ball (38:59)

Say not in the literal sense, because the very first thought that came to me when he announced the 104% tariff was at least I have. At least I have life insurance so that there's a way my family can still have a home. Now, Beth says she's got a big support network and she's going to make it through. But she worries how many small business owners out there like her are facing similarly dire circumstances and are not going to be okay. So big business, they get Mar a Lago dinners, they get special car Vance, they get their rebounding stock prices. Mom and pop companies get effectively a business death penalty. But that is only one aspect of this class war. Number two, let's talk about those armies of millions screwing in little, little screws.

Sagar Enjeti (39:42)

Great American workers.

Krystal Ball (39:43)

You know, we are placed on other.

Sagar Enjeti (39:45)

Networks of millions of people. Well, remember the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones. That kind of thing is going to come to America. It's going to be automated and great Americans, the tradecraft of America, is going to fix them.

Krystal Ball (40:03)

So one of the many justifications of Trump's tariff policy, and the one that has, I think, the most popular emotional resonance, is that it's going to restore American manufacturing might. There are some aspects of that stated goal that I am personally sympathetic to. The first thing that you should know about this alleged goal, though, is that it's not happening. You'd have to be insane to willingly invest in US Manufacturing given the wild daily shifts in policy. In fact, Trump's policy incentivizes offshoring and avoiding US Markets altogether. But let's assume Trump is able to strong arm some companies into building some new factories. What is that actually going to look like? There is nothing inherently good about factory jobs. In fact, the early days of U.S. industrialization were a horror show of child labor, low wages, miserable living conditions, company towns and deadly accidents. Go read the Jungle by Upton Sinclair or the History of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire for a refresher on how workers were treated at that time. It is instructive to reflect on the fact that Trump is not calling for a return to 1950s style industrialization. When Progressive Era reforms, high union density and an expanding social safety net meant that dad could work in the factory and support a family. Instead, Trump is inspired by the Gilded age President William McKinley. He models his administration. He said this repeatedly after a time when American workers, many newly arrived immigrants Crowded into ghettos and worked in sweatshops as robber Barron's commanded ever greater portions of the economy. Instead of restoring 1950s working class stability, he wants American workers to be pushed into the global race to the bottom. That goes hand in glove with the Doge efforts to destroy government's ability to regulate business and Trump's onslaught against unions. In fact, the US Already does produce more than every country on earth except China. But due to automation, that production no longer requires nearly as many workers. And thanks to attacks on unions, those jobs are not nearly as good as they once were. As Matt Brunig points out, McDonald's workers in Denmark, they actually make more than Honda workers in Alabama. Bottom line, Trump wants to bring back the sweatshops of the early industrial revolution, not the union backed middle class jobs of your grandparents era. The work would be low paying, difficult and lacking in labor protections. Not to mention that we're talking about far fewer jobs anyway, since robots would be the ones enlisted to screw in those little little screws. Now, a third element of Trump's tariff fueled class war is his desire to shift funding the government away from the income tax and towards the tariff. To me, the most beautiful word, and I've said this for the last couple of weeks in the dictionary today, and any is the word tariff. It's more beautiful than love, it's more beautiful than anything. It's the most beautiful word. This country can become rich with the use, the proper use of tariffs. It'll keep.

Sagar Enjeti (42:53)

Did you just float out the idea of getting rid of income taxes and.

Dave Smith (42:57)

Replacing it with tariffs?

Krystal Ball (42:59)

Well, okay.

Dave Smith (42:59)

Were we serious about that?

Krystal Ball (43:00)

Yeah, sure, but why not? Trump, of course, likes to pretend that those tariffs will be paid by foreign countries. That's just not true. Just remember again, our small business owner Beth, she had to abandon her shipment of goods in China because she can't afford to pay herself the tariff. Now, if she could afford to front the tariff, she would then instead have to pass a significant amount, if not all, the cost of the tariff on to consumers, pushing her $30 busy baby mat up to, let's say $50. So in practice, tariffs are a consumption tax. And since working class people spend a far greater percent of their income on goods than the rich dollar, the tax is directly regressive, hurting the poorest people the most and leaving the rich largely unscathed. A Yale budget lab analysis found the average American would face $3,800 in increased costs from the April 2 tariffs, with the impact falling hardest on the lowest end of the income scale. And at the same time, Trump is of course planning a massive multi trillion dollar tax cut for the rich. Large cuts of Medicaid, Social Security is being destroyed and rich tax cheats are going to be able to more easily avoid income taxes thanks to a gutted irs. In practice, this means that the working class is going to increasingly be forced to shoulder the burden of funding the government and frankly, their own oppression as the budget tilts away from social spending and towards the police state. After all, Trump, the Republicans new budget calls for a mass expansion of the military. A record breaking $1 trillion Pentagon budget also calls for a dramatic increase in funding for ICE and to dole out for private prison contractors to create mass detention centers. As we covered earlier yesterday, or sorry, as we covered earlier yesterday, Trump told El Salvador's President Bukele that next he wanted to send, quote, homegrowns to rot in the seacot torture dungeon. It has never been more clear that what begins with immigrants will rapidly expand to American citizens in an effort to silence and intimidate dissenters. I doubt, however, that that effort to quash all dissent is going to succeed because already the American people are not buying what Trump and Batia are selling. People can see what is being done to them to enrich Trump and his oligarchs, which is why Trump's economic approval and overall approval are plummeting. CBS has a new poll out which asked Americans who will benefit from Trump's trade and tariff policies. 74% say the wealthy, 71% say large corporations. Only 42% say the working class, and only 39% say small business. What's more, only 21% of Americans, overwhelmingly Republican partisans, say that Trump's policies are making them personally better off. As the economy worsens, Trump's popularity, it's going to continue to fall and he's going to reach for more and more tools of repression in order to maintain his power. You simply cannot do this to people without expecting a backlash. And if you are an authoritarian, the response to a backlash is not to back off, it is to crack down. And on that, I'm going to end this particular monologue, but I'm going to have more on that note later this week. And Sagra, this is a crazy making.

Dave Smith (45:54)

And if you want to hear my reaction to Krystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber. Today at breaking point.

Krystal Ball (46:03)

Every morning brings a fresh new energy.

Sagar Enjeti (46:06)

This is today. And no matter what the day holds, we come to the Today show.

Krystal Ball (46:10)

For all of it.

Sagar Enjeti (46:11)

When things are tough, we talk about it. When there's something to figure out, we dig into it. And when there's joy, we celebrate it.

Krystal Ball (46:20)

Because today is where it's all happening. We get the best start to every morning because we start it together.

Sagar Enjeti (46:26)

Watch the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin, weekdays at 7am on NBC @ Ameca Insurance, we know it's more than just a car or a house. It's the four wheels that get you where you're going and the four walls that welcome you home. When you combine auto and home insurance with Amica, we'll help protect it often. And the more you cover, the more you can save. Amica empathy is our best policy.

Krystal Ball (47:02)

Get this Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes, us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives, but are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight, you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treat start prioritizing their financial education and future today with a risk free trial@greenlight.com iheart greenlight.com iheart I don't.

Dave Smith (47:35)

Usually do personal segments here on breaking points, but I guess this one qualifies. My wife and I are having a baby. Due date is basically anytime in the next few weeks. So first, I hope you can all forgive me. I've been unexpectedly absent or less engaged than I may have been in the last several months, navigating doctor's appointments, illness, and the general chaos of an irrevocable change to your entire life. If you see me disappear unexpectedly sometime in the next few weeks, you'll know why. And while I'll be off for a little while, rest assured I'll be back. And the team here is well prepared. So what I thought I would do is reflect on a few lessons that I have learned throughout the process so far and point people in the direction of some great books that I've read in the last nine months that you may also enjoy if you find yourself in a similar position. There is an absolute ocean of bullshit I've discovered out there whenever it comes to pregnancy, from what foods that women are not supposed to eat, and whether you're supposed to drink coffee or not, and exercise and everything else. If you just absorb knowledge through pop culture like I did, you're forgiven. But in my opinion, it is much more useful to actually investigate claims behind these societal expectations and see which ones actually hold up under scrutiny. For this, there is A rightfully famous book I cannot recommend enough. It's called Expecting why the conventional pregnancy wisdom is wrong and what you really need to by Professor Emily Oster. Emily Oster is an economist who actually used hard data sets to investigate the claims of societal myths and doctor's recommendations behind everything. Like whether you can eat sushi while pregnant, what type of exercise you're allowed to do, how much if any alcohol or caffeine is actually safe, and much, much more. The book is unbelievably useful because it opened my eyes both to the absolute relative risk or lack thereof of certain behaviors the society or the medical system says that there is risk of of, but also showed me really how public health guidelines and societal norms are set broadly. And I am painting obviously with a big brush. Public health guidance is written for the lowest common denominator in the United States. For example, sushi. Sushi has a relatively higher risk of making people sick. Therefore, because there is a proportion higher risk of getting sick from sushi. Absolutely. Because of the existence of things like gas station sushi, they have a recommendation don't eat it at all. Or you could just say wait, hey, don't get it from a gas station. Exercise the same level of judgment a normal person would when they go to a steakhouse and order a rare steak or beef tartare. Yes, absolutely. Of course your risk of getting sick is higher, but we can recognize restaurant reputation, sourcing and other things obviously matter. You can do a simple Google search and see whether pregnant women in Japan still eat sushi and what their birth outcomes are. It will shock you to learn they are perfectly healthy. The same example and the same safetiest philosophy behind the guidance from the medical establishment pervades basically everything pregnancy and birth related. You again will be forgiven for not knowing any of this and that is why I am urging any expectant parent read these books and her follow up crib sheet. Furthermore, if you are able, one of these flagship statistics from Oster's book is this recommendation to hire a doula for better birth outcomes and for fewer C sections. My wife and I have found having a doula to be incredibly helpful in helping understand exactly what we face and to have actual informed consent when and if the time comes to participate in any medical intervention. I want to underscore if you do not do your own research or speak with people deeply familiar with the process, you will be at their mercy of the medical system. And I do not think that the doctors themselves are actively trying to harm anyone. But it is obvious from the USC Section rate and US maternal outcomes. The system that we are forced to participate in does not line up with the ideal. Broadly, this brings me to philosophy. In the United States, everything is about individualism. What type of health insurance you have, whether you can afford something or not, how much leave can you take, what childcare to pursue. It's all up to you. And there's no true authority on what is best or not. This is not bad per se, it has a lot of strengths. But this process and reading different books has really made me appreciate other countries attitudes and customs. For example, in the United States Today only about 60% of women are covered by the Family and Medical Leave act for an average amount of leave of 11 weeks. That is of course if you are lucky. And to most people it sounds reasonable. That is honestly, until I saw what an actual physical 11 week old baby looks like. It's a barely functional tiny human being handing it off to a daycare center or stranger. It seems so difficult for me and I'm not even there yet. This does not even contend with the run of the mill medical trauma that any mother will go through while giving birth. In the United States, postpartum women are expected to attend doctor's appointments in the days after birth. And paternity leave is a luxury roughly available to 20% of US males. By reading books such as the First 40 Days, I learned this is not normal in the rest of the world. A major departure from more civilized societies and how they care for women. In China and in Japan there's a societal custom known as a confinement period where women basically don't even leave the house for 40 days. Traditionally they are surrounded by other women who can cook and clean and take care of every basic need that they have. The regimen is incredibly strict and important for recovery. It is more modern versions that include government sponsored programs that include home help recovery sites for these women where the notion that someone would be able to be responsible for feeding an infant and doing household tasks in their culture, that's insane. In the US this is basically the norm unless you have a family member or you can help, are well off enough to have hired help. Even then the expectation is vastly different. Millions are expected literally back at work after mere weeks of giving birth. Very little societal understanding or support. Broadly, this reflects my more Asian collectivist mindset to how I think people should be treated after giving birth. But a book that showed me how this can still work in a more western context is a very popular one from a few years back. It's called Bringing Up BEI BAE One American mother discovers the wisdom of French Parenting and as loathe as I will be to praise Europeans, it is undeniable after reading this that a Western society that can encourage women to be able to pursue careers without Asian collectivist values can absolutely work. The caveat is you need decades long cultural buy in as to the standards of what such state sponsored childcare institutions should look like, and you need to surrender to standards that are about 10 times higher than the United States. It's unbelievable reading this the level of care and attention that the French government puts not only onto discipline in childcare centers, but ensuring proper nutrition from a very early age. Their system works because of decades of proven state capacity and its availability to anyone, rich or poor. Costs are variable for the same service based upon your income. I can easily see how it would not work here with so much societal division, but it is something to aspire to, especially compared to the ad hoc and individual fend for yourself system that we have here in America so broadly. These are the reflections that have been on my mind. It is a weird sensation. I'm patriotic, I'm an American. Baseline assumption was yeah, we're the best country in the world, but honestly, you have to wonder if that's truly true when you're starting a family. It is certainly is a good place to make money to pursue individual interests or liberty buy consumer goods. But I can't help but looking around at skyrocketing costs, distrust in the most basic levels of systems, and see how these women are just left to fend for themselves and think that we really need to change things up if we want more people in this country to have kids. Finally, for fun and letting my mind wander, I read a bunch of different books that won't apply for many years. You may find them useful if you're at this age. How to Raise Kids who Aren't Assholes, the Anxious generation, the self driven child, and even throwbacks like Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. All of those books have parts that I do not agree with necessarily, but they'll plant interesting seeds of things that I may or may not do as a parent. So anyways, I hope everyone can wish me luck. Luckily I'm not doing any of the hard work. My wife is. I'm sitting. I'm here to support her. And meanwhile, the true horror that I cannot stop thinking about is how I will not get a good night's sleep again for a long time and my cherished days of the 8pm bedtime are finally over. Sad.

Krystal Ball (55:30)

Kiss them Goodbye Sagar. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today@breakingpoints.com thank you guys so much for watching.

Dave Smith (55:39)

We appreciate it. We're about to take the AMA now let's get to it.

Sagar Enjeti (55:53)

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Dave Smith (56:53)

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