← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
4/17/25: US Dollar Weakens, Trump Rages At China, Judge Threatens Contempt, Elon DOGE Fail & MORE!
01:55:57
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- [00:01]
Krystal Ball
Every morning brings a fresh new energy.
- [00:04]
Sagar Enjeti
And no matter what the day holds.
- [00:06]
Krystal Ball
We come to the Today show for all of it.
- [00:08]
Sagar Enjeti
We get the best start to the.
- [00:09]
Richard Hanania
Day because we started together.
- [00:11]
Sagar Enjeti
Watch the Today show weekdays at 7am on NBC. At Walden University, we get the W. We're not here to have our hands held, we're here to lend ours because we want to create positive change on the world around us and Walden University teaches us the skills to make it happen on our time. Now it's your time. Learn the skills. Make an impact. Get the W. Walden University set a course for change. Visit waldenu.edu to learn more. Certified to operate by Chef the championship is back in the bay for the first time in 40 years.
- [00:51]
Steve Kerr
On the new limited podcast series Dub Dynasty, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how Steph Curry almost never even joined the Warriors.
- [01:00]
Richard Hanania
In fact, I thought we had a draft d to end up getting him.
- [01:04]
Steve Kerr
To Phoenix for the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run. Listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:18]
Sagar Enjeti
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:20]
Krystal Ball
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
- [01:27]
Sagar Enjeti
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist and anywhere else.
- [01:33]
Krystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breaking points.com Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [01:44]
Sagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have? Crystal?
- [01:57]
Krystal Ball
Indeed we do. A lot going on. We're taking a look at the markets Fed chair J. Pal speaking yesterday and Mark is not too happy about what he had to say. President Trump not too happy about what he had to say. So we'll get into that. We also have the very latest on China's moves and taking a look which is appropriate giving given Sager being the expectant father over here at the way this is all going to impact new parents. Those strollers are about to become wildly more expensive than they already are. We've got Richard Hanania on the show. We're going to talk to him about the very latest with Kilmar Abrego Garcia. We had more movement on the judicial front. We also want to talk to him about why he has turned on Trump, voted for Trump. He has come out publicly and said he regrets that. So we want to get into the way that he is thinking about all of that. We've also got myriad of Elon updates for you. Big Wall Street Journal expose into his like breeding Legion cult, whatever you want to call it, it's very strange. So break that down for you. I might actually ask Richard about that Cause I'm kind of curious his take on all of that. But in addition, we've been wanting to cover the fact, look, Doge has been very successful at a lot of destruction. Social Security is completely hobbled. All sorts of agencies unable to do their work. Even like the collecting of the tariffs guys were Doge and so they couldn't figure out the customs duties as things were coming in. So they've been successful at destroying things. But in terms of the advertised supposed goal of cutting government spending, total and complete failure. It's like blatantly obvious now there are no real public successes they can point to. So we wanted to take a look at Doge and what they've been up to. We also got some very significant and important breaking news yesterday. New York Times exposing that the Israelis were really pushing the Trump administration to help them with a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. And at the urging of a JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard and a few others within the administration, Suzy Wiles in particular as well, the Trump administration decided not to help them with that in favor of, at least for the time being, negotiations. So what does that mean? What's the broader picture? This also comes on the heels of a purge of some senior staff over at the Pentagon. So there's a lot to put together there. And I am taking a look at how we may be entering an even more dangerous phase of Trumpism 2.0 as his back is increasingly against the wall and his popularity fades. So I'll be looking at those pieces today.
- [04:21]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, we're excited for that. Thank you all to our premium subscribers. A lot of people signed up with our major announcement of five days. A more importantly, more Ryan and Emily here on the channel and more content for all of you, as well as exclusives, et cetera. So if you could help us out, breakingpoints.com, i also just to show you to the lengths that we go for our premium subscribers, you might recall that we have been complaining about the number of advertisements that were placed on our private YouTube link, which we send out to many of our premium subscribers to be able to watch the show ad free and uncut before that it drops for everybody else. We reached out to YouTube, shout out to our YouTube manager, Victor. He has now intervened and we have helped to keep the show ad free. So we can't promise 100%, but it should be dramatically less than normal for all of you who are out there. Of course, we're always thinking about you and your experience, don't forget though, is that there's not even a chance of being able to watch with ads if you're watching on locals or on Spotify. So you have many different options that you have there. So breakingpoints.com to be able to get access to our premium show ad free, uncut, et cetera, as well as support the channel. So with that, though, let's get to the tariffs and as you said, the market reaction. Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell making a number of comments that he will not bail out the stock market even though he believes that inflation and tariff impact on the economy remains very precarious. Let's take a listen. The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth. Despite heightened uncertainty and downside risks, the US Economy is still in a solid position. The labor market is at or near maximum employment. Inflation has come down a great deal, but is still running a bit above our 2% objective.
- [06:10]
Jerome Powell
Some people believe the Fed will intervene.
- [06:12]
Sagar Enjeti
If the stock market plummets. These are very fundamental changes in, you know, long held, in some cases, policies in the United States. And there's not any real experience. I mean, the Smoot Hawley tariffs were actually not this large and they were 95 years ago. So there isn't a modern experience of how to think about this. Not a lot of experience on how to think about this. But the most important answer was him saying, no, I'm not gonna bail out the stock market. Those comments were taken quite literally by the stock market. S&P 500 dropped about 2% yesterday. Futures as of this morning look relatively flat. So we can continue to see that. More importantly, though, is that Trump, it seems, has been betting heavily on the Federal Reserve actually cutting rates. And that is just not what the Federal Reserve chairman is saying as of this morning. As of this morning, as we also know, Donald Trump actually attacked the Federal Reserve, saying the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, that his, quote, termination cannot come soon enough. But because of the way that terms and appointments and all of that work. There's still a significant amount of period before any movement on that is even possible, as well as almost certainly some court challenges as they try to do some. There's complicated legal stuff going on, but they're trying to set the ground to be able to remove the Federal Reserve chairman if they want by challenging some long held scrutiny on that law, which could be interesting in and of itself.
- [07:28]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I think it relates to some of these, you know, they fired like, you know, nlrb, some of the cfpb, some of these agencies that are supposed to have independence, some distance from the executive's whims that's being challenged in court. So that could relate to what is going on here as well. But you know, I mean, from the perspective of the Fed chair, right, you are being put in a total bind here because on the one hand, yeah, the tariffs are very likely to slow growth. In fact, I think we already know the tariffs have slowed growth. You can see it in real time what's happening. So that would lend itself towards, okay, well, let's cut interest rates to try to get the economy moving. On the other hand, the tariffs are inflationary, so cutting the interest rates might help further fuel inflation. And so, you know, this potential stagflation bind really leaves the Fed in a very difficult place. And what Jerome Powell is saying is, hey, for now we're just holding where we are.
- [08:21]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, exactly. And so let's go ahead and put a 2 up on the screen because there's been major movement here in the United States in terms of how this trade war with China is positioning. We're gonna talk next about China and about some of the consumer environment where we're all likely to experience quite a bit of price hikes. But it is becoming clear now that Nvidia is the quote, biggest US China bargaining chip. I previously had flagged this story and this I wanted to come back.
- [08:46]
Krystal Ball
I see what you did.
- [08:47]
Sagar Enjeti
That I see, I wanted to come back to this is that previously Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, had PA about a million dollars to attend a Mar A Lago dinner. At that dinner, he apparently convinced either Trump or somebody around Trump not to put export licenses on those H20 chips that Nvidia had developed specifically to be liable with these export controls and be able to ship to China, approximately $5.5 billion market segment for Nvidia. Well, it came out overnight that as a result of the tariffs and despite some of the previous promises that they had made to Nvidia, the United States would be slapping export controls on those H20 chips now immediately. I just woke up to the news this morning, Crystal, that ginseng not here in the United States, he's in China. He actually has just met with the Chinese vice Premier and with the CEO of Deepseek, trying to assure them that they all still want to do business. But it does tell us where, you know, to the extent that we have any real leverage over China, it's not really about consumer imports and stuff that they necessarily need. And we're gonna talk a little bit about their consumer price, like the injections that they're putting in in terms of their support. A lot of this high tech manufacturing and design specifically is really where things are landing for what we are trying to do with them. The question is, of course, about buckling, about technology transfer and more. But the reason why it's important also for the pressure here in America is that it sent Nvidia shares sliding with the overall pressure right now on the consumer, the retail environment. So it really does show us that while we've had almost 60% reduction in overall US imports just in the last two weeks. Extraordinary, genuinely extraordinary. Nobody has any idea how that will even show up in the price environment. With the Federal Reserve chairman, the Nvidia strategy, the chaos and everything moving back and forth, you can just see that markets are very. They're very uncertain right now, which is part of what you see, so much of the wild volatility happening.
- [10:37]
Krystal Ball
Right. So just to give a little bit of background here, you guys may know some of this. So under the Biden administration, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, she said quite directly that the point of the export controls that the Biden administration put on the sort of like top shelf chips was to slow China's development, technological development, and perhaps it had some impact. But deep seat, part of what the deep SEQ innovation really proved is that they were in a lot of ways able to either directly circumvent or innovate around that particular export control. And again, that was for sort of the top shelf, like top of the line, most advanced chips. So Nvidia produced this H20 chip, which was meant, as Sagar mentioned, to get specifically around those export controls to be sort of like a lower grade, like, okay, well this is in the top shelf stuff. We can still sell this thing. And so that's why they were doing big business in China with regard to this particular chip. Now, China does have their own chip capacity, especially when you're talking about this level, not the highest of the Highest level chips, it's largely through Huawei. And are they exactly as good as the H20? You know, there's some indicators that they aren't quite as advanced as the H20 chips, but they do have some of their own domestic chip capacity. And also what we learned under the Biden administration is that this did not hobble them nearly as much as the Biden folks were hoping that it was ultimately going to hobble them. So in any case, you know, this was a big hit to Nvidia stock. Nvidia, one of those magnificent seven. Huge impact in terms of our overall stock market. So that was part, in addition to the Jay Powell comments, that was part of what has been going on in the markets.
- [12:17]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, exactly. So let's go ahead and then put the next one up on the screen so people can take a look. You can see the quote, the US and China trade fight is quote, slamming stocks, sending gold to record high. The gold market has been absolutely insane. It's like I've seen a price target there of almost $4,000, which is absolutely extraordinary. But the reason why that we're returning or starting off on this is just to show people that Nvidia, because remember, it makes up so much of the S&P 500 that if it's going to be a major bargaining chip in the Trump administration strategy, that if we're going to see stocks sink there on top of the overall global strategy that they're putting into place. Retail pressure just this morning, much of the pharmaceutical tariffs are shaking out in the markets as well as some other regulatory action. UnitedHealthcare stock down by like 11%. Yes, I know, funny like meme wise, but it's actually a huge segment of the overall markets. We have sector by sector decline in everything, which just makes it so that there is huge pressure on the US economy. If we do start to see mass layoffs in the next 90 days or so, as Ryan Peterson predicted, that will put a tremendous amount of pressure on all of these different in terms of the regulators, on the government and more. And the Chinese are absolutely buckling up. So we just wanna lay the groundwork for how things look over here in America. That's the Nvidia front.
- [13:38]
Richard Hanania
That's.
- [13:38]
Sagar Enjeti
There's also the dollar. This has been a major story as well. Let's put this up there on the screen. Quote, what the weak dollar means for the global economy. And this was not actually expected to see such a dramatic decline in the dollar relative to every other global currency. But what they point off here is that the, quote, unexpected weakening of the dollar is suddenly becoming the rest of the world's problem too. Because for foreign sellers, all of these goods, cars, cognacs, Scottish tweed, the dollar steep slide is a double whammy. It's compounding losses caused by President Trump's import levies. So the central banks around the world, they either need to stop the rapid strengthening of their currency, cut interest rates more aggressively to try and lower their overall target versus the dollar, but that will have major macroeconomic effects in their own countries. Also, of course, the dollar decline now means that currently has slipped 8% per year, which is the worst start to the year in the index's four decade trading history. Just to put into perspective how insane that is, there has been. It's not just lack of faith in the dollar, it's really about US government and trade. And then when imports are also being reduced, that will of course mean that when there's a weaker dollar, it's gonna drive up the price of how much we're able to buy and exchange globally. So this stuff has major ramifications for reserve currency purposes for whoever is still able to do business with importers. But then more importantly, it can cause a global shock effect on interest rates, where you could potentially see lower interest rates in other countries, while our sage in the Federal Reserve is like, oh, I'm going to bide my time, which also has cascading effects for our economy. None of this is good is really what I'm trying to say.
- [15:22]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. And it's emblematic of a broader trend.
- [15:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Wow, the ECB just cut rates. There you go. It's from the European Central bank, literally, just as we're speaking.
- [15:31]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, part of a broader shift away from the U.S. i mean, that's what when you see this, when you see the unusual market in terms of U.S. treasuries, U.S. and the dollar and Treasuries have always been the safe haven, no longer. And so now these sorts of market responses, with regard to our currency in particular, this is more like what you would expect from an emerging market, like these sorts of dynamics playing out. So you don't want to oversell it. The US is still a global power, maybe not the global power, but a global power. And the dollar is going to continue to be Central. We're not de$izing like today, but this shift away is probably the most significant thing that we have seen to happen. And that also plays into your mentioning the price of gold skyrocketing. So the implication is instead of the flight to safety being like US treasury bonds as it has traditionally been. Instead maybe it's things like gold.
- [16:29]
Sagar Enjeti
There you go. All of this is important. And let's get to the next part here. This is a 5 please. Just to show people about some things that are happening right now. Quote, nearly 900,000 fewer people went to the United States in March as the cross border travel continues to go down. One of the worst year over year drops recorded outside of the COVID 19 crisis. A lot of this is basically fear from a lot of incoming US visitors, but a lot of it is Canada actually and specifically over the trade war as retaliat retaliation for the initial trade comments by the Trump administration. The irony of course is that the vast majority of goods remain at the overall zero tariff rate under the usmca. But the initial shaking from the Trump administration and the 51st state language has made it so there's been a precipitous decline. We are entering into summer territory, traditionally a time where there's a lot of Canadian snowbirds who apparently like to come down to America and yeah, not good if you run a business in northern New York or Orlando, any of these other places. I remember looking at some of the top Canadian destinations in America. I think Seattle is also up there. There's a lot of jobs and economic activity that generally rely on this. And this just gets to my overall problem with the Trump administration is that they both force people to experience the consequences with none of the upsides. So if you're gonna have terrorists on the Canadians and say they're ripping us off, then we should of course see a major stimulus to the businesses which are supposedly getting ripped off as well as to make sure that there's no pain for the people who do rely on any of the after effects. None of that is happening. Of course it's happening in China, which I'll get to in a little bit, but we haven't seen that. You know, we're gonna talk about strollers, we're gonna talk about groceries and all of these other things. There's no like relief or PPP program that's currently being even floated by the administration and or by the Republican Congress which in six months will soon pass a bill. At that point you could have mass layoffs and bankruptcies. At that point, you know, if we're thinking about a September passage, good luck to a lot of summer tour operators or others. Sure. Are they the most critical part of the economy? No, but there's a lot of people pour their whole livelihood and all their business money into this and so that's my major problem, is even though we have the same tariff rate as we did the day that Donald Trump basically went into office, effectively for most of the goods that move across the Canadian border, he still has just invited this thing with Canada. And now all of these businesses are going to suffer the consequences and not get any bailout or anything.
- [18:57]
Krystal Ball
That's right, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, tourism is a significant part of the economy, especially if you're talking about gdp. Florida, you know, California. These are areas that rely heavily on tourism as a really important industry for their economies. And that 900,000 number, that's just with regard to Canadian border crossings. If you look at the number of flight bookings coming out of Europe, I mean, across the board, it's all dropped. And it certainly has to do significantly with the tariffs and the trade war. It also has to do with immigration policy because you have stories like there was a Canadian actress, Jasmine Mooney, who was held by Ice for 12 days while she was just trying to, like, renew her work visa. And there are other stories like that of people who are trying to come and just, like, visit as tourists or go speak at a lecture coming over from Europe who are being searched and detained. And people see those stories and, like, I think I'll go somewhere else on my vacation. I'm good. I don't really want to risk all of that. The EU has told their diplomats to bring a burner phone instead of their normal smartphone. These are the sorts of things that are going on. It's also not good for the tourism industry. And that's going to have another negative effect on the economy and impact businesses, certainly significantly. We talked yesterday, Emily and I, I think it was United Airlines. That's already. They've put out two separate guidance, like, you know, earnings guidance based on, like, we don't really know what's going to go on. And they are already cutting back flights for the summer. Yeah, they're already cutting back flights for the summer based on what we already know about the economic outlook. So not good.
- [20:31]
Sagar Enjeti
That is not good. It also is softening economic demand. You actually went back and was reading a little bit about the airline industry. 09 was brutal. 09 and 2010 were horrible years for the airline industry because of the overall fallout. They were throwing as many incentives as they possibly could, and especially if there's a major pullback, the top 10% of Americans are the people who spend the, I think, 50% on consumer spending. So even if they reduce their amount of spend there, the airlines are going to take a massive haircut because they were making all their money. They're not making money on economy. They were mostly making their money on this premium economy and business class seats which we're selling out. So if those people stop booking or even if they fly economy, oh my God, they're gonna be devastated in terms of their earnings. Last thing on this front before we move to China. Let's go to Asics, please. This is on Albertsons. This is very interesting from our friend David Dayen. Albertsons sent a letter to all of its suppliers saying, quote, it is not accepting cost increases due to tariffs, which means that the suppliers are gonna have to raise prices on Albertsons competitors that have less market power. David Dayen says, quote, this is one way that Trump's tariffs entrench monopolization. Interesting point, actually, I hadn't thought about. But what it does show you again is if you had a general policy, let's say here, about alleviating cost increases due to tariffs and making sure that there are government incentive programs and others to make sure that grocery prices across the board don't get propped up and that these suppliers don't necessarily have to go out of business, then you don't have to have Albertsons and all these other people gaming the system. It's actually a good example too, what we've talked about. Walmart and all these. Yeah, they're going to survive, okay? And frankly, those are the people who are most responsible for pushing for a lot of this free trade nonsense with China. Pntr. With China and a lot of these cheap consumer goods. But their market power is such that they'll make it. It's really, you know, as they pointed out here, the suppliers, they have the leverage over, let's say smaller grocery chains or other places, and that's probably rural, you know, other areas which are not able to bargain. So then you'll see a cost increase overall. And then what happens? They're going to go bankrupt and Albertson's going to buy them?
- [22:38]
Krystal Ball
No, that's exactly right. And the overall structure, especially with it being just directed by the singular person of Donald Trump, of course, makes it so the big guys are in a position to get their benefits, get their car, Vance, pay a million dollars, go to their Mar a Lago dinner or whatever so that they can ride out the storm. I talked the other day about this woman who has her baby, her busy baby mats. And so she just, Walmart just picked up her product for someone who's a producer making something to get it into Walmart that's the holy grail. But Walmart accepts, okay, we will take them at this price and that's it. She can't negotiate with them any further. That's done. So when you talk about now the tariff is, I don't know, it's like 200%. He just keeps increasing it. But at a certain point, at this point, it's like it doesn't matter what the tariff is. It's high enough that for someone like the busy baby lady, it's over. She can't bring in her products. But let's say that she was able to figure out the cash to get the tariff, to pay the tariff and get her product over here. She's the one 100% eating the cost, so earning a huge loss on this product that Walmart has agreed to buy at, I don't know, $25 or something like that. And now she's having to pay, let's say $50 just to get this thing over here. She is the one who's gonna get screwed. Walmart has all the power in the relationship and they don't care whether they have this mat in their store or not. They don't care if she goes under, they care less. So the small business, the media business, size businesses, they are going to be totally and completely screwed if this is not lifted immediately. I mean, we're talking, they have months to be able of Runway, to be able to make it through and ride out this storm and not much longer than that, just by the nature of these businesses.
- [24:25]
Sagar Enjeti
Unfortunately, that's very true. At Walden University, we get the W. We're not here to have our hands held, we're here to lend ours because we want to create positive change on the world around us. And Walden University teaches us the skills to make it happen on our time. Now it's your time. Learn the skills, make an impact. Get the W. Walden University set a course for change. Visit waldenu. Edu to learn more. Certified's operate by Chevy. The championship is back in the bay for the first time in 40 years.
- [25:04]
Steve Kerr
On the new limited podcast series Dub Dynasty, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how Steph Curry almost never even joined the Warriors.
- [25:13]
Richard Hanania
In fact, I thought we had a draft day deal to end up getting.
- [25:16]
Steve Kerr
Him to Phoenix for the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run. Listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:31]
Maya Shankar
Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of plans. I started this show because unexpected change comes for all of us, and there's no set playbook for how to deal with it.
- [25:43]
Amanda Knox
I have all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me, and the last thing I want to do is to pass that on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out. This is this puzzle of my trauma. I have to figure it out, and I have to figure it out now.
- [25:58]
Maya Shankar
Join me this season when I talk to Amanda Knox about her choice to reconnect with the prosecutor who helped put her behind bars.
- [26:06]
Amanda Knox
This is not about him. This is about me and what I am capable of giving. And I know that I am capable of being kind to this man. And by God, I am going to do it. And no one can stop me.
- [26:25]
Maya Shankar
Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [26:32]
Sagar Enjeti
Okay, let's move on to China. We're gonna break some of this down. It's have some fascinating stuff happening geopolitically. We'll start with Xi Jinping. As I mention in our last show, visiting Hanoi and Vietnam, we have some video showing this. Keep in mind it's released by Chinese state propaganda, but, you know, it's still important. It's still a real video. So let's take a look and we can put it up there on the screen, you can see Xi being, you know, all the communist flags waving as he is visiting the streets of Hanoi. This is important because Vietnam is our number eight trading partner. A key part of the pivot to Asia of the Obama administration. And actually subsequent, even with the Trump tariffs, was a basically finger wagging at Nike and numerous other retailers saying, listen, no China anymore. You have to manufacture elsewhere. They said, okay, we'll go to Vietnam. We gave them a lot of money to go to Vietnam. They built up supply chains. Now, I will be the first to admit that China absolutely took advantage of trans shipping via Vietnam and they, of course, you know, were trying to game the advantage, et cetera. But Vietnam was a critical U.S. trading partner. Like I said, number eight, very, very little behind Taiwan. That's how much I'm talking about their overall effect on the US Economy. On top of that, Vietnam, despite the fact that we destroyed half of their country, has very favorable attitudes to the United States. They have, remember, they have beef with China over the South China Sea and a few of the island chains. These are not necessarily countries with super close relations in the last 12 years or so. So to see that it's a Bit of a problem. And actually even Trump has paid attention to this. Put the next one, please, up on the screen. Quote, Trump grumbles about China's lovely meeting with Vietnam, saying they are discussing how to screw the United States of America. That's true. That's actually true because there's a reason that Xi went to Vietnam and Cambodia and is going to Malaysia next. These are all areas with critical US Trade relationships. A lot of US textiles move through that area. We are not seeing. It's not even just about good relations. Don't forget, Crystal, Vietnam was one of the first countries to say, okay, fine, no tariffs, zero. And then they got nothing. They still got a terrorist.
- [28:39]
Richard Hanania
Yeah.
- [28:39]
Krystal Ball
The Trump administration said that's not good enough.
- [28:41]
Sagar Enjeti
Obviously that's been a 90 day off. But, you know, they're not stupid. They need to make money. And so in the interim period, they're like, are we really gonna have a 90 day agreement? I mean, look at Japan. Japan, their economic minister flew here yesterday. They met with Scott Bessen, they met with Donald Trump. And Trump was like, yeah, there's been a great movement. There's nothing that's been announced. That's Japan.
- [29:04]
Jerome Powell
By the way.
- [29:05]
Sagar Enjeti
We have a very well architecture trade deal with Japan negotiated in 2019 with Shinzo Abe, if you want to update that. It's really not difficult. So if it's going to take this long just to do Japan, we have 70 other countries that we're supposed to do way more complex trading relationships than we do with anybody else. This is a G7 nation. It's very easy to actually hammer that out. They have good statistics, et cetera, rules. We can trust currency. These are all simple actually to hammer out in an agreement. What are you gonna do with all these other countries which you slapped all these huge tariffs on in the interim 90 days? Where do you think they're gonna go? They're going to China. Same with the European Union. They just negotiated all that tariff exclusion with some of the cars pumping the way for BYD and Xiaomi to have more market entrants over there. So there's big problems that we have right now.
- [29:48]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that's right. And I even saw Fox News grumbling about like, hey, we thought we were gonna get 90 deals in 90 days. We don't have one.
- [29:56]
Sagar Enjeti
Okay.
- [29:56]
Krystal Ball
I mean, we don't have one. Obvious, but I mean that Fox News is even incredible. And with regard to this, she didn't come away empty handed from this trip to Vietnam. They apparently signed 45 different agreements on issues like supply chains and railways. And it just underscores like for them, they have one big problem, trade war with us and the loss of our very large and wealthy market. Right. Our consumers are very powerful. We spend a lot of money. There's no doubt about that. That's a significant problem. They have the entire world that they can go to. They can use their own, you know, government programs to help subsidize and support their own industry. They of course have their own massive and burgeoning market. In fact, their exports as a percent of their GDP has been going down as their own domestic market has been increasingly powerful and they've been turning towards that. And our percent of their exports has also been going down. So yes, of course, we are incredibly important to China's economy. China is incredibly important to our economy. Decoupling this relationship is going to involve severe pain on both sides. But their problems are, number one, I think, more straightforward. They have fewer problems to solve because they didn't launch a trade war against the entire world like we did. And they are smarter, they have been more strategic over long periods of time than we have. And so I think our, even the Financial Times are saying they're set up in a much better position than we.
- [31:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Are at this point. I mean, what did I just say? Talk about in our A block about, oh, we gotta wait on Jerome Powell. There's no Jerome Powell in China. The CCP's like drop rates like, okay, got it. You know, same with the raising rates. Done. Now I'll show you guys, for example, already, you know, we're seeing major price increases hit here in the US. Go to B3, please. This is actually rocketing around. New parent group chats just like somebody like me. New UPPAbaby Prize. Now keep in mind, look, this is an expensive. So let's keep that in mind. That said, the price increase from expensive to ultra expensive is still not great. And this company has been done millions and millions of dollars in sales. Well, their flagship strollers are all increasing by hundreds of dollars as a result of these tariffs. And these are actually the first, I would say, like beloved product that I have seen on social media where organic consumers are sharing it and are really complaining. So you can see there are multiple hundred dollars increases that were there. They also sent out UPP email to all of their users saying, listen, we are absorbing as much of this tariff price as we possibly can, but there is just no way for us to be able to do business without raising a lot of these prices. And they're gonna go into effect Very, very soon. Our own friend Derek Thompson flagged this as well about how much of the child accessories are manufactured in China. It's like something like 90 something I have pulled up.
- [32:52]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. So he says. The business press has been good at reporting on China's global leader in smartphone electronics manufacturing. But consider also as a share of all US imports, China accounts for 99% of child safety seats, 96% of toys for pets, 95% of cooking appliances, 93% of coloring books for children, 88% of microwave ovens, 70 plus percent of toys intended for children under 12. Yes, American AI, electronic, smartphone and clean energy companies are not set up to thrive in a protected, protracted trade war. But ordinary parents of young kids will be among the hardest. So many of the things that new parents buy for their kids and have to buy, you know, your crib, your stroller, like the car seat, all of these things, these are, you know, must haves, these are not like luxuries. So much of that, not to mention the you know, toys and things you get for their Easter baskets and things that go under the Christmas tree. So much of that comes from China and it's already extremely expensive to be a new parent and all that that entails. So new parents with young families are going to be very hard hit.
- [33:56]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, I actually by the way did do some research and there is really no made in America stroller. Like there is like one off ones but you know, stuff breaks crystal. I'm sure you can tell us about that. And you need new parts. It's like so where are they going to come from? Oh shocker. Over 93%. Same with the. Luckily I bought all this stuff before these tariffs come into place. But if you're not so lucky, what are you going to do? The other thing is as I have discovered is there's a thriving secondhand market for a lot of these things like bassinets, strollers, car seats, et cetera. Well this is just going to do the same thing that it's done to the cars is that while yes, you could still buy used pre tariff goods. Well, what do you think supply and demand is going to show? You're going to see an increase in the used stuff. So you're actually going to have to pay more no matter if you're buying new and, or if you're buying used and it'll probably restrict the supply because of the overall number of imports which will only further skyrocket the amount of the prices here. And you know, all of this is allegedly, you know, for the benefit of the country, I would say, you know, my own bias. Otherwise, you probably want to make it easier for parents to be able to have children. The law, you know, I don't know if people know this. There's literally a law. You have to have a car seat to be able to leave the hospital.
- [35:01]
Krystal Ball
That's right.
- [35:02]
Sagar Enjeti
It has to be installed and you don't have a choice. Like.
- [35:05]
Krystal Ball
And don't get a used car seat.
- [35:06]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, right. That's another thing.
- [35:07]
Krystal Ball
Yes, Get a used stroller. Do all. Don't get a used car seat. You need to get a new car seat. 97% of baby strollers, by the way. I just looked it up, and that's what I'm saying.
- [35:15]
Sagar Enjeti
I actually tried to find one. I was like, hey, let's see if there's anything. Made in America stroller, made in America car seat. I mean, the best you can get are some of these that are designed in America. But that's not the same thing, you know, like Uppababy Doona or any of these other ones. But there's some Sweden, Swedish companies, as well as some German companies. But guess what, we also have tariffs on those countries. Right. And a lot of them are already more expensive. So, you know that, you know, it's like, don't screw with moms. That's one of those where there's a lot of moms out there, a lot of Facebook group, Instagram and more, where I actually guarantee that that will probably reach more and have more political impact than a lot of the other stuff that is happening, which is important for people to understand.
- [35:56]
Krystal Ball
Back in the George W. Bush era, they called them like security moms. Now they're gonna be like tariff moms. Anti tariff moms. Free trade moms. Yeah.
- [36:04]
Sagar Enjeti
I mean, think about Facebook, Marketplace or a lot of these other places. People are already skating by. And now there's gonna cost even more money. $100, 3, $400. That's a lot of money. That's significant portion of the average American's paycheck. Then we have the rise of this buy now, pay later debt, which we're already seeing. Credit card minimum payments actually have skyrocketed just in the last two months. So we could see that there's significant pressure on consumer households. All right, and then last thing I wanted to flag here is from the Chinese market and how they are helping out their own customers. Show this on, please, on the screen. So visitors to Taobao, which is one of the largest online shopping platforms in China, are now being offered Steep discounts on products which are normally exported to the United States. For example, rice cooker from $42 to $25. 85 inch TV from 512 to 630. $500 instead of $639. Offers are popping up all across online apps. Quote, the first thing buyers are seeing is a section of goods that's quote, subsidized by the nation. Basically the Chinese government bailing out their own domestic online sellers to protect their manufacturers. Move goods, move inventory and keep all of the supply chains and everybody else still employed, make sure that we don't see the freeze that's happening here in America. So that's what a functioning state actually looks like. They have a bailout, they have the ability to put pressure on all of their companies. They can drop their interest rates, they can manipulate their currency, they can do all of these different things. They're prepared for hundreds of billions of dollars in domestic capital injection into their economy. And meanwhile over here, we've got basically none of that.
- [37:37]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, and it looks like they're painting it as like a patriotic project to like upgrade your washing machine or your, like.
- [37:42]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes, no, they are. And guess what? People probably will do that. You know, they, of course they will. They're under, like, they feel as if they're under attack. We are just, we're literally the people who instigated. Right. So of course they're gonna be able to suffer if they want to. Also, let's compare the, you know, the history of both of those nations. Who has more of a longer and capacity of suffering. I wouldn't put my money on the most consumer obsessed country in the entire world.
- [38:04]
Krystal Ball
What are we suffering for?
- [38:05]
Sagar Enjeti
That's what I'm.
- [38:05]
Krystal Ball
Why we're not nobody like people don't want this. It's not popular. It's not like we're behind this project. So there's no unified. Like Americans are ready to, you know, pay double at Walmart or whatever. No, we're like, why are you doing this to us? Stop it. So, yeah, they're also in a, in a much stronger position vis a vis their population and their support of the Chinese government's direction. Here you go.
- [38:28]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, let's get to Richard Hanania. Standing by. The championship is back in the bay for the first time in 40 years.
- [38:37]
Steve Kerr
On the new Limited podcast series Dub Dynasty, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how Steph Curry almost never even joined the Warriors.
- [38:46]
Richard Hanania
In fact, I thought we had a Draft Day deal to end up getting.
- [38:50]
Steve Kerr
Him to Phoenix for the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run. Listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [39:05]
Maya Shankar
Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans. I started this show because unexpected change comes for all of us and there's no set playbook for how to deal with it.
- [39:16]
Amanda Knox
I have all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me and the last thing I want to do is to pass that on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out. This is this puzzle of my trauma. I have to figure it out and I have to figure it out now.
- [39:32]
Maya Shankar
Join me this season when I talk to Amanda Knox about her choice to reconnect with the prosecutor who helped put her behind bars.
- [39:39]
Amanda Knox
This is not about him. This is about me and what I am capable of giving. And I know that I am capable of being kind to this man. And by God, I am going to do it. And no one can stop me.
- [39:58]
Maya Shankar
Listen to A Slight Change of plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [40:05]
Jerome Powell
The best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. But most people avoid them. Staying silent, missing opportunities and holding themselves back. I know this is true because I used to be one of those people. As a kid, I struggled to fit in and I was afraid to speak up. That fear followed me into adulthood until I realized something powerful. Negotiation isn't a talent. It's a skill anyone can learn. And it starts with negotiating with yourself, breaking through fear, self doubt, and the limits we place on ourselves. Now I help people from all walks of life, whether it's people closing multi million dollar deals, parents setting boundaries, students finding their voice, or professionals advancing their careers. If you want to handle tough conversations, get what you deserve and take control of your future, this podcast is for you. I'm Kwame Christian, host of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world where you'll learn one simple truth. You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Listen to Negotiate anything on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [41:12]
Krystal Ball
So we had a fairly significant court development yesterday in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He is that immigrant who was wrongly deported to El Salvador and specifically to Bukele's torture dungeon in El Salvador. There of course, was a question very early on with regard to how all of this went down in the Alien Enemies act where the planes were in the air. And a judge, Judge Boasberg said, you have to turn them around. You cannot do this. And the administration went ahead and flew those planes anyway. So yesterday, let's put this up on the screen. Judge Boasberg found probable cause to hold the administration in contempt of court for defying his order to turn around those planes. One of those planes had Abrego Garcia on It some, I think 283 is the number of migrants that were on those three planes total. And he is demanding new details in order for officials to purge their contempt, meaning basically to rectify the situation. So this is different. They haven't been found in contempt yet, but this appears to be building in this direction if the administration continues to fail to comply. So joining us to talk about this development and this entire situation with El Salvador and Bukele and the Trump administration denying these migrants any sort of due process, we've got Richard Henania. He is a political commentator. He is the author of a number of books, including the Origins of Woke and also has his own substack. Good to see you, Richard.
- [42:40]
Sagar Enjeti
Good to see you, Richard.
- [42:41]
Richard Hanania
Glad to be here.
- [42:42]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, of course. So just give us your top line, like what you have thought about this whole situation and especially the way the administration is insisting that even after they admitted that they made an error with regard to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, now they are absolutely refusing to do anything to correct that error. And Stephen Miller has gone so far as to even deny that it was an error at all in the first place.
- [43:07]
Richard Hanania
Yeah. So there are these two cases proceeding on parallel tracks. There's the Abrego Garcia case, which is getting a lot of attention. There's also don't forget the Venezuelan case where they shipped off those hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador, the country that they weren't from. And that's the case where there's probable cause to find them in contempt. So we're going to have a couple weeks here where the administration is going to come back. Either they're going to be able to say, we've answered your question satisfactorily, or there could be a kind of going forward with a criminal contempt charge. Yeah, the Abrego Garcia case, this one is even more frightening. I mean, both of them involve disobeying a court order. But this was the Supreme Court and they went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said, you have to facilitate his return. Now the lower court had said, you have to effectuate his return. And the Trump administration has gone and tried to read that very, very narrowly now. So facilitate maybe is not as extreme as effectuate. There's a reason the Supreme Court preferred one phrasing in that 90 decision over the other. But I think everyone agrees that they have to do something. They can't just sit there and do nothing. And the administration argues that, they've tried to argue at the lower court level that basically if he shows up at a port of entry by himself, they'll let him in. Now what's ridiculous about all this is they are kind of teasing the court system. I mean, somebody there's a tweet that the plane of Venezuelans left after the judge's order. And then Bukele tweets oopsie. And I think Rubio retweets it. And then after the right, as this is going on, Bukele comes to the White House and they're sitting there and whatever facilitate means, he's sitting next to you. You can ask him in a serious way. You can try to do something. And they don't. They sit there, they giggle about it. Bukele says, what am I supposed to do? Smuggle him into the United States? Like, no, this is part of an agreement. The US Paid you. And now Senator Van Hollen from Maryland goes down to El Salvador and he says that the vice president of the country tells him that basically, you know, what are we supposed to do? Smuggle him in? And he says, no, Pam Bondi said that if you guys released him, you can go back. So they're playing this game. They are trying to interpret it very, very narrowly. What's frightening about this is they go back and now they just deny what the Supreme Court says. Now Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, when they're talking to the press will say we won 9 0. I mean, it's just there's kind of not a connection to reality. So a lot of things are at stake here. There's the principle that the president cannot just take someone off the streets, send them to a third world labor camp. They're floating the idea now that they do it to US citizens. We've seen people who are long term permanent residents being picked off those streets because they've written the wrong op ed or had the wrong ideas about US policy towards Israel. And so you know, what's kind of what's next? We have an administration that doesn't tell the truth, that will lie about basic things. They'll say a guy is a convicted MS.13 member when he's not. They'll say they won at the Supreme Court. While they lost, they don't see citizenship as a bright line. They don't see any free speech, respect for permanent residents. And so, yeah, I think this is probably the most important thing going on in politics right now because the question is, what are the limits here and what is gonna be the pushback that stops them?
- [46:29]
Sagar Enjeti
Right, Richard, how does this fit? So let's put, let's say C2 up there on the screen. This was a tweet from JD Vance that I saw you reacting to. This was somebody who was criticizing his initial defense of the Abrego Garcia deportation. Who was Jesse Singel saying, I hate the smug, self assured bullshit. I know I'm right and people must be dumb or immoral to disagree with me. It's easy to go through life because when you think you've never have to seriously about why your worldview is justification for the mass invasion of the country my ancestors built with their bare hands. Now, I know you've criticized some of this type of rhetoric and others in the past, but break down some of your analytical frameworks about the Trump administration, low human capital, and how this all fits into that.
- [47:12]
Richard Hanania
So JD Is obviously not low human capital. He wrote a very well regarded book on his life. He went to Yale Law School, a very selective institution. He's kind of a tragic figure at this point. He's obviously very smart, but he's part of a movement and he has ambitions. And he became vice president because he's part of a movement that has the characteristics of a cult of personality at this point. And so JD it's kind of fascinating to watch him. He usually doesn't just straight up lie, but he always begins his statements with a criticism of the media, somebody like Jesse Singel or the Biden administration and appraise of Trump, and then kind of goes off in this direction where he's not directly answering the point. And I think that that's what makes him a tragic figure. I think he's a smart person who wants to be respected by kind of the intelligentsia, people like us. But he's working for a man who, I mean, we've all seen it. We've seen kind of what Trump is at this, it's been reported, and I've heard this from people firsthand, that when you go in to apply for a job at the administration, one of the first things they ask you is, do you think Trump won the 2020 election? And I've heard that's been reported in the media, but I've heard it's actually worse than that because they go and they say, how big do you think the victory was? And there's. There's really no answer you give other. That can give. Other than all 50 states. Because Trump is now saying he would have won all 50 states if it wasn't for vote fraud. And I've always been encouraging the media. When you have these people on these Sundays, the programs Besant, and these people like this, ask them if Trump won California. They will not contradict him. There is no way they'll contradict him. Stephen Miller might say he won California, JD Vance might deflect and start blaming the media for asking a gotcha question. But these are the dynamics that we're dealing with, and it touches on everything. So this morning, Trump says Jerome Powell can't be fired quickly enough. And the people who know anything about the economy say, you think tariffs are bad for the stock market. Wait until we go after Fed Independence. And from everything we've seen, there is just no nobody in the room who will say anything other than yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. The movement has been purging everyone who has a spine or has a kind of personal integrity who will stand up to this man. And so this is why, kind of the possibility space of the things that could happen. Sorry to be so dark, but I think the last month or two have really been clarifying about what's at stake.
- [49:32]
Krystal Ball
I agree.
- [49:33]
Sagar Enjeti
No, I think it's.
- [49:34]
Krystal Ball
I agree. You know, you tweeted something this morning, so you wrote a great piece that I thought was really insightful called the Based Ritual, about the social dynamics within this movement. And these are not like random French people on the Internet anymore. These are people that, as you point out, are staffing JD Vance, they're staffing Josh Hawley. They're increasingly in important, significant positions throughout the administration. And about that Based ritual direction and the way that everybody's just sort of competing to be increasingly counter signaling how. How bad they are and how racist they are and how sexist they are. And no one wants to outdo or be outdone by the other people in the group you tweeted. It's funny that Trump isn't doing mass deportations, but he's got all of the MAGAs passionately defending the idea of having a few hundred people in a labor camp. It's all about vice signaling for them, giving them one or two random guys to torture. And MAGA is happy now, I would say I fully expect them to move on to mass deportations. The acting ICE director is talking about setting up Amazon prime for human beings and the new Republican budget would make ICE the I think, best funded law enforcement agency in the history of the country, maybe of the world. So I'm not putting off the table that they're going in that direction next. But help us understand what are these internal dynamics that lead to a situation where these people are cheering, random, we don't even know who these guys are. But random people with no criminal record, being locked up in a prison, that is worse than what we reserve for serial killers here in the U.S. yeah.
- [51:10]
Richard Hanania
I mean, we thought that virtue signaling was bad. When everyone tried to show how anti racist and unsexist and nice they were. I don't think we really adequately considered kind of, you can go in the opposite direction. And so there's this kind of thing where you talk to young conservatives or you're around them and there is this. Yeah, I call it the base ritual. So basically they're trying to show that they are not politically correct, correct. And this goes in the direction of kind of performative cruelty towards outsiders. I think we have a regime that kind of operates on that principle. It's loyalty to Trump. It's kind of performative cruelty. They, you know, they would spit it as try to look out for the American worker or look back, look out for the forgotten men and women or so forth. You know, they have these justifications in their heads. But, you know, there's a, there's a kind of disturbing and clear tendency to downplay the rottenness of the Hitler regime or kind of fascist states, or to defend literally anything Trump does, or be completely indifferent to, whether we're sending, like you said, people who are innocent, not convicted of anything, to these labor camps potentially indefinitely. We talk about Abrego Garcia. The administration has been trying to find, you know, dig up stuff. He had some kind of domestic violence dispute, but we forgot about the Venezuelans, including the gay makeup artist, who I have not seen anyone say anything as far as he's ever hurt anybody. He has any gang ties, he has any criminal record, nothing, just not even a single allegation. And I think that the understanding of why this happens, I think the movement, it rots from the head. It really is Donald Trump. If you have somebody who lies this much, if you have somebody who just demands loyalty above all else, who's not civil in public life, who kind of delights in cruelty too, I think that that attracts a certain kind of person, it repulses a different kind of person. And I think that these two dynamics, the base ritual, so to speak and the loyalty to Trump. I think together they're a frightening combination.
- [53:13]
Sagar Enjeti
The championship is back in the bay for the first time in 40 years.
- [53:19]
Steve Kerr
On the new limited podcast series Dub Dynasty, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how Steph Curry almost never even joined the Warriors.
- [53:28]
Richard Hanania
In fact, I thought we had a draft day deal to end up getting.
- [53:31]
Steve Kerr
Him to Phoenix for the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run. Listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [53:46]
Maya Shankar
Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans. I started this show because unexpected change comes for all of us and there's no set playbook for how to deal with it.
- [53:58]
Amanda Knox
I have all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me and the last thing I want to do is to pass that on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out. This is this puzzle of my trauma. I have to figure it out and I have to figure it out now.
- [54:13]
Maya Shankar
Join me this season when I talk to Amanda Knox about her choice to reconnect with the prosecutor who helped put her behind bars.
- [54:21]
Amanda Knox
This is not about him. This is about me and what I am capable of giving. And I know that I am capable of being kind to this man and by God I am going to do it and no one can stop me.
- [54:40]
Maya Shankar
Listen to A Slight Change of plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [54:46]
Jerome Powell
The best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations, but most people avoid them. Staying silent, missing opportunities and holding themselves back. I know this is true because I used to be one of those people. As a kid I struggled to fit in and I was afraid to speak up. That fear followed me into adulthood until I realized something powerful. Negotiation isn't a talent, it's a skill anyone can learn. And it's starts with negotiating with yourself, breaking through fear, self doubt and the limits we place on ourselves. Now I help people from all walks of life, whether it's people closing multi million dollar deals, parents setting boundaries, students finding their voice, or professionals advancing their careers. If you want to handle tough conversations, get what you deserve and take control of your future, this podcast is for you. I'm Kwame Christian, host of Negotiations, the number one negotiation podcast in the world where you'll learn one simple truth. You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Listen to Negotiate anything on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [55:54]
Sagar Enjeti
One of the things, Richard, that you were initially optimistic about was the quote, tech right, right. And some of the more moderating influences, let's say, that you were praiseworthy of and the first administration. You did write an interesting piece. Can we put D1 please up there on the screen? Which I actually quite enjoyed. And it's called the Captured to Silicon Valley Billionaire Pipeline Must be broken. Can you break down kind of this phenomenon where you observe that in your framework elite human capital and. Or like people with skill sets and others who know better, enter the Trump orbit and find themselves actually being brought down to the center of the gravity of the movement, as opposed to raising the collective capacity of the entire movement.
- [56:43]
Richard Hanania
So a few years ago I wrote an article called Understanding the Tech Right and I was the first person that I've seen use the phrase tech right. And this was at the beginning when people like Marc Andreessen and Elon Musk were really starting to take a public role as kind of more Republican leaning figures. And I was optimistic at the time because, because look, these were obviously smart, accomplished people. They've done a lot of things in their lives. I thought there was a human capital on the right. There's been a fleeing from the Republican Party in the Trump era of people who are college educated and people who are informed and connected to reality, frankly. And I thought that they would make things better. It was kind of the infusion of human capital that the right needed. Unfortunately, it hasn't really worked out that way. And just from watching these people and how they use Twitter, Musk particularly, but a lot of the other ones ones, you realize that as intelligent as they might be and as accomplished as they might be in the business world, they really have absorbed what's kind of swimming. They've imbued whatever is in the air in the conservative movement. And talking to these people, they often, they're so radicalized, I think, by what happened with COVID and what happened with Wokeness and some of the personal coverage they received from people like Kara Swisher and the mainstream press that they, they took a reaction that's understandable, but was not the right way to go, which is that they shut out credible sources of information and they started just listening to Twitter anons. And so Elon Musk is sitting there all day and I think he believes this stuff, I think he believes this stuff about massive voter fraud, flipping the election, about voter. Without voter id, our civilization is destroyed and they're shipping it illegals to win elections because this is what everyone around them and everyone who they trust at this point beliefs. The problem is the right as a whole, as smart as any individual is. None of us are that smart as an individual. We only have intelligence because we're part of a community, because we know what sources to trust, because we have conversations like this, because we read newspapers and talk to scientists and people in politics and people with sensible views on these things. So once you shut yourself out, it doesn't matter how high your IQ is, you're going to. You can fall into social media radicalization and you could have a worldview that just doesn't make sense. Sense. And I think we see that most clearly in what's happened with Doge. Look, there's. I'm sympathetic to the idea of smaller government, sympathetic to the idea that government can be more efficient. There's people at places like AEI and Cato Institute, and if those are your goals, there are smart people you could find who will, who will put you on the right path. And they've been thinking about this for a really long time. Elon Musk has not done this at all. He basically came in and said, it's going to be me and a few of my engineering buddies bodies and basically what the priorities in government should be. I'm just going to listen to kind of whatever's going viral on Twitter. And in the end, he didn't save. He's not going to save a fraction of the money that he saved. A lot of the stuff that they cut ended up being very valuable. Things like basic scientific research, things like getting statistics to make sure government does run more efficiently. Stuff that doesn't cost that much and probably is some of the most cost effective stuff in government you could do. But because the fact that he just has a simple idea, I'm gonna cut government and not think about how or why or I don't need to think about that. It's been a debacle. And I think we see that across the board with these guys when they're being part of politics, but also they're swimming in the waters of the Trump movement.
- [60:10]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, yes, in terms of their stated goals, it's been a disaster. He was, oh well, I'm cut $2 trillion. Now he's like meekly in the cabinet meeting like, I'm gonna cut 150 billion. And even that's a frickin lie. Right. On the other hand, he hates government. And government function doesn't function now like Social Security. Try to go to the Social Security office and see how that goes. The agencies that were regulating his businesses, they've been defenestrated. Like, they will not be able to regulate his business, nor would they because of the massive corruption, conflicts of interest that are involved. So I think from his perspective, in certain ways, it was also a success. But, Richard, I do want to ask you a little bit about your views. It's our first time having you on since you revealed your anonymous writings back in the day, which were white nationalists, which you've disavowed. But I still do have some questions about your ideology that I wanted to hear from you on. Especially when I hear you making the distinction between low human capital and elite humanity. Human capital. It raises the question for me whether this is just some sort of eugenics ideology in another form. You're no longer drawing the lines around strictly IQ. You'd previously supported forced sterilization for people with low IQs. Previously you had an idea of different racial hierarchies in your head. Perhaps that's in the past. But is this just a new way to separate out which humans are worthy and which humans are unworthy?
- [61:36]
Richard Hanania
Be So I will say that I did write some things that were very bad. I didn't straightforwardly advocate sterilizing people with low iq. I said, here's an argument for it. Now, I don't want. I won't litigate it because it was all bad. And I just want to forget that stuff ever happened.
- [61:50]
Krystal Ball
Okay. You said, you said sterilization of the unfit is the only way to stop the decline of the West.
- [61:55]
Richard Hanania
No, but, but it was. It was a longer thing. Like, if you believe xyz, anyways, whatever. It was terrible stuff. Everything I believed in 2011 is bad regardless. But, yeah, as far as the human capital stuff, look, there is, you know, when I write about these things, like the base ritual, and I write about where the right has gone, I see myself from 12 years ago when I was an anonymous basement dweller writing these racist screeds. I've seen that person become the Republican Party. And I've kind of. If I'd stayed that person, maybe I would be in the administration at this point. But I changed. And I think it's horrifying. And I think I have some kind of insights into kind of what's going on here. And so the idea that human capital is kind of a variation of that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to go in the other direction and say there's no such thing as intelligence. There Is no such thing as.
- [62:43]
Krystal Ball
Just to clarify, there are. Human beings have differences, right? It's fine to note those differences. Like, I have no problem with that. Where I have a problem is when you interpret those differences as meaning that different human beings get different rights. And that's really my question to you. And to me, that's sort of the foundation of like eugenicist type ideology is like, well, we're going to decide these people are better than those people. And that means that those people that we decided are not as good. They're not going to get the same rights, they're not going to get to have the same say they're not going to get to have children or whatever it is the program is that we decide for them. And you know, I think that type of ideology is very much how you end up, for example, cheering the deportation to a slave labor camp of people that you've decided are unworthy of basic human rights. So that's my question for you, is do you still have that view that some people are less worthy of the same rights as other people?
- [63:43]
Richard Hanania
I'm glad you asked the question in that way, Crystal, because yeah, I think you're right. I think that's the right thing to be concerned about. Do you go to a place where, look, there's one thing to analyze things and say, say, why does the right accept anti Vax arguments while the left does? And human capital is, I think, a way to understand that the right is now less educated. They have all kinds of crazy ideas and all kinds of things and you kind of need that analysis. You don't understand how anti vax goes from a left wing cause to something that's embraced by Republicans without understanding this and RFK and his general crankery. Now the question is, does that mean that that low human capital, as we say, it's kind of a harsh term and it's something that was built on Twitter. But let's say people with less cognitive capabilities or less education, do they deserve less rights? And no, I've stood against that. I mean, when I talk about Abrego Garcia, I know nothing about him personally. He may be a gang member for all I know. He's not a Nobel prize winning physicist or whatever, but his rights matter and the rule of law matters. And the idea that we're all citizens equal before the government, I mean, he's not a citizen, but still there are some rules. Rules and how you treat people, those are important principles to me. So I think that we have to create a space. I saw people on The Blue sky trying to cancel Matthew Glacias the other day because he said some things where, oh, I don't like to look into the origins of group differences, but, you know, I want to treat everyone equal and we still should be concerned about racism and we should have taboos against racism. All that stuff I agree with now. But they still wanted to cancel him because he kind of cryptically, according to Will Stancil and these people on Blue sky expressed a belief in group differences according to them. And I think what we have to do is, yes, hold onto this idea that everyone has value. Hold onto the idea of fair treatment and individual rights. And that's the important thing. That's how we don't go down the path of kind of where maga's going.
- [65:31]
Sagar Enjeti
Got it. So, Richard, to push you a little bit here, then I would say it was pretty evident you're run in many of the same circles I do. I knew a lot of these folks and I knew that they were gonna get into power. You were pretty well informed as well, and you still voted for Trump. So what's with the about face in this expectation, despite the education, you're own analysis and all of this, in what way was this not all that expected in your vote and for the administration?
- [65:54]
Richard Hanania
So I overindexed, I think, on the first term. The first term was basically a normie Republican administration. I liked a lot of the policies, I thought they were going to do the things I advocated for on DEI issues. And then they appointed the Supreme Court justices that Trump appointed. That's really some of the only pushback that he's getting in the second administration. And the. And so I was expecting something of a repeat. I knew that MAGA had changed. I knew that the Trump movement had become something different. But basically I thought that we would get that. And then on the night of the election, I was on Destiny's Livestream and we share a negative view of RFK for its vaccine stance and basically everything else that he believes. And he said something along the lines of RFK will be HHS secretary. And I said, no, RFK will not be be HHS secretary. I actually put some money on it. I put my money where my mouth was and I said, if he does, I might have said something as explicit as I will have made a mistake. And RFK does get appointed as HHS secretary. People around me are telling me these things and we talk about kind of social circles and everyone I talk to kind of thinks like I do. And so they're telling me don't worry about rfk. They're going to put people around him. Peter Thiel, these bio accelerationists, they're going to be his deputies and they're going to box him. No, he's, he's going after vaccines. He's doing everything that we thought. And I eventually stopped listening to these people. And, you know, and then you had the tariff thing. Now, look, I'm in good company as far as the market goes. I mean, I believe in the wisdom of the market. All else equal, it's a good way to go. And people did not think the tariffs would be this bad. Trump was promising 10% across the board. People say, whoa, okay, that's the, that's the extreme end of what he might do. Instead, he comes out with this chart, with this, with this formula that makes no sense sense and has like 30, 40% on different countries and 100 something percent on China. And so I was expecting Republicans to push back a little. There was a little talk that they might not confirm rfk. There was talk that Bill Cassidy would vote against him, but they all kind of folded in line. And so, look, I misjudged this. I underestimated just kind of how much of a cult of personality it had become and how kind of unrestrained he is to indulge in his instincts. And, and a lot of these mistakes were understandable at the time, but they were mistakes. I saw this wrong.
- [68:20]
Krystal Ball
What about the authoritarianism? Because, I mean, we all live through January 6th. You were talking earlier about how now it's a litmus test to get in the administration. You have to say, not only did Trump win in 2020, won all 50 states this time around, all of those sorts of things. It's just hard for me to imagine how that could be a surprise. We've known this man even before the President. We've known him for years. He lies about everything. This deep racial and IQ view of the world has always been embedded in him. When he was up, when he was backed into a corner after he did lose in 2020, then his most authoritarian instincts come out. We knew in the interim, and you were a contributor to Project 2025, so you were directly involved in some of the planning that was done to make sure that all of the guardrails that were in place last time were completely stripped away. We knew the Supreme Court had also given him this sort of like blanket immunity. So what about on that piece? Like, did you have any concerns going in about the likely suppression of free speech and authoritarian tactics and authoritarian tendencies that you Know, even, I have to admit, have gone even beyond what I expected. And I was pretty alarmist. I think the record will show going into this administration.
- [69:34]
Richard Hanania
Yeah, I've always taken January 6th seriously and I've always taken the idea seriously that Trump did try to overturn the election in 2020. And I said he should have been in jail for it. I mean, I basically was the only person who probably endorsed Trump and thought he should have been and thought he should have been in jail. At the same time, I can look back and say, well, it was a one time thing, he can't run again. I was actually afraid he loses. He's going to be the Republican nominee every year for the rest of our lives. And, well, he's still, you know, Steve Bannon is going out there saying he's going to run for a third term. So maybe that, maybe that didn't even. And take care of it. But yeah, you're absolutely, you know, you're absolutely right. I mean, I think that, look, there's a lot of things that were totalitarian about the left, a lot of the speech restrictions, a lot of the COVID stuff. I think we still haven't had a full reckoning for what they were doing at the state level. And here in California, they were masking students, high school students, outside for three years into 2022. I mean, it was really kind of. There was a kind of leftist authoritarianism too. That's worth worrying about. But I agree with you that Trump is kind of just in his personal, just his personal sort of disregard for any kind of concern with truth or constitutional norms. And so, yeah, it's something that's concerning. Look, like you said, we didn't think it was this bad. I don't think anyone said before the election that they're going to, they're going to kick out foreign students for writing op EDS criticizing Israel.
- [70:57]
Krystal Ball
You know, it's in house saying that they were.
- [71:02]
Sagar Enjeti
He said he was gonna deport foreign students.
- [71:04]
Krystal Ball
He did. I mean, that's where I like that piece actually. Doesn't surprise me at all because he did advertise that he was ultimately gonna do that. And I agree, you know, I was a critic from the left of like the excesses of wokeism and authoritarian tendencies with regard to that. And, you know, I think mistakes were made in Covid as well, even though I think especially many of those mistakes were well meaning and we didn't know what the deal was gonna be with kids and schools and whatever. And the school closures were probably the biggest mistake that were made. People are being kidnapped off the street by masked officers of the state for writing op eds. Like there's just no equivalent under a Democratic administration, in my opinion, to what we're seeing unfold under Trumpism 2.0.
- [71:46]
Richard Hanania
Yeah. And I don't disagree with you at all. I think that my thinking, I'm trying to get back into my mind before the election.
- [71:53]
Krystal Ball
I appreciate that.
- [71:55]
Richard Hanania
Yeah. But, but at this point, I think you're right. I think I can say that I'm not, I'm not on the fence anymore. Like that stuff we complained about the left the other, you know, last year or two years ago that happened, it was bad. We can criticize them for it, but this is completely on a different level. And I think the thing we learned here is like, character matters a lot. Like the, what I talked about the Trump movement and it becoming a cult and the base ritual and kind of what I saw personally with these people who were in kind of Trump's orbit and who are going to probably be taking over the government. I should have taken that more seriously. I was just thinking kind of at a level of, okay, there's the Republican coalition, there's voters, there's the market checking him. There is, you know, there is kind of the Republican establishment, there are courts and so forth. I should have been thinking, like, what kind of people are going to be staffing the government? And it's not just Trump, it's the fact that they're all Trumpists and true believing Trumpists at this point. And that was the mistake, I think these ideas that like, like, it's funny because conservatives, they have this thing about, you know, virtue and leaders and how we've had a decline in morality. And it's not just I, Chris Rufa was tweeting this the other day and I got an exchange with him. It's not just about iq, you might say there's human capital, but there's wisdom and there's all, I'm like, but Donald Trump. It's just like, but Donald Trump. That's like the only thing you could say to that. And it's kind of insane, their arguments about character and like, you know, civility and the need to pay attention to our inheritance and norms, all that stuff was. Right. They just became part of a cult of like the man who is the antithesis of all of that. So it's a kind of remarkable dynamic.
- [73:32]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. So let's return to Elon. We're both very curious about your take on this, Richard. Let's put D3 up there on the screen, this is some revelations about Elon and the way that he manages kind of his harem of young women, some of whom he's met on Twitter, often buying them off and encouraging them to have his children. Apparently there's a known number of, what is it, 14 children, but could be as high as 50. We were just curious, how does this fit into your elite human capital model here? Is this, is this, is this an example of elite human capital of.
- [74:07]
Krystal Ball
Well, you're also a natalist.
- [74:08]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. You're a pro natalist. This is a high IQ individual. And he's, he's very rich. He's spreading his seed, just like Genghis Khan or any other person with absolute power. So what do you make of this?
- [74:20]
Richard Hanania
Look? Yeah, you're right. On the surface you might say, well, if you're a natalist and you believe in iq, I don't judge these things. If people want to have a lot of children, I generally think that's a great thing. I think that what we've seen is the kind of person who thinks like this, I'm just going to spread my seed to the greatest extent possible. There's somebody like Genghis Khan prone to violence, or there's someone like, like Elon Musk who just kind of doesn't really have a moral sense. So I think this is the problem with a lot of ideas might sound good in theory, but in practice you have to kind of look at the kinds of people who are attracted to them and look at how these things work out in practice. And I think it's probably not a coincidence that the west had Christianity and a norm of monogamy and didn't think like this and ended up creating the modern world. Yeah, I think it's a lesson here about taking, starting with IQ natalism and, and not kind of thinking about character and what happens when you try to apply these ideas in a person's life.
- [75:14]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, and it's not only that. I mean, he explicitly, according to the article, has told people that he's worried about the high birth rates in developing countries. And so he wants to combat that with his legion of, you know, his high iq, whatever, before the apocalypse. So, I mean, there's also these, like, directly, I would again say, like eugenics inspired ideas that come out here. So I don't know that he doesn't have an ideology or. I think you said moral compass or moral. I'm not sure the language that you used. But no, I think he does have an ideology and it's A really evil one.
- [75:53]
Richard Hanania
Yeah, I think he does have an ideology. I think he has kind of instincts and ideas about the world. Now, to be fair to him, I've never seen him say we've got to limit the birth rate in developing countries or anything like that. But yeah, I think that his entire idea of, you know, it's weird because, like, you would think, well, somebody who's kind of an IQ snob, you might be like me, you might look down on kind of the conservative influencer space. But no, I mean, he will denounce the entire class of educated people and people who know anything about the world, but then love these people who are less intelligent, less honest because they all worship him. Right. So there's this ideology, but at the same time, it's just kind of a classic kind of selfishness, big man behavior. And that's not, that's not socially conducive to anything good.
- [76:38]
Krystal Ball
So how would you describe your political ideology now, Richard? Like, where do you kind of fit? How can people make sense of you?
- [76:47]
Richard Hanania
I, you know, the funny thing is for, you know, for all the things I've written and all the little bit of trolling I do online, I'm a pretty, pretty normie guy. I mean, the people I talk to these days, days are like, you know, scholars at AEI or, you know, cato, just like normal kind of libertarians who are concerned about norms and think the American experiment has been a good thing and we should try to preserve it and caring about the well functioning of institutions. So I'm a libertarian, ish, classical liberal. For all the kind of, you know, kind of eccentricities that you see and the things I've written and the things I still write today, my politics underneath it all, are actually sort of not all right.
- [77:24]
Krystal Ball
Well, I will say just. I also have changed my mind on certain things because of this Trump administration. And one of them is something that you touched on, which is just how much character does matter. And I think the liberals were right on certain aspects of Trump that I previously would have been like, who cares about the norms? And they're so obsessed with these different things about his personality or whatever. No, I think you're right. I think those things mattered a lot more than I gave them credit for mattering. And now that his personality traits have not only taken over the government, but, I mean, these are. The fish does rot from the head down. And that has to do not just with this administration, but with the whole country. And when you see the most powerful person in the country, in the world, who is narcissistic, utterly shameless, lies is cruel, et cetera. Of course you're going to have people think that that's the way to succeed, that those are traits that are worthy of emulation. And so I also just. Since you're talking about your evolution and your thought, I also have evolved in the way that I think about these things and have changed my mind about how important those things. In certain way, it's made me sort of more conservative in that way of like, you know what? Actually the character of our leaders, like these squishy traits and these norms, they actually did kind of matter. And I want them back.
- [78:52]
Sagar Enjeti
See, it's interesting. I would almost do a reverse. I think, Richard, what you've convinced me most of all is that competence and elite human capital matters more than anything. And that, as you pointed out, let's say, with the JD Vance tweet. Right. You and I both know that that is a straw man argument about deportation. That's not about Abrego Garcia in an El Salvadorian prison and defying a Supreme Court order. But that is one where somebody who has been through this process cannot debase themselves to actually argue at the level of drumpf, for lack of a better word, to be like, no, this is good. And we're also sending American citizens. And so, I mean, Richard, you've been through many things, but I'll say this, man, I've been reading you for probably five straight years. When's the first time we talked? 2020, I want to say, when you put out your CSTI study.
- [79:39]
Richard Hanania
Yeah. After the report on the working class coalition.
- [79:43]
Sagar Enjeti
You were one of the first people who ever truly caused me to change my mind. And you have caused me to change my mind many of the times since. So we'll have a link down in the description to your substack and I will always read you. You're a fascinating man.
- [79:55]
Richard Hanania
Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate that.
- [79:58]
Krystal Ball
Appreciate the discussion, Richard. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
- [80:03]
Sagar Enjeti
The championship is back in the bay for the first time in 40 years.
- [80:08]
Steve Kerr
On the new limited podcast series Dub Dynasty, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how Steph Curry almost never even joined the Warriors.
- [80:17]
Richard Hanania
In fact, I thought we had a draft day deal to end up getting.
- [80:21]
Steve Kerr
Him to Phoenix for the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run. Listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [80:36]
Maya Shankar
Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of plans. I started this show because unexpected change comes for all of us, and there's no set playbook for how to deal with it.
- [80:48]
Amanda Knox
I have all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me, and the last thing I want to do is to pass that on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out, this. This puzzle of my trauma. I have to figure it out, and I have to figure it out now.
- [81:03]
Maya Shankar
Join me this season when I talk to Amanda Knox about her choice to reconnect with the prosecutor who helped put her behind bars.
- [81:10]
Amanda Knox
This is not about him. This is about me and what I am capable of giving. And I know that I am capable of being kind to this man. And by God, God, I am going to do it. And no one can stop me.
- [81:29]
Maya Shankar
Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [81:36]
Jerome Powell
The best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. But most people avoid them. Staying silent, missing opportunities, and holding themselves back. I know this is true because I used to be one of those people. As a kid, I struggled to fit in and I was afraid to speak up. That fear followed me into adulthood until I realized something powerful. Negotiation isn't a talent. It's a skill anyone can learn. And it starts with negotiating with yourself, breaking through fear, self doubt, and the limits we place on ourselves. Now I help people from all walks of life, whether it's people closing multi million dollar deals, parents setting boundaries, students finding their voice, or professionals advancing their careers. If you want to handle tough conversations, get what you deserve and take control of your future, this podcast is for you. I'm Kwame Christian, host of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world where you'll learn one simple truth. You don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. Listen to Negotiate anything on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [82:44]
Krystal Ball
So, guys, in terms of Doge's supposed aspirations as a cost cutting exercise, we can officially now say it has failed. Elon has gone from claiming he was going to cut $2 trillion out of the federal debt budget to now meekly at a cabinet meeting massively downgrading that estimate. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Elon himself.
- [83:07]
Sagar Enjeti
How much do you think we can.
- [83:09]
Richard Hanania
Rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris Biden budget?
- [83:16]
Jerome Powell
Well, I think we can do at least 2 trillion.
- [83:18]
Richard Hanania
Yeah.
- [83:21]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, thanks to your fantastic leadership, this amazing cabinet, the very talented Doge team, I'M excited to announce that we anticipate.
- [83:30]
Jerome Powell
Savings in FY26 from reduction of waste and fraud by hunting billion.
- [83:36]
Sagar Enjeti
And I mean, and some of it is just absurd, like people getting unemployment insurance who haven't been born yet. I mean, I think anyone can appreciate whether, I mean, come on, that's just crazy.
- [83:48]
Krystal Ball
So from 2 trillion to 150 billion. And even that is just not even true. We could put this up on the screen from the New York Times. They dug in to what they're even actually claiming the headline is Doge is far short of its goal and still overstating its progress. Elon Musk now says his group will produce only 15% of the savings it promised. But even that estimate is inflated with errors. And in particular, they went and looked at some of the top cost savings here that they had claimed and it still was inaccurate or they were double counting, or it's just, you know, it's just preposterous. And not to mention that some of the things that they're cutting, cutting are actually going to make the government more expensive. So for example, the massive cuts at the IRS are going to make the IRS less able to do its job of collecting tax revenue, which means that the budget deficit is going to get even larger. So layer on top of that, Sager, the political failure in Wisconsin, he seems to have diminished power and sway within the Trump administration. But on the other hand, while those aspects have failed, DOGE has been very successful at making the federal government, at destroying certain key elements of the federal government. And I've always said that that was really more of the actual goal than any sort of budget deficit, fiscal hawk type of stuff. And that's pretty clear from the beginning of what they were actually trying to accomplish.
- [85:17]
Sagar Enjeti
I'm not. So I think that it was the initial goal was to actually do allegedly what they wanted to do. And then it became eventually convenient and acknowledged internally that that was impossible. And the longer that the chaos and all of that began to happen, then, yes, it became like destruction in and of the end for itself, as in, I wouldn't underestimate, like genuine stupidity. This comes off of our discussion with Richard. And one of the things that I as well talking about Richard, Richard, is what the hypocrisy on all of this is what actually drives me the craziest. Because, look, even if you believe as you do that it was a cynical effort from the beginning, there are many people who actually do believe in reducing government. Right. As I said initially before the election, one of the most popular Bro. Elements that I would often hear about from Trump was Doge. It was one of the things people were most excited about. Do not underestimate this. People hate the government. Yes. You know, they make like Noah or whatever, but like broadly people's interaction, I mean, who all just paid their taxes. Right. It's a pain in the ass. Or the E File service or whatever, which by the way, Doge took away. We'll talk about that in a second. My point broadly is that the animus behind that was popular. I still think it's actually quite popular, although maybe less so now that it's happened with Doge. But the problem is that you exploit that and then not only reduction, non permanence, stupidly, chaotically, and then even if you take their initial numbers now at face value. Put the next one, please, up on the screen is that Trump and Hegseth are promising a $1 trillion Pentagon budget, which would mean that you would actually take all of your new alleged savings and you would then just give it to the Pentagon. And so, so what have we actually accomplished? NOAA has reduced capacity. Social Security, phone lines are there. The entire team responsible for green lighting, nuclear energy permits have been fired or are trying to be brought back. Right now. My friends in the nuclear regulatory space are freaking out about Doge. Can we all, didn't we all vote for that? I think so. About abundant energy. Energy. And then so meanwhile, we're also doing a trillion dollar Pentagon budget. And then let's zoom out to the Congress, the US Congress, Republican led Congress wants to cut a trillion dollars in spending and they want to increase the budget for the Pentagon. That's not possible. Not possible without cutting massive social services. You could even do discretionary. You could wipe out the entire thing. You couldn't wipe out a trillion dollars.
- [87:50]
Krystal Ball
That's right.
- [87:51]
Sagar Enjeti
That's, it's, it's basic MA math. If you don't believe me, go play with ChatGPT or any of these AI things. Say cut $1 trillion from the budget. Don't touch any social services or the Pentagon. See how easy it is to get there? Look, this is simple balance sheet arithmetic. And so when you look at all of that, the Republican Congress has decided not to increase taxes on anyone making over $1 million per year. They've decided to extend the vast majority of the TCJA tax cuts. They want to attack manufacturing tax credits. Not a single thing is in line with each other. And I think that is what is now becoming clear to the American people over time. I think they genuinely did give Doge and all that. A lot of Runway. Like I said, do not underestimate how much people hate the government. You really cannot underestimate that. But it has been, what is it now? How many days to the Trump administration? 80 something. We're coming up on the end of the 100 day days, the story of the worst hundred. This is gonna be a crazy book in Oxford history from 100 years from now. The story of the first hundred days from the Trump administration will be doge tariffs and el Salvador, which is nuts. That is not what you would want. If you want a successful administration, you are effectively hanging yourself for the duration of your presidency. You had a lot left, which has never been more demoralized in modern history or unpopular, and then you reinvigorated it for no reason or discernible impact in the future. I mean, look, I am famously wrong and could be. He could be massively popular and JD could be cruising to 2028, but a lot of shit would have to happen in the interim. But yeah, look, let's be honest too. Three years is a long time. All right? Nobody would have predicted that we're here today, right? The vibe shifted, quote, unquote, a lot more than people would have thought. So it could shift back. It easily could. I don't particularly see it, but I didn't see this either.
- [89:46]
Krystal Ball
Well, and here's the thing with DOGE and with the tariffs, the real negative impacts of those things have not yet even hit.
- [89:56]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, they will.
- [89:57]
Krystal Ball
They have not yet even hit. And so, I mean, this is why I just don't believe DOGE was ever really a. About cost cutting. Because it is just basic. I mean, we were saying from the very beginning, right? Even if you cut every single federal government worker, you're not saving a significant percent of the federal budget. And a lot of, not all of, but a lot of the playbook from Doge has also followed from Project 2025. So it's not like there wasn't some level of a concerted plan here. And with Elon himself, obviously, he's this huge federal government contractor and he hates that these government agencies were daring to regulate his businesses. They're not gonna be doing that anytime soon. The amount that they have cut, enforcement of white collar crime is truly insane. And that comes from the National Labor Relations Board, which governs, obviously, labor relations. So that's gutted and cannot function. You had the cfpb, which is like the anti scam bureau that helps consumers who, who have been scammed by big business or small business or Any business that's been completely gutted and they were the ones who were set up to regulate X. If X moves into as they're planning, they have a deal with Visa into payment processing. He went after the particular board within the National Transportation Agency that was regulating automated vehicles. Something that he was hating and was bothering him with regard to his test Teslas. So in those ways, he got what he wanted. Now, I do think that the probably more maximalist original goals of effectively. And this actually, this came out in the article about him and his harem too. He said, well, I can't be president, but I can make Trump be president. With the implication being like, oh, but I'll basically be the one running the show. The more maximalist goals of I'm just gonna be able to effectively take all of the government's money for my SpaceX Mars boondoggle dream project, I think that is not going to come to fruition. And I do think that the fact that he has now been politically hobbled by going so hard in Wisconsin, going all in on Wisconsin and then getting smacked down with a double digit loss, I think that has probably significantly diminished his political power within Trump sphere. As you know, all of these guys are optics branding people. So even that image I showed you of him like seated at the table at the cabinet meeting he wasn't even invited to, he just like showed up for as one of many around the table is so different. Compare that image to the image of him standing, hovering over Trump, who's at the Resolute desk with his kid running around and wiping spurs on the desk and what happened.
- [92:45]
Sagar Enjeti
That's great to still there, by the way. I'll never understand that kid. Also, he's got 14 kids. Why that one? I mean, not to be mean, but like, isn't that kind of favoritism for real, though?
- [92:53]
Krystal Ball
For sure, for sure. But putting the kid, the dynamics with the kids aside, there's a whole other conversation like that. The imagery of him sort of standing, lording over Trump and doing things and then asking permission later and Trump giving him all sorts of Runway is a massive contrast from him sitting one of many around the cast cabinet around that table and having to meekly submit his oh, Mr. King, you're amazing. And thanks to your wonderful leadership, dear liege, we were able to cut $150 billion from the federal budget deficit. I do think Doge is sort of petering out as a project, but again, that doesn't mean they haven't done tremendous damage that will take many, many years to recover. From that, services won't be damaged. Social Security, irs. We actually have the chart we can show you here. This is E5. Put this up on the screen. In terms of the irs, staffing levels just fell off a cliff. Now, in fairness, the number of staffers of the IRS were significantly increased under the Biden administration with the idea of we need more people to be able to go after rich tax chiefs in particular, not just be going after waiting waitresses for their tips. Well, but now it has plummeted down to 50,000. We haven't seen this level in years. I don't know when was the last time. So that's gonna have a huge impact. Like rich people are gonna be able to get away with not paying their taxes. It's gonna be much easier for them if you can hire lawyers and you've got the money to be able to fight and set up tax shelters and all this sort of stuff. The IRS is going to be very hard pressed to be able to go after those people. So while DOGE as a project has in some ways failed, it doesn't mean that it hasn't done long term damage.
- [94:38]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, sure. On the IRS front, I'll just say this. I'm blue in the face. They made themselves unpopular. They're the ones who got their new money and then did their little Venmo rules and turn the entire small business and poor community against them. From years of automated, like those, what is it? Automated, automated investigations into people making less than $22,000 per year. They blame resource allocation, et cetera. But their own practice is not exactly one where people are gonna be shedding a lot of tears maybe a decade from now if there's less in our deficit. But I would say broadly on the DOGE project, you could view it two ways. Yes, there is damage done. I also, like I've been saying, I really think that the legacy of the stupidity currently of much of the Trump administration will be to negatively polarize the American public in the same way that people, I mean, if you think back to the 1970s and the chaos of the 1970s, people were negatively polarized on trust in government. That's why they elected Jimmy Carter. They were negatively polarized on inflation. Part of the reason that they were so broadly accepting of the Reagan administration, they were negatively polarized around what they saw as a failure of the prolonged New Deal period. Same thing why neoliberalism was really ushered in. And so in a similar way, we are seeing failures in doge, we're seeing failures on tariffs, we're Seeing failures on immigration and all three of those, you will find then that the seesaw nature of politics will swing back in a much more different direction. So if, look, I mean, Trump was elected, I would say with a broad enough mandate on all three of those issues, if you actually wanted to stop him, this is a pretty good outcome for you because you're going to win a decent argument there in the future and be on pretty strong ground, especially, I think, whenever it comes to government capacity, prices and tariffs and those other things. I do not want this to happen. And it's part of why I think it's really bad the way that this is all basically shaken out in the first hundred days. And I know enough looking in the past to say it's pretty hard to crawl out of a hole like this once you've actually done it. That's what I was saying about the first hundred days. While it's certainly possible Vibe, et cetera, could swing back, I don't see that path right now. I think they have dug themselves deep into a hole that crawling out of, even politically for them, not to mention policy wise, is just going to be. I just don't see the way that it's possible.
- [97:07]
Krystal Ball
You're crippling the economy, potentially sending it into a recession, depression. You're cutting taxes for the rich.
- [97:13]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [97:13]
Krystal Ball
Soon you're cutting social services for everybody else. You've made it so that some of the things that people actually appreciate about the federal government, like being able to get their Social Security checks, has been completely broken. So, yeah, of course there's going to be reaction against that. And we've been tracking, especially this week, the approval rating for Trump, really, across the board, has fallen off significantly, not just with regard to his overall approval, but specifically his handling of the economy, completely reversed. He has the worst numbers with independents of any president, including himself, ever, at this point in their presidency. And the pain of tariffs has not yet hit whatever Doge has been doing in the government, which we have very little transparency into, by the way. Whatever they've been doing in the government that is going to hobble these agencies and incapacitate them for years and potentially cause the kind of crises that we've been concerned about over time. Those things haven't even hit yet, so it's hard to imagine how they. On this current path, Trump's not gonna do a 180. That's not who he is. Right. Instead, and this is just a quick preview of my monologue, instead, he's going to lean more into the authoritarian, like Let me suppress the dissent. As there's more of a sort of grassroots and institutional backlash to him and resistance to him, you're going to see more authoritarian tactics. In the same way that after he lost the election in 2020, a referendum on his popularity and a threat to, obviously the greatest threat to his power. That was when he was at his most unhinged and most authoritarian in the first term. And I fully expect us to be heading into that.
- [98:59]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, maybe. But you know, the other possibility of that is that when you lose your grip on the government and you began explicitly challenging the court, I mean, I saw a Supreme Court watcher be like, if you're Justice Roberts now, that whole what we remember, we talked about the facilitate language, you're just not gonna do that in the future. You're gonna be like, no, I think that's right. It's not happening.
- [99:17]
Krystal Ball
I think that's right. Cause they have to be watching the way that the administration is just lying about their order and be like, oh, we cannot give them an inch.
- [99:25]
Sagar Enjeti
Also, look, you can crack down all you want want if you're Trump, but any Republican, good luck to you who is in power right now. Because when the Dems take the House, Elon alone, it will probably have to spend 100 million in legal fees, just in terms of what the House committees are going to investigate on SpaceX and on Twitter and Tesla alone. So that's just Elon for everybody else in the administration. My God, I hope you people have lawyers upon lawyers on retainer, because it's going to be not going to be fun for all those contempt challenges. Remember, Bannon went to prison for contempt. So did Peter Navarro. Yeah, I mean, these people, they can literally lock your ass up. And then in the future, let's say this continues and you have a Democratic president who's in charge. I mean, yeah, I wouldn't want to be a Christian charity right now when we're talking about Harvard University tax exempt status and all that. So I still see, see a major backfire that's coming there for Donald Trump.
- [100:22]
Krystal Ball
Last thing I do want to put this last e4 guys up on the screen just so you know what, we're not like cooking the books here or lying. This is cumulative federal spending by day. And where we are in 2025 is above where we were in 2024. So, you know, all of those purported savings not showing up here whatsoever. And as I mentioned before, you know, even their $150 billion claim is total bullshit. That New York Times report, they found that One of their largest claims involves canceling a contract that did not even exist. So those are the sorts of things that we're talking about here.
- [100:58]
Jerome Powell
There you go.
- [100:58]
Krystal Ball
But there is one good thing, sort.
- [101:00]
Sagar Enjeti
Of maybe I'll get to that.
- [101:02]
Krystal Ball
Caveats, but maybe encouraging news coming out of the Trump administration.
- [101:06]
Sagar Enjeti
Let's get to that. Let's get to that On Iran. Let's put this up there on the screen. There's so many things that I want to say about this. First of all, it's the headline. Trump waved off Israeli strike after divisions emergency emerged in his administration. Let's break down this extraordinary report, clearly leaked from the administration, kind of as a screw you to Israel and showing their plans for what they presented in the Oval Office. Quote, Israeli officials recently developed plans to attack Iranian nuclear sites. In May next month. They were preparing to carry them out and at the time were optimistic the United States would sign off. The goal of the proposal was to set back Tehran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon by a year or more. Quote, almost all plans would have required United States help not just to defend Israel, but also to ensure that the Israeli attack was successful, making the United States a central part of the attack itself. For now, Trump has chosen diplomacy over military action. However, in his second term, he is eager to avoid being sucked into another war in the Middle east and has opened negotiations with Tehran, giving it a deadline of just a few months to negotiate a deal over its program. Earlier this month, Trump informed Israel of his decision the United States would not support an attack. Discussed it with Netanyahu when he visited Washington just last week and told him in the Oval Office that that was not going to happen. Quote, Israel has long planned to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, rehearsing bombing runs and calculating how much damage it could do. But support within the government has grown after Iran suffered a string of separate just last year. They think that they're weak and that they can strike now. Now, according to them, there is, there were plans on the table not just to facilitate the bombing, but then to require and push the United States to bring more military assets to the region. Remember how we were covering here on the show about all the new military assets that are headed that way? It was specifically after a push by the Israeli government on this now, thank.
- [102:59]
Krystal Ball
God for now this must have been Tucker got wind.
- [103:02]
Sagar Enjeti
Exactly. You're exactly right. And so looking inside, it's very interesting. There were, quote, a range of officials who spoke out against any of these attacks. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of National Intelligence, said that the buildup of American weaponry would potentially spark wider conflict with Iran. The United States does not want J.D. vance, Pete Hegseth, and apparently also Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff. However, the idiot died. Stunts Mike Waltz was also in the room. Quote, frequently one of the most hawkish voices on Iran. And while he was skeptical about Israel's plan to succeed without U.S. assistance. Back to the plan anyway. And there are several people who are inside the administration who are openly supporting this. People like Marco Rubio, many other outside voices that are in the admin. So I do not wanna downplay this is good news and it's bad. So the good news is that they have opted for a deal quote on a timeline of a few months, months for now before any sort of strike is on the table. The bad news is I happen to remember the Iran deal. It took years to get the JCPOA to be negotiated. Second to that, as you guys covered yesterday on counterpoints, there is a full scale purge happening right now in the Pentagon. There have been three top officials who have been kicked out of the building in some sort of crazy power struggle. I haven't fully gotten all the details. Nobody really seems to know. All I happen to know is that the people who are most on Pete Hegstadt's side and who are the most, America first, just happen to be frog marshed out of the building. Okay, that's not good, right? These are the very people who I would want right around Pete Hexthat who would be quashing some of the stuff that's happening, Mike Waltz. Meanwhile, even though he literally put Jeffrey Goldberg on a signal chain, oh, he gets to stay, right? But these people who they're accusing of leaking, they're getting Frogmont March. Interesting. Got it. The point is that personnel around Trump is pure chaos. In some days, Marco Rubio's in charge. Mike Wallace is still around there. Some days he's listening to JD and he's listening to Tulsi Gabbard. But there is no guarantee that he doesn't just turn his head and listen to the other guy. We have Steve Witkoff, all those guys, they're in control for right now. But as we saw with the ceasefire deal, they can be out of power momentarily. Nothing is guaranteed and or certain right now. I don't think the stakes could literally be higher because I mean, the Israelis, you have to admire their chutzpah. They don't even develop war plans without US backing. They don't even pretend to have an operation. That doesn't mean hey, big daddy, you have to come in here and actually do something about it. So let's all be very clear about what this strike and all that means. It's also the thing about Bibi is he's not even creative. This is the exact same plan that he came up with in 09. That Jeffrey Goldberg, by the way, is the one who revealed about and tried to push President Obama to support Bibi. To do this was 15 years ago. It's the exact same plan almost to the letter about what the US Is gonna do and how Israel was gonna be the tip of the spear, but the US Would be the overall security umbrella there. So that's where we're at right now. Now, the deal is currently being negotiated. The timeline is not good. Trump could change his mind at any time, and the fate of the world is hanging in the balance.
- [106:16]
Krystal Ball
And what Emily was saying is that the people who want him to go with the Bibi bomb Iran plan, they're saying, like, you're just negotiating a deal just like Obama.
- [106:27]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, no, they are.
- [106:28]
Krystal Ball
To try to get under his skin. And I mean, unfortunately, there is some truth to the fact fact that any deal that he would get would probably bear some similarities to what Obama did. But that is. I mean, first of all, I think the original deal was actually a good deal. It was one of the signature achievements of the Obama administration. It's really unfortunate Trump backed down. It's also unfortunate Biden didn't get back in, something we covered extensively at the time. But I have Dr. Trita Parsi evaluated and analyzed this New York Times article. I just wanted to share his insight because he's such an expert here. He says, number one, last week, Trump told Israel that the US Would not support an Israeli attack on Iran while talks were being conducted. That's the headline from the piece. He's saying these are the key pieces to take away from it. Number two, in the Israeli plan of attack, the US Would have to play a central role. Israel itself has no military option. So that's what Saga was saying. Keep that in mind. Number three, still, the Israeli plan would only push back the Iranian program one year. More attacks would be needed after that. That means Israel wants to bring the US Into a forever war with Iran. Yes, that's what we're talking about here. Number four, he says, more importantly, the 2015 nuclear deal pushed back the program much more than a year. So that was way more successful. And then he says Trump appears to understand negotiated solution better, achieves his goal. Well, we'll see. We'll see on that front. I hope so. I hope he can be persuaded of that and I hope they're able to negotiate a deal because this would be insanity. This would be utter insanity.
- [107:59]
Sagar Enjeti
It's not good. I did wanna put some positive news. Let's go to the next one, please. Trump has reappointed Adam Bowler. You'll all remember Adam. I remain a bowler, Stan. He's the guy who said that we're not a client state of Israel and who was relentlessly attacked by the Israel lobby for daring to want to negotiate with Hamas directly and who said we're not appliance of Israel. And who knows, maybe they're good guys. Remember, this guy is friends with Jared Kushner and they still were able to sideline him. Seems to be back. He's been appointed to, quote, expanded hostage envoy role. We're not yet sure how that is all going to work out. I'm told the Israeli ambassador directly intervened to try and just screw over Adam Boller. So that's what we're dealing with. Interesting. Let's go to the next one. Here again, just more little bit insight. This is from Barack Ravid. He's mostly getting leaks, it seems, from the Israeli state side. But what he's saying is basically that the president kind of needled Bibi Netanyahu in the Oval Office when saying he would not greenlight the Iranian attack and kind of tried to force him to accept the fact that the US Was going to pursue a deal. But they have several senators and others, Mike Walz, Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, people who have their ear of the president. And then the Israel lobby specifically behind the scenes is whipping harder than they have ever, ever done since I have seen since 2015, they have the entire infrastructure in place. The tweets are being sent, the calls are being made. I mean these people never underestimate their abilities. As I said, as I watch people who I know America Firster is getting frog marched out of the Pentagon. So I don't remember Mike Waltz getting frog marched out of the White House even though obviously deserved to. And they went to bat for him. So don't forget that.
- [109:38]
Krystal Ball
Well, Laura Loomer did claim some skills.
- [109:41]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. Some low level guys. I don't care about some guy who's staffing Mike Walsh. Mike Walsh is in the Oval pushing war. That's what matters more than anything. That is actually the only thing that matters at the end of the day because this is all up to Donald Trump in the Situation Room right now. We have relative parity between Tulsi Gabbard, Pete and JD versus Rubio at Mike Walsh and a few of the other neocons that would be on the National Security Council. But I mean, you can see how quickly like things can turn just like that with Donald Trump. So I have no idea. And I do not underestimate the Israel lobby. Their ability to get on Fox News is to pump all this bullshit straight into Trump's brain. And so things could be headed in a bad direction. All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? The championship is back in the Bay for the first time in 40 years.
- [110:31]
Steve Kerr
On the new limited podcast series Dub Dynamics, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how Steph Curry almost never even joined the Warriors.
- [110:40]
Richard Hanania
In fact, I thought we had a draft day deal to end up getting.
- [110:43]
Steve Kerr
Him to Phoenix for the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run. Listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [110:58]
Maya Shankar
Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plan. I started this show because unexpected change comes for all of us and there's no set playbook for how to deal with it.
- [111:10]
Amanda Knox
I have all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me and the last thing I want to do is to pass that on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out. This is this puzzle of my trauma. I have to figure it out and I have to figure it out now.
- [111:25]
Maya Shankar
Join me this season when I talk to Amanda Knox about her choice to reconnect with the prosecutor who helped put her behind bars.
- [111:33]
Amanda Knox
This is not about him. This is about me and what I am capable of giving. And I know that I am capable of being kind to this man. And by God, I am going to do it. And no one can stop me.
- [111:52]
Maya Shankar
Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [111:58]
Jerome Powell
The best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. But most people avoid them. Staying silent, missing opportunities, and holding themselves back. I know this is true because I used to be one of those people. As a kid, I struggled to fit in and I was afraid to speak up. That fear followed me into adulthood until I realized something powerful. Negotiation isn't a talent. It's a skill. Skill anyone can learn. And it starts with negotiating with yourself, breaking through fear, self doubt, and the limits we place on ourselves. Now I help people from all walks of life, whether it's people closing multi million dollar deals, parents setting boundaries, students finding their voice, or professionals advancing their careers. If you want to handle tough conversations, get what you deserve and take control of your future, this podcast is for you. I'm Kwame Christian, host of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world where you'll learn one simple truth. You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Listen to Negotiate anything on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [113:06]
Krystal Ball
Senator Chuck Grassley was recently confronted by angry Iowa constituents who are demanding the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. You take a listen.
- [113:15]
Sagar Enjeti
Are you going to bring that guy back from El Salvador? Why not? Well, because that's not a, that's not a power of Congress. If I get an order to pay a ticket for $1200 and I just say no, does that stand up? Because he's got an order from the Supreme Court and he just said no? Yeah, screw it. The president of that country is not subject to our U.S. supreme.
- [114:05]
Krystal Ball
Now, the reason that this administration has decided to fight so hard on this one particular case, to keep this one man locked in the dungeon for life, is pretty simple and obvious. Because if they can stonewall even in a case where they admit that they screwed up, then there is nothing to stop them from sending whoever they want to the torture dungeon for life. All they have to do is get the planes in the air before a court can weigh in. As one Reagan appointed judge wrote of Trump's plot, quote, it takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness. What I want you to understand though, is that this is only the beginning of Trump's authoritarian crackdown. And in fact, if history of other authoritarians and Trump himself are any guide, as Trump's popularity falls, he will only become more dangerous. Dangerous as he reaches for more and more tools of suppression and control. This is in fact the exact spiral that led to the January 6 riots and Trump's attempted election subversion. But if there is one thing we know about Trump 2.0, the man himself is more unhinged. And any prior guardrails have either been demolished or are being bulldozed right through now. In many ways, the early days of Trump's administration have been a complete failure. We're just discussing dozens. It's floundering no public achievements, even as it destroys key government functions. Elon himself has seen his status ebb after a political drubbing in Wisconsin and seems on his way to limping out of Town, the Ukraine war and Israel's genocide in Gaza, they grind on with no apparent end in sight. And perhaps most devastating politically, Trump's grand trade war has been a catastrophic mess, which somehow managed to unite Wall street with Main street street in their revulsion for the chaos and the damage that is being inflicted for no good reason. Polls increasingly reflect the public's consensus on these failures. Liberation Day has accelerated a downward trend in Trump's overall approval rating. He's gone from plus one with independence to minus 22. That is the worst any president has ever fared with this group at this point in their presidency. His economic approval has fallen even more precipitously with tariffs dominating. When people are asked what negative things they've seen recently about the Trump administration, even on his strongest issue, immigration, even that is starting to slip away from him. In a Quinnipiac poll that was taken before the Abrego Garcia case blew up to a full national scandal, Trump was already underwater on immigration by 5 points. And on deportations, he was underwater by 11 points. Now, at the same time, resistance is swelling, both at the grassroots and the institutional level. Hundreds of thousands of people have turned out to Bernie and AOC's Fight Oligarchy Tour, including large crowds in red states like Idaho. Millions turned out coast to coast as part of the hands off protest. Members of Congress cannot hold a town hall without being flooded by outraged constituents. Universities are beginning to fight back rather than get rolled. Law firms are starting to think twice about their capitulation bribery deals. Democrats have moved from Cory Booker's show speech speech to Chris Van Hollen's genuinely courageous flight to tango with Bukele. In El Salvador, the courts are becoming increasingly assertive and bond traders are apparently the actual deep state. Now, how will Trump respond to this rapid political shift and mounting backlash? It won't be by backing down or changing course. It will be by cracking down. Some of this project, of course, is already well in motion. He's used supposed national emergencies and national security threats, already ready to claim extraordinary powers via his terrorist program and by invoking the Alien Enemies Act. But there's more. On April 20, pursuant to an executive order that Trump signed on day one of his presidency, he is going to receive a report from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and fascist Barbie Kristi Noem about whether or not he should invoke the Insurrection act of 1807. Now, such an invocation would open up extraordinary powers for this president to use our military in our streets against ourselves citizens. Of course, there are any number of ways which he might deploy that power. Perhaps he'd deploy the military to the border, part of an expanded militarized immigration response. The acting head of ICE has mused about ramping up mass deportation on an industrial scale, even fantasizing about fleets of trucks scooping up immigrants. The way that Amazon efficiently delivers packages on a mass scale. We need to get better at treating this like a business, acting ICE director Todd Lyon said, explaining he wants to see a deportation problem process like Amazon prime, but with human beings. Trump and the Republicans are pushing for a much larger budget for ICE and for private prison contractors to run detention centers. But if you really want to go for industrial scale, it'd be hard to beat the military now, even if you are hawkish on immigration, think of the genuinely evil way this administration has already conducted itself. Do you feel comfortable handing them the tools for a militarized industrial scale human removal and incarceration system system? Do you really think the horror is going to be just reserved to the criminals, the gang members, when we already know that 90% of the men that they sent to a slave labor torture dungeon were innocent like Amazon prime, but for fascism, I guess. Now, notorious Blackwater war profiteer Erik Prince, he's been pushing his own plans for mass expansion of the Bukele torture dungeon operation. According to Politico. He wants to send thousands of miles migrants to seekot and avoid legal scrutiny by designating a portion of the prison as American territory. That way they could hold people indefinitely in Bukele's Gulag as easily as they can scoop up and detain immigrants right here in the US but that is just one of a myriad of disturbing authoritarian possibilities. The Trump administration has also been cracking down on protesters, specifically targeting pro Palestine activists and those involved in the anti Tesla movement, describing both groups as terrorists. What's more, Ken Klippenstein is reporting that Trump's law enforcement apparatus is increasingly targeting all protesters against this government, including those who participated in the recent hands off protests. This effort is being spearheaded by Trump's counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka, who, Ken writes, frequently compares all his political opponents to terrorists and is in a significant position of power in this administration. Now Gorka is also looking at considering those who oppose deportation as providing material support for terrorism. That would be a felony. It is not hard to imagine Trump using the Insurrection act against any mass protest movement, given they are already laying the administrative and rhetorical groundwork of painting these protesters as terrorists, as criminals and as paid operatives. Another dark possibility is that Trump moves from using wartime powers to starting an actual war. We've been covering and covered in this show for a while. While the seeming buildup towards war with Iran now on the hopeful side, Trump has enlisted Steve Witkoff in direct talks in an attempt to achieve a deal. Reportedly rejected an Israeli plan to directly strike Iranian nuclear facilities, at least for now. On the ominous side, Trump's Pentagon has already drawn up war plans for Iran, including a nuclear option. Key anti war voices, including Dan Caldwell, were just purged from the Pentagon. Signalgate also revealed just how hawkish the internal chat really is is. And Trump himself has long seemed to believe that war makes for good politics. In the Obama era, Trump theorized multiple times that Obama would start a war with Iran in order to bolster his popularity. Take a listen.
- [121:38]
Richard Hanania
Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective.
- [121:47]
Sagar Enjeti
So the only way he figures that.
- [121:49]
Richard Hanania
He'S going to get reelected and as sure as you're sitting there is to.
- [121:53]
Sagar Enjeti
Start a war with Iran.
- [121:55]
Krystal Ball
Now, if he still thinks war with Iran is good politics, he is a complete and utter fool. That is not a possibility I put off the table, by the way. But he also may not really care about his approval ratings as much as he cares about the power he can grab. And everyone lit who lived through the post 911 power grab knows that a president can grab a hell of a lot of power during times of war. Now, these are just a few few possible directions Trump could take as his poll numbers slide and he must resort to ever more extraordinary means to stifle dissent. Obviously they're already trying to coerce universities, law firms, media, courts and business. I would pay though very close attention to what happens on April April 20, since the insurrection act seems like the easiest cheat code for this administration to expand their lawlessness on immigration to lawlessness with regard to the entire population. After all, Trump says outright, they want to be able to disappear Americans just like they did Kilmar, Abrego, Garcia. Yeah, yeah, that includes them. Why do you think there's special category of person? They're as bad as anybody that comes in. Now the Insurrection act to me seems like the most likely path to effectuating that outcome. Trump considered, of course, invoking the Insurrection act twice in his first term, once against Black Lives Matter protesters, again leading up to January 6th. In both instances, he was held back by some more establishment figures within his administration. But this administration, none of those types of voices remain this time around. You should take him seriously and literally and assume that Whatever your worst case scenario is, the reality is likely to be worse. And Sager, I do think, you know, we both talked about after that meeting with Bukele in his office where number one, they're completely flouting the night Supreme Court ruling. They are refusing to do anything to bring Abrego Garcia back, and they are completely lying about all of that. And he announces we want the homegrowns next. I wasn't able to add it into this monologue, but I saw that Bukele has said he wants to double the size of Cecot and said specifically it will be up to the Americans to fill it. So that's the landscape that we're facing as his popularity slides sides and he's going to face more and more dissent and more and more resistance.
- [124:06]
Sagar Enjeti
I think it's possible, but it's like I said, I would further not underestimate both, trying to, quote, save face. But even more importantly, we're already watching a. We are already watching here in the Supreme Court and other era. They know in some ways that they're in a difficult position. I think there's a reason that there hasn't been another Alien Enemies act deportation since the. Well, it's been a month right now since that has happened. I mean, presumably if they thought that they were on good standing, that's something they would continue to do.
- [124:37]
Krystal Ball
They've been blocked in multiple times. Right.
- [124:38]
Sagar Enjeti
They've been blocked in multiple jurisdictions under TROs. I guess for now, they have decided not to participate in that. In some ways, like with doge, what we watch is they start extreme and then they pare back over time. So I'm not gonna dismiss that. I also would not count out the possibility that as they continue to get backed and backed and backed into a corner, that they also become, frankly, a little bit more of what they were like in the 2020s, not necessarily in the late 2010s whenever they were first in office, where largely like, Trump did not really do anything after the TCJA outside of foreign policy.
- [125:17]
Krystal Ball
Well, he did January 6th.
- [125:18]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, it was at the end. I mean, it's a little different.
- [125:20]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. But that is, it is analogous though, because that's when his, you know, he loses the election, whether he believed that in his mind or not. I don't think he. I think he did know that he lost. And that's when his most extreme authoritarian instincts came out, is when he actually had suffered his most severe political blow. And, you know, I mean, if you look at other authoritarian regimes, you see a similar thing. When the public rises up, then what do they do? They crack down. Right. Because to your point about him, quote, unquote, saving face. His version of saving face is making sure there aren't mass protests in the street, making sure that he can do what he wants and not have to listen to the courts, et cetera. So, listen, I could be wrong, but.
- [126:00]
Sagar Enjeti
Like, I'm not dismissing it out of hand, calling it.
- [126:02]
Krystal Ball
I know you aren't.
- [126:03]
Sagar Enjeti
I think three months ago, I would have scoffed. I would have been like, that's a joke. I'm not gonna say that. Okay. Like, I'm being honest.
- [126:09]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. I do think I'm just putting the pieces together of we know this direction with them designating pro Palestine activists, hands off protesters, anti Tesla protesters, now, people who oppose deportations as terrorists. Right. Or giving material support to terrorists. So you have that in place. You have this executive order he signed on day one that says he's supposed to get this report about whether or not he should invoke the Insurrection Act. So you have that piece in place. Place. And you have him saying, we want to send the homegrowns to this El Salvador dungeon. So when I look at that landscape, I am very concerned about what's going to be happening in the next weeks. And I think everybody should be paying very close attention to what happens in the coming days.
- [127:00]
Sagar Enjeti
In particular, I don't disagree at all. I also think let's calibrate and say Insurrection act on the border is like, categorically different than Insurrection act on whatever, hands off protests, like you said. Right. That is just completely different. I mean, you can be against it if you want to. I think the former is probably pretty popular. The difference, I think, is that on the court cases and on the precedent, it's become clear to me that it's not even about, because I'm not so sure. I know there's a lot. There's a leftist straight up thought they believe that they intentionally grabbed up Garcia. I don't think so. I think it was complete incompetence and stupidity.
- [127:42]
Krystal Ball
I agree with that. I don't think that they intentionally grabbed him up. But I do think the fact that they've leaned into this so aggressively, I mean, look at JD Vance posting all over Twitter all day long, Pam Bondi coming out and releasing again the field report that supposedly claimed from this dirty cop who got fired weeks later that he was a gang member because of his Chicago Bulls hat. You know, Caroline Levitt lying and saying he's a human trafficker. No one has ever said that there is no evidence that that has ever been the case. So I think it was an accident. Just like I think with Mahmoud Kalia. I don't think that they knew that he was a legal permanent resident.
- [128:18]
Sagar Enjeti
I agree.
- [128:19]
Krystal Ball
But I do think once they find those things out and they insist on saying the course and taking this maximalist position, I think that's what ultimately matters. And with Abrego Garcia, the reason they don't want him to come back is because if you open up the possibility of some sort of legal process, of course, to retrieve these people, these plans are done. You can't send American citizens there. You can't send these, you know, 90% of these people had nothing, no criminal record whatsoever. And so that plan and that avenue towards the lawlessness, that is over. And so that's why they're fighting so hard on this. Because if they can get away with this one, they can get away. Away with anyone. With anyone.
- [128:58]
Sagar Enjeti
Right. Which is of course why they're doing it. I don't know. We'll have to check back in a couple of weeks, like you said, because I think it could vary. I'm not downplaying it all. I absolutely think it could go in that direction. I also would not count out the same petering out that we've seen with Doge. I mean, they've effectively surrendered. No, we just did a whole block about that. I'm not saying the damage wasn't done and I don't think it's good. But Trump and all of that, he is in the past was relatively nimble in moving away from certain things. But, you know, with the people around him and others, he may decide not to do that. He did back away from several unpopular things in his first term, but he also views doing that and giving into media pressure as one of the great mistakes of his presidency, which is definitely one of the differences that we see year round.
- [129:43]
Krystal Ball
That's a good point.
- [129:43]
Sagar Enjeti
We'll see. Okay, we will see you all, I guess no Friday show tomorrow.
- [129:47]
Krystal Ball
That's right.
- [129:47]
Sagar Enjeti
Don't forget.
- [129:48]
Krystal Ball
See you all later.
- [129:58]
Sagar Enjeti
The championship is back in the bay for the first time in 40 years.
- [130:03]
Steve Kerr
On the new limited podcast series Dub Dynasty, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how Steph Curry almost never even joined the Warriors.
- [130:12]
Richard Hanania
In fact, I thought we had a draft day deal to end up getting.
- [130:15]
Steve Kerr
Him to Phoenix for the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run. Listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [130:31]
Sagar Enjeti
I'm ready to fight. Oh, this is Fighting words.
- [130:33]
Steve Kerr
Okay, I'll put the hammer back.
- [130:35]
Sagar Enjeti
Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a best selling author with the second most banned book in America. America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back.
- [130:44]
Jerome Powell
Part of the power of black queer.
- [130:46]
Richard Hanania
Creativity is the fact that we got us. You know, we are the greatest culture.
- [130:51]
Sagar Enjeti
Makers in world history. Listen to fighting words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention.
- [131:08]
Richard Hanania
This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild ha priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in.
- [131:15]
Sagar Enjeti
A hellbent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. He was out of his mind and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. Listen to Divine intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.