← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
4/23/25: Trump Surrenders To China, Tesla Stock Tanks, Layoff Bloodbath, RFK Autism Database & MORE!
02:13:01
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- [00:01]
Crystal Ball
Every morning brings a fresh new energy.
- [00:04]
Sagar Enjeti
And no matter what the day holds.
- [00:06]
Crystal Ball
We come to the Today show for all of it.
- [00:08]
Sagar Enjeti
We get the best start to the day because we started together. Watch the Today show weekdays at 7am on NBC. This season, let your shoes do the talking. Designer Shoe Warehouse is packed with fresh styles that speak to your whole vibe without saying a word. From cool sneakers that look good with everything to easy sandals you'll want to wear on repeat, DSW has you covered. Find a shoe for every you from the brands you love like Birkenstock, Nike, Adidas, New Balance and more. Head to your DSW store or visit dsw.com today. Since its invention, the TV has been just that, a TV.
- [00:49]
Crystal Ball
But what if it could be something.
- [00:50]
Sagar Enjeti
More Meet Samsung Vision AI Whether it's upscaling classic content to look brand new.
- [00:56]
Crystal Ball
Or translating an English broadcast subtitles to.
- [00:59]
Sagar Enjeti
Spanish in real time, sampling Samsung Vision AI helps you get more from TV than you ever thought possible. Experience Samsung Vision AI and get a music frame on Samsung with a qualifying 2025 TV and audio purchase. Visit Samsung.com to learn more.
- [01:12]
David Hogg
Valid 4.16, 5.4 and qualifying 2025 Neo.
- [01:14]
Sagar Enjeti
QLED OLED and the frame TVs with.
- [01:16]
Crystal Ball
Vision AI while supplies last. See Samsung.com for terms and conditions. Vision AI features vary by model.
- [01:19]
Sagar Enjeti
Upscaling utilizes AI based formulas and results may vary based on source content. Translation accuracy not guaranteed.
- [01:24]
David Hogg
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:25]
Crystal 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 is the only.
- [01:33]
David Hogg
Place where you can find honest perspectives.
- [01:35]
Sagar Enjeti
From the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [01:38]
Crystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the.
- [01:50]
David Hogg
Future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com welcome to Counterpoint. Crystal, thank you so much for joining us today.
- [02:02]
Crystal Ball
It is my pleasure and we start today with some fantastic, fantastic news. Emily, you want to share the latest with regard to Ryan and his wife who had a significant surgery yesterday?
- [02:12]
David Hogg
Yeah, absolutely. So Ryan was actually able to post on X yesterday update. Surgery today went very well. Doctors described it as a quote best case scenario. Thank you to everybody for the well wishes and the prayers. It means a lot. So Crystal, you just said Best news. Yeah, I mean, this is fantastic and a huge relief for Ryan. So we're very excited for them and continuing to hope for the best.
- [02:36]
Crystal Ball
Yes, absolutely. So he's with her today helping her to recover. But we're really glad to hear that news. We've got a bunch of other world news, domestic political news to get to. Trump making some really significant comments appearing to back down from his trade war against China. So a lot to say there. Yeah. We also got some numbers from Tesla where they their net income was down 71% in the first quarter. So things not going too well for Elon, Emily?
- [03:02]
David Hogg
No, I was going to say we had the whole show basically set yesterday and we did it late. But even then, Donald Trump suddenly was talking about how, well, maybe the tariffs won't be 145%. We will get to that in a moment. We have video, we have more updates on how the tariffs are affecting the economy. And Crystal, a great guest lined up for today.
- [03:23]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, Eric Blanc. He focuses on unions. He had a really important piece a while back in Jacobin talking about, you know, debunking this myth that you can just put tariffs on and you're gonna end up with manufacturing jobs and that those are gonna be good jobs. You know, at the beginning of the turn of the century, the era that Donald Trump sort of idealizes under William McKinley, et cetera, factory jobs were not good jobs. They were dirty, they were dangerous, they were low wage, et cetera. It was really the union movement and a series of sort of historical events as well, the US Being kind of the only power in the world after World War II that enabled that dynamic. So we wanted to dig into that with him at a time when you're already starting to see actually manufacturing job losses because of what Trump has done on tariffs. So really excited to talk to Eric. We also, Emily, have a bunch of updates. Pete Hegseth seems to really be flailing. And, you know, I rely on you heavily to understand what the hell is going on in this situation to the best that any of us know, because it just seems like a total and complete mess over at the Pentagon.
- [04:24]
David Hogg
And both of us will be relying on Ryan, who will be with us in spirit to some extent because he has a massive new scoop about what's actually going on behind closed doors that I have to say, I think provides maybe the best explanation. So everyone should stick around for that. We have.
- [04:38]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. He actually told me, Emily, that he was occupying himself, working on that piece to distract him while his wife was in surgery. He was in the waiting room trying to distract himself to keep from going crazy working on this piece.
- [04:49]
David Hogg
So I figured that's what was happening because the piece ran while he hospital is classic Ryan. So. But it's a very important story. We will get to all of that. We're going to do a check in on the Maha movement because there were a couple of pretty interesting developments that just happened yesterday. New announcement about food dyes, but we also have some updates on how the FDA is approaching milk and other important questions. So we are going to go ahead and dip into Maha world for a segment this morning. Crystal, we have some interesting stuff from the Dems too. Rahm Emanuel went on the I've had it podcast to sort of unload on his fellow Democrats as he considers a possible 2028 presidential run. It's so ridiculous to say that, but here we are. Gavin Newsom made new comments and David Hogg continues to get pressed. We have quite an interesting clip of him and a conversation with Major Garrett on CBS News. So a lot to talk about there.
- [05:46]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, indeed. And I know you love those ladies from the I've had it podcast. You've been looking for a reason to pull some content from them and really uplift them. So I'm excited that we finally got you that chance. Em.
- [05:57]
David Hogg
Yeah, I have like a burning bias against them based on Bravo World. But anyway, we did.
- [06:02]
Crystal Ball
I didn't know they existed until recently. You know who clued me into them was actually Pisco, who you guys had on to talk about immigration. He was like, I think you'd love these ladies. Sure enough, I do love these ladies. That's hilarious.
- [06:15]
David Hogg
Well, we'll hash this out. I'll clue you in on all of the Bravo drama. But before we do that, we will get to 60 minutes having its executive producer. Only the third person to ever lead the show is executive producer, by the way. That's wow. Yeah, it's a crazy fact, but left the show yesterday with a complaint about lacking Editorial Independence amid CBS's battle with the Trump administration, or I guess its efforts is going to placate the Trump administration as they duke it out in court. So some interesting stuff going on behind closed doors there and it's probably representative of a broader struggle in the media, too. Crystal.
- [06:56]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, absolutely. Before we jump in, thank you guys so much. We've been getting a bunch of new premium subscribers. You guys made it possible to have the Friday show officially locked in, which we're really proud to be able to do. If you can't buy a premium Subscription. We totally get it. If you can, like, if you can share, you know, the podcast in particular, if you could share, if you can leave a review, all of those things really help us. So thank you guys so much for your support. And Emily, you want to go ahead and tell the people what Trump had to say about the trade war yesterday?
- [07:25]
David Hogg
Let's do it. Let's move to these comments that Donald Trump made at the White House yesterday evening as he was discussing the tariffs. We can go ahead and roll a one here.
- [07:34]
Sagar Enjeti
145% is very high. And it won't be that high.
- [07:38]
Crystal Ball
Not going to be that high. It got up to that. We were talking about fentanyl, where, you.
- [07:43]
Sagar Enjeti
Know, various elements built it up to 145. No, it won't be anywhere near that high.
- [07:52]
Crystal Ball
It'll come down substantially, but it won't be zero. Used to be zero.
- [07:57]
Sagar Enjeti
We were just destroyed. China was taking us for a ride and just not going to have. It's not going to happen. We're going to be very good to China, have a great relationship with President Xi, but they would make billions and.
- [08:12]
Crystal Ball
Billions and billions of dollars a year.
- [08:16]
Sagar Enjeti
And they would build their military out of the United States and what they made. So that won't happen. But they're going to do very well. And I think they're going to be happy. And I think we're going to live together very happily and ideally work together. So I think it's going to work out very well. But no, it's at 145%.
- [08:32]
Crystal Ball
They will not be anywhere near that number.
- [08:35]
David Hogg
So that was at about 5:15 in the evening. And we're going to get to this in a moment. But came after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant reportedly in a private JP Morgan meeting, had been saying something really similar. And Crystal, we have a lot of elements to get to in this block, but I want to just camp out on this point quickly and get your reaction. Because this is huge. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because this is, we've gone through the seesaw for the last several weeks about whether the tariffs are, this is the best distinction. What did he say? They are negotiable, but not a negotiating tactic. And there's, there's Donald Trump putting it very clearly all on the table. This is just a negotiating tactic.
- [09:15]
Crystal Ball
Right. And you know, I'm going to defer to. Arnaud Bertrand had a good analysis of this. He says Trump saying the tariffs with China won't be anywhere near as high, ironically, is probably going to have an even worse impact. On the US Economy, economy in the short run, because if you import stuff from China, number one, you're going to wait until the tariffs come down. You're not going to be, oh, yeah, let me pay the highest possible rate right now. So that's going to compound shortages right now in the immediate term because people are just going to wait out now that Trump has said this is not going to stay where it is, and he says you're going to be less motivated to look for any alternatives or establish certainly domestic manufacturing. Why would you go through that effort when the President has already told you this is not going to last? Which, again, he says is why Trump's approaches anything but 40 chess. He's basically negotiating with himself in public and making the business environment for US Companies utterly unpredictable and chaotic. And I think all of that is really well said. Obviously, Wall street is going to be super happy to see him climb down from, you know, 145%. I think the China tariffs were even technically higher than that at this point. But you get to a certain level where it's just like, okay, we're just not trading with China outside of these few exemptions that Trump put into place, which were significant, which had to do with, you know, a lot of high tech items that we are not going to be producing in the US Anytime in the near term. But, you know, we've been saying, Emily, from the beginning that a trade war with China, even under the best circumstances, was going to be very difficult for the US to win at this point because we are so reliant on them for so many things. And Trump did not set any sort of conditions in which it was even theoretically possible that we were going to prevail in this because he turned the entire world against us in the midst of, you know, launching a trade war against not just China, but the entire world. And he's not doing any of the sort of domestic policy to assist U.S. consumers or U.S. businesses which were, you know, being slaughtered by these tariffs, especially small businesses, like there was no way they could survive all of this. So in every way, he went about this in just the worst for his own goals, supposed goals, whatever those are. He went about it all in the worst possible way. And now, frankly, it's humiliating that he has to back down already in this very public way when China hasn't budged an inch.
- [11:34]
David Hogg
Well, his, I mean, his, his strategy was dependent on maintaining this sort of bluff. And we all kind of knew, and there were hints of it obviously, that this was just, I mean, everyone knew that this was a negotiating tactic. But what they didn't know is whether or not he would just say like screw it, keep it at 145, like we're just going to go full send for an indefinite period of time. Even if this was always meant to be a negotiating tight, but what he did just there is both take away his leverage, but also without providing certainty for domestic producers. And so it's really like not only is it not being augmented with the sort of policies that you would see domestically, not only is it not being augmented with a really coherent so far with a really coherent set of deals to reshore particular industries, to support particular industries. It's still like, it's just as you just see from him right there, it's completely being dominated or defined by what he chooses to say on a daily basis, which is, is not at all helpful to the project of on shoring. And so go ahead, just really quick.
- [12:46]
Crystal Ball
Just to summarize, you know, in terms of what he and his advisers claimed, there were a variety of goals that claimed here, right? One of them was to get the treasury bond rate down. That has gone in the opposite direction. And I do continue to think that is a significant reason. The fact that it was so clear the world was not fleeing to safety in U.S. bonds or in dollars, they were just fleeing the U.S. altogether. And I continue to think that was probably the most important reason why Trump is now backing down from this because that was so incredibly, like catastrophically, existentially disastrous for the US Economy. So fail on the treasury bond rates. Supposedly this was going to bring back manufacturing jobs. We were going to cover with Eric the way that manufacturing jobs were already taking a massive hit because of this policy. And then the other thing that you alluded to there, Emily, is oh, we're going to get all these great deals. Well, we have no deals, zero deals. We're at zero deals right now. So, you know, none of these purported somewhat contradictory aims were actually coming to fruition. And now Trump is, you know, Trump is sort of pulling the record saying, okay, we gotta, we can't keep this up. This is just not gonna work out.
- [14:03]
David Hogg
And let's roll this clip of Harry Entin on CNN as we try to figure out why Donald Trump says the things that he says. What's sort of the backdrop? Harry Anton explaining some of the drama in the stock market. Actually historical parallels. So let's rol clip A2 the S&P.
- [14:20]
Sagar Enjeti
Has dropped the most under Trump for any president at this point in their presidency since The S&P 500 was in fact created back in 1957. And indeed it is not anywhere close, folks. It's not anywhere close. Under Trump, it's dropped, get this, 14%. The next closest one was George W. Bush back in 2001, a drop of just half that at 7%. No other elected president at this point in their presidency saw a drop of 5% or more. So Donald Trump is on a planet all by himself, a planet you do not want to be on. The American people don't want to be on chance of a recession. You see, I have four different little metrics we can look at. JP Morgan, 60%, polymarket, 57%. Reuters, 45%. Goldman Sachs, 45%. Blame Trump if there's a recession in the next 12 months. Look at this a lot or quite a bit. That's the majority winner right there at 52%. A little or not at all, perhaps a little bit high, some might say at 32%. But still here, the clear majority of Americans say that if in fact there is a recession in the next 12 months, which at this point looks about 50, 50, the majority of the American public says that the buck will stop at the White house. Stop at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
- [15:33]
David Hogg
So Crystal, to your point, there's a lot weighing politically on Donald Trump. And you know, this idea, as they said when they rolled these tariffs out, I mean, they had again, mixed messaging about how ser. The quote, short term pain would be. Everyone kind of knew it was very obvious there'd be short term pain looking back to Ronald Reagan's presidency and saying he recovered by 1984 from the recession in 1981. But that gave them some comfort. And the question is, though, how long they're willing to stomach the short term pain and if the short term pain is actually reflective of something that is a ship that's not going to be turned around by the time the midterms come, by the time there's another presidential election. Whether or not Donald Trump cares about that is a different question. But the politics of this are going to get pretty rough. And Trump seems to be responding to that too.
- [16:25]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, I, I just have two questions. One of them is, you know, all the, the bocchiest of the world, the people, the MAGA world influencers, who were like making name for themselves by being like, tariffs now, tariffs forever. This is the greatest economic policy. This is delivering for Main street over Wall street and showing the elites like, like what's, what's their reaction now going to be now that he's like, yeah, we're we're just not really going to do that anymore. I guess they'll go back to from the this will create jobs now they'll go back to art of the deal in the meme that shows them going back and forth.
- [16:58]
David Hogg
Well it's interesting because it's also like where does he land on this when he says it's not going to be 145? Well what does that mean?
- [17:03]
Crystal Ball
What is it going to be 80%?
- [17:05]
David Hogg
Does it mean 120%? Like it's just so crazy because it'd.
- [17:09]
Crystal Ball
Be 144% under 44 and if it.
- [17:12]
David Hogg
Does remain something like 120 or he changes his mind, I mean he's been, you know, trying to maintain a bluff for a few weeks and then just comes out and says that on a day like yesterday. So it's really still very hard to know where this goes. But what we do know is that he's willing to make deals and we just don't know where those deals are going to end up.
- [17:35]
Crystal Ball
Is anyone willing to make a deal with him at this point? I mean I think that was the. You, you and Sagar covered this like that. The Japan meeting that they came away empty handed. That's part of what triggered a market sell off on that particular day. Because yeah, the rest of the world is like why would we make a deal with you? You people are crazy and you can't even tell us what you want even if we wanna make a deal. You don't even know what you're doing. So how can we even settle on some sort of terms here?
- [18:02]
David Hogg
Nobody knows cuz it's just Donald Trump and Scott Besant can go out and make this sort of intellectual case for it and try to put like meat on the bones of the policy that Donald Trump changes when he spe. You know, just like because he's talking and he's in a question and answer session with reporters and ends up saying something that you know, maybe he didn't plan to say. But that doesn't reassure markets. It's not, you know we should get into this crystal because this was really interesting as it was happening yesterday. We can put a three on the screen. This is the CNBC Terror street just tear sheet just about how markets closed yesterday. So Dow jumps 1,000 points Tuesday to snap that four day string of losses. That's where things ended up. But as the day was going on there was some quite interesting movement. We can put the next element up. This is Joe Weisenthal noticed Scott Besant gave comments that massively moved the markets earlier to a private JPMorgan event that wasn't open to the public or the media. What he said, what Bessant said was that, quote, the tariff standoff with China is unsustainable and that he expects the situation to de escalate. That's per Bloomberg's description of what he was actually talking about. So we can put that element up. This is the next, this is the next element. This is how Bloomberg. This was a JP Morgan investor summit here in Washington, D.C. it was not open to the public. And what Bessant was saying at the investor summit, move markets. Because when the Bloomberg report came out, it was kind of a preview of what Donald Trump would say later after the closing bell, around 5pm that they expect to de escalate with China. Charlie Gasparino, this was later in the day as well as around 2:18pm and it's the next element. He said, I've been told by a person close to Bassant, the reports on his remarks about a trade deal with China having been imminent overstate what he said. He meant that there is room for talks and de escalation, but much also depends on China's willingness to compromise on trade as well. So Crystal, just stopping right there with the Charles Gasparino point. So Besant says something behind closed doors that is on the same page with what the president says later in the day. But the treasury tries to clean up, or the administration at least tries to clean up the Besant remark by talking to Gasparino and trying to downplay what Besant said. That's my assumption. I mean, maybe it was somebody who was in the meeting who's not the administration. I don't know who the source is, but he says it's a person close to Scott Bessant. So I would assume that somebody in the administration, they try to clean it up and then Trump just comes out a few hours later and is like, yeah, we're de escalating 145. That's a crazy number.
- [20:46]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. Well, and yeah, exactly. And to your point earlier, Emily, like, we all know that the only reason he climbed down from his original, like the insane original chart of tariffs was because Bessant and Lutnick figured out how to get Peter Navarro away from him for a little while to be able to convince him and then type out the tweet in real time. You know, so, hey, they were able to get his ear yesterday. Maybe today Peter Navarro is going to have his ear and it's going to be a Totally different approach. We have no idea. But to go back to the Scott Besant comments and why this I think is quite significant is they're framing themselves and their defenders are framing themselves as, oh, they're looking out for mainstream. Here is Scott Bessant giving market moving information to insiders at a JP Morgan investor summit who had hours and the markets were moving for hours and people like, why, why are the markets going, like, what is going on? Why are the markets going up? And now we know it's because all the insiders got this information that, hey, we're backing down on the China piece and the, you know, they get to benefit and they get to cash in and the public gets Charles Gasparino coming out and whatever his, his sourcing was. Oh no, that's not really true. That's not really true. So I mean, it's just, it reminds very much of the day that Trump spiked the markets with rolling back, stepping back from his original tariff posture. And oh, lo and behold, Charles Schwab is in the White House that day and Trump's out there bragging about how he was able to cash in to the 2 to $2.5 billion on a single day. So there have been a lot of people who even have benefited and accumulated vast resources because of these massive market swings that have been wholly engineered by this White House.
- [22:34]
David Hogg
I kind of continue to think the tweet or I guess the true social post Trump put out that day, like all caps, it's a good time to buy, was a cover your ass post, knowing that they're going to be. It's hard to prove a lot of this stuff. But it also just says like, it gives everyone an excuse to say, well, we were listening to the President. You know, maybe they had information that wasn't public, but also maybe it was just a tweet. Like that's where you're able to sort of land on all of it. But what a, I mean, this is such a. There was a possibility and I know you and Sager have covered this a lot. There was a possibility, I think for something that was upsetting to Wall street but coherent and did induce some short term pain, but was, I think very clearly for the sake of long term gain. And where we are right now on April 23rd is sort of Trump waving his wand in different directions every other day and moving markets and affecting. I mean, if you think, you know, like the Trump comment is, it's very Trumpy and funny for a second and then you're like, oh my gosh, Small businesses who are trying to make plans around these tariffs just at the whim of what the president decides to do on a given day, their livelihoods are affected by it.
- [23:53]
Crystal Ball
So it's just, yeah, if you're a small business owner, like, it's not just your business, it's your life. Like, people put their whole, like, hopes, dreams that, you know, lady I've talked about with the busy baby business, like, she leveraged her house to be able to expand into Walmart and it's all on the line for them. And so for this whole thing to be so haphazard and so casual and with no attention whatsoever to the cruelty that is entailed at the heart of this policy with regard to workers and with regard to small and medium businesses is just, you know, it's, it is astonishing. It truly is astonishing to watch. And now the only question left is. So I said earlier, I was like, I have two questions. One is about what, what are all the defenders going to say now? The other one is about how much damage has already been done. Like, even if, okay, let's say he fully backs away and okay, we're not doing this anymore and we're just going to go back to more or less the status quo, whatever, like, how much damage, how many businesses have already gone under, how many businesses are already so freaked out about whatever the hell he's going to say tomorrow or the next week or 90 days from now that they're just like, I'm freezing investment. We're already seeing layoffs, we're already seeing huge freezes in terms of, you know, businesses investing for the future. So is that all going to just magically reappear? Are we going to have shortages and messed up supply chains for a long period of time because of this huge disruption that was engineered by this administration? You know, I think there's probably going to be a lot of fallout even from what has already been done. Not to mention the way that the world has now significantly moved against the US as evidenced by, you know, gold going up and the dollar weakening against basically every currency and, you know, treasury bonds moving the opposite way of what you would expect if there's a flight to safety. I think some of these things, there's no putting the toothpaste back in the tube.
- [25:55]
David Hogg
Probably true. And it just doesn't have to. That's, again, what's so frustrating is it doesn't have to be this way. Whether or not you sort of come to this question of protectionism from the left or the right, there's a pretty good argument for some targeted tariffs. And again, if you're a free trader, you absolutely hate that. But there's a pretty good argument for some targeted tariffs. Even I think and Sagar and I think I agree on this. There's a decent argument for the 10% global tariff, like the craziest thing in the world. But. But it doesn't have to be done in a way that leaves people stressed every single day with no clue what's going to happen next. Like, yes, there, the uncertainty, I think was an interesting leverage point for the time leading up to Liberation Day and the immediate aftermath of Liberation Day. But then what did the administration do to actually seal these deals with all of these different countries? What did they do to augment domestic industry that was going to be hit so hard by this? It just none of it had to be this way. Even if you support the end goal, maybe you do it from the left or the right. It just didn't. This doesn't have to happen like this. And that's really sad. At the end of the day, not.
- [27:05]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [28:00]
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- [28:47]
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- [29:26]
Crystal Ball
At the same time, Elon actually weighed in yesterday about the tariffs and Tesla had their earnings call. We found out that they're earning. I mean that company is in dire, dire straits and we'll get to a little bit more of that, that but on the earnings call, he really distanced himself from Trump's tariff policy, saying, listen, is this the policy of the President of the United States? It's up to him, but I've made clear I don't support this direction. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he had to say.
- [29:54]
Rahm Emanuel
I just want to emphasize that the tariff decision is entirely up to the.
- [29:59]
David Hogg
President of the United States.
- [30:01]
Crystal Ball
I will weigh in with my advice.
- [30:03]
David Hogg
With the president, which he, he will listen to my advice.
- [30:07]
Sagar Enjeti
But then it's up to him, of course, to make his decision. I I've been on the record many times as saying that I believe lower tariffs are generally a good idea for prosperity.
- [30:20]
David Hogg
But this decision is fundamentally up to.
- [30:22]
Sagar Enjeti
The elected representative of the people being the President of the United States. So you know, I'll continue to advocate.
- [30:29]
Rahm Emanuel
For.
- [30:31]
Sagar Enjeti
Lower tariffs rather than higher tariffs, but that's all I can do.
- [30:35]
Crystal Ball
So the highest profile member of the Trump administration, outside of Trump himself, saying that he does not support the direction of the tariffs. Not that that's any sort of a surprise. And he had been sniping at Peter Navarro and made clear already his upset with that direction. He also said something else very significant, Emily, which is he said starting next month I'll be allocating far more Time to Tesla Tesla, but also indicated he's going to continue to spend a day or two per week on government for as long as Trump wants. So, you know, it's, he's, he's kind of Doge's, I don't want to say it's completely ending, but it is petering out. And on the one hand, it has certainly been a complete failure with regard to the stated goals of Doge of any sort of efficiency. They've definitely made the government less efficient, they have failed to cut costs, government spending is at an all time high. But they have done a lot of damage. And this will actually come up in the block we do on Maha, you know, cutting food inspectors so we can no longer like regulate milk Basic, you know, Social Security has been under assault and now if you need to call, if you need to go to a field office, the line is going to be like a mile long and you're going to wait hours to get your issue dealt with. So, you know, it's been effective at making the government work a lot more poorly. And Elon, as libertarian and someone who also has all of these conflicts of interest and doesn't want these agencies regulating his businesses, so he got a lot out of it. But you know, in terms of the publicly stated advertised goals of efficiency and cost savings, that has all been a total and complete, complete, undeniable failure at this point.
- [32:18]
David Hogg
The Wall street journal, this is a 8, had a big piece on how this all has gone down for Tesla as Elon Musk started to get closer and closer to Donald Trump. And you know, it is, it was always an interesting move because from Musk's, the perspective of his portfolio, it's more than just Tesla. And Tesla, of course, is more than just a car company. A lot of of its valuation is about the technology as much as the technology, as much as it is about the cars themselves. And that's why it's always been valued so high. But from the perspective of his portfolio, becoming part of the Trump administration could benefit his other companies in ways that go beyond just sort of Tesla's relationship with the government. I mean, this is a man who has Space X and Neuralink and boring company and etc. We, you just keep listing them. So it was just, you know, if you get really close to Donald Trump and you're an electric vehicle company, what does that do to the customer base? That in and of itself was always like a huge, huge risk. Crystal. And I feel like, I'm curious what you make of this. I actually feel like that's probably hit the sales the most. Like Tesla has become. It's a brand, it's, it's a brand that is now associated with Donald Trump. And that'syou know, you get roughly half of the country, a little less than half the country voting for Trump. That's not a big enough market, especially when you're already trying to pull people who are interested in electric vehicles.
- [33:53]
Crystal Ball
Right. And the half of the country that support more or less, that supports Trump is the half that is much, much, much, much, much less likely to buy ev's piece. So you're directly alienating your own customer base and not just here in, you know, Europe, in Canada, in China. And so, yes, I think the net income sliding 71% like that is an astonishing collapse for Tesla. And I, it, I think, is not 100%, but significantly due to Elon making him such a toxic, divisive figure. Because, remember, he's not just, you know, taking control of vast swaths of our government. He's meddling in UK politics, he's meddling in German politics. He's trying to involve himself in all of these countries and their domestic political life and a lot of consumers. Elon has been profoundly unpopular in Europe for quite, for a while before his popularity plummeted here as well. And so, yeah, yes, the brand is very closely associated with him. There are a lot of competitors out there now. You know, if you are in most of the world, you can buy a byd, it appears to be a better car, the technology appears to be better, it is less expensive. So you have that competition coming online at the same time that he becomes such a toxic figure. And even here in the US, you know, the domestic automaker EVs, I happen to own one of them, the Ford, and they're, they're, they're good. You know, it's no longer that they're the only game in town. So. And because Tesla as a brand has become such a sort of polarizing brand, a lot of people are not trying to make a political statement with just their vehicle driving down the street. They're not trying, they're not, they don't want to get like dirty looks or judged or like have their political views on display or whatever just based on the car that they're driving. And so that's going to make it less appealing as well. And I think it's going to be difficult for them to climb out of things. This, because you face not only him as a toxic figure and so closely aligned with the brand, you also Face this, you know, competitive pressure coming from byd, and, you know, Tesla has a relatively stale inventory. And then another piece of this that we'll get to in a minute is the Cyber Truck has been one of the biggest flops in automotive history. Just a total, complete flop. We covered before that. Tesla dealership ships are not even taking it as, like, a trade in. So Tesla is not taking their own vehicle as a trade in. Because no one wants this thing. They've had to recall almost all of them. They've had all kinds of quality issues. It looks freakish. You know, it's already. It's already just the look of it is going to be divisive. And then with the normal Tesla cars, it's like, okay, maybe you got this before you knew what was going on with Elon, whatever, before he was on their sick hiling on Inauguration Day. But with the cybertruck, like, you kind of feel like, all right, you knew what you were getting with this guy. And so it is a very overtly political symbol. And most people just don't like, they're not looking for that in their vehicle.
- [36:55]
David Hogg
Yeah. I mean, we could do an entire show on how much I despise the cybertruck. But we should probably get to the rest of the news here. We put a 9B up on the screen. This is Joe Weisenthal pulling out a quote from this Bloomberg article about how Trump. Trump's Tesla says that Trump's trade war has had adverse. Adverse impacts on Tesla's global supply chain. No, no surprise there. And the trade war, quote, could have a meaningful impact on demand in the near term. Again, no surprise there. Then we can move on to the next element. This is the one that we just showed earlier about how bad the quarter was for the cybertruck. That is a 24% dip, which is about double the dip for the Model Y and the other Tesla offerings. And finally, last element in this block is A11. This is a report in the Washington Post. This is a story about a report in the Washington Post in which Elon Musk has reportedly said he wants to leave politics because he's tired of, quote, attacks from the left. So, Crystal, one of the big questions that we've had here on the show is the extent to which Elon Musk is benefiting both in front of the public and behind closed doors. And a lot of that would not come from Tesla, but from probably companies more like Starlink and SpaceX. Yeah. That are more closely intertwined with the government. And that's a giant unopened question or unanswered question? Jury is out on it. We may not know the details of that literally for four years to come because a lot was happening really quickly behind closed doors with Doge. But Tesla obviously is like his signature brand company and all of that. I think it'll be, like you said, difficult for it to recover from this. I don't think it'll be impossible for Tesla to recover because there is a lot of value in the tech itself. But all that is to say this is for Musk, the Tesla drop is probably nothing compared to the benefits he still reaped by being so closely intertwined. Intertwined with the Trump administration or will continue to, or we'll see those benefits coming down the line. So I just wanted to make that point quickly because. Because while it's true that Trump is hurting Wall street and Elon Musk is part of that, he has probably sacrificed a little bit with Tesla here, significantly with Tesla here, whether it was intentionally or otherwise, those benefits are still. We don't really know exactly what he's gotten out of this.
- [39:32]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, that's right. And you know, I think Elon is a very ideological force. I think it's wrong to think of his aspirations solely being. I mean, he likes to make money obviously, and you know, he's able to shift some contracts in his direction and gut the regulators that were causing him problems at his businesses, whatever. So he gets that out of it certainly. But you know, my sense from the reporting on him is that his real Tesla is not the apple of his eye right now. His real goal is this SpaceX colonizing Mars, which, you know, is sort of an insane thing. Like if you know anything about the actual atmosphere on Mars, etc. Etc. And so remains to be seen how much he is able to shift Pentagon resources and NASA resources in his direction for SpaceX to try to accomplish his like, you know, man on Mars colony dream or whatever it is that he has in mind. So like you said, a lot of unanswered questions about how much this is going to serve Elon's interest in the long term. It's also possible that he placed a big bet that it would serve his, his interest in his goal, his main character goal of, you know, making humans interplanetary, an interplanetary civilization, and that he ends up just screwing himself because the, the bets don't pay off. That's certainly the possible outcome here as well.
- [40:59]
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We're sending Sager to Mars and he's going with Katy Perry. That's the, that's where we're leaving this block.
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That will heal the world. That will heal the world.
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David Hogg
All right, Crystal, let's get to the guest.
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Joining us now for a conversation on the way that Trump's trade war has already hurt manufacturing jobs and what it would actually take to make not only more reindustrialization in this country, but make those jobs good jobs again is Eric Blanc. He's an assistant professor at Rutgers and he's also out with a terrific new book, highly recommend. Let's put it up on the screen. It's called We Are the Union How Worker to Worker Organizing is Revitalizing labor and Winning Big. And extremely relevant and timely book given how important unions were to building factory jobs into good, well paying jobs that were, you know, regulated and safety regulations and all of those sorts of things. So, Eric, great to see you. Welcome.
- [43:33]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
- [43:34]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, of course. Guys, if we could put up on the screen B2, we've had already some indications that because of the chaos of Trump's trade war and the way that it's, you know, unilateral and across the board forward, we've had some early job losses. A paper mill that has been open for 200 years that is now going to be closed, could put the next one up on the screen. We've got a list of a number of different companies. Stellantis, Mack Trucks, Cleveland Cliffs, John Deere, Summit, Interconnect, Whirlpool and Tenaco, where workers have already been laid off. Now, I do want to say I think some of this, you know, Stellantis in particular, I saw some reporting on how they just, you know, bought a bunch of their shares back, like some of these companies looking for an excuse to lay off workers and blame some other factor. But I also think it's fair to say that Trump has created a business environment, given that there's tariffs on so many of the inputs that are required for manufacturing as well, that has led directly to some of these job losses. So, Eric wanted to get your thoughts on not only the impact of this trade war now in the near term, but also more importantly, what would it actually take take to make sure that we did make more things in this country as many people want to. And not only that, that it wouldn't be done just by robots or by, you know, low paid workers the way that it was in the early 1900s, that the era that Trump really sort of idealizes.
- [45:02]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah. You know, the first thing to say is that Trump's actual rollout of these tariffs has been extremely counterproductive, at least in the short term, for the nominal goal goal of increasing manufacturing. So you give the numbers, I don't need to go into that more depth, but it is just worth saying that because of the across the board ness and then frankly, just because of the volatility and unknowability of what Trump's actually going to end up doing, it's hurt the economy as a whole. And so it's very counterproductive for the goal of, if this is actually the main goal of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. that being said, it's also just worth questioning understanding the basic premise of Trump's vision insofar as it exists, which is that you're going to bring back American prosperity just by bringing back factory jobs. And essentially what this leaves out Is that the reason today we associate factory jobs with a middle class lifestyle, images of the 1950s and all that is because there were unions. Factory jobs were horrible in this country before unions. And it took the unionization jobs of the 1930s and 1940s to make them decent jobs jobs. And you don't need to just look back to the Gilded Age, which is what Trump does. You know, Trump's always talking about, you know, we need to go back to the Gilded Age. Well, you know, read, read the Jungle by Upton Sinclair to get a sense of, you know, how horrible it was to work in the factories of that era. But you don't have to go back, you know, a century ago to understand what kind of jobs would come back if these factory jobs aren't union jobs. Just like look at the US south, right, where Honda workers, for instance, Honda workers in the US south make less, less than McDonald's workers make in Denmark. Right? The pay and the security that we associate with factory jobs in general just don't exist when you don't have unions.
- [46:42]
David Hogg
And I wanted to actually ask about that tension because I went back and looked recently at where the jobs from chips, reshoring, all of the industrial policy basically went over the last several years and they went overwhelmingly to right to work states. I mean, if you map them onto a map of right to work states, it's like, it's crazy. And it's not just red states, it's purple states and more like Arizona, places like that. And that speaks to, I guess I'm curious for your take on this, how it's true that American labor costs more than labor in Mexico or in other parts of the world. And so if you want to reshore in a way that actually benefits the middle class and doesn't create jobs that pay less than the example you just gave fast food work, that has to be coupled with something. And the way that I'm tossing this question to you is we've seen the right really struggle with what to do with organized labor and what to do with this idea that, you know, they want jobs that support middle class families and communities. So what would your advice be or what would your response be, your argument be to people on the right who say these are coming into right to work states, we need more right to work, we need cheaper labor. How should they be thinking about that? That?
- [47:59]
Rahm Emanuel
Well, you know, the first thing to say is that for a lot of these capital intensive factory jobs, labor costs are really a marginal part of the overall profitability. So it's just not the case that what is driving these companies to Mexico and to China is just that labor costs themselves are so large. This is a tiny fraction of the overall pie. And in fact a big reason for the lack of competitivity of, of American manufacturing is just frankly the lack of investment in new technology and the lack of real infrastructure development. The types of things that you need government policy to boost. So it's not the case that the only way or even the main way to have a more flourishing manufacturing sector is by keeping wages as low as possible. We've seen that in the 1950s. Think about the peak era of the US when we had the best manufacturing we've ever had. Well, that was when it was entirely unionized. So it's just not the case that the, it's a necessary precondition. In fact, you can argue the opposite that oftentimes it's unions because they raise the wage ceiling, force companies to have to develop more because they're not getting that just by extracting sort of super profits from exploitation. They have to innovate. They have to do the things that frankly our competitors in other countries are doing.
- [49:16]
Crystal Ball
We can go ahead and put your article for Jacobin on this topic where you, you know, you really make the case. You say unions, not just factories, will make America great. And you know, I think another piece of this with regard to, and your answer with regard to, you know, labor costs being a comparatively small part of the profitability of these companies is well taken. But the other thing I think we have to consider is because the US has such a bare bones social safety net and frankly insane healthcare system, it means that you are relying on workers wages to provide everything for them. So you don't have a government health care care system. So that cost is borne somewhat by the, the businesses. You know, housing is extraordinarily expensive. So if you want to have a prayer of even getting an apartment, you're going to have to earn a certain wage as well. So it seems to me like the social safety net piece of this has also been missing because you know, at the time of peak manufacturing, post war manufacturing power in the US which is somewhere around 1953, not only did you have high unionization, it was a time period when we were in the process of expanding the social safety net through the New Deal as well.
- [50:24]
Rahm Emanuel
Well, yeah, and this is one of the ironies of the fact that we don't have Medicare for all like we should in the United States, is that it would actually in many ways benefit most big employers. Right. Because it would take off these costs that oftentimes they end up having to bear, and it would, you know, socialize them. So this is a reason for having a strong social safety net that we don't have. And then just more generally, I think your point is well taken, which is that, that it's not just about the union. It's about, frankly, what the broader policy environment is to make this stuff happen. And one of the really bad aspects of the Trump rollout is that it's not real industrial policy. Tariffs, targeted tariffs can work. Right. Unionization in factories can be boosting productivity. It can be conducive towards a flourishing manufacturing economy. But it has to take place in the context of an industrial policy that's comprehensive, that we saw aspects of, frankly, at its best in the early Biden domestic agenda where there really were real incentives from the government to manufacture in certain key industries. This is the type of thing that you need to pair unionization, real industrial policy, with tariffs. And in the absence of those other background conditions, including a stronger welfare state, well, then just tariffs on their own aren't going to do what Trump is saying they're going to do.
- [51:42]
David Hogg
And can you talk to us a little bit about what you've seen from organized labor? I mean, obviously we've seen, you know, Sean Fain be sort of in the media having these conversations over the last couple of weeks. There was the big bet from the Teamsters over the course of the election, and this is, you know, April 2025, and here's where we are. So what do you make of how organized labor has approached Trump? Super interesting and complicated figure for them, no question about it. But how have they handled this discussion about tariffs just in the last, let's say, the last month?
- [52:15]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, I mean, I think the UAW is in a tricky situation because the UAW is veryon the record as being opposed to Trump, went really hard against Trump. And I think it's to their credit that they did and they understood the stakes because frankly, Trump, contrary to all of the rhetoric about him being pro worker, pro labor, has been the most anti Labor President in U.S. history. Certainly recent U.S. history. Just the fact of taking away a million union members right to collective bargaining overnight through an executive order. This is just, you know, this is the type of administration we're dealing with. So on the one hand, the UAW sees that and many of their own members, because it's not just autoworkers in the uaw, they represent researchers and they represent graduate students, you know, are being attacked by the Trump administration. At the same time, the UAW correctly understands that the free trade, you know, experiment, if you want to call it that, for the last three, four decades has been just a total disaster disaster for their members. And so in that context, I think the UAW has threaded the needle pretty well, which is to oppose the overall Trump agenda while saying, yeah, targeted tariffs could work. This is frankly different than some of the other blue collar unions. You know, I would include the Teamsters there that have really been completely uncritical at this point of the administration. I think the UAW is walking and chewing gum at the same time, but it's not easy.
- [53:34]
Crystal Ball
Eric, I wanted to ask you a little bit more specifically about your book, which again I highly recommend to people where you dig in for, you know, this is the first book that really does this to these new labor organizing movements, whether it's at Amazon and whether it's Starbucks, this sort of worker to worker organizing model. And you see this as a really hopeful direction for the labor movement, even as, you know, you have Trump decimating the National Labor Relations Board and really, just like you said, being the most anti union president that we've had in modern history. So do you still see, even in this context, hopeful developments within the broader labor movement?
- [54:14]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, I mean, look, the labor movement resurgent hasn't just gone away now that Trump got elected. We've already seen this. Federal workers are organizing all across the US and fighting back. There's actually been a surge in membership in the federal workers union unions in response to Trump. You know, despite all these, in many ways, because of them, you've had more workers joining the unions in the last three, four months than joined in the last three or four years combined. So in the federal sector, we're seeing that sometimes the boss is the best organizers. Old labor saying what's true, sometimes these attacks force people to fight back. And just more generally, I would say that even if it's the case that a lot of the battles right now are defensive and it's certainly the case right now, now we're facing an authoritarian takeover. The attacks on federal services and unions are really intense. But labor can keep up its momentum and it's starting to, if it is able to rise to the moment and take a lead in defeating these really crucial attacks for all American people. It's not just unions. If you destroy federal services, how are people going to get their Social Security? How are you going to get your Medicaid? So these workers are the front edge of the speed fear in fighting for all working people at this point. And so if labor is able to win that battle, and that's a big if because frankly, most unions are at least on the top, extremely risk averse, extremely calcified, which is why the energy has come from below. This goes back to something I know you've thought a lot about, which is the teacher strikes in 2018, you know, starting then when the rank and file took the lead and won in, you know, right to work states, Republican states that show that it's possible even under Republican governments to win big, big if you get the community support. So I think that we're going to need to have that energy again like we saw in the red state teacher strikes. And that that moment spread to Starbucks, is spread to Amazon. And I think if we're able to defeat Trump around these fights right now, that's going to set a huge precedent for then going on the offensive to organize the Amazons, to organize Starbucks, which I think will get their first contract soon. There's a lot of potential there. There's a lot of young workers who are still angry and there's a lot of anti billionaire sentiment. Sentiment. To me, it's actually, it's very interesting because if you think about like my normie liberal family members who are, you know, now all into Bernie and AOC and are anti billionaire, that's the overall sentiment of a lot of the bases, very anti billionaire. And then the question is posed, well, how do you beat the billionaires? What's the labor movement? So I think there's a lot of political space for continued labor revitalization. It's a question of the unions and if the rank and file take advantage of that moment.
- [56:38]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, I think that's, that's a great point. This was, I mean, I, I guess somewhat of a small gesture, but I was really heartened to see the president of the sheet metal local that Kilmar Bergo Garcia was part of come out and call out the Trump administration for disappearing him into El Salvador. And I thought, you know, we need to see a lot more of that. And you know, it gets into a complicated question of different unions have different views of like, you know, are we just focused on our wages and, you know, working conditions right here in the here and now, or is this a broader movement? Movement. But the way you put it, I think is very apt that there has been a real sort of radicalization of normie liberal Democrats. And you see that in a variety of ways watching msnbc. And Nicole Wallace is out here sounding like, you know, me in 2016. So it certainly creates an opportunity, I think, for labor if they can, if they can seize the moment, Eric, Tell people where they can follow you and where they can buy your book, which again, highly recommend to everybody. Everybody.
- [57:38]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, thanks. Best place to follow me is probably at my substack, labor politics. You just go to laborpolitics.com you can sign up there and yeah, get a copy of the book. We are the union. You can get it anywhere, online or in person. Yeah. And again, thanks for having me on. And I'll just say if you're out there and you want to get involved in fighting, background the federal workers. You should go to savepublicservices.com There's a growing movement to support them. And if you are a worker who's not in a union, you should, should organize your workplace. And the way to do that is you go to workeroganizing.org, sign up and you'll get support for organizing your workplace today.
- [58:13]
Crystal Ball
Amazing. Thanks, Eric. It's always great to see you.
- [58:15]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
- [58:17]
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David Hogg
Well, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is still under fire. He gave an interview to Fox and Friends. We covered some of it yesterday morning just as we were reacting in real time as I that had recently happened. But there's so much more to get to, including I think a real bombshell from Ryan and drop site about what's going on behind the scenes at the Pentagon. This report explains a lot. But let's start with this clip from Pete Higseth on Fox and Friends yesterday morning trying to defend himself amidst all of these firings.
- [60:18]
Sagar Enjeti
That's why we've I've fought for the.
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Crystal Ball
Budget that the Defense Department requires and the president has said we'll have our.
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Sagar Enjeti
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David Hogg
Joins, he's going to have a great military.
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David Hogg
Because of the historic investments of this president.
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Crystal Ball
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David Hogg
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- [60:46]
Sagar Enjeti
And I was grateful to see the Hegseth army on the Easter egg roll yesterday in the backdrop. They are ready to go.
- [60:53]
David Hogg
Okay, so Pete Hegseth went on Fox and Friends to defend himself amidst what we've been covering here. It's a major story, all of these terminations of his very, very close staff people who have been around him for a long time just in recent days over allegations of a leak. So one of the things we covered here yesterday just to catch up, if you didn't see the addition of breaking points yesterday, is that Dan Caldwell, well, again, this is a very senior adviser to Pete Hegseth, someone who's been around him I think, going back to their concern Veterans for America days, really long time. Dan is terminated, walked out of the Pentagon along with another guy who's been around Hegseth for a long time. Pretty high up in the circles at the Pentagon these days. I think the total comes to like five major departures, one of which Uliad is sort of anti hegseth and more in neocon camp, but just around Hegseth himself, four people who are sort of allies to him have left the Pentagon recently. Caldwell then goes on Tucker Carlson show says he absolutely did not leak. He has no idea if there is an investigation into a leak. And then Ryan comes out at drop site with a story that I think blew this wide open yesterday. Crystal. So let's put the next element up on the screen. So What Ryan is reporting basically. Basically is thatI mean, the narrative itself and Ryan's writing is so good, but this is just an insane story. But what happened basically is that. Let me summarize it this way. The paranoia about being caught leaking at the Pentagon is so strong that people are getting falsely accused of leaking because there's such a freakout about whether or not anybody is leaking. So think of it like this, and just to go through Ryan's story quickly. So on April 3, Colin Carroll gets a phone call, and it is from Dan Lippman. So Politico reporter Dan Lippman, who had recently written a story, kind of a hit piece on Carroll, calling him a quote, bad boss. I don't mean hit piece in necessarily a pejorative way, but it was, you know, negative.
- [63:07]
Crystal Ball
Negatives.
- [63:08]
David Hogg
Yeah, exactly. So Carol texts Dan Caldwell to tell him about this call with Lippmann. Lippman had asked if Joe Casper was facing an investigation by an ig, and he wanted to know if Carol could confirm that. So you have a reporter calling someone at the Pentagon and saying, hey, do you know about Joe Casper being under investigation? So he then texts Caldwell, being like, what do I do with this? I don't want to be accused of leaking. Like, that is the fear, and says, I just had a Politico reporter call me and ask to comment on an ongoing IG and criminal investigation into Casper. I told him, no comment. Same reporter that did a hit piece on me two weeks ago for getting fired for bad leadership last time around. I feel like I should report this call to someone, but not sure who, given the leak and disclosure stuff. This is an amazing signal message that Ryan has in this story. Ryan's sourcing here is just incredible. Caldwell replies, flag it for your pio. And then Sean Parnell, who does comms at the Pentagon. So that all happens. And basically, then Carol Caldwell and the deputy Chief of staff, Darren Selnick, get marched out of the Pentagon and subsequently fired and accused of leaking information. So, Crystal, this story, again, it is insane. It is like, ripped from. From an episode of Veep. But the takeaway here is they're so paranoid about being caught leaking that even when they're not leaking, they're getting accused of leaking. Even when they're paranoid, when they're trying to cover all of their bases, they're still being accused of leaking.
- [64:52]
Crystal Ball
So just basically, their association with this Politico reporter and the fact that they surfaced this created this impression of, oh, you're leaking and you're trying to sabotage Joe Casper. Right. In particular. So he, and it also feels like Casper, there's all kinds of stories out about him at this point. He seems like, you know, a real, we'll just say, wild card. Apparently he's in high level meetings, bringing up exploits at strip clubs, announcing to everybody that he's just taken a giant shit. Like, that's the level of leadership that we're talking about from that dude in particular. But it seems like he was also looking for a pretext to fire and knife some of these people. So then when they get associated inadvertently with this political reporter and this potential leak coming out of the inspector general's office with regard to Joe Casper, he potentially sees this as an opening of like, oh, this is how I'm gonna get these guys out of here. So some of this is just complete insanity and paranoia, you know, very poor leadership in terms of Pete Hegseth, clearly, like, that's just undeniable at this point. Some of it is potentially ideological. That's the piece that we don't really know. And it sort of doesn't matter whether it's ideological or not, because the end result is that you've got Dan Caldwell out, who was a really important voice for, you know, restraint with regard to Iran and not going along with Israel and what they want the United States to do. So whether or not it's ideological, it has an ideological impact. And then some of this just seems like, you know, people who don't like each other and turf wars and like, kind of bureaucratic bullshit run amok because you have such a weak and ineffectual and chaotic leader in the person of Pete Hegseth.
- [66:48]
David Hogg
So Caroline Levitt was asked about this yesterday at the White House briefing. Let's roll a clip. I should say just she wasn't asked about the job site story. I don't think it had come out by the time the briefing happened. But let's take a look at her answers to questions about Pete Hegseth.
- [67:02]
Crystal Ball
I have two questions, one on the Pentagon and another on the economy.
- [67:08]
David Hogg
You said on Fox News that the.
- [67:10]
Crystal Ball
Entire Pentagon is working against Secretary Hegseth, but the people who were fired were Hegseth's own guy.
- [67:18]
David Hogg
So how, how do you square that? And what do you say to concerns.
- [67:22]
Crystal Ball
That that's bad management?
- [67:23]
Sagar Enjeti
Ms.
- [67:23]
David Hogg
They were Pentagon employees who leaked against their boss to news agencies in this room. And it's been clear since day one from this administration that we are not going to tolerate individuals who leak to the mainstream media, particularly when it comes to sensitive information. And the Secretary of Defense is doing a tremendous job, and he is bringing monumental change to the Pentagon. And there's a lot of people in this city who reject monumental change. And I think, frankly, that's why we've seen a smear campaign against the secretary of Defense since the moment that President Trump announced his nomination before the United States Senate. Let me reiterate, the president stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth and the change that he is bringing to the Pentagon and the results that he's achieved thus far speak for themselves. And Crystal, I want to bring up this New York Times rundown that published yesterday because it gets to the points you made about Joe Casper, some of the allegations about how he conducts himself at the Pentagon, bringing up conversations about strip clubs and then the literal shit show. Apparently this New York Times story has all kinds of details from behind the scenes, but Joe Casper hikeseth has stood behind. And what's very interesting about that is the question that I believe that was Dasha Burns just asked Caroline Levitt. It's as though there has been a wedge driven between Hegseth's own allies inside the Pentagon. And if you are Pete Heigseth, and I'm just speaking hypothetically, you come into the Pentagon hypothetically and sort of charitably, like, say you're Pete Hegseth, you have these goals that you want to accomplish at the Pentagon. You really want to do some reform, whatever that reform is. Let's just say want to bust up a status quo that has been around for a long time and is very hard to disrupt. What's very predictable is that the sort of forces that you're trying to reform and disrupt are going to drive a wedge between yourself and your allies. Because, again, we talked about this when Hegseth was first nominated. Basically, nobody even in the private sector has the experience that you need to be the defense Secretary because it's such a vast job. Your oversight is just over such a vast swath of the economy of the sort of global security apparatus. It's a really, really difficult job. And even if you led Concerned Vets and you're a Fox and Friends host, there's nothing that can prepare you, whether you're that or you're Jamie Dimon. Like, nothing can prepare you for what's going to happen at the Pentagon, let alone if you want to reform it. So I think some of this, Crystal, is really like bad faith, neoconservative defenders of the status quo trying very hard to push Hegseth out and replace him with somebody who's More along the lines of like a Mike Waltz or a Mike Pompeo. So, you know, as wild as the sort of, or let's just say as unorthodox as Hegseth is as a defense secretary, I mean, I think some of this is just like the predictable machinations of the neoconservative blob that operates inside of the Pentagon. And it was always going to happen. And that'si mean it's sort ofit's. A very difficult job. And as much as, like, Hagseth has made some pretty obvious mistakes, Signalgate being the clearest man, this is, this is a mess. And I, I don't know, I. I don't know what's. It doesn't make me feel great about what's happening at the Pentagon.
- [71:07]
Crystal Ball
That doesn't make you feel great?
- [71:09]
David Hogg
Doesn't make me feel great, Crystal.
- [71:10]
Crystal Ball
I mean, I don't know. I'm just, I'm going back to the first clip where you played where he's like, bragging about, oh, we're going to have a trillion dollar defense budget. It's like, okay, where's the grave? Where's the big break with the status quo? You know, I get it. He talked about DEI and wokeness a lot, and, you know, he wanted to.
- [71:26]
David Hogg
Get rid of like, a bunch of those guys, you know what I mean? Like the generals that have been along around for a really long time, like.
- [71:31]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, sure, but now we're just, like, reinflating the budget and making it bigger than ever. So I, you know, I'm just, I'm not all that sympathetic to the narrative that he really is, that he has really had this grand evolution in terms of his ideology and is really pushing in a different direction than what we've seen before war, in terms of fighting wars, you know, endlessly around the world. I just don't think that he, I think he is an ambitious guy. I think, you know, when it was the thing to do to get ahead to be in favor of the Iraq war, he did that. When it was the thing to do to get ahead to be in favor of the Ukraine war, he did that. When it was the thing to do to get ahead to turn on the Ukraine war, he did that. And now he's going to do whatever Trump wants him to do. That's how I ultimately, he's definitely not.
- [72:17]
David Hogg
Going to push back on Trump.
- [72:18]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, no, we know that. I mean, we saw it in the, the signal gate, in the chats that we all got access to, and then, I don't know if we've covered on the show or not. There is another signal gate controversy now where he was including his wife and his brother with this sensitive information that had been shared with him. We know it was classified because it was shared with him from a general who shared it through the proper classified channels. So you know, and the reason to share these things via signal is because you can evade any sort of government transpar. That's the reason they do this. They never said they were going to stop using signal and I'm sure they've continued to use it routinely, et cetera. And you know there is like a basic level if, if you. Okay, let's, let's take seriously the idea he's a revolutionary, really wants to change the direction of the Pentagon, et cetera, et cetera. Like that does mean to your point that you need to be even more locked down, competent, you know, efficient. Yeah, exactly. All of the versus this, you know, chaos, paranoia, mess that has apparently been fomented at the Pentagon. So if you want to do some sort of revolutionary action, you better have all of your ducks in a row because of course the, you know, the neocons and the people that are going that are in the entrenched status quo are going to be coming for you and you can bet that they are organized. So you know, I, I personally think don't give a lot of credence to the narrative about his big ideological shift. But even if you do, that makes it even more important that he be a hyper competent person. And there was never any evidence of that, frankly. Never any evidence of that. There were mismanagement problems at his Concerned Vets organization. Being a Fox and Friends weekend host like doesn't require you to manage personnel whatsoever. And so the, so the short falls in terms of his basic level of leadership and competence are even more important if he is trying to truly do something different here.
- [74:25]
David Hogg
And let'swe can put the last element on the screen because this gets to the point that you're making about to what extent Pete Hegseth is able or willing or interested in reforming the Pentagon. Donald Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday, quote, I've just spoken to Prime Minister of Israel Bibi Netanyahu who relative to numerous subjects including train, trade, Iran, etc. The call went very well. We are on the same side of every issue now.
- [74:49]
Crystal Ball
Cool, Great. Love that. Every issue.
- [74:52]
David Hogg
And this speaks to how serious I guess the tensions or the. Because what is genuinely different or was genuinely different about a hagset Pentagon is that he surrounded himself with people Like Dan.
- [75:07]
Crystal Ball
Right.
- [75:08]
David Hogg
Dan Caldwell is somebody who would look at that true Social post and say, this is ridiculous. We're on the same side of every issue. This is a huge problem with American foreign policy. And for a Republican or Democrat administration, frankly, to have deep skeptics of the US Foreign policy establishment, especially as it pertains to the Middle east, especially it pertains to Russia in such a senior role, that was genuinely different. And it was, you know, whether it would have translated into massive substantive differences. I mean, we saw this on the Signal Gate chat itself when JD Vance pushed back a little bit. It was Pete Hegseth who jumped in and made the argument on behalf of Trumpism, basically for the Houthi strike. And so whether it would have translated down the line into big substantive differences. Differences, we don't know. The early signs suggested that it wouldn't. But this is the sort of like classic Trumpian dilemma or not dilemma. But one of the big questions is whether his, I guess, stylistic gestures that he's willing to make on things like organized labor with Chavez, Darimer being in support of the pro act or formerly being in support of the proact, all of these different things, do they ever translate into sort of substantive or trade war, for example, does he end up going, like, blinking on these tariffs and, you know, pissing off Wall street so much that he ends up placating Wall street like these? We just don't. You never have a good sense of how serious he is about actually reforming the status quo. And in this case, the potential reformers have been pushed out the door, what, three months into the administration.
- [76:51]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. And I mean, yeah, bottom line, this goes again to, you know, how much Pete Hegseth really cares about going in some different direction. He thought fired. Maybe the best guy that he had around him on these issues. The, the best voice against war with Iran, one of the best was Dan Caldwell, and Pete Hegseth is the guy that fired him. So, you know, what are we to make of how committed he is to a different ideological direction? And, you know, these things matter because Trump can be very impressionable.
- [77:19]
David Hogg
Yes.
- [77:19]
Crystal Ball
You know, you see that certainly in the tariff fight where Besson and Lutnick realize that they, if they can get Peter Navarro on the other side of the White House and some other meeting, they can come in and they can, you know, make their case and they can effectuate some sort of action just from them being there and Peter Navarro not being there. So that's why it is very consequential who is, who is in the room. And to see that tweet from Trump saying, oh, we're on the same side of every issue with Israel, like that is just, it's just so preposterous. We should not be on the same side of every issue of any country in the whole world. Like the whole idea of America first is you have your own interests. Right, Right. And that's kind of the polar opposite of what is being conveyed in Sweden is deeply troubling because obviously Israel wants us and has long wanted us in a war with Iran, even though many of even Mike Waltz acknowledged that, you know, it was, it would be a risky gambit to try to take Iran out Iranian nuclear facilities through military means. So, you know, you have a lot of Americans who realize that this would be a bad direction, but that doesn't mean that you aren't going to have, you know, you aren't going to have a lack of patience for Trump to pursue the diplomatic process. And at the end of the day, the neocons be able to catch him in a moment when you know, whoever is a voice of reason is on the other side of the, of the White House and persuade him into taking really dangerous and horrifying action.
- [78:47]
David Hogg
Yeah. I think your point about the importance of having people in the room who are skeptics or kind of heterodox on these questions is really, really well taken and important.
- [78:59]
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Sagar Enjeti
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David Hogg
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Crystal Ball
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Sagar Enjeti
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- [80:29]
David Hogg
Let's go check in on the MAHA movement. Crystal, because there's some developments we should talk about. Yesterday was a pretty big announcement on food dye. We have stuff to talk about when it comes to milk inspections. Let's start with this clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Who's obviously Secretary of Health and Human Services. This was, this was a clip that was came out last week. We're going to get into the new developments this week. But the clip that came out last week when RFK Jr. Was speaking about autism we want to start with because it went really viral and was, was really polarizing, polarized, had had some polarized reactions that we'll talk about. But we go ahead and roll the clip first. This is RFK Jr. Speaking on autism last week.
- [81:16]
Sagar Enjeti
This is an individual tragedy as well. Autism destroys families. More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children. These are children who should not be, who should not be suffering like this. These are kids who many of them were fully functional and regressed because of some environmental exposure into autism when they're two years old. These are kids who will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll.
- [81:51]
Crystal Ball
Never play baseball, they'll never write a.
- [81:54]
Sagar Enjeti
Poem, they'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted. We have to recognize we are doing.
- [82:04]
Crystal Ball
This to our children.
- [82:05]
Sagar Enjeti
Children, at your direction, we are going to know by September. We've launched a massive testing and research effort that's going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world. By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we'll be, we'll be able to eliminate those exposures.
- [82:26]
David Hogg
This comes as news actually broke Yesterday. This is D2. We can put on the screen that this big autism study that he is trying to wrap up, I believe by August is amassing medical records of many Americans. As the CBS headline puts it, quote, the new data will allow external researchers picked for Kennedy's autism studies to study comprehensive patient data with broad coverage of the US population for the first time. NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said the idea of the platform is that the existing data resources are often fragmented and difficult to obtain. The NIH itself will often pay multiple times for the same data resource. Even data resources that are within the federal government are difficult to obtain, he said in a presentation to the agency's advisor. CBS goes on to note that medication records from pharmacy chains, lab testing, and genomics data from patients treated by the Department of Veterans affairs and Indian Health Service claims from private insurers and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers will all be linked together. So, Crystal, that's. On the one hand, it's sort of like, if you're doing these studies, yes, you should be getting as much data as you possibly can. On the other hand, it sounds like what the government is doing is collating data that can be bought from third parties. So if we're talking about smartwatches, fitness stuff, there are serious efforts to ban that. The government being able to buy that data because. Because then the government is able. I mean, you can buy it. Like private people can buy that data. Should the government be able to buy it? Is a different question. But the government's argument is that, well, if you can buy it on the marketplace, why should the government be at a disadvantage to sort of have access to it? So it's not the clearest cut question in the world, but is always creepy.
- [84:16]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, they're creating a national registry of people with autism. Like, that's very creepy. And then collating all of this data together, allegedly. I mean, this is some of what Doge is doing in other departments as well, putting together this, like, mass federal government database of every characteristic, every interaction you've ever had with the government. And I, I think people are right to be uncomfortable with that. You know, going back to RFK juniors. Like, if you're autistic, you'll never play baseball, you'll never go on a date. The one that jumped out to me is, he said, you'll never pay taxes. Like, is that a shot at Elon Musk not really paying taxes? Because I'm just saying, I'm like, you do know that the most powerful man in government outside of Donald Trump is autistic, right? Like, are you aware of that? Probably. You know, I would wager probably significant number of the Doge hacker apparatchiks may also share that diagnosis. So I just. When you hear comments like that, you're like, do you not recognize the very basics of this thing that you claim to take such interest in? Because clearly, it's a broad spectrum of people with many varied capabilities. And yes, some are more profoundly impacted than others. So it again, speaks to me to adjust ignorance on the basics of a topic that he purports to have a deep interest and, you know, supposed expertise in. And there's a lot that's really concerning about the way that he's going about this whole study. I mean, first of all, he's already decided he thinks vaccines cause autism. We all know that. We also know that that is not the case. The primary study that purported to show that was thoroughly discredited. He's got involved in this study, this guy, David Guyer. He's a vaccine skeptic. He was fined for practicing medicine without a license. He's known for retracted papers linking vaccines to autism. So that's the other question is if they're basically just, like, cooking the books to get the answer that he believes whether it's, you know, vaccines or some sort of other environmental, you know, toxin factor. And I think it's great to research and learn more and really test the case of whether it is truly that there's, you know, a greater diagnostic awareness, and that's why we have a, you know, a larger percentage of people who are autistic. Is that really true? True. Is there something else going on? But you also can't just discard all of the research and the science that has been done before, including research into significant genetic factors. He calls autism like an injury. Like, it's something specific in the environment, whether it's vaccines or toxins that have been done to you. But there's tons of research to show, like, if you have a real genetic component, if you have someone else in your family who's autistic, you're much more likely to yourself be automated. You can't just ignore that and pretend that doesn't exist. So, I mean, this is my issue with him. I just. I think he's dishonest. I think he's a crank. And I also think he's incredibly poorly informed, as is evidenced by, you know, him thinking that people who are autistic, none of them can play baseball or go on a date or use the bathroom by themselves.
- [87:20]
David Hogg
It was. So there were some groups that represent the interests of people with autism who took issue with what he said because their argument is that it stigmatizes people with autism.
- [87:34]
Crystal Ball
Yeah.
- [87:35]
David Hogg
And, you know, this is the sort of trouble with RFK Jr is similar from my perspective also to what happens with Hagseth. It's like there's something really serious that they get right, which is these, like, structural problems with the agencies that they've been tapped to lead and with the culture of the industries that the agencies are supposed to. To oversee, then the problem is those. What does that mean in terms of like the policy execution? Mass data collection is not my favorite thing, whether it's private companies or the government doing it. So this is J. Bhattacharya. I've interviewed him. He's great. I really like J. Bhattacharya. But the description of this database is definitely troubling. They want to use it for more than just research into autism. They want to have a pretty broad, comprehensive database that they can use to study other health issues. And they're promising protections for privacy. I've heard that many times before and I'm deeply suspicious of it. While we're actually talking about Bhattacharya, I just want to mention the Li Fang story from yesterday as well. You could go read it on Li's substack. But basically that NIH was making grants contingent on people not getting involved with bds. Yes. Oh, my God. Yeah. You can look at the new policy and it has some stuff that I fully support about. Because my take on this is that DEI violates civil rights law. And we don't have to necessarily agree on that. But they put in this poison pill about BDS into this basically new policy, saying that you can't be discriminating on the basis of race in the name of dei, but then they toss in a description essentially that's BDS and compare it to racism. And it's just some of this stuff is so frustrating.
- [89:36]
Crystal Ball
I mean, he said he was going to use HHS to combat anti Semitism. Oh, yeah. Which he likened to like a, you know, a greenhouse gas or something.
- [89:46]
David Hogg
Yes, he did.
- [89:46]
Crystal Ball
What does the name be? So, yeah, it's just, it's. I don't think anyone really asked him. Well, I know there were some people who asked him, but I don't think that the MAHA movement was looking for him to weaponize the HHS in a hyper woke fashion to combat this alleged scourge of anti Semitism. And you're right. I mean, the reason why an RFK junior can rise to such prominence is because people recognize, of course, there are big issues. There's, you know, obviously big issues with our food supply that is making us sick. We obviously have a system that is set up to keep people chronically ill because that is profitable. I mean, that's really the core of it is you have, whether it's Big Food or whether it's Big Pharma, they profit off of people being chronically ill. But none of that is Actually in the analysis of what he is trying to accomplish at hhs, like none of the going after, making sure whether you want to nationalize Big Pharma or whether you want to push for Medicare for All to take the profit motive out of these things, none of that is really there. And so even he's announced this effort, which I support, to get some of these food dyes which are, there is some research to suggest can be negatively impactful to kids in particular. And so look, if there's a question, just yes, take it out, I'm all for that, absolutely. But even with this, it's like a voluntary program and if the food companies feel like it, whatever. So let's go ahead and take a listen. This is D3 to RFK talking about getting these food dyes out of our food supply chain.
- [91:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Today the FDA is taking action to.
- [91:28]
David Hogg
Remove petroleum based food dyes from the.
- [91:31]
Rahm Emanuel
US food supply and from medications. For the last 50 years, American children.
- [91:37]
David Hogg
Have increasingly been living in a toxic.
- [91:39]
Rahm Emanuel
Soup of synthetic chemicals.
- [91:42]
David Hogg
The scientific community has conducted a number.
- [91:44]
Sagar Enjeti
Of studies raising concerns about the correlation.
- [91:48]
David Hogg
Between petroleum based synthetic dyes and several health conditions.
- [91:53]
Sagar Enjeti
We are spending as much on mitochondrial disorders like diabetes as we spend on our military, military budget. We can't continue to exist like this. And the, you know, the problem is industry is making money keeping us sick. And these are a broad category, the ones that Marty mentioned like adhd, neurological disorders, add, adhd, speech delay, language delay, tics, Tourette syndrome, narcolepsy, ASD and autism. All of these are injuries that I never heard of when I was a kid. They were not part of the nomenclature, they weren't part of the dialogue. There was zero spent in this country treating chronic disease when my uncle was president. Today it's about $1.8 trillion annually is bankrupting our nation. 74% of American kids cannot qualify for military service. How are we going to maintain our.
- [92:57]
Crystal Ball
Global leadership with such a sick population?
- [93:01]
Sagar Enjeti
We have all these autoimmune diseases, these exotic diseases. Again, I never heard of juvenile diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, crohn's disease and 100 others that were just unknown when I was a kid.
- [93:16]
Crystal Ball
And I mean again, it's like part of this is correct about definitely the obesity and chronic illness, et cetera. And then part of it is just like complete ill informed bullshit of these various illnesses that he describes again as injuries. Trying to indicate that these are all environmentally caused or vaccine caused or whatever that he never heard of when he was a kid. Well, I mean, you could go through each one of them. But some of them it was because they used a different word for it. Some of them is because, I mean, some of these things that he says he never heard of had been identified in the late 1800s, et cetera. But you know, I think the effort to get these food dyes out is a good effort. But we could put the next piece up on the screen. Like I said, it's completely voluntary to the food companies. And I also don't think we should delude ourselves about like this is not going to change the health status of Americans. You need a much more, more revolutionary program that actually attacks the central problem, which is the profit motive. And you know, they've got the, the head of the USDA is a frickin seed oil lobbyist. So I'm just, you know. And at the same time, Emily, the other piece of this is most of the. And that the seed oil lobbyist thing speaks to the fact that most of the Trump administration is running a million miles in the other direction of like giving chemical companies and polluters everything they want. Want. And Doge has gutted the FDA so they can't even properly regulate our food supply at all. I mean they were already incredibly stretched thin. So it was difficult for them to be able to, you know, make sure that what we eat is safe. But if we put D5 up on the screen. This is great reporting from Lever News about industry getting a big win here. The Trump administration hid data that allows communities to know about dangerous chemical facilities in their midst comes after lobbying from the chemical industry and after massive inauguration donations from chemical companies, we can put up D6 about milk. So they are halting milk quality test at the FDA amid workforce cuts. So thank you Doge for making it. And you know, it's not like there's like an avian flu that we're worried about passing through a milk supply right now or anything. So this is, this is not all that, you know, I guess this is not all that important. Making sure that the milk supply is safe and sufficient. And then put this last one up on the screen. They're also set to cancel tens of millions of dollars in grants from the EPA to scientists studying the environmental hazards faced by kids in rural America, the harms of pesticide exposure and preventing forever chemicals from contaminating the food supply. So you know, I don't know what, I don't know what administration he's talking about when he, you know, thinks that we're going to be getting the toxins out of the food supply and whatever. Because. Because the DOGE efforts, the overall Trump administration coziness with business has meant that some of the small things that the Biden administration, small steps that they took with regard to forever chemicals in particular, are being rolled back a million miles per hour by this administration and making it so that we can't even know whether there are toxic chemicals anymore in our own communities.
- [96:30]
David Hogg
You know, the Obama administration initially considered RFK junior To head up the epa. And this is what's actually. And by the way, he was seen as too much of a liability to the Obama administration because he's been always kind of on the fringes of the left. And that's what's so interesting about slotting him into the Trump administration is that you have these sort of directionally radical. And I mean that in a good way, radical, correct. Points about how completely corrupted our food supply is, how corrupted the government is. And he's surrounded by. Because he's at hhs, which is extremely powerful, but it's not in charge of. It's not entirely in charge of things like agriculture. That's where Brooke Rollins. This is your point about seed oil. That's where Brooke Rollins comes in, somebody who's had really good relationships with the industry there. That's where over at the epa, Lee Zeldin is somebody who's really opposed to the broader green agenda, and I'm sympathetic to that. But if you're RFK Jr. You are now, I guess, your efforts to clean up HHS in the name of reforming American government and improving American health from your own vantage point. This is the fascinating tension in Doge and Elon World. So it's like a more efficient government. But that's like, if your goal is a more efficient government, if you're RFK Jr. You're not really somebody who's historically loved this idea of slashing and burning, because a lot of times your argument is, in fact, that the government is understaffed and has been gutted by industry, isn't able to perform oversight. It is the most bizarre. It is the most bizarre merit in the most bizarre time. And it's, I guess, having the expectedly bizarre effects.
- [98:30]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, I guess so. And, you know, he talks a lot about, or did talk a lot about corruption in these agencies and the way moneyed interests, you know, get a say in all of this. I would. I'm very comfortable saying this is the most corrupt administration in certainly modern American political history. There's nothing like, you know, Trump saying, okay, you can pay a million dollars you can come to Mar a Lago and you can make your case directly to me. I'm going to set up a shitcoin so you can just like bribe me and catch indirectly. We covered earlier all the allegations of direct insider trading over the way that they're moving the markets and you know, you can see it in these moves with oh, we're just not going to regulate the food industry anymore because they want that. We're just not going to expose, you know, where toxic chemicals are in communities because that's what industry wanted. So you know, he, in his supposed quest against corruption has signed up to be defender of a wildly like historically corrupt administration where, you know, everyone is just trying to, trying to get theirs. And certainly Trump and his family are trying to cash in in every way that they can.
- [99:38]
David Hogg
It'll be interesting to see how RFK Jr responds to some of this stuff. He'll definitely be getting questions about as we go forward what's happening with AG and epa. So we will stay tuned for that.
- [99:52]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [100:22]
Crystal Ball
Does this podcast make you happy? Of course it does. That's why you're here. But it only comes out once a week for happiness.
- [100:30]
David Hogg
Every night. You need Adam and Eve. Yes.
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Crystal Ball
I'm talking about sex toys. It's cool. It's cool. You have earbuds in, right?
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Sagar Enjeti
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David Hogg
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Crystal Ball
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Sagar Enjeti
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Crystal Ball
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- [100:59]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [101:22]
David Hogg
Turn to The Democrats, because Rahm Emanuel went on the I've had it podcast. And this comes as David Hogg is facing tough questions over not just from the media, by the way, but also from Hakeem Jeffries. I think we have a clip of that over his. His pledge to actually, like, have a robust primary effort against the Democratic status quo. Let's take a look at this clip. Let's start with this clip of Rahm Emanuel, rumored 2028 presidential candidate, on the I've had it podcast. This was released yesterday. Take a look.
- [101:59]
Crystal Ball
So what have you had it with?
- [102:01]
Sagar Enjeti
I would say we have a series.
- [102:03]
Rahm Emanuel
Of topics that I think sometimes consume.
- [102:05]
Sagar Enjeti
And other topics that don't actually get the attention that they should.
- [102:08]
Crystal Ball
Should get.
- [102:09]
Sagar Enjeti
And we ended up fighting for the wrong things. We were really south on kitchen table issues. We weren't really good about the family room issues.
- [102:17]
Crystal Ball
I disagree with you.
- [102:18]
Sagar Enjeti
I disagree with you. Okay. The only room we.
- [102:20]
David Hogg
The only room we were doing really.
- [102:21]
Sagar Enjeti
Well was the bathroom. And that's the smallest room in the house. Such bullshit.
- [102:25]
David Hogg
That is total bullshit.
- [102:27]
Crystal Ball
That is buying into the right wing media narrative. And I'm so sick of Democrats like.
- [102:31]
David Hogg
You selling out and saying this.
- [102:33]
Crystal Ball
You know who talks about trans people more than anybody?
- [102:35]
Sagar Enjeti
Anybody?
- [102:36]
Crystal Ball
Maga Kamala Harris talked about homeownership. She talked about kitchen table issues. Trump's over there droning on about Hannibal Lecter. Are you kidding me? This is where the Democrats lose because we're playing the game with the rule book. They've ripped the bull rule book up and are cramming it down everybody's throat. And Democrats are upset because Joe Biden pardoned his son.
- [102:57]
Sagar Enjeti
We got a fucking fight.
- [102:58]
David Hogg
They're the gender obsessed weirdos, not us. We're the ones who fight for Social Security.
- [103:03]
Crystal Ball
We fight for men. And, yeah, we're not going to bully trans people. We're not going to fucking do it.
- [103:08]
Sagar Enjeti
I'm not.
- [103:09]
Crystal Ball
I'm not fine. I mean, I love this lady. I don't know. I, you know, I, I did not know they existed until like a week ago. So, Emily, give me, give me the backstory here and your antipathy towards it because I, I enjoyed her giving it to Rahm Emanuel, even though my view is like, in a nuanced way different from hers. But I just enjoyed her being like, the problem is people like you, Rahm Emanuel.
- [103:30]
David Hogg
Yeah, no, I mean, that is. That was deeply cathartic to watch, of course, because Rahm Emanuel, sort of squirrel. He's like, you also seem to be a wealthy Democrat. Why are you yelling at me on the podcast.
- [103:42]
Crystal Ball
He thought he was giving her exactly the answer. Yes, you're right. The bathroom, too much and not enough. The kitchen table. And she's like, fuck you, basically. I mean, the one before. I hear their backstory and what they've been up to. The thing that I would say is that the reason that the party has become. Become. Has lost its credibility on kitchen table issues is because of people like Rahm Emanuel. So you don't get to now come in here and pretend like, oh, you understand you're the savior of the Democratic Party. No, you are what's wrong with the Democratic Party? And she's also right that like, you know, the reason why Republicans are successful at. Or were successful. I don't think they're particularly successful at this anymore, but were successful leading into this election of painting Kamala Harris as being, you know, just concerned with these sort of like niche unpopular issues is because Democrats don't have a broader narrative of what they're fighting for, a la Bernie Sanders and oligarchy, where it's like, okay, yeah, he's, you know, he supports trans rights, but no one is going to say that's like the, the, the thing, the core of everything that he is focused on. So, you know, that, that's why I say my view is like subtly different from hers. Because really the problem is that the way Republicans were able to successfully paint the Democratic Party as being overly concerned with issues that were not top of mind priorities for them is people like Rahm Emanuel and their abandonment of the working class and affirmative alignment of the Democratic Party with corporate interests.
- [105:20]
David Hogg
Well, her point, I mean, something that we've covered and I think is a helpful point that both you and Ryan have made for a long time. It really undermines the point she's making that it's the right wing that was talking about all of this stuff for a long time. I don't disagree, obviously, that the right has exploited some culture war issues that I think are really serious and they do it for red meat purposes. Like when the RNC played Richmond north of Richmond at a debate, was that the rnc? I think it was. I think it was from the RNC to play.
- [105:52]
Crystal Ball
I think that's right. I think that's right. There certainly was a lot of enthusiasm for the song at the time, but.
- [105:57]
David Hogg
The RNC usually is just like so grating in so many different ways. So I don't disagree with that point. But these issues were used as shields by corporate Democrats who were actually talking about them disproportionately to distract from their oligarchical policies on, like, labor and families and all of that. So. So that undermines the point she's making that it's just the crazy right wing people who were talking about these things. Actually, there was a concerted effort by corporate America to embrace things like DEI and esg, to shield, to placate the left. And so that's what really pisses me off about that. And it pisses me off when Rahm Emanuel is also suddenly coming out in 2025 and acting like it's a really big point that he's brave for making and he can sort of design this presidential run around. Like, it is so stupid. Profoundly stupid.
- [106:51]
Crystal Ball
It also, if he does want to, I mean, I don't really take seriously this whole, like, he wants to run for president or whatever. But these, him, Gavin Newsom, there's a handful of them that are so out of touch with where the Democratic base is right now.
- [107:05]
David Hogg
Well, and again, like, he's someone who, who worked for Barack Obama, and Gavin Newsom is somebody who has not, like, exactly been kicking the left to the curb. If they really were good at reading the political winds, they would probably be coming to this in a way closer to her, to be honest, because the Rahm Emanuel Gavin Newsom approach is getting pilloried on social media. Like, even Charlie Kirk, who had that conversation with Newsom about trans stuff, has come out and been like, so he was just lying. They were face to face having this great conversation. But Gavin Newsom is now getting hit from the left and from the right. He's not making the right happen happy, and he's not making the left happy. So if they were actually really adept at reading the political wind, they would sound closer to the I've had it podcast girls who my beef with goes back to Bravo world. They had a show on Bravo called Sweet Home Oklahoma, and we don't even need to open this can of worms. But it.
- [107:57]
Crystal Ball
No, open it. Open the worms. I want to know. I want to know what's in these worms.
- [108:01]
David Hogg
I just, I hate, like, I just really hate the whole, like, corporate, corporate America propping up the hiclib thing. It just drives me nuts. I can't stand it. Because what I think genuinely lacks representation in that world is people who aren't, who are hicks, but not libs. And so I think corporate America just soothes itself by saying, we checked off the Oklahoma box. But they can throw people out there who are utterly unrepresented representative of probably most of Oklahoma.
- [108:35]
Crystal Ball
So anyway, so you're judging them for their identity. I get it.
- [108:38]
David Hogg
For their identity.
- [108:39]
Crystal Ball
You wanted a different framing of identity politics.
- [108:41]
David Hogg
I want affirmative action for fascists. Conservative hits affirmative action for fascists.
- [108:50]
Crystal Ball
It's like the same thing that the Trump administration sent to Harvard. Like you can only. Only MAGA is allowed into your school now. Sorry, only MAGA perform. Professors heading the physics department, etc.
- [109:01]
David Hogg
Representation for Curtis Yarvin and academia is DEI worth doing. Let's. Let's get to David Hogg, actually, because, like, we could, we can have a serious discussion about that. Different point, but that's basically the, the backstory of my beat.
- [109:17]
Crystal Ball
Okay. Your antipathy towards them.
- [109:20]
David Hogg
Okay, yes, exactly.
- [109:21]
Crystal Ball
I'm enjoying them. I'm enjoying them. I want to try to get them on.
- [109:25]
David Hogg
The Oliver Anthony thing actually kind of connects to it, by the way, which is that like the right uses Oliver Anthony and thought like, oh, we finally found someone that we can elevate who's like this working class guy. But they didn't love it when he started coming out against Republicans either. This is actual representation of how people think, but it's never convenient to people who elevate them. So anyway, David Hogg, let's roll this clip of David Hogg touching wrestling with Major Garrett on cbs. Because Hogg, as we've covered before, is now supporting this idea of a fairly robust primary campaign against establishment Democrats. So let's roll. E2.
- [110:04]
Sagar Enjeti
Let me let you address some social media criticism you've gotten. Matt Bennett from the Clinton Gore era. This is insane behavior. John Anzalone, pollster, most recently for President Biden. Yeah, $20 million should be spent on swing state legislation, meaning state legislative races and down ballot, not on this. Steve Shale, a Florida Democratic strategist, saying the DNC's vice chair should be focused on this kind of engagement, meaning engaging in places in battleground states where Democrats have lost ground, not over which Dem in a plus 20 seat should be primaried and knocked out.
- [110:45]
Rahm Emanuel
You know, look at the last results of the previous election. Those are the purported experts that brought us here. Just to say it's not personal. Right. I don't take those attacks personally in this regard. This is a strategic disagreement. And I want to be clear. All this money that we're raising is not only being spent on primaries by any means. That is the story that a lot of journalists and media run with. We are working.
- [111:06]
Sagar Enjeti
What are you going to spend it on?
- [111:07]
Rahm Emanuel
We're also going to be spending it on frontline seats where great young people are Rude. Right. If they are the Democratic nominee to make sure we're bringing in fresh faces to Congress right now. We talk about diversity all the time in Congress. One of the things we don't talk about as much in regard to that is age. Currently, if we had the same number of 25 to 30 year olds in Congress as you do proportionally to the population, we would have over 40 people under the age of 30 in Congress. And I don't know if you've looked at Congress recently. We have one that is under the age of 30 that is not good for the future of the Democratic Party party. Is this just out with the old and in with the new? I would say no. This is out with the ineffective and in with the effective because we need members who are ready to meet this moment to fight back against Donald Trump. And what that looks like are people like Senator Van Hollen who are literally going to El Salvador to say, this man needs to come back. It looks like people like Cory Booker, who, mind you, did primary somebody to get to that position. It looks like people in many ways like Hakeem Jeffries, who primaried multiple people to get to that position. Right. This is a healthy process for our party and I think we should have an embrace of it when it doesn't risk us losing the House.
- [112:10]
David Hogg
Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom is also giving more interviews on his attempt to right the ship of the Democratic Party. We can put the next element up on the screen. This is E3. He gave an interview to the Hill yesterday where he said, we have not done a forensic of what just went wrong, period, full stop. I don't think it, I know it. I mean, to the extent that, that I'm marginally part of his party, I represent the state larger than 21 state populations combined. And I can assure you there's not been a party discussion that I'm aware of that has included the state of California. I don't know what the party is, he said. I'm still struggling with that. Gavin, maybe people aren't considering the state of California as prominently as you want them to because the state of California is in utter disrepair. Maybe that has something to do with it. Well done, Gavin on that. We can move to the next element as well. This is another comment from him about when he had Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on. He says what I feel was exactly to me, exhibit A of what I feel is wrong right now with my party, an unwillingness to even engage in platform to listen. And so I'm testing that at the same Time I'm being tested by it because the reaction has been a little more bumpy than I anticipate anticipated.
- [113:22]
Crystal Ball
And, you know, this is such a bullshit from him, honestly. Let's go. Because the vast majority of people who were. Who were unhappy, myself included, with the Charlie Kirk and the Steve Bannon interviews, it wasn't because he platformed them. It's because you. Like, it was a softball interview. You elevated them. You made them look good, even as they were the whole time taking jabs at him. I mean, Charlie Kirk from the outset was like, oh, you don't let your son stay home from school to meet me. Why not? You close the schools during COVID You know, the whole thing with Steve Bannon, I think it was. I can't remember who it was that said this on Twitter was like, Gavin Newsom being like, oh, you're amazing, and I appreciate you and Steve Bannon being like, you're a demon. So the problem wasn't platforming them. It was Gavin Newsom. We know you're actually good at debating. We saw you do it with Ron DeSantis very effectively. Make the case for your principles, make the case for, like, a liberal view, you know, an appealing Democratic Party. You. They used you on your own platform to further their ideology. So, yeah, of course, the Democratic base is not gonna be psyched about what you were doing there. And, you know, also, it was not like it was just Democratic elites or influencers online or whatever. However, look at how he's faring in these early. Who do you want as the next Democratic leader? Like, the Democratic base was disgusted by this approach, because there truly is. And I think you see Chris Van Hollen and you see Maxwell Frost, you see other Democrats who I think have been coming around to, okay, we gotta do something, we gotta be more aggressive, we gotta use the tools that we have, et cetera. But that has been led by a base that has been utterly disgusting with the failures of people like Gavin Newsom to put up a fight, who were much more inclined, whose instincts were all in the direction of. Let me just lay down and capitulate. And with Gavin Newsom in particular, like, I know where it comes from. It's because he's so close with all of these Silicon Valley donors who are all super jealous of the, you know, Mark Andreessens and the Elon Musk and whatever of the world who jumped on the other side. And so they're not. Not getting their goodies now because they picked the wrong team. And that's who has his ear and why he so profoundly misread this political moment in terms of what the Democratic base wants.
- [115:50]
David Hogg
Huh? That's really interesting. Let's roll this clip of Hakeem Jeffries responding to the hog aligned efforts to potentially primary some candidates which were, I mean, I think similar, particularly tone deaf, though not unpredictably tone deaf. So let's roll the clip.
- [116:05]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, I look forward to standing behind every single Democratic incumbent from the most progressive to the most centrist and all points in between. Primaries are a fact of life.
- [116:15]
David Hogg
But here's the thing.
- [116:17]
Sagar Enjeti
I'm going to really focus on trying to defeat Republican incumbents so we can take back control of the House of Representatives and begin the process of ending this national nightmare. Nightmare that's being visited upon us by far right extremism.
- [116:33]
David Hogg
So I mean, that's his job, Crystal. He's not gonna come out and be like, yeah, we got some old people, we wanna just give the boot. Go ahead.
- [116:41]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, well listen, if he actually holds to that, that would be an improvement because in the past the aipac, yeah, in the past the Democratic Party has yes, stood behind their corporate aligned members. But if a Jamaal Bowman or Cori Bush or Rashida Tlai, he gets primaried. They're good with that, they're good with that. So you know, if, if he actually. Listen, I understand if you are the, you know, you're the House Majority Leader and these are your people and you're just going to uniformly back whoever the incumbent Democrat is. I mean, I don't support that, but at least, you know, that's a principle of neutrality ideologically. But that has not historically been the case within the Democratic Party. And so that's what they're really upset about, about with regard to David Hogg is they're worried that he is going to be on the side of people who are more progressive, who are even outside of the ideological valence, who just actually understand that what they're up against, that they're up against this authoritarian takeover, that the stakes are quite high, that they need to be visible, that they understand social media. And I was actually a little bit hopeful about David Hogg coming into this position. I argue, argued with, with Sagar on the show about this simply because he is younger and he does at least understand the current media ecosystem. And that is something that is sorely lacking within the Democratic Party. And so I think that it has already borne out that to have him as DNC Vice Chair and be like, yeah, if you are a weak and ineffective Democrat who's been around too long, we're going to come for you. I mean, to me, that is an extraordinarily like positive development that I think will be wildly supported by the Democratic base at this point, which really has. Eric Blanc was saying this too early in our interview. Really has become much more radicalized in this Trump era and much more disenchanted with a lot of Democratic leadership.
- [118:37]
David Hogg
Yeah, I think you were totally vindicated in that about David Hogg, and I think I was pretty skeptical of it. Just. And maybe I'll be vindicated in that way too, in a cultural sense. I don't know that Hogg is right, but this is, I think probably outweighs that, to be honest, like coming out and saying no, you have to put the fear of God in the Democratic Party's establishment. And they just haven't had that. This is very like Mitch McConnell versus Ted Cruz circa like 2014. And it's kind of what the Democrats need to be honest, because there's been a lot of going along to get along doesn't mean you have to burn the party down, but you have to threaten to burn the party down, otherwise you don't get anything. Now, you don't negotiate with Donald Trump like Donald Trump on tariffs, but you can have some measure of serious, just mount a serious threat. Otherwise you don't get taken seriously. So I think that argument about Hogg has been vindicated so far. And Krystal, this is just, I mean, genuinely a very difficult problem for Democrats to solve on the cultural front because the people like Rahm Emanuel, Manuel and Gavin Newsom, they're the ones who were happy to use these issues as shields and now they're happy, you know, that they don't believe anything because just as quickly as they embraced all of this and you have Gavin Newsom on tape waxing sanctimonious about the Latinx community just as quickly as he did that. He's literally saying, no, I would never use that word. So that's how, you know, he believes literally nothing. And they were using these issues all along as like they were exploiting these issues all along as shields and they're not willing to go along with the genuine anti oligarchy policies. And that's the crossroads that, as I see it, at least, is really difficult for Democrats. As by the way, what was really difficult for Republicans is the Tea Party base was actually more similar to Occupy Wall street than anybody wanted to admit. And they never were like, they were willing to like sort of do these cultural signifiers like we need Term limits. And we need to like screw Mitch McConnell, but not until Trump came along. And even to this day, with Donald Trump in office, they're not really willing to wrap their arms fully around the policy agenda that a lot of their working class voters would want them to. And that's sort of, that's the impasse that Democrats find themselves at too.
- [121:00]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, liberal elites and the Rahm Emanuel types did virtue signaling and on the Republican side they do vi signaling. Like that's. But it's function's the same. It's the same function. You know, we were talking about Pete Hegseth earlier and it's like he can, you know, talk all about DEI and make people feel like there's something revolutionary going on at the Pentagon. And meanwhile he's like, oh, and we got a trillion dollar budget, so yay, it's going to be the biggest military budget ever in the history of the world. So, you know, this was used as a Trojan horse also for a lot of the, like doge agenda of completely defenestrating the ability to regulate corporate America. You know, if you just say like, oh, conservatives are being debanked or cancel culture or DEI or wokeness enough times they felt like they could smuggle in this pro oligarch agenda. And so, you know, at this point, the wing of the party that has most stepped up to fight has been the left, or at least left liberals. Bernie and AOC really set the mark. When I watch MSNBC and you got Nicole Walmart Wallace out there, like they're the leaders of the party and they're doing a great job and they're doing everything right, I'm like, what is even going on here? I mean, it's so profoundly different. I can't even wrap my head around it. And the cynical take is, well, that's all nice, well and good. Now that Bernie is too old and is never going to run for president again, I do think that there is some of that, that now it's sort of more safe for them to embrace him.
- [122:22]
David Hogg
Yeah.
- [122:22]
Crystal Ball
But I also think there is a genuine divide among people who thought, thought who genuinely wanted to fight Trump and saw his threat for what it was, but thought that the way to do it was through, you know, democracy talk, fascism talk, and like a standard liberal approach like Joe Biden and people who. So those are people who, you know, genuinely understood the stakes and want to fight. And now that the information has showed them like that was not the right way to fight, they are shifting their approach. And I think much of the Democratic base falls into that camp. And people like Rahm Emanuel who have, I wouldn't say they don't believe anything. He believes in his own ambition. He believes in, like, you know, serving corporate interests. And so even though the writing is on the wall about what would be more effective to combat Trump and Trumpism, they are not going to change because they are ideologically committed to preserving a certain status quo that is deeply unpopular in the country.
- [123:20]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [123:50]
Crystal Ball
Does this podcast make you happy? Happy? Of course it does. That's why you're here. But it only comes out once a week for happiness, every night.
- [123:59]
David Hogg
You need Adam and Eve.
- [124:00]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [124:51]
David Hogg
To the drama at 60 Minutes and CBS more broadly. Crystal, because a story broke yesterday in the New York Times that the executive producer. We can go ahead and put this first tear sheet up on the screen. The executive producer of CBS's 60 Minutes resigned and cited a, quote, loss of independence. This is Bill Owens. He's actually only the third person, as the New York Times notes, to run the program in its 57 year history. That speaks to really the continuity of leadership behind 60 Minutes. And I think, Crystal, probably also how serious CBS is about having continuity of leadership at 60 Minutes. Owens said, quote, over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show, as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what is right for 60 minutes, right for the audience. So having defended the show and what we stand for from every angle over time, with everything I could, I'm stepping aside so the show can move forward. That memo was leaked to the New York Times strategically, probably not by cbs, but maybe by cbs. But we learned more as the day went on about exactly what happened there. This is from Semaphore. They had a pretty good report on what was happening behind the scenes because I just want to say that Bill Owens memo is pretty careful, careful in remaining vague about how he wasn't able to make, quote, independent decisions. Obviously, the New York Times immediately framed it in the context of the suit that Donald Trump is fighting CBS in over that edited Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes. Ahead of the election, the Trump campaign is still, or the Trump camp is claiming that that amounted to election interference. But we've seen, like, ABC News settle with Trump over the George Stephanopoulos case. And so questions about what's really going on between the Trump administration and CBS were immediately raised in light of this information. And then Semafor had a scoop from Max Taney yesterday that Sherry Redstone, who is the head of CBS, she owns Paramount and is therefore the head of CBS, was keeping tabs on 60 Minute segments about Donald Trump, according to two people familiar to the situation. This was in, quote, recent days. She sought to know which upcoming 60 Minute stories were about Trump and why. That's interesting also is that 60 Minutes, there was an AP story I went and found yesterday, Crystal, about how fearless 60 Minutes had been about Donald Trump, Trump after he was or around the time of the inauguration, despite the legal battle. So there's something in recent days here, according to the Semaphore Report, where Redstone was looking to kind of keep tabs on how they covered Donald Trump. So what's, what's your reaction, Crystal?
- [127:48]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, no, I mean, I think there were a lot of indications. So 60 Minutes has, I think, done some fantastic journalism in the Trump 2.0 era. We highly highlighted here a report they were one of the first to dig into. Like, okay, well, who actually were these people you claim were the worst of the worst gang members that got disappeared into the torture dungeon in El Salvador, in particular, highlighting the case of Andre the, the makeup artist. And they, you know, dug into his story and those of others and talked to his loved ones. And they were the, the ones to first analyze and find. I think it was their, their finding was 75% of those who were sent had no criminal record whatsoever. However, so they have done some extraordinary work. I don't think anyone could deny that and seem to be unflinching. On the other hand, apparently, Emily, according to, I believe this was a New York Times report, some of the problem began after a 60 minute segment that you might remember in January about the war between, about Israel's assault on, on Gaza. And they interviewed State Department, former State Department officials who had resigned mind over the, you know, their horror at what the US was doing there. They shared exclusive images from within Gaza that exposed how barbarous it was. They talked about how by one analysis there were 70,000 Palestinians who had been killed there. And apparently Sherry Redstone after that complained to CBS executives about that segment and they appointed a CBS producer to a new role overseeing the news division's journalistic standards. And she was put into place to review any segments that were deemed politically sensitive. So that appears to have been part of it as well. And then, and she, by the way, she's Paramount's controlling shareholder so she's like the one one in charge and they're trying to approve, get approved approval for a multi billion dollar sale of her company to Skydance, which is run by Larry Ellison. So you know, I mean, this is the problem with corporate media, right? This is the problem with corporate media. 60 Minutes is not important to Sherry Redstone. They want their merger deal to go through. That's what the real, you know, the real interest of the bottom line is. And doing really hard hitting journalism on the Trump administration is not consistent with the goal of obtaining your merger approval, especially with this administration which weaponizes the government to punish those that they perceive to be enemies. So you add to that the Kamala Harris thing and you can see that, you know, pressure was coming down of, well, how often are you going to say negative things about the Trump administration and cover things that they're doing in an unflattering light? You know, we need to soften the edges. We need, we need to be made aware. And even just that, that, and I speak from experience, even just that insertion of like the top corporate brass needs to know if you're doing a Trump related story that is intended to have a chilling effect because who wants to always go up the chain to the boss and beg and plead your case and whatever. So if you're weighing two different storylines and one requires you to do that and one of them can sail through and you're not going to have any political issues within the company. There's going to be heavy incentives, incentive to move in that direction. So I think it shows a lot of integrity that he got to a point where he felt he had fought as hard as he could to maintain his journalistic independence and that of the program and got to a place where I was like, I can't associate myself with this anymore.
- [131:23]
David Hogg
And this is really interesting, the Skydance stuff. So the New York Times in this report says Redstone is eager to secure the Trump administration's approval for multiple multibillion dollar sale of her company. Is Skydance, a company run by the son of tech billionaire Larry Ellison. Bear in mind, and I'll get to this more in a second, Larry Ellison is fairly close with the Trump administration. The Times also reports that Redstone has, quote, expressed a desire to settle Mr. Trump's case, which stems from what the President has called a deceptively edited interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on 60 Minutes. That would essentially amount. I mean, it is such a stupid and ridiculous case. Even if CBS did deceptively, which they. But corporate media is always deceptively editing stuff. It's not illegal and it's not defamation in the vast majority of cases, including this one. So to settle that case, unlike the George Stephanopoulos one, which I think was actually a lot trickier from abc, this is not the same thing that would basically amount to a bribe in the context of this sale. That's how stupid it would be to settle this case with Trump from just a legal stand. That's how stupid it would be. But from a business standpoint, it may indeed be very clever. I want to flashback to a New York Times headline or a New York Post headline. I'm sorry, from January when Donald Trump announced his big A deal, this is an exclusive in the New York Post. Larry Ellison's backing of Trump's $500 billion AI project could help save Paramount merger. According to sources, Ellison, right, whose net worth is currently pegged by Forbes at 205 billion, is likely hoping his show of support for Stargate will help his son David Skydance Media to gain regulatory approval for his controversial $8 billion deal to merge with Paramount. That's what's going on. That's like how serious they are about this freaking merger that it's now affecting 60 minutes. It's just so, I mean, again, this is not exceptional. This stuff happens. This is is the habit of corporate media. It's how they handle their news. But Holy smokes. This one is so brazen.
- [133:30]
Crystal Ball
I mean, I think, yeah, this is at a new level. I don't think there's any doubt that it's at a new level. And it's because the Trump administration is at a new level in just making it really clear that they're going to help their friends and they're going to fuck their enemies and they're going to use every power that they have in the state, legal and illegal, in order to do it. And, you know, this is my concern with, you know, something like an antitrust agenda, which I think is so important and which, you know, was significantly moved forward under the Biden administration with Lina Khan and with Jonathan Cantor. And, you know, one of the most positive developments of the Biden administration was moving that direction. But if you have an administration that is just going to use, use those powers of green lighting and blocking mergers as basically a political weapon, you're going to discredit an entire project which is actually really important and really positive for the American people. And, you know, that certainly that's how corporate America thinks, that the Trump administration is going about their business, that it has nothing to do with the merits of whether the merger is going to be beneficial for the country or not, and everything to do with, with whether or not you appropriately praised him, how much money you gave to inauguration, whether you ponied up the money for his Stargate thing, whether you spent $1 million to go down to Mar? A Lago and plead your case, etc. And that's a, that's a really bad place for a purported democracy to be. That's a very bad place for it to be because then you just end up with a cult of sycophant favored oligarchs who get to do what they want with impunity and run everything.
- [135:14]
David Hogg
This is, yeah, I mean, this is oligarchy. This is, this is your classic example. A source close to Paramount back in January said, quote, this is very smart for Larry to do. It tells me he won't have any issues with the Paramount deal. And that's in reference to, again, him backing this Stargate project, the 500 billion AI project that Trump came out and did that press conference with very early in the second term, surrounded by Sam Altman and Larry Ellison and others right away. And so then you have a source talking in your post say, oh, it tells me he's not going to have any problem at all with this guy Dance merger.
- [135:50]
Crystal Ball
Unbelievable.
- [135:52]
David Hogg
It really, I mean, it's perfect. But what's also Interesting about it is it reminds me so much of what happened with Mark Zuckerberg last week. We'll see. But Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg has been pouring millions of dollars to lobby the Trump administration to back off the antitrust suit. And he got smacked in the face, metaphorically last week when Trump's FTC went through with it. Because Trump's ftc, in a sort of nod to the new right that kind of helped Trump get back in power, is staffed by legit, legit, like Lina Khan types. And we'll see. Again, if you're a Lena Khan type operating under Donald Trump, you probably aren't the same as a Lena Khan type operating under Joe Biden, who was like just vacant, mentally vacant for most of his presidency. So if Donald Trump does pick up the phone and tell them to stop the antitrust case into Facebook or Meta, then maybe that does legitimately change things. But Zuckerberg was in for a, spent all this money and was in for a really harsh awakening when he realized Andrew Ferguson was not dropping the suit. And Gail Slater is serious. And these people are like actual, we don't know how much power they'll have when everything is said and done at the end of this administration, but they're like actual anti corporate ideologues who have this, like, opposition to the ideology of antitrust that was popular on the right and the center left for a long time. And I don't know if Larry Elson is about to run headfirst into the exact same thing. Maybe because this is the nature of Donald Trump. We were talking about this in the tariff block. This is about what mood Donald Trump is in on a given day and who can have his ear on a given day. We now know that with Facebook, he was, or Meta, I'm sorry, he was persuaded by a meeting that he had with Andrew Ferguson. So we don't, we actually don't know what's going to happen with this. But it is sort of, I guess the silver lining is amusing, Crystal, to watch the oligarch sort of stretch their necks out with millions and millions of dollars, put the credibility of their flagship news program on the line to get a fricking merger through. It's just so pathetic.
- [138:04]
Crystal Ball
It is pathetic. I mean, Zuckerberg is particularly pathetic, particularly pathetic because he didn't just do all the, like, sucking up and the, you know, here's some cash for your inauguration or. I don't remember the details. I think he did give her the inauguration, but he also, like, completely changed his, like, personal appearance and went on Joe Rogan like, I'm moving content moderation to Texas. Like, he did the whole. The whole thing. And they're still like, now we still don't like you. Sorry.
- [138:31]
David Hogg
And it's just like, it is. So it goes to what we were talking about with Rahm Emanuel again earlier in the show, or Gavin Newsom going from like, using Latinx to being like, I never use Latinx. It's like they believe in their own power and their own bank accounts and their own business. Businesses more than they believe in any of the politics that they wear. Literally, in Zuckerberg's case, like, fashion with this big chain.
- [138:54]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [138:55]
David Hogg
He wears his politics. Like, his politics change with his fashion because he is trying to, like, suck up to people and he's trying to, like, do something with his, like, it's all very obvious what he's doing. It's very transparent what he's doing. Yeah. And with him, he goes from taking meetings with the FBI and then taking their wink, wink and suppressing the Hunter Biden story on Meta to being like, oh, the censorship is horrible. And we never intended that, you know, to. To be as. It was just so stupid. And.
- [139:26]
Crystal Ball
Well, and they're still censoring aggressively on behalf of the Israelis, by the way, which has been exposed, especially on Instagram.
- [139:32]
David Hogg
It's so pathetic. It's also pathetic.
- [139:34]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, it's. I mean, it is. Yes, it is pathetic. And it does get to, like, the Gavin Newsom point too, of, like, they still don't like you, bro. Like, they still aren't gonna like you. And I just want to say, like, the inside instinct on the. From the base of the Republican Party, on the populist right, that the tech oligarchs are an evil, malevolent force in American society. Like, that instinct is correct. Yes. I think that they are a malevolent force in the world. I think they are anti human. I think they are. Naomi Klein said this and I agree. I think they are anti creation. I think that they do. They, you know, have. Have these bizarre, like, end times cult type fantasies about uploading their consciousness to the cloud. And what did Elon say? We're. We're being used to, like, boot AI. Like, that's their view of the world. And I think they should be. I think they need to be stopped at all costs. And one of the most. One of the things that has disturbed me the most in this Trump administration is the way that their ideology, through the person of Elon and Doge and how much power and sway he has had in the government. Government has been quite ascendant in a way that I think is genuinely like a threat to people who value humanity.
- [140:51]
David Hogg
Yeah. And we'll see. I mean, I think there's just. We're in a time when people are so, you know, rootless and, you know, it's easy to get caught up in going along with whatever someone like Donald Trump is surrounding himself with because people put their trust in different figures, and we're looking for that. I think it's where, whether you agree with it or not, the moral clarity that Bernie Sanders has come out with in the last month or so is really, really attractive to people because it's not wishy washy, milquetoast, Rahm Emanuel, Gavin Newsom bullshit. This is a clear and coherent worldview that I deeply believe in with every fiber of my being. Here's why that's really attractive to people right now. And, you know, something for, I think the right to watch out for as well, because it's not clear. It really muddles it to bring Elon Musk and some of these tech guys into the picture.
- [141:51]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. And the agenda that they want is not one that serves humanity.
- [141:58]
David Hogg
That's right. Well, on that note, Chris, the destruction of humanity.
- [142:03]
Crystal Ball
I like that. We started with this peg about 60 minutes and somehow ended up in tech barons wanting to destroy the world. I'm not even really sure how. We got. Oh, mergers. That's how.
- [142:12]
David Hogg
I was just over here, like, Googling Larry Ellison, getting to the New York Post article, and then we went off the rails because. Why not? It's a girls show. Girls.
- [142:22]
Crystal Ball
That's what it is.
- [142:23]
David Hogg
No rules on the girl shows.
- [142:25]
Crystal Ball
We need to invite those ladies. What are their names? From the. The what?
- [142:30]
David Hogg
I've had it.
- [142:31]
Crystal Ball
I've had a podcast. We need to have those, like, ladies on with us, Emily. We need to make amends. I can. I can do like a. You know, we can do a restorative justice with you and them.
- [142:41]
David Hogg
Steve Witkoff.
- [142:43]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. I'd be like, you don't want me to meet with them, Emily, because you are afraid I'm gonna realize they're actually nice people.
- [142:53]
Sagar Enjeti
Maybe.
- [142:55]
David Hogg
I don't know. We'll find out. Maybe we'll find out.
- [142:58]
Crystal Ball
We'll see.
- [142:59]
David Hogg
We'll see what we can do. Crystal.
- [143:00]
Crystal Ball
There you go. We'll work it out. Well, thank you for having me, Emily. I enjoy it. It's always fun. And I'll be back with soccer tomorrow. Should be back to normal tomorrow and we've got the Friday show, so we'll see who can, who shows up for that. We kind of keep it loose about which hosts join for the Friday show, so. You'd be surprised.
- [143:16]
David Hogg
Yeah, no, it's, it's always a fun surprise. I was actually Ryan and I didn't know that you and Sagar weren't going to be on last week. And we logged on and we're like, oh, okay. I guess we're, we're just going to be playing the roles of Crystal and Sagar as best we can in addition to the Ryan and Emily, which was, you know, it was an interesting experiment.
- [143:35]
Crystal Ball
You don't have to play our roles, you guys just do. You don't need us, but you're always.
- [143:39]
David Hogg
With us in spirit.
- [143:40]
Crystal Ball
Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that.
- [143:42]
David Hogg
Well, we'll see everybody on Friday. Thank you so much for tuning in. As a reminder, if you can't subscribe over@breakingpoints.com premium, go ahead and just like the video, send it to a friend. It helps us so much. We appreciate it. And we'll see you back here with more Crystal and Sager tomorrow morning.
- [144:12]
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Crystal Ball
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