4/24/26: Trump Floats Endless Iran War, Lebanon Journalist Triple Tap, AI Job Layoffs

Summary

BREAKING POINTS with Krystal and Saagar
Episode: "Trump Floats Endless Iran War, Lebanon Journalist Triple Tap, AI Job Layoffs"
Date: April 24, 2026
Hosts: Krystal Ball, Saagar Enjeti, Kyle Kulinski, Emily Jashinsky, Ryan Grim

---

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the latest developments of the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict, the targeting and killing of a Lebanese journalist in Lebanon by Israel, and a wave of job layoffs driven by the rise of artificial intelligence in major U.S. companies. The hosts offer in-depth analysis, media critique, and candid conversation on these headlines, followed by audience AMA questions touching on politics, media, and ethics.

---

Key Topics & Timestamps

1. State of the Show & War Coverage [02:23–03:56]
2. U.S.–Iran War: Blockades, Trump’s Rhetoric, and Global Fallout [03:56–31:22]
3. Targeted Killing of Amal Khalil, Journalism Under Threat [33:22–46:18]
4. AI-Driven Layoffs & Economic Worries [48:28–58:17]
5. AMA: Left Politics, Media Critique, Political Donorship, and More [60:03–end]

---

Detailed Segment Summaries

---

1. State of the Show & War Coverage

[02:23–03:56]

• The hosts celebrate rising up to #15 on YouTube, noting that spikes in their viewership coincide with periods of escalating global crises.
  • “Whenever we are super high in the rankings, it means the world is going to complete Hell.” – Ryan Grim [03:09]
  • “We are war profiteers here. Apparently whenever there's a war, people are like, yes, I gotta tune into Breaking Points.” – Kyle Kulinski [03:27]

---

2. U.S.–Iran War: Blockades, Trump’s Rhetoric, and Global Fallout

[03:56–31:22]

Trump's Iran Strategy & Mixed Messaging

• Trump claims credit for keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed to pressure Iran economically, outlining a willingness to wait indefinitely until the U.S. gets what it wants.
  • “I'm the one that kept it closed with total control of it, and it'll open when they make a deal or something else happens.” – Donald Trump (clip) [05:59]
  • “Don’t rush me, Jeff... For 18 years, we were in Iraq... I've been doing this for six weeks. And their military is totally defeated.” – Donald Trump (clip) [06:46]
• The panel disputes the accuracy and wisdom of Trump’s positions:
  • “He thought this was going to be over after effectively day one, and there was no planning beyond... That's what he was telling our allies, is that it would be over in four days.” – Kyle Kulinski [14:40]
  • The logic that squeezing Iran’s economy will force negotiation is contrasted with Iran’s capacity to withstand external economic pressure: “…their public is much more willing and able to withstand economic pain. I mean, they're used to sanctions. This is existential for them.” – Kyle Kulinski [07:26]

Contradictions on U.S. vs. European Stakes

• Pete Hegseth (Fox News) declares the crisis is primarily Europe’s problem:
  • “Europe and Asia have benefited from our protection for decades, but the time for free riding is over.” – Pete Hegseth (clip) [10:50]
  • The panel calls out the economic fallacy that Americans won’t be affected if global oil supplies are disrupted.
    • “It’s so dishonest to say that because we don't get a lot of our direct energy from the Strait of Hormuz, that it's not going to affect the American economy.” – Emily Jashinsky [12:38]

Ceasefire, Perceptions of Chaos & Regional Politics

• Despite rumors of Iranian disarray, the hosts point to comparable (if not greater) U.S. government chaos and lack of clear strategy.
• They discuss the possibility of European or Asian nations pushing back against U.S. policy:
  • “The Europeans feel like they give off a real sense of hopelessness and haplessness… some of the Asian countries... have actually more sense, interestingly, more sense of kind of dignity and sovereignty.” – Ryan Grim [16:15]

Media, Morality & War

• The panel highlights a rare, candid press question from TMZ to Pete Hegseth about the personal experience of ordering bombings:
  • “My only thought process is to ensure that our war fighters have everything they need... I want them to feel empowered... to bring maximum violence to the enemy, because war is violent.” – Pete Hegseth (clip) [17:50]
• Panelists praise the question for probing the human element of distant, remote violence:
  • “Props to them for asking that question... That's the exact type of thing that we should have TMZ in the press corps to be asking about.” – Emily Jashinsky [18:22]
  • “We think a lot about humanizing victims... but I think to force people to imagine the mind of someone who is in this position... that is probably a fairly honest answer.” – Kyle Kulinski [19:12]

Iranian Leadership Stability & U.S. Misconceptions

• Rumors about Ayatollah Khamenei Jr.'s health are interpreted as part of a U.S. narrative to undermine perceptions of Iranian unity.
  • “There's been a lot of questions about his health status… they're really trying to keep his location under wraps... but I would see it in light of this broader picture that they're trying to paint.” – Krystal Ball [23:51]
  • “Now, I think the leaders bought the cartoon version that had been sold to the public, which is how Trump... could imagine that just taking out the leader would be enough to topple the whole government.” – Kyle Kulinski [25:09]

Chaotic Diplomacy and Trust Issues

• The inability of the U.S. to negotiate reliably, particularly with Trump’s erratic communication, is highlighted.
  • “Imagine trying to be the go between with Trump where... in the same sentence, he'll say two different things.” – Krystal Ball [28:28]

---

3. Targeted Killing of Amal Khalil, Journalism Under Threat

[33:22–46:18]

• The murder of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil by Israeli drone strikes is recounted in harrowing detail:
  • “Malk was... in southern Lebanon reporting. The car ahead of her was struck by an Israeli drone. ...they called... friends and colleagues saying, ‘we're being fired on… we need to get out of here.’ ...Israel bombed the house and killed her.” – Ryan Grim [34:04]
• Israel is said to be systematically threatening and killing journalists viewed as hostile or suspect, with threats often telegraphed beforehand. Grim shares direct exchanges with a source who essentially justifies the targeting.
  • “These are not innocent people. The journalists affiliated with Hezbollah that Israel eliminated were also spies for Hezbollah... For anyone who works for the organization should know they. They are destined for death.” (via text from “Gideon Gal Ben Abraham”) [37:31]
• The panel condemns the targeting of journalists as both a moral outrage and a dangerous escalation for press freedom.
  • “Press badges are turning into more like, like bullseye targets, basically.” – Krystal Ball [40:28]
• Evidence of looting by Israeli forces during operations in Lebanon and ongoing attacks despite ceasefire deals is discussed.
  • “They're just totally picking the entire southern Lebanon for scraps as they bomb and destroy villages. …if there is a true return to just bombardment in Lebanon, that is going to be unacceptable to them [Iran].” – Kyle Kulinski [43:30]

---

4. AI-Driven Layoffs & Economic Worries

[48:28–58:17]

• A surge of layoffs at top U.S. companies (Meta, Nike, Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, Dell, Block) is analyzed, all tied to increased investment in artificial intelligence and automation.

  • “Meta is going to cut 10% of its workforce... 8,000 employees... Microsoft… voluntary retirement buyouts... Oracle… 20,000 to 30,000 employees getting cut... Amazon, 16,000 jobs cut...” – Emily Jashinsky [48:37]
  • “Companies that are all doing very well, have high profit margins... But this is the terrifying logic of AI... the overall public will be worse and worse off, but the... CEOs and their top shareholders will be better and better off.” – Kyle Kulinski [51:51]
  • “AI is becoming the scooper, the vehicle, the weapon that they're going to do this looting with.” – Ryan Grim [54:05]

• The panel warns of a growing disconnect between stock market success and public well-being, and the risks of a bubble driven by tech investment rather than underlying economic health.

  • “We're literally talking about 35% of the S and P. So the risks of this big AI project and expansion inflation are really significant and actually pretty frightening.” – Emily Jashinsky [53:23]

• Intersection with global politics: AI competition with China and negative ripple effects of Mideast wars (like energy crunches and investment pullback) are flagged as additional threats to stability and collaboration.

---

5. Audience AMA: Political Movements, Media Practice, Political Fundraising Ethics

[60:03–end]

Left Power in Democratic Party

• Discussion on whether the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) or progressive flank should run their own candidates or continue to work within the Democratic Party.
  • “The mechanism is the Democratic Party. And so the only solution then is to effectively take over the Democratic Party... the Democratic Party is just a shell... It can be whatever you force it to be...” – Kyle Kulinski [61:07]

Media, Imagery, & War Rhetoric

• On Pete Hegseth’s use of “Book of Tarantino”/Pulp Fiction references from the Pentagon podium:
  • “They're now in a bubble where they're kind of high on their own supply because they've purged, I think, criticism from their ranks and their vicinity.” – Emily Jashinsky [62:57]

Israel Lobby, Donorship, & Transparency

• Debate over the accuracy and impact of online “APAC Tracker”-style tools for tracing politicians’ connections to pro-Israel groups:
  • “If it's called APAC tracker, make it an APAC tracker. If it's all pro Israel money tracker, call it that... If you're going to use something that's so broad... it has to be done consistently across the board.” – Ryan Grim [67:12, summary]

Political Spouses/Insider Trading

• Addressing criticism of Ro Khanna’s family wealth and stock trading:
  • “He has consistently introduced legislation that would force every spouse of every member of Congress to... divest or put their stuff in a blind trust... He can't really tell her what to do with it. The federal government could. And he's trying to get the federal government to do something about it.” – Ryan Grim [76:48]
  • The panel jokes about legislating marital behavior.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the emotional toll of war coverage:
  • “I would much rather drop down into the hundreds and have the world be a better place and people be like, you know what? I don't need to hear from these people.” – Ryan Grim [03:16]
• On U.S. strategic blundering:
  • “They sold a cartoon version [of Iran] to the public. Now, I think the leaders bought the cartoon version that had been sold to the public.” – Kyle Kulinski [25:09]
• On the perverse logic of AI-driven layoffs:
  • “The higher the stock market goes up, the worse ordinary people are actually faring.” – Kyle Kulinski [51:51]
• On press freedom and violence:
  • “Press badges are turning into more like, like bullseye targets, basically.” – Krystal Ball [40:28]
  • “You imagine the gall there to, like, invade somebody else's country and then kill the reporters in that country for reporting on the fact that you're in that country.” – Ryan Grim [38:21]
• On confronting officials about morality of violence:
  • “What does it feel like to make these decisions in favor of violence and be the one, you know, making the call to... authorize these incredibly violent and deadly actions? I think that's why that question is so important.” – Kyle Kulinski [64:14]

---

Overall Tone & Atmosphere

• Candid, critical, at times humorous, frequently outraged by global events and official dishonesty or moral evasion.
• The hosts display cross-ideological camaraderie while offering pointed anti-establishment, anti-war perspectives.
• They call out media failures and celebrate when sharp, outsider questions (like those from TMZ) break through the “blob” of traditional press deference.

---

For Listeners

• This episode is essential listening for those seeking independent perspectives on U.S. foreign policy, the mounting consequences of AI, international human rights, and the health of democracy and media.
• Especially valuable are the details and context on the Iran crisis and the targeting of journalists in Lebanon—stories often softened or omitted in mainstream media.
• The concluding AMA provides thoughtful insights into party politics, lobbying ethics, and the ever-relevant issue of Congressional insider trading.

---

End of Summary

Transcript

[Kyle Kulinski]

This is an I Heart podcast.

[Inner Balance Ad Voice]

Guaranteed human if you're feeling off fatigue, mood changes, skin shifts, yet your labs say everything's normal. You're not alone. Meet Oestra from Inner Balance, the first all in one prescription strength bioidentical hormone cream that's natural and effective and only takes one drop, 10 seconds a day. Oester replaces five to six products women typically use to treat symptoms and is third party tested to ensure the highest quality. Visit innerbalance.com today to start feeling like yourself again.

[Ryan Grim]

That's innerbalance.com youm know the fastest way

[Julian Edelman]

to ruin a great adventure? Getting dehydrated for real. That's why you always gotta plan ahead with some Liquid IV hydration multiplier veteran move. You're basically your own hydration coach at that point. Just one stick and 16 ounces of water hydrates you faster than water alone.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Boom.

[Julian Edelman]

Back in the game. Hydration multiplier powered by Liquid IV Hydra Science which is fancy talk for a smart science backed mix of electrolytes and essential vitamins doing the dirty work to keep you going Strong. Go to liquidiv.com and use the code nuthouse for 20% off your first purchase.

[Redfin Ad Voice]

There's a difference between liking a house and actually getting it. Redfin is built to make up that difference and close the gap between finding and owning the home for you. You Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents, so when you find a home you love, you're not a step behind when it comes to making an offer. That means less watching great homes disappear and more focus on the one you'll call home. Redfin helps turn saved listings into real addresses. Get [e-mail] own the dream hey guys,

[Emily Jashinsky]

Sagar and Crystal here.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

[Emily Jashinsky]

This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Kyle Kulinski]

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.

[Emily Jashinsky]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail] Happy Friday everybody.

[Krystal Ball]

How's it going? How's it feel to be number 15 on YouTube this month?

[Ryan Grim]

Who's A

[Krystal Ball]

that's a great question. We got like makeup tutorial people Mr. Beast. You know, Ryan, you're right. We shouldn't celebrate till we're number one.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah. Attitude. I like that attitude. Or the attitude. Emily, how many subs did you think we should shoot for? Like 50 million, you said, or something like that.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I'm not celebrating. 2.

[Krystal Ball]

There's no participation trophies.

[Kyle Kulinski]

I think the only politics people that were ahead of us according to Sagar, was Candace and Midas. Touch. So in terms of our direct competitors, if you consider them direct competitors, that's who. That's who we gotta be gunning for.

[Ryan Grim]

I. I hate it because whenever we are super high in the rankings, it means the world is going to complete Hell, yes.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Correct.

[Ryan Grim]

I would. I would much rather drop down into the hundreds and have the world be a better place and people be like, you know what? I don't need to hear from these people.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah, absolutely. I feel we are.

[Ryan Grim]

Okay.

[Kyle Kulinski]

We are war profiteers here. Apparently whenever there's a war that people are like, yes, I gotta tune into Breaking Points to find out what the hell is going on. So, yes, I'm with you, Ryan. I would much rather the world be at peace and much calmer and nobody really pay attention to what we say because it's not that important.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, let's get back to the safe. People are watching us.

[Krystal Ball]

The safe, like 40 to 75 range. That's where we like to be.

[Kyle Kulinski]

That's a comfortable zone.

[Emily Jashinsky]

The world is still bad, but it's not on the brink of nuclear catastrophe.

[Krystal Ball]

Then we're number one. So on that note, the world is getting worse. The Iran conflagration continues. We've got more updates there. Ryan is going to speak to us a little bit about a Lebanese journalist that was triple tapped by Israel. Emily is going to take a look at a long list of layoffs hitting companies all across America. And then we are going to have a guest, India Moore, who is going to join us to talk about the impending Hollywood merger between Warner Brothers and Paramount that the Warner Brothers shareholders just approved for $81 billion. And perhaps a few fun stories at the end and some AMA questions. But, Krystal, where are we at right now with the Iran war?

[Kyle Kulinski]

That's a fantastic question. I don't know. Great question. No, I mean, I guess the latest T tactic from Trump has been to continue to insist that the Iranians are so divided that he had to move forward with the ceasefire while they get their act together. There's rumors that golly Boff has resigned or been pushed off of the negotiating team. I don't know that there's any veracity to that whatsoever. The Iranians are very much trying to project, you know, an image of unity, many of them tweeting out the same nearly identical message about how aligned they are. No doubt that there are different views and voices internally about whether the ceasefire was good idea, what the approach should be, etc. But, you know, on the US side, we just had the Secretary of the Navy pushed out at the beginning of the war. We had the Army Chief of Staff pushed out. So you've got the President, United States, who couldn't even get a straight answer out of him, whether or not the Vice President was going to be involved in this negotiations, whether he was in the US or on his way to Pakistan, et cetera. So if there is a side in chaos, I would see that say that the indicators point in the other direction.

[Krystal Ball]

Why don't we throw up two clips here of Trump's latest reasoning here? We've. I'm going to play these two right back to back here.

[Donald Trump (clip)]

They would have opened it up three days ago. They came to us and they said, we will agree to open the strait. And all my people were happy. Everybody was happy except me. I said, wait a minute, if we open the strait, that means they're going to make $500 million a day. I don't want them to make $500 million a day until they settle this thing. So I'm the one that kept it closed with total control of it, and it'll open when they make a deal or something else happens. That's very positive.

[Krystal Ball]

All right, so Trump claiming, claiming credit, saying he's the one that kept it closed. And then we also have another SOT here where he talks a little bit about Vietnam. Let's take a listen.

[Emily Jashinsky]

How long are you willing to wait

[Jacob Wasserman (TMZ reporter)]

until you get a.

[Donald Trump (clip)]

Don't rush me, Jeff. You know, guys like you, you want say, oh, Lord. I'm like, for 18 years, we were in Iraq. For many, many years, we're in for all the. I don't like to say World War II, because that was a biggie, but we were four and a half, almost five years in World War II. We were in the Korean War for seven years. I've been doing this for six weeks. And their military is totally defeated. They're, they're outside of the little wise guy ships. I call them the wise guy ships, the little boats that they have running around with guns in them. We'll take them out, too, when we see them.

[Kyle Kulinski]

I believe the estimate that was posted from CBS News of how much of the Iranian naval capacity remains is somewhere around 60%. So that's. And again, from CBS News, Trump regime propaganda outlet. I mean, there's so much you could say here on the calculation about the blockade, of the blockade. First of all, it's not true that it's completely closed. There's, you know, evidence that a number of ships have been able to get through, although at a diminished rate. So that is certainly the case. But he seems to be calculating that that economic stress on Iran will squeeze them to a greater extent than it will squeeze us. And by the numbers, that may be true, but their public is much more willing and able to withstand economic pain. I mean, they're used to sanctions. This is existential for them than our public is. And so that is, the Iranian calculation is that that is not remotely the case and that every day that the economic warfare continues, whether the hot war continues or not, that is a day in which their leverage is increased and our, you know, capacity to continue on is decreased. So I think that is their logic. And I'll just say, you know, one more thing. On that economic blockade piece, there was a note in a Financial Times article that this was J.D. vance's thinking after he left the failed talks that he was telling people, like, listen, we'll put this blockade on and they'll be. This will be so difficult for them that they'll be back at the table ready to negotiate in no time. It's hard for me to believe that he's dumb enough to actually think that that's the case. But if that is, that is truly wild, that they still, still misunderstand and underestimate this adversary to that extent.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And like harming the economy, to your point, isn't really going to do it because we've been hurting their economy for, for decades now. At this point, the real strategic aim seems to be to basically shut down their petroleum, their oil industry, which they could do by, you know, if all of their oil tankers and storage facilities get filled up and they can't then, you know, move any, you know, more oil out, then they have to shut down the entire system. And that is, like, extraordinarily damaging to it. And it's very expensive. Getting it back up can take months. It's a complete mess. But analysts differ on how long that would take. But it would take a significant amount of time. At least four weeks, you know, maybe eight, maybe, like, maybe longer. And so then the question is, does the, does the US and the global economy have that amount of Time like Lufthansa just canceled, what, 20,000 flights the other day because they don't have oil. Bangladesh has just announced this morning its central bank is out of money because costs for everything are going up. So you're going to start seeing these cascading collapses of sectors, countries, industries, companies. And so can the, can the west, and not just the west, but the whole world, like, withstand six more weeks, eight more weeks of this? Like, I doubt it. And also can't. Like, if they can get some tankers through, then they can, you know, then they can buy themselves even more time. But meanwhile, they're sending mixed signals. I, Griffin, I have this Hegseth thing from, I believe it was this morning, which is kind of contradictory to what Trump is saying. Let me play this here.

[Pete Hegseth]

Be America's fight alone. We barely use the Strait of Hormuz as a country. Our energy doesn't flow through there and we have plenty of energy. Just look at the new global Congo line headed to Texas. A beautiful picture. Europe and Asia have benefited from our protection for decades, but the time for free riding is over. America and the free world deserve allies who are capable, who are loyal. And you understand that being an ally is not a one way street, it's a two way street. We are not counting on Europe. They need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe and get in a boat. This is much more their fight than ours.

[Ryan Grim]

So stop it with your baguettes and pick up a bazooka. Get in the water. So, Trump, we're going to blockade this thing. Hegseth, actually, this is your problem, Fox News. It's the Iranians who are in disarray. Like our government is in public disarray. Like there's no public disarray from the Iranian government. There's alleged internal disarray. But so if you're the Iranians and you're watching that, you're like, wait, do they, so wait, are they going to block, are they going to keep blockading the straight or is it Europe's problem? Like what, what is, what is actually going on here?

[Emily Jashinsky]

He also said Congo line. I believe he meant Congo line.

[Ryan Grim]

Congo line. Yeah.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Congo line.

[Ryan Grim]

Like going to Louisiana.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, it's, it's also so, I mean, we don't even need to say this, but it's Ryan, go. I want a gif of that. It's so dishonest to say that because we don't get a lot of our direct energy from the Strait of Hormuz, that it's not going to affect the American economy. It's just such a ridiculous point that. But it is, of course, somebody should

[Ryan Grim]

have told Bush that. Why are you invading Iraq? We've got so much natural gas right here. Stop.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Don't worry.

[Kyle Kulinski]

That was pre the fracking revolution, though. Ryan.

[Emily Jashinsky]

True, you know, but he's just like, it's actually really similar, I was just going to say, actually, to what people like Pete Hikeseth, who served after 911 were saying they detested about the Bush era, which is people getting up in front of a microphone and misleading the American people behind an official government podium about war. And that's like, I know that when Trump is riffing and being like, don't rush me, Jeff to Jeff Mason, presumably, like, he's constantly in now watch this drive mode because he's talked so breezily. It's just completely like, he doesn't even have to switch from one to the other. Everything is just easy breezy when he talks about it. You know, Bush, who was like, switching from we're going to win the war to now watch this drive. And that was jarring for people. But Trump is just like constantly in the now watch this drive mentality. And you can hear it as he's talking about how the Iranian Navy has, what did he say? Wise guy boats, the Mosquito fleet that they have prepared for many years for contingencies like this one, which is still doing, creating a lot of trouble for the American Navy, trying to implement this blockade. Like, that's actually a real issue for the American Navy right now. So it's all, it's especially, I think, from, from Pete Hegseth, who again served and made this argument about people who were misleading folks into war. It's really kind of gross to hear arguments like that.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Well, I also want to just dwell for a moment on the part that Trump was saying about, like, don't rush me. I got all taught all the time in the world. You know, Vietnam was this long and Iraq was this long and Afghanistan was that long. Keep in mind that, number one, he thought this was going to be over after effectively day one, and there was no planning beyond we take out the ayatollah and, you know, a bunch of other top leadership and destroy a bunch of stuff and then that's it. You know, we find our Delsey Rodriguez and we're out of here. That's what he was telling our allies, is that it would be over in four days. Then we were consistently getting this line from the White House to a whole variety of reporters that it would be four to six weeks. Well, now here we are at six weeks, and now he's saying, hey, you remember those forever wars that I ran against and that many people voted for me, thinking that I would not be the person to get us in another one of those? Weren't those great? Let's wrap our minds around being here relatively indefinitely. I mean, that's an incredible moving of the goalposts right there and contemplates that there isn't going to be some quick ability to come up with some deal and wrap this thing in a bow and be able to declare mission accomplish and walk away.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's a really good point.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And Ryan, when does, like, Europe revolt? Like, are. Are all these countries going to allow America to essentially crater their economies and just say, oh, I guess it's just America's doing what they're going to do. Like, is there a point where the world comes together and says, actually, no, we. We got to put this. We got to stop this?

[Ryan Grim]

I think you're more likely to get serious pressure from some of the Asian countries, which who seem to have actually more sense, interestingly, more sense of kind of dignity and sovereignty than the Europeans do. The Europeans feel like they give off a real sense of, like, hopelessness and haplessness that are like, well, this sucks. Hope somebody can do something about this. Whereas some of the Asian countries are

[Kyle Kulinski]

like, the democrats of the world.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, they are. They really are like Democrats.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yes, I will agree.

[Krystal Ball]

So they'll do a global kneeling with a kente cloth, but they're not going to put any limits on this. Well, while we talked about Pete Hegseth, we do have another clip from our friends at TMZ that Crystal wanted to throw to really quickly. Why don't we take a listen?

[Pete Hegseth]

I would encourage other countries to be a part of such an effort as well, but we're tracking that very closely, Mr. Chairman.

[Ryan Grim]

Add anything to that?

[Emily Jashinsky]

No, sir.

[Pete Hegseth]

I think you covered it right here. New members of our press here.

[Jacob Wasserman (TMZ reporter)]

Jacob Wasserman with TMZ dc. We have two questions. I'm gonna ask the first. My colleague will ask the second. You know, I've heard you talk a lot about.

[Ryan Grim]

We'll see.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Okay.

[Jacob Wasserman (TMZ reporter)]

I've heard you talk a lot about bombing people in places. And when you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what's going through your mind and your body? Do you have, like, an adrenaline rush? Are you scared? Do you feel like you're on A power trip. Just walk us through and paint us a picture of what it feel mentally and physically.

[Pete Hegseth]

It's a very TMZ question. My only thought process is to ensure that our war fighters have everything they need to be successful. Defeat and destroy the enemy and they come home. I want them to feel empowered to have every authority they need within our rules and within our law to bring maximum violence to the enemy, because war is violent. War requires doing difficult things. But I want our people to feel empowered. So it's our guys that come home and their guys that do not.

[Krystal Ball]

All right.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I really like that question because I actually think that it's the exact type of question the DC press corps and even the like left of center DC journalists will laugh at. But it's the only time you're ever going to see, aside from maybe a 60 Minutes interview, like six months into this or 10 years later, somebody confronted with that question. Now, I don't expect him to give a deeply personal, genuine answer to it, but it's a really interesting and legitimate question about the human element of being thousands of miles away and ordering hits. That's genuinely pretty interesting. And so props to them for asking that question. Even though the, even the other reporters who really dislike Pete Hegseth are going to look down their noses at them. That's the exact type of thing that we should have TMZ in the press corps to be asking about.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah. And Hegset dismisses it as, oh, well, that's a very TMZ question. And I'm thinking, well, if that's a TMZ question, I'm excited that they're here to ask those TMZ questions because, you know, we think a lot about humanizing victims, either, you know, of our foreign policy or victims in general. But I think to force people to imagine the mind of someone who is in this position of pressing a button and bombing a girls school, for example, in Iran, and to contemplate just how monstrous that is, his answer almost becomes irrelevant. Although even in his answer he essentially says, look, my view is us versus them. And I really don't care about the violence that I perpetrate against the them that I have. You know, I, that I have in my mind that war is inherently violent. And that's just, just, you know, I don't think about it too much. And I, I think that is probably actually a fairly honest answer.

[Ryan Grim]

And we, I don't know if you saw it at Tropsite. We did this like 8 minute mashup of all of, not all of it. But a lot of Pete Hegseth's most like just bloodthirsty rhetoric from up on the podium, which it's truly extraordinary to see kind of stretch stretched all together, stitched together. It's a good question. Like you talk all the time about all this, this extraordinary violence that you're going to meet out on these people. Like as a human being, how do you feel about that?

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah, and glorifies it and wraps it in the Bible too, by the way. Yeah. Even the Pulp Fiction version of the Bible. So. Yeah, I thought it was an excellent question. I know Jacob, who was asking the question, who we had on the show yesterday, by the way, who's, you know, a fan of. A fan of breaking. And it was very complimentary to the work that we're doing. I know he and Julian have already gotten together buddies too, so got nice partners in crime there. I love that.

[Ryan Grim]

Did they get a follow up question? Tmz?

[Kyle Kulinski]

I'm not sure. I just saw that clip. Yeah, I don't know.

[Ryan Grim]

We will report that.

[Emily Jashinsky]

The other thing I was going to say is that structurally when you're on the outside of the government, you're literally on Fox News or some other place and you're looking back at mistakes that prior administrations made that are deeply personal to you. It's really easy. And Trump was a critic of these wars and the reasons for these wars as well. It's really, really easy to criticize people for lying us into war. And then when you become part of the government and you think that war is a good decision, you structurally end up becoming part of this very real blob where it's almost inherent to the work that you're going to be dishonest because you are trying to justify an end and the means. Then I think some people talk themselves into saying we don't get much of our energy from the straight of Hormuz. So it's good. Our economy is fine. This is whatever. We can sell the war this way by talking to the American people. And it's technically true, so it's fine. But those actual little technically true pieces of information add up to this really misleading picture. And so I think the contrast between the criticisms prior to this administration and what we're seeing in this administration, which actually does look very much like the time period surrounding the invasion of Iraq. It's just really sad.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. If the Washington press corps is getting one upped by TMZ in the arenas of class and journalistic integrity, we might have some issues or might just Be the heroes we deserve. One last update on the Iran war from the Iranian side that I wanted you guys to react to. We have a New York Times report on Kamini Jr. And sort of how Iran is being led. Now, they say that he.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Introduce him as Jesse Waters would. Every time Jesse Waters mentions. Every time Jesse Waters mentions him, he says the gay Ayatollah. Deadpan.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, bringing. You can't let Jesse Waters bring down my journalistic integrity. I'm bringing TMZ and Emily. All right, so the gay tola. The gay Tola says that, you know, he's injured, he's sending notes and messages to commanders, but the IRGC themselves no longer visit him directly for fearing Israel could track his location. Crystal, what do you make of that?

[Kyle Kulinski]

I mean, it's certainly possible. There's been a lot of questions about his health status, and it certainly makes sense why they are really trying to keep his location under wraps because obviously they don't want him to also be assassinated. So, you know, I think the. It also makes sense that this leak is coming right now because they're really trying to push this picture of an Iranian government in chaos and divided. And so they're like, you know, the Ayatollah is, like, barely even functioning, and he has to send these written messages, messages, etc. But regardless of the status of his health, I don't think there's any indications that there's, like, a real breakdown internally in terms of the functioning of the government. And one of the things that I've said before that it appears to me is that in America, we used to have leaders and, you know, senior policymakers who had a more nuanced and complex view of Iran, and they sold a cartoon version of that to the public. Now, I think the leaders bought the cartoon version that had been sold to the public, which is how Trump, for example, could imagine that just taking out the leader would be enough to topple the whole government. As if, you know, just taking out some of our leadership here would just completely topple our system. No, this is a government that is established over a number of years. They have a constitution, they have institutions. They have a line of succession. You know, after the Ayatollah was killed, there was a process and procedure to select the next one, and that would be the case even if they were able to get to this, the new guy and be able to take him out or get golly boff off the team or as Mark Thiessen suggested. And Trump retweeted, he said, oh, if there are two factions and one is causing trouble in the negotiations. I'll just kill the, kill those ones and leave in place the ones that we aren't having trouble with, working with. As if, you know, that would just keep the status quo and as if that wouldn't change the calculus also of the people who were remaining in the negotiations. So, you know, I just, I see it in light of that. Obviously, it's, it's, you know, interesting to know what potentially the, the status of Machaba Kamine is. But, but I would see it in light of this broader picture that they're trying to paint.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Ryan, I'm curious what the job site reporting is on this, too, because I know Jeremy has some. Jeremy was on the show this week talking a bit about the sort of the real tensions between the IRGC and the government right now. But obviously they're projecting, would you say, unity? I mean, I know you guys have had some reporting on this. How would you describe it?

[Ryan Grim]

And, and it's not quite that simple, you know, as, as he mentioned, you know, Golly, Boff is himself an irg, even though he's the speaker of the Parliament. He's himself an IRGC veteran. And there are, you know, there are disagreements within the irgc, disagreements within the Parliament, disagreements within the Security Council and so on. But right now they seem to be completely unified in a very simple demand, which is that talks don't start until you lift this illegal naval blockade. We think it's illegal. Stop. And if you want to restart war, go ahead, restart the war. But we're not sitting down until you, until you lift this. They thought that they had an agreement, as Jeremy had reported. They thought, like, that's what the Pakistanis effectively told them. And so the big question is, did the Pakistanis play a double game and tell them something that they hoped they could get Trump to agree to, but Trump hadn't agreed to, or did Trump tell them in some convoluted way that he would agree to that and then it, you know, pulled the rug out from under it, you know, or was it supposed to be, and this is my suspicion, a pretty kind of delicate diplomatic dance in the way that the statements were rolled out after, after the agreement was reached and was coming into place. And Donald Trump is not for ballet. Like, he's not somebody who can do delicate diplomatic dances. He started to even giving the conciliatory Strait of Iran truth social post. But then he lost his mind and spent the next seven hours just going completely bananas, threatening, making wild threats about destroying everything that exists and so on and so forth. And so that unraveled everything. So there's a real question of whether Trump is physically, mentally capable of following through on something that he promises privately.

[Kyle Kulinski]

That's so true. And I, for what it's worth, Kyle and I interviewed Professor Morandi yesterday and got, you know, his perspective on how Iranians were viewing things. And he was careful to say, look, I don't really have inside knowledge. People think I know a lot more than I do. But he said, you know, I asked him about what is the Iranian view on the Pakistanis as mediators at this point? You know, do they feel like they are true sort of neutral arbiters, here is their trust there, et cetera. And he's like, listen, it's not. The problem isn't the Pakistanis. The problem's Trump. The problem is the, is America. The problem is Israel. The problem is really not with the Pakistanis, because, yeah, I mean, you think about it like, and I'm not saying they're, they're perfect or whatever, but imagine trying to be the go between with Trump where, I mean, think about how in the same sentence, he'll say two different things, right? Like, imagine trying to be the go between, okay, Trump said he'd do this, and here's the sequence, etc. And the Iranians go ahead and follow through. Okay, we'll put on our tweet saying the straight is open. And then immediately Trump comes out and does something completely different. So. So, yeah, I mean, they're, they are in an impossible situation as far as. Oh, as far as I can tell. Sorry, the dog just knocked something over. Everything's fine, though. You heard a loud crash.

[Ryan Grim]

And we know because he accidentally, when he was trying to reach out to Pam Bondi through direct message on Truth social media, if you guys remember that he, he accidentally posted it publicly. And so we know that his private messages are just as unhinged and filled with great all caps. It's not like he has a private, like, meta deliberative communication, like communication style. That's, that's how he communicates. So you can imagine, like, let's say he's texting Asim Munir or Shabazz Sharif, like, what his ideas are. Can you like to. Yeah, to Crystal's point, imagine he didn't

[Emily Jashinsky]

he post his text messages with Mark Ruda at one point, didn't he? And they were like, bananas.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, it's Macron, right?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Macron, yeah.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Okay.

[Ryan Grim]

All right, maybe him too. But yeah, imagine you're the, the Pakistanis. You're getting these texts. Imagine it's your job to take his truth social posts and tell the Iranians what he's trying to say. I mean, I would just forward the whole thing like WhatsApp style. Just like here.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Make up this what you will.

[Ryan Grim]

I have no idea. So yeah, good lord. Like

[Inner Balance Ad Voice]

if you're feeling off fatigue, mood changes, skin shifts, yet your labs say everything's normal, you're not alone. Meet Oestra from Inner Balance, the first all in one prescription strength bioidentical hormone cream that's natural and effective and only takes one drop, 10 seconds a day. Oester replaces five to six products women typically use to treat symptoms and is third party tested to ensure the highest quality. Visit innerbalance.com today to start feeling like yourself again.

[Julian Edelman]

That's innerbalance.com this is Julian Edelman from Games With Names. You know, I always got something going on. Lifting, chasing my kid, or heading on a family road trip where I'm somehow both the snack guy and the dj. But no matter what's going on in my schedule or one thing never changes, I make sure I stay hydrated. That's where Liquid IV shows up. Clutch. We've said it before. It's the key to faster hydration. You got to have a Liquid IV on you. Gym bag, glove box, the pantry you swear is organized. Toss one in just a stick and 16 ounces of water hydrates you faster than water alone.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Boom.

[Julian Edelman]

Efficiency. It's powered by Liquid IV Hydro Science sounds like a playbook term, but it's an optimized ratio of electrolytes, vitamins and clinically tested nutrients, turning water into a game changer. Worried it tastes like science? Don't. Liquid IV Hydration Multiplier flavors are delicious. Lemon, lime popsicle, firecracker and cotton candy. Plus sugar free favorites like white, peach and rainbow sherbet. That's a win tear pour. Enjoy. Even I can handle that. Go to liquid IV.com and use the promo code nuthouse for 20% off your first purchase.

[Take Five Oil Change Ad Voice]

102 miles ago the oil light came on 100 miles ago you noticed. Now it's time to head to Take five. This oil change. Fall in love with your car all over again in just 10 minutes. Your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids, change your oil and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs. All while keeping you in the driver's seat. Take five the stay in your car 10 minute oil change.

[Krystal Ball]

Find your nearest [e-mail] well, speaking of negotiations, you know they have extended this Israel, Lebanon ceasefire. But meanwhile, Israel continues to fire. There was a triple tap on a journalist, Amal Khalil Ryan. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that, because you probably won't be hearing about this on CNN or any other news organization.

[Ryan Grim]

Let me pull up.

[Krystal Ball]

I've got. I've got a video of her.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. If you want to play that or. And then later I can put up the drop site story that Jeremy did for us. Yeah. You want to play this?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah. You know.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. So Malk was a. She's. She was a Lebanese, a prominent Lebanese reporter for Al Akbar and Lebanese out outfit. And she, with a number of other journalists, was in, you know, southern Lebanon reporting the car that was driving in front of her and her colleague was struck by an Israeli drone. They were injured in that blast. They were able to get out of the car and run into an abandoned home right nearby, from which they called. They were calling all of their, like, friends and colleagues saying, like, we're. We're being fired on. We need help. We need, you know, we're hurt. We need to get out of here. The entire country and world that was paying attention was following this. And the Lebanese prime is the prime minister. The president, like, was publicly, you know, begging Israel to stop shooting at her. Like, let. So the Red Cross publicly was saying, we are right here. We are right next to the home. Like, we need to go in and rescue these women. Please stop firing at us and stop firing at the home. And they wouldn't. And so the Red Cross left. And after hours of this, Israel, seven hours, Israel bombed the house and killed her. And eventually the Red Cross was able to get in under intense fire and pull out her colleague, who's alive, but she was still stuck under the rubble. And the medics had to evacuate before they could, before they could get her out because the Israelis were continuing to fire insanely. She had been getting threats leading right up to that, death threats, and they posted the number that was. Was threatening her. So our. One of our correspondents who was in southern Lebanon for us maybe six months or a year ago, Jeremy Lofredo, he texted that number and let me, let me find. People should read his story if they get a chance. But so here. So here he says, hi, my name is Jeremy Lofredo. I'm a journalist for the American publication Job Site News. And I'm wondering if you have any comment on the threat you sent to Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil. These are not innocent people. The journalists affiliated with Hezbollah that Israel eliminated were also spies for Hezbollah approaching our soldiers and then informing the terrorist organization where our soldiers were in real time. Similarly, on October 7, journalists affiliated with Hamas were eliminated because they were intelligence officers. Send greetings to all journalists affiliated with Hezbollah for anyone who works for the organization should know they. They are destined for death. He then adds, I think about the possibility that you are one of them, too. I'm offering you to find another partner. In Lebanon. There are a lot of good people over there. Maronites, Sunnis, Druze and others try to cover their narrative. You are naive, very naive. And then some weird emoji.

[Kyle Kulinski]

So this is basically a threat.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. So threatening. Jeremy as well. Noah Hurwitz reached out to. And the guy told him his name. Before we finish the segment. I can. I can find the guy's name, but we, like, we know the guy's actual name and, you know, nothing is going to be done to this guy or

[Krystal Ball]

it's just like, a guy in the government. Like, who is this guy? Is he just a troll?

[Ryan Grim]

He's like a pro war writer. Like, affiliated with the, like, pro war. Well, they're all pro war. Let me.

[Krystal Ball]

This is like a Fox. This is like a Fox News guy.

[Ryan Grim]

DM one of these.

[Krystal Ball]

That he's gonna drone strike you one

[Ryan Grim]

of these people who's, like, affiliated. Not affiliated with the government.

[Krystal Ball]

Gotcha.

[Ryan Grim]

That's sort of like a mouthpiece for it. Yeah, like, utterly. Like, just, Just. Just a murder of this. Of these unarmed. Unarmed journalists. Like, and, like, it's not even serious. Like, she's in her own country, first of all. So, like, even if she was reporting on where the Israeli troops are, which that's what journalists do, they'll say, like, this is where the battle is happening, and they tell the public where the battles are happening. But even if that's true, they're in her country. Like, you imagine the gall there to, like, invade somebody else's country and then kill the reporters in that country for reporting on the fact that you're in that country. It's just such an unbelievable. Okay. Just an unbelievable crime. All right, let's see. Here's Noah. Let me see.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Ryan, do you suspect that because we've seen people be targeted based on these sort of, like, not affiliated. Sort of affiliated accounts and, like, propagandistic allies, do you suspect there's a direct connection between these threats and the murder?

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, yes, I do think so. Especially tracking all the other journalists who've been killed, Palestinian journalists who've been killed in Gaza. These kinds of Threats always foreshadow an assassination, but you can, you can map it. That's why we were so pressed to get Abu Bakr Abed out of Gaza, because all of a sudden these types of people started making these threats privately and publicly.

[Kyle Kulinski]

And that sort of like when Laura Loomer starts tweeting about someone who needs to be deported or fired or whatever. I mean.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

And so the guys said his name was Gideon Gal Ben Abraham.

[Kyle Kulinski]

So just no shame. Happy to respond to the text, tell you his identity.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, feels like also the same as.

[Krystal Ball]

Also the same as Rafa Alarir story. You know, he started getting lots of DMS in the same ways. And I guess, you know, Rafaat wasn't press, but it does seem like these press badges are turning into more like, like bullseye targets, basically.

[Ryan Grim]

Press. But yeah, you're right. Yes, they threatened him. They were very clear they were going to try to kill him. Then they, they do this crazy thing. They called her. Like, they called her and told her they were going to kill her. Like, and that's a very common thing. Like, it. You. You'd be surprised. But, like, Rayfat got calls as well from Israel, from Israeli military officials. And there's no, I don't, like, there's no utility in calling them unless you're trying to, like, make sure that maybe they're making sure that the phone that they've been tracking is actually them. So that, that could be the surveillance utility of it. But otherwise it's just sadistic.

[Kyle Kulinski]

It's just part of the terror campaign.

[Ryan Grim]

Last week, they called a journalist, I don't know if you saw this story, and said, we're going to kill you immediately. You can either die with your family or you can run and we will kill you alone. And he said, I'm going to run. And so he, he fled his house, got into his car, and they hit him very quickly with a drone strike in his car and burned him alive. And there's like, video of, of some of this unfolding. There's, there had been a lot of stories of this, of this happening before, people saying, you know, the Israelis calling ahead of time. So they, so they called and said, we're going to kill you. And it undercuts the idea that there is such a thing as a human shield. Because if he said, I'm not leaving this house, those other humans are not a shield. Like, they would.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah, they would have thought nothing of murdering them as well.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

And Crystal, this from Haaretz. Israeli soldiers testified a widespread looting in Lebanon commanders know and do nothing. So it seems like they're just totally picking the entire southern Lebanon for scraps as they bomb and destroy villages. Do you think this is going to have a major effect on the talks? I know that Iran was trying to say, hey, if there's no ceasefire in

[Ryan Grim]

Lebanon here, I found who this guy is. Let's just wrap that.

[Krystal Ball]

All right, let's do it so we don't leave.

[Ryan Grim]

Leave it hanging. So this is from Noah, who, who he said this guy Gal Gideon Ben Abraham told Noah this is who he was. We don't know if that's true, but this is what the number said he was. He's an Israeli comment commentator who has a number of YouTube videos speaking on issues around the genocide in Gaza and wars in Lebanon and Iran. I've not yet independently verified that this account belongs to him. So he's a, he's an Israeli. He's like a Israeli commentator, basically.

[Krystal Ball]

Awesome. Awesome. But yeah, I mean, Crystal, what. How does this carnage in Lebanon affect any potential deal in the future?

[Kyle Kulinski]

I mean, the Iranians have been very clear that, you know, if there is a, a true return to just bombardment in Lebanon, that is going to be unacceptable to them. It was after the ceasefire was brokered between Israel and Lebanon that Arachi tweeted out, okay, the street is open because this Lebanon has been. This Lebanon ceasefire has been secured. So this is obvious. Always been very central to them. They are very unified in this demand. So I think it's, you know, I think it's extremely important. There's also reporting coming out of Israeli outlets that Israel is preparing to go back to war. Obviously, Israel wants to go back to war. There were significant meetings at the White House yesterday. So we don't know what the, the next plans are. But if I could just say, you know, one thing specifically about this report of widespread looting of homes in Lebanon. And there was a video that went, or a picture that went viral of an IDF soldier who had like, you know, they came in and the village is completely abandoned because, you know, anybody that's left there is assumed to be a terrorist and potentially murdered. And she's going through the garden and plucking out the vegetables that have been planted by this family and preparing this elaborate feast in this family's abandoned kitchen. And I was thinking about something Gideon Levy said, I think actually in Piers Morgan show about how you can't have this long term occupation and subjugation of people without just completely dehumanizing them. And so this behavior is the logical outgrowth of a long term project of dehumanizing, you know, not just Palestinians but anyone that they would see as resisting, you know, their project of, of Greater Israel and their need for complete and total security, etc. So I think it's a, you know, very consistent with the behavior we saw of IDF soldiers in Gaza. It is not a one off. This is part and parcel of what this ideology is.

[Emily Jashinsky]

It's how humans prepare themselves to do mass civilian damage and just mass warfare in general. The last thing I would say is Steve Sweeney went on Tucker Carlson's show, I think it was last week. He's a journalist for rt, not a place I would work, but nevertheless, he told the story of how he ended up getting targeted, so obviously targeted in Lebanon. And I just recommend that to everybody because you see how clear his press and you see how clear the attempt on his life was. And that should, I mean there's, there's basically no way to refute that he was, he was being targeted for being a journalist.

[Ryan Grim]

So.

[Krystal Ball]

All right, so we just wanted to make sure we covered that because again, you probably will not hear about Amal Khalil on any other major news network.

[Inner Balance Ad Voice]

If you're feeling off fatigue, mood changes, skin shifts, yet your labs say everything's normal. You're not alone. Meet Oestra from Inner Balance, the first all in one prescription strength bioidentical hormone cream that's natural and effective and only takes one drop, 10 seconds a day. Oester replaces five to six products women typically use to treat symptoms and is third party tested to ensure the highest quality. Visit innerbalance.com today to start feeling like yourself again.

[Ryan Grim]

That's innerbalance.com this is Julian Edelman from

[Julian Edelman]

Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jewels. One thing I've learned over the years, before you head out on any adventure, you gotta be ready to stay hydrated because dehydration ruins the fun faster than you can spell it. Pretty sure there's a Y in there somewhere. I was a slot receiver, not a spelling bee champ. Speaking of adventures, Liquid IV has been rolling with us for a while now. Total pros. Pro show up, does the job, makes everyone better. We're pumped to have them on the team and trust me, you'll be thankful to have them with you when dehydration tries to sneak up on you. No playbook required. All you gotta do is tear, pour and Enjoy. Go to LiquidIV.com and use the code Nuthouse for 20% off your first purchase and check us out on YouTube or listen to dudes on dudes on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Take Five Oil Change Ad Voice]

102 miles ago, the oil light came on. 100 miles ago, you'd noticed. Now it's time to head to Take five. This oil change. Fall in love with your car all over again. In just 10 minutes. Your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids, change your oil and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs, all while keeping you in the driver's seat. Take five the stay in your car 10 minute oil change find your nearest [e-mail]

[Krystal Ball]

let's move over to some things happening in our country currently. Emily. We've got some economy news and some layoffs. What do we got?

[Emily Jashinsky]

We'll start by saying markets have been open for about an hour. As we're talking right now, The S&P 500 is up. So I'm sure that's great news to everybody over in the White House. But a couple of big layoff announcements that we wanted to cover. We can start with this Meta announcement. Meta is going to cut 10% of its workforce, according to a New York times story. That's 8,000 employees. They're going to close an additional 6,000 roles that were open and they're in the process of obviously, as the Times points out, spending heavily on AI. So going basically pedal to the metal on artificial intelligence. Another one to cover here is Nike is announcing about 1400 layoffs. That's 2% of the entire company. It comes out to about 2% of the entire company. Shail Ben Efraim had a roundup so that we can also pop on the screen Griffin of Nike, Meta also Microsoft offering voluntary retirement buyouts to about 7% of its U.S. workforce. Another company that is going pedal to the metal on artificial intelligence, Oracle, has an AI driven layoff between 20,000 to 30,000 employees getting cut. Again, that's as they're going pedal to the metal on AI. Amazon, 16,000 jobs cut at the corporate level back in January. Many people will probably remember that they had recently cut about 14,000, as Shyles points out just a couple of months earlier at the end of last year. Block massive cuts from Jack Dorsey as they are. They were ones that were basically citing AI. They're the ones that were kind of brave enough to actually cite AI. Dell cut about 11,000 jobs over the last year. So it's, you know, the analyses of why we're starting to see mass layoffs are a little bit mixed. A lot of experts look at that and say what we've seen so far is reaction to a super uncertain economy post. I mean, so we have Ukraine now, we have Iran, but in the process we've also had tariffs over the last year as well. And so there has been just an enormous amount of uncertainty. Now the Mag 7 companies are over 30% of the S&P. Just think about that. 30% of the S and P. And a lot of them are these companies that we were just talking about. So they're cutting tons of jobs. This is the sign that we are now, I think, on the cusp of the economy, not just being a reaction to uncertainty, but actually being a direct reaction to artificial intelligence. And this is as, of course, a lot of those entry level workers, entry level white collar workers, are graduating college in the spring. Just in the next three weeks here. There have been projections. We're going to see historic levels of unemployment for recent college graduates. This should prepare people for that to prove accurate in the next several weeks. Unfortunately, that's really where we are.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah, and one of the points Shael makes there that is very important and you know, matches with your analysis of where the market is at this morning is he's like, you know, we're kind of used to when companies are doing mass layoffs, it's because those companies aren't doing well. So they've got to cut costs, they've got to trim back and you know, they're, they would like to keep those workers theoretically, but they're unable to. That's kind of the landscape that we're used to. But these are companies that are all doing very well, have high profit margins, but they, and they, their stock will go up from cutting this workforce. And this is the terrifying logic of AI is as companies implement it and eliminate large swaths of their workforce, the overall public will be worse and worse off. But the, you know, top echelons of those companies and their, you know, and their CEOs and their top shareholders will be better and better off. So the level of inequality that we have right now is already world historic, you know, and certainly historic in terms of our, our nation's history. It's at its highest levels ever. That is set to skyrocket with the logic of AI where, yes, the stock market may continue to go up and up, and rather than being even correlated to the general success of and wellbeing of the American people, it will be an inverse correlation where the higher the stock market goes up, the worse ordinary people are actually faring.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And that's scary because of what a bubble it shows that we're under right now. Like to Crystal's point, if something goes wrong and people start realizing, there's also a lot of circular funding in the MAG7 world and AI world in general. So if somebody realizes one investment is looking worse than they expected and starts pulling back a little bit and the bubble starts to pop, we're literally talking about 35% of the S and P. So it's the risks of this big AI project and expansion inflation are really significant and actually pretty frightening. Ryan?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, we are rapidly, rapidly approaching, you know, very dark territory because, yeah, the, the incentives are, are awful. Companies are always looking to shed their workforce so that they can boost their stock price so that they can then, you know, send out dividends to executives. Executives can then, well, cash out and move on to the next company and do it again. It's like, it's just a, it's a system designed for looting by executives. And AI is becoming the scooper, the vehicle, the weapon that they're going to do this, to do this looting with. And you can say even for the AI skeptics, they're like, I don't actually think it's going to work. They don't care. Like they will lay off these workforces, take the stock price bump, you know, take their dividends and then move on. People keep thinking that whether something will actually work matters. What matters is whether it's useful to extract wealth up to the very top. And this is. And so that's the way it's going to go.

[Kyle Kulinski]

I mean, there's direct high end. Go ahead, Em.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Well, just nobody basically went to prison after the Great Recession, partially because a lot of this is legal, but some of it is dubious anyway. So what are the incentives for people not to engage in this stuff? If they know they're going to be fine, they'll get a payday.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And they've all convinced themselves too that like it's this existential battle for whoever reaches AGI first and that creates the worst incentives to rush things that are genuinely dangerous to the market. We talked yesterday about Mythos, which is the anthropic prod product that they deemed to be too dangerous to release to the public. But there was a report that a group of hackers were able to gain unauthorized access to that anyway. So clearly it was being kept under lock and key, but not lock and key enough to keep out. And so if they were able to gain access, who else was able to gain access? I mean, this is already the world that we're are living in. And there is a direct tie in, in potential impacts from the Iran war that go in a few directions. I mean, first of all, you've got the Gulf economies that are going to be really hard hit. They're already pulling back all sorts of investments. I saw Saudi Arabia is pulling an investment from like the Met Opera. Just as another indication, they're already, they're pulling their investment from Live Golf. And a lot of what they were investing in was these data centers and AI in a, you know, attempt to diversify their economies. So, you know, that could be significant. You also have these data centers really depend on relatively inexpensive energy. Obviously the Iran war is creating an energy crunch, so that could be significant in terms of the build out. You've obviously also got the grassroots backlash that we've been tracking here trying to slow down the build out of these data centers. But the other piece is with the Iran war, the reality is that the race with China for who can get the furthest the fastest with AI is very perilous for humanity in the same way that the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the US was very perilous for humanity. And the reason we've been able to avoid some, you know, mass nuclear war, which is really honestly quite an extraordinary accomplishment, was through mechanisms of global cooperation. But the Iran war, the Ukraine war and you know, other actions are moving us further away from the ability to collaborate and cooperate in some way that will ensure that we're not going to destroy each other. You know, some new doctrine of effectively probably mutually assured destruction, some sort of limiting principles that need to be developed globally around AI. It seems very difficult to imagine how that collaboration could happen as harder and harder draw lines are being drawn and the Iran war is exacerbating those tensions.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And interestingly, Mike Flynn has now kind of joined Joe Kent in, in pushing the, this idea that the way out is just to kind of very slowly just walk away.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Just walk away, Homer Simpson into the bushes.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, and I've, I'm starting to think that that is a very plausible way that this kind of winds down, that Trump never necessarily signs any documents or agrees to any particular thing. You know, if, if, if the US and Israel don't attack Iran, Iran is extremely unlikely to launch an attack on it, on them. And so you just very slowly and

[Emily Jashinsky]

deliberately start, although maybe more likely now.

[Ryan Grim]

I mean, they'd have to, I think they'd have to get hit, I think Iran would have to get hit at this point. But Iran, but Israel might hit them or Israel might keep hitting Lebanon.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah, it's, it's a very, to me, a very unstable outcome that is likely to be able to persist for a significant amount of time for a variety of reasons. I mean, first of all, if you don't restore, you know, free flow goes through restraint of hormones news, you continue to have this tightening of the global economic noose that is going to prove unsustainable for Trump. You have Israel constantly wanting to go back to war. So it's hard for me to see how, you know, I can see how he could walk away in the short term. It's hard for me to see how he persow Trump persists in that outcome and that, you know, achieves some sort of a long term balance. It seems very much more likely to me that we end up back here again if that's what they try to achieve in the short term.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yep.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, on that note, why don't we talk a little?

[Emily Jashinsky]

I was just going to say that your best example of that is what happened in Gaza. It's like we were talking on the show about this this week too. It's like for Trump, it looked like the win that he could say he ended another conflict, put, you know, another notch in the Nobel Prize qualification and it rolls on and we could, you see, flare ups anyway, so it's like branding, basically.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's wrap up this with a little bit of AMA questions. This one's for Crystal from Nick Brannon in response to the Jacobin panel. How does the left flank of the Democratic Party actually exert power? I am little left of most social Democrats, but I know quite a bit of trots and Leninists. Okay. How does it not fall into the traps of reformism in the past? The distance between the DSA and the Green Party seems worrying. Could you truly imagine Roe or AOC running as a Green Party candidate if they get kicked out of the primary process by party elites? All right, there's a lot there. So I don't know which part you want to take.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah, I mean, look, my view is very much that, let's be honest, DSA has been fantastic. They've had a lot of growth. Obviously they're directly involved in the election of Zoran Mamdani, which is one of the most important, I think significant developments for the left in Senate since like Bernie Sanders since ran in 2016. And their most successful strategy has been running people as Democrats. So the outside parties, you know, the, the Green Party, etc, they just don't have the size Strength, institutional muscle to be a real contender at this point in time. The mechanism is the Democratic Party. And so the only solution then is to effectively take over the Democratic Party. And I think at the base level, in a lot of ways, that has already happened. Happened. Like the base of the Democratic Party agrees now with Bernie Sanders, like, they have been won over. And they also agree with the. And this is the really critical part, with the critique both of liberal media establishment and with liberal leadership, that creates a tremendous opening that really hasn't. Has never been there before in. In my lifetime. So I think there's. I think there's a lot of possibility now that hasn't existed in the past. And it's just, look, the Democratic Party is just a shell. It's just, you know, it's a name. It can be whatever you force it to be, but you have to have a different cast of characters in there, and you have to have a grassroots behind it that are going to pressure those new leaders to act in the interest of people versus in the interest of corporate donors.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, absolutely. All right, coming up next, doo doo, doo for Emily from Alex, nyc. If you didn't talk about it on today's show, I'd like to hear Emily's thoughts on Pete Hegseth's reading of the Book of Tarantino.

[Emily Jashinsky]

The Book of Tarantino, I thought there was some really, like, ridiculous clipping done of that, I will say, because it was obvious that he was doing something from Pulp Fiction. And if you were, like, listening to him, that's clearly what he was doing. And there were people who originally clipped it as though he was making up Bible verses and not like he was literally stealing from Pulp Fiction. He credited Pulp Fiction. So that was the, like. Some of the misleading clips were driving me insane because they, like, it's. It's already wild enough that he's just, like, riffing on Pulp Fiction. So I thought it was a little weird. I mean, he's been doing some weird stuff. I think they're having a hard time coming up with a viable justification that's broadly appealing to the American public and are, you know, what's the right way to put it? They are. They're now in. In a bubble where they're kind of high on their own supply because they've purged, I think, criticism from their ranks and their vicinity. And that's always really dangerous. That's how you get into very dangerous situations. So that's kind of my take on it.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah. I mean, his whole strategy just seems to try be. To Try to portray himself as the most comically villainous person you can imagine. And like using the pulp fiction, you know, prayer for violence is, I think, an example of that. Which is why, to go back to the earlier discussion we're having about the. The TMZ question, like, basically, what does it feel like to make these decisions in favor of violence and be the one, you know, making the call to. To authorize these incredibly violent and deadly actions? I think that's why that question is so important, because it's like you're trying to portray yourself as a monster. Are you really? Like, what is it like to be inside your head and justify some of the things that are being done right now?

[Emily Jashinsky]

And I was thinking about that when we were. Oh, go ahead.

[Krystal Ball]

No, I'm. Go for it.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I was gonna say when we were talking about the clip earlier, I was thinking about how he changed Department of Defense to Department of War. And they're trying to make the case that this was essentially a defense of war because it was preemptive. And they've been trying to build this into Christian, just war doctrine. And I think just changing the name itself is such a obviously symbolic thing. But. But when you look back on that decision, I think it was much more honest. I think it's much more honest to refer to the previously known as Department of Defense as the Department of War, but it's. I think you're now really seeing what that meant.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah, true.

[Ryan Grim]

Interestingly, it's never been honest. You know, it used to be the War Department back when the US Wasn't really a. They were expansionary.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's a good point.

[Ryan Grim]

Internally doing their whole genocide, taking over the whole continental United States. But they weren't going abroad yet. And when we. Well, they were doing some. But, like, when they change it to the Department of Defense, that's when we really went ham on the world. So now if we're changing it back, maybe it means in the Orwellian sense, we're gonna be retrenching.

[Kyle Kulinski]

It has not meant that. Ryan, I regret. You should keep up with current events a little bit.

[Ryan Grim]

What's going on?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Read a book, Ryan.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay, this one's for Ryan from Eddie Hazel fan. I want to challenge Ryan on his APAC tracker slash J Street objections. It seems clear to me that Normie voters are disgusted by the concept of a lobby for a foreign country and have basically no understanding of Zionism, much less liberal Zionism versus Likudnik Zionism versus religious Zionism. Etc. Dems embracing J Street while the right Says they reject the whole lobby is a recipe for losing the issue to them, isn't it?

[Ryan Grim]

Wait, what was the last part?

[Krystal Ball]

Basically they said that they're like, oh, Republicans are disavowing all Israeli lobby. They're not, they're not making a difference between liberal Zionism or Zionism.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, I see that.

[Krystal Ball]

I think that's at least what he's saying.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Republicans are doing that. Thomas. That's it.

[Krystal Ball]

James Fishback.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, so, right, yeah. So setting that part aside, I don't know, I just don't. I like things to be accurate. Like if it's called APAC tracker, make it an APAC tracker. If it's all pro Israel money tracker, call it that. I, I, I almost have now a bigger problem with what I've noticed they're getting some heat for and I think justifiably so is the lobby donors part. Like if so it says lobby donors X amount of money and then it says, you know, if it looks like the methodology is if somebody gave 200 bucks at some point to J Street at some point in their life, like 10 years ago, they get classified as a lobby donor. And then if they give to anybody, then they get counted. And it doesn't seem like they're being kind of straight up about it. Like because Talarico, they list like a hundred plus thousand or whatever quote unquote. Lobby donors doesn't take APAC money. He's been critical of our Israel policy. He's taken like 30 or 40 million bucks in some of that is going to come from people who've also given a J Street at some point like, like does that deserve a red card? But then there are other people that they like who get a green card, who have raised millions, who I guarantee you if you go through their, like AOC or Rashida or Ilhan, I guarantee you they have gotten money. Everybody hates aoc. Rashida and Ilhan guarantee you they've gotten money from people who have given also to J Street. Why don't they get a red card? So that, that's the like it, it's

[Kyle Kulinski]

to me, I'm just, it's gotta be totally consistent.

[Ryan Grim]

Gotta be consistent.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's why the precision in the language,

[Kyle Kulinski]

the decision like you know what the criteria is and how you're applying it. And if you are going to use something that's so broad of anyone who's ever given any money to J Street or apac, like it I, first of all, I don't like that criteria. But if you're going to use It. It has to be done consistently across the board. It has to be well explained what it means, too.

[Ryan Grim]

And then once they have to give Rashida a red card, people will be like, well, hold on a second. Something's wrong with this.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree with that more because it's that. It's. You never, ever want to make people. You don't want to give people reason to doubt. Good work. And that's why the precision of the language is important, like building trust with people so that they don't suddenly look into something and be like, okay, so now I don't trust this entire project because it was literally linguistically misleading to me. And so, yeah, I mean, I think the broad point is important about normies versus political analysts. Yes, that's. That's obviously important, but we give normies a little bit more credit, too, for, you know, following their own. Their own trails sometimes and trying to get to the bottom of what's going on. And the last thing that you want, if you want the project to be successful, is losing, I think, the trust and credibility.

[Kyle Kulinski]

In that case, I will say J Street is like a very confusing organization to me at this point.

[Take Five Oil Change Ad Voice]

Point.

[Kyle Kulinski]

And, Ryan, I'd be curious for your thoughts on this, because, yeah, they were really trying to hold the, like, liberal Zionist ground that is an increasingly untenable place to stand. So they've shifted their positions. But it's still. I mean, they're just still sort of, I think, figuring out where to land, because how can you advocate for Israel at all and hold liberal values at this point?

[Ryan Grim]

And they really blew themselves up over the first 18 months of the genocide, refusing to call for a ceasefire. They had this really kind of expansive J Street university apparatus going, and I think it just completely evaporated because all of the students who were J Street U students were like, no, we need a ceasefire. We need to stop this genocide. And they see their organization not. Not calling for that. They've since come around, but I don't know if that. It can be. I don't know if it can be repaired. We were talking about having either Jeremy or maybe Elon on. Elon Goldberg on from J Street just to hash some of this out. We should definitely make that happen. It'd be an interesting conversation.

[Kyle Kulinski]

But, yeah, I do think Tommy Veder did a pretty good job in the interview that he did recently.

[Ryan Grim]

I gotta watch that whole thing that was with Elon Goldberg, right? Yeah, they. They came in. In, like, after the 09 war, where Netanyahu launched this War right after Obama was elected, but before he was sworn in, he's like, sweet, got a couple months, let's do a quick war. And some Democrats wanted to oppose it, but call like anybody who remotely said anything skeptical of it was called anti Semitic. So J Street was like born out of that war to give Democrats who wanted to be critical of Israel somebody who would validate them as not anti Semitic. Like that was essentially the theory of change behind, behind J Street. But then now, but people have pushed significantly further than J Street is willing to go. So yeah, it raises interesting questions about what they're, where they fit anymore.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Well, I mean, and the reality of Israel has just pushed further than it's really possible to like, because they want to do a lot of the, like, oh well, if we just get Netanyahu out of there, then it'll be, then it'll be different. And then you look at the polls and you listen to the opposition leaders who were like, Netanyahu didn't do the war hard enough. I don't really think this is going to be a solution, guys. So. And also just the reality that you know, Israel is a one state at this, this point, you know, they exercise total control from the river to the sea. That is the reality. It's a reality that was intentionally constructed to block any sort of two state solution ever in the future. And so that also is something that you have to grapple with. So I don't know, it's just hard for me to really understand the purpose they serve as an organization at this point given the, the realities that everyone's eyes are open to, you know, now.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, it seems like they gave Democrats the wiggle room to not send like defensive weapons either even. I think that was like a big thing recently from J Street, right Ryan?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, they didn't endorse the idea that, okay, we're not going to subsidize Iron Dome anymore and we're not going to fight you around if you don't want to subsidize the Iron Dome, but you still should sell the Iron Dome weapons to Israel. Which is, you know, it's a substantial move, but things are moving fast. J Street, if it becomes kind of an anti Zionist pro one state democracy organization, you know, could be, would have an interesting role to play to say we, we, we believe in equal rights for everybody in, within these borders. We're against apartheid, we're against occupation, but we recognize that two states is no longer going to happen. That would, that would be an interesting place for them to exist.

[Krystal Ball]

And APAC tracker also has like their work cut out for them because as you've documented, Ryan, there's now all these like hidden APAC groups, right? Elect Chicago Women and stuff. It's like, yeah, but. And like there really can't be a Twitter account for every single one of them. Although I did get the Elect Chicago Women Twitter account. Sorry, but no.

[Ryan Grim]

And we just like, there's news on that. Yeah, we busted APAC funding a la Stanford against Chris Rabb and, and Shreve street in this Philadelphia race. And AOC actually today just endorsed Chris Rabb.

[Kyle Kulinski]

I, I thought she didn't do endorsements. I'm so confused. Staff was able to figure this one out, apparently.

[Krystal Ball]

Crystal, I can't get clipped again. Okay. I, we got clipped last week. I don't like being.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I knew that was going to happen to you guys.

[Krystal Ball]

I can't be retweeted into the, into all that.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That as it was happening, I knew that was about to get clipped. I was just like, Friday show gets

[Krystal Ball]

clipped more than anything else. So thank you, Friday show viewers.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I always know, like, whatever it is. Like when a couple of weeks ago I was on set with Megan and she said the thing about the, like Trump could use a nuke, which was in the context of this hour long conversation, whatever about saying it would. It was horrible to threaten to nuke another country. I was like, oh, I can always tell. Like literally when I used to do Fox, I would be like, this is 1000% getting clipped and 90% of the time I'm right. Because you know what's going through like the little media blogger's head.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Yeah. That was a crazy thing for Megan to say though. So I understand why that got clipped.

[Emily Jashinsky]

It was a good joke. It was a joke. It was a whole, an hour long conversation. We don't get it. About how a horrible Trump story.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Out of respect for your. Your position here, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say anymore, but it was a crazy thing to say.

[Krystal Ball]

All right. And I'm not taking any opinions as someone that goes on the afterparty network. All right, let's do our final question here from Happy Days 0872. Any thoughts on frequent guest Ro Khanna and him getting called out by all in podcast for having stock returns SL gains better than Nancy Pelosi or virtually anyone are.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Ryan, you've done It's Rose wife, right?

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, is that what they're beating him up for? Yeah. Ro is. Rose wife is extremely rich and like,

[Kyle Kulinski]

you know, family money.

[Ryan Grim]

I Believe hundreds of millions or tens of millions, like, you know, enormously rich. He has consistently introduced legislation that would force every spouse of every member of Congress to what, like, divest or put their stuff in a blind trust. Like, it would. For it would force. It would legally force his wife, you know, to not do what she's currently doing. So that. I don't know of many members of Congress who have done that before. But. So, yeah, it's like, it's tricky. It's like. Like Roe married her. She's super rich. It's our money. He can't really tell her what to do with it. The federal government could. And he's trying to get the federal government to do something about it.

[Kyle Kulinski]

That's an interesting marital dynamic.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I love that.

[Kyle Kulinski]

I'm gonna pass a law that's gonna make you do the dishes.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Emily Jashinsky]

You know, it's a good marriage. You know, it's a good marriage when he can't force her to stop doing it. That's how you know that it's a healthy marital dynamic. And actually, there's social science research that the happiest marriages are the marriages where both partners feel equal. So it's. It seems to me like if Roe can't say, and if one brings in.

[Ryan Grim]

One brings in the hammer of the, of federal legislation to, to break that imbalance. Yeah, but that. So that's the, that's the situation. And he. I'm sure he knows it's political liability and that his opponents are going to hammer him for it because, you know, it looks like he's insider trading, if you look at. But, but, like, does. And his. His opponent has millions to, you know, to spend.

[Emily Jashinsky]

The all in guys, I think he

[Ryan Grim]

has a lot of money, too, to spend, so we'll see.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I. I remember when Ryan, you first started when Ro was, like, really building his profile as a leader in the progressive space. I remember you, like, years ago on the show, confronting him about this. So the all in guys could have looked that up from, like, five years ago. Crystal and soccer probably did it, too.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he's one of the ones that jumps out because his wife has so much money and they. And his wife's broker trades it, like, pretty regularly. So it's popping up constantly on these, on those reports. Yeah, but it's hard to feel bad for somebody for having a wife with too much money.

[Emily Jashinsky]

But.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, you know how there's, like, everybody's got. There's, there's unusual whales, the tracks, insiders, maybe we do unusual wives,

[Ryan Grim]

pelosi you know, it was her husband who was like an actual traitor. Like he's. That's his job. Like was. That was his job. I don't know if he still does it.

[Emily Jashinsky]

It's a hell of a profession when your wife is the leader of the Democratic caucus.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Amazing.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I guess all marital disputes will now be dealt with with legislation, so look forward to that. And that's gonna do it for us this week. Anything else that we need to mention before we sign off?

[Emily Jashinsky]

No, I'm sorry for starting argument.

[Kyle Kulinski]

I'm gonna talk to Roe about introducing legislation to limit the amount of golf channel viewing that's allowed in household per week.

[Krystal Ball]

That's true. It's literally the only way to get that done.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's so fair.

[Kyle Kulinski]

I think, I think I could get a lot of support for that personally.

[Emily Jashinsky]

It's a little heavy handed, I would say. But maybe at the state level.

[Ryan Grim]

This is clearly a bill of attainder directed that one Kyle Kalinsky.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Crystal. Maybe you could use the new Virginia Dem power to get them to pass this for.

[Kyle Kulinski]

There you go. Yeah, that. We could just do it in Virginia. That does work.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. State law.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Let the old people in Florida continue watching their golf channels.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Leave them alone.

[Kyle Kulinski]

He really does have the viewing habits of like an 80 year old guy. He watches the Golf Channel and the Weather Channel all the time.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, I love the Weather Channel just like on in the background constantly.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Oh yeah. I guarantee if I go over the to the room right now it's on.

[Ryan Grim]

Amazing. There is something soothing about golf on TV I find.

[Kyle Kulinski]

True.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, totally.

[Ryan Grim]

It's like wash over you. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

All right, Congress, get your act together. Ryan, Crystal, Emily, thank you for incredible Friday show and audience, thank you for bringing us to number 15. Hopefully next month we're not at number one and that we're sinking down to a more normal number. And thank you all for watching and sharing the show with your friends and we'll see you Monday. Bye.

[Cantu Ad Voice]

Dryness is one of the biggest challenges for curly hair and many products they clock out after wash day. The new Ultra Moisture collection was literally designed with our hair in mind. Curls, coils, all of it powered by Botano oil and Jamaican Black Black Castor oil. Which means the science is actually doing the work. Clinically proven to help retain moisture for up to five days. This means non stop moisture for up to five whole days. The shampoo gently cleanses without stripping. The mask deeply conditions and helps reduce breakage. The leave in adds rich moisturization with hyaluronic acid and the Curl cream wraps every curl in luxurious hydration with long lasting definition. No sulfate, no parabens, no silicones, no mineral oils. Just nourishment without the compromise. Because here's the thing, your hair deserves products that actually understand it. Moisture that starts at the root and keeps going well past wash day. That's the Ultra Moisture Collection from Cantu. Explore their full line built for every curl pattern, every hair routine available now at Walmart. Go get it if you're feeling off

[Inner Balance Ad Voice]

fatigue, mood changes, skin shifts, yet your labs say everything's normal. You're not alone. Meet Oestra from Inner Balance, the first all in one prescription Strength bioidentical hormone cream that's natural and effective and only takes one drop, 10 seconds a day. Oester replaces five to six products women typically use to treat symptoms and is third party tested to ensure the highest quality. Visit innerbalance.com today to start feeling like yourself again.

[HomeServe Ad Voice]

That's innerbalance.com it never happens at a good time. The pipe bursts at midnight. The heater quits on the coldest night. Suddenly you're overwhelmed. That's when HomeServ is here for 4.99amonth, you're never alone. Just call their 24.7hotline and a local pro is on the way. Trusted by millions, HomeServe delivers peace of mind when you need it most. For plans Starting at just $4.99 a month, go to homeserve.com that's homeset homeserve.com not available everywhere. Most plans range between $4.99 to $11.99 a month. Your first year terms apply on covered repairs.

[Cantu Ad Voice]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Kyle Kulinski]

Guaranteed Human.