← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
4/28/26: Taxpayers To Pay For Ballroom, Congress Pushes Veteran Benefits For IDF, Hezbollah Drone Attacks, Ann Coulter On Trump And Iran
01:09:23
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- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
This is an I Heart podcast.
- [00:02]
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Krystal Ball
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- [01:06]
Martha Stewart
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- [02:17]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Hey guys, Sagar and Kristal here.
- [02:18]
Krystal Ball
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
- [02:26]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [02:31]
Krystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad, free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:42]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com.
- [02:51]
Krystal Ball
so in the wake of the attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents Dinner, one message rang out from Trump to basically every Republican at this point, which is, this is why we must build the ballroom. Lindsey Graham, always looking to be the leading sycophant among all of the sycophants. It's a very difficult task, cuz there's so many to choose from, jumped out front, pushing a bill now that would authorize $400 million in taxpayer funds to back Trump's ballroom, even though originally this thing was supposed to be privately funded, et cetera, et cetera. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Lindsey Graham here.
- [03:29]
Lindsey Graham
If you don't think $400 million of taxpayer money is a good investment to create a secure facility at the White House where the President of the United States, the Vice President, the Cabinet and, and people from the public can come and, you know, have a meal and gather without what happens Saturday, then I just. This is the number one job of the federal government is national security. The number one job of national security, I think would be to protect the Commander in chief and to have infrastructure under the ballroom that is very national security centric. So I don't think just vote no. That's all I ask you to do is vote. I don't care how you vote. I want to vote. I want to see where is America on this. I'll bet you 90% of the people would love to have a better facility than the Hilton Hotel to make sure this crap never happens again. I can't tell you what to say on the Senate floor, but I've never seen it like this. There are people out there just one click away from picking up a gun or something else and trying to make America better by killing. You don't make America great by killing people you don't like.
- [04:40]
Krystal Ball
I love Sagar. His assertion here that a vote on the Senate floor would be somehow representative of the views of the American people. That's a very cute idea. Not to mention the absurdity of him imagining that 90% of Americans at a time when gas prices are sky high, inflation's ticking back up, joblessness ticking, ticking up, mass layoffs are occurring. AI, we're at the war. All this stuff that they would be like, yes, let's spend our taxpayer dollars on a gilded ballroom. For Trump and his coterie of elites,
- [05:13]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
let's remember that one of the only reasons I think that Trump was quote, getting away with the ballroom is cuz it was privately funded Now I actually oppose that. I don't think any part of the White House complex should be privately funded.
- [05:26]
Saagar Enjeti
Why?
- [05:26]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Because I want Democratic input and stuff say over every single thing that is built. That's part of the reason I oppose this entire project. This has made me much more of a nimby, by the way. This is why we need historical codes, why we need historical trust. We need architecture review, we need zoning commissions. It's to keep bullshit like this and tackiness like the ballroom from ever being constructed. I would consider myself one of the chief anti ballroom activists in the United States. Now put this all together though, is that they're using this incident to say not only do we need the ballroom, but actually we need the ballroom to be paid for by the American taxpayer. And what he's saying is daring other people to vote against said ballroom. But you know, part of what is so preposterous about this entire thing, as I explained yesterday, for anybody who may not have tuned in, is the implication that any event that the President of the United States now and forever will. Will speak at must be held at the White House. Because that would mean that the White House would have total and complete authority over who gets to enter and do what for things like the White House Correspondents association, which is supposed to be a dinner celebrating the press and its adversarial relationship with the President. Now, it's not that, but I'm saying in spirit. So is the idea, that's the idea that the White House Correspondent's Dinner would always be held by the President. The President. This is the first one he's ever attended. The Donald Trump. Every single other one he didn't attend previously. And that dinner was held with his absence. Okay, whatever. But let's think about this in the future. Every gala, you have to pay rent to the government so that the President can come. That seems pretty sick and weird, don't you think? And then maybe they would have a little bit of control over who comes in and who comes out. Or we could maybe just have a normal Secret Service barricade which would cost 10 to $20,000 more a night, and then we're all good to go. How about that?
- [07:20]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, Yeah, I was thinking that too. Like going back to our conversation with Joe Kent yesterday. Tomorrow. Yesterday. I'm not a time traveler, guys. I promise. Not part of the time traveling conspiracy involved in all of this. But in any case, yeah, his point was like, hey, also another thing you could do is the Secret Service seems to be not doing such a great job here. You could improve that. You could stop elevating the very people who were at the scene of, like, the Butler assassination, where, you know, massive failure occurred to allow this guy on a rooftop with a, you know, clear sight line at the President of the United States. That's an idea. So, no, instead, we're also back to this. All of this discourse conversation, which you, I mean, you just can't take seriously, really, from anyone, but especially not from Republicans at this point. Trump literally threatened to murder an entire civilization. And we're supposed to take tips on etiquette and rhetoric guidance from the Republican Party, which had no problem with any of that, not to mention all of the other insane things that Trump says all the time. But just as an example of this, we had, and to show you how much appeal the ballroom has instantly found, the taxpayer funded ballroom from across the swath of the Republican Party, we have Eric Schmidt, who is a Republican senator from Missouri, also saying that now because Democrats have been critical of ICE, that it is essential that taxpayers cough up $400 million for Trump's ballroom. Let's take a listen to that.
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Eric Schmitt
The Democrats have used rhetoric referring to ICE agents as the Gestapo, Trump secret police. They can't help themselves. Like, this is a real sickness. And what we're saying is this has to be addressed. At a minimum, we have to have a safe place to protect the President of the United States and the cabinet officials if they want to gather or there's a state dinner or, or a crowd more than like 100 people. But this is now in order to appease the more radicalized base. The language that comes out on the Senate floor, I'm not talking about on, like, Morning Joe, like on the Senate floor. You guys are there, you hear this. This is well beyond what has been acceptable forever. And we're at where we're at.
- [09:36]
Krystal Ball
It's entertaining to me. Yeah. This is why. This is why. Because people said things, mean things about ICE on the Senate floor, not just on Morning Joe saga, which is like the only, I guess that was his benchmark for, like, radical thought was the panel over at Morning Joe. It's just, it's so preposterous. But I really, I really want to lean into some of the things Lindsey Graham was saying about how, listen, take this to the American people.
- [10:02]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
I agree.
- [10:03]
Krystal Ball
Run on this in the midterms. Go ahead, tell them why they need to spend taxpayer dollars on this gilded ballroom for Donald Trump and really make that case to them at a time when they are deeply dissatisfied with the economy, when we've been dragged into this war that virtually no one wanted. I think you should really prioritize this in your messaging to the American people and let's have a democratic say over what direction they wanna go in here
- [10:33]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
and then we can scrutinize the funding. Let's put C4 up here on the screen. This is actually very interesting. To build his mammoth White House ballroom, President Trump last summer chose Maryland based Clark Construction. Since then, Trump has repeatedly sung the company's praises, saying he wanted to refurbish projects all over Washington. In January, government contract show the Trump administration secretly gave the company a no bid contract to do another job at a sharply inflated price. The company, the National Park Service, wanted to repair two ornamental fountains in Lafayette Park. The Biden administration estimated it would cost 3.3 million. Trump's government agreed to pay the Clark 12 million to do it. Later, it added tasks and increased the contract to $17.4 million. The agency did so without considering offers from other firms, citing a rarely used urgency exception to normal open bidding procedures, usually meant for emergencies like or natural disasters. Unlike the ballroom project Trump says will be funded by private donations. The bill for the fountain repairs is being paid by the government. So again, this is for a fountain in Lafayette park, which is just across the street from the White House. If you've ever visited in front of the iconic place, there's like, you know, benches and other things that are there. And $20 million for a fountain renovation which, which previously was estimated at 3.3 million. Now listen, we all can understand inflation, but $17 million, I don't know about that. All right, Clark Construction, Clark Construction, from what I know at the very least is I remember that cause I went to gw, so they did all of the downtown and we were always like, who is this firm? And so now I'm like, oh, okay, so you're now in with the Trump administration. You're making sure you're building the ballroom. And they're behind a lot of this. I mean, construction is the ultimate racket, as Trump himself will tell you. All you have to do is read his book about the art of the deal, which is specifically about like scheming and making sure to how to like get his Trump Tower and all of that built. So yeah, I'm starting to think that something above this might not be 100% above board. Just me.
- [12:52]
Krystal Ball
Well, I mean everything's just, you know, pay to play in this administration. Clark was willing to do the ballroom in the most grotesque way that that Trump imagined. I think there was a different architecture firm that originally, you know, hired. They had to be pushed down because they were like, this is monstrosity. So Clark willing to, I guess, do whatever Trump wants them to do. And so in return, he's going to funnel them millions of dollars for look, already probably $3 million, which was the original estimate to rehab a couple fountains. Seems kind of crazy, if we're being honest. And this article goes into detail about like, these aren't really, like super complicated fountains. It shouldn't be that big of a deal. There are many more complicated fountains in the city of D.C. these are pretty plain vanilla in terms of what needs to be. We understand these things always cost more than you think they're going to cost. Okay, 3 million. What they did in the contract is they increased it for inflation and then by millions of dollars. Then they increased it again for inflation dollars. Then they just added on some random surplus. And I can't remember what sort of like, you know, corporate jargon they used to justify. I mean, they just took it and added on millions of dollars in what appears to be a pure kickback. No one would be surprised either if someone in the family is getting a taste of this or whatever, but this is the way the entire administration operates, you know, to connect it to the Iran war here, which I think basically everything is in some way connected to the Iran war. We just take it for granted that two of the people who are involved in these negotiations at the highest level, Wyckoff and Kushner. Kushner not even in the government. He's just Trump's relative. Both of them have massive, massive financial interests directly implicated in the Middle East. This is part of the problem with the negotiations. To begin with, the Iranians think that Wyckoff is just an Israeli is. Sorry, Kushner is the Israeli stooge. Wyckoff, they think is just too stupid to really understand the technical details and is basically a waste of space there. Which is why they've insisted, like, at least we need JD Vance there because he may have some intelligence and seems to not be completely psychotic. I don't know that their trust is really fairly placed there, but that's the way they feel about this. So in any case, this is par for the course for the way that this administration operates. Just to go back momentarily to the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents dinner, we have some new information this morning that it doesn't look like the alleged would be assassin here actually was able to get off any shots. The latest reporting is that it was all The Secret Service firing that they may have accidentally hit one of their own. So again, to the idea of like, what do we do? We need a ballroom. Or maybe we just need a secret surface that's more competent that seems to argue in that direction. Look no shade at them. I know they have a tough job. It's certainly not a job that I would be capable or able to perform successfully. But in any case, it's looking like there was a bit of a chaotic scene here in apprehending this would be assassin. And he appeared in court yesterday. It's also been interesting Sagar to get a look at cnn. K File dug into all of his posts on social media, of which there are thousands. And the ideological profile is kind of fascinating and terrifying. Yeah, he's like pro Israel, pro Ukraine. He thinks that Hasan Piker, he was literally like at the time when he was traveling across the country to assassinate, to try to assassinate the President, was posting about how Hasan Piker is too radical. Like, what are we. Like, what, how does this, how was this making sense in your brain? He was objecting to whatever Hasan said about like petty theft. He thought that would collapse the social fabric and be a real problem for society as he's going about plotting this assassination attempt.
- [16:44]
Saagar Enjeti
Allegedly.
- [16:44]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
That's incredible. I mean, I think both are bad. I do think trying to commit high level political violence seems pretty bad. I can't explain why it makes sense that the shooter is blue Anon like they actually are the most radical people who are on the planet. Everybody's always concerned. But it really is the blue and on types which are ready to rock and roll. I know this from having lived around them now for quite some time. But yeah, like you said, there's been some details we have here the charges that were released against him by the FBI and by the acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche. Let's take a Listen. This is C6. Today the Department of Justice filed three federal charges in United States District Court
- [17:28]
Eric Schmitt
against Cole Thomas Allen. The first count is attempted assassination of
- [17:34]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
the President of the United States.
- [17:36]
Eric Schmitt
This count is punishable by up to life in prison.
- [17:40]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
The second count is interstate transportation of a firearm to commit a felony. This is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. And the third count is discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, which is punishable by a mandatory minimum
- [17:54]
Eric Schmitt
term of imprisonment of 10 years, a maximum of life, and the 10 years is consecutive to any other sentence imposed.
- [18:03]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
So there you go. They've charged him multiple gun crimes. Attempted assassination of President Trump, very likely he's looking at life in prison. That's probably what he's going to get. So that's where things stand up right now. I know we covered the conspiracy stuff yesterday. I know it's fun to delve into, but I think even now is a good example. If you go on the front, because everybody, like, he wants to save his polls and all of that. And look, I criticize CNN and all that. I think they spent way too much time on the shooting. But front page of the Wall street journal, it's UAE, OPEC, OpenAI, Mrs. Revenue, Claudia Sheinbaum. And Iran is flooded with oil. You have to scroll down to the bottom fold to get anything on the shooting. It's the same over at the Times and everywhere else. So if it was a psyop, it was one of the most poorly executed psyops of all time. I guess he did get his legislation on the ballroom, however. You know, again, if you wanna talk about this from polling, trying to elevate the ballroom to the center of the conversation. I mean, I don't think Trump is that dumb, but look, maybe he doesn't care. So, you know, for the conspiracy people out there, I guess you still have your fodder. If we're considering the ballroom construction, I
- [19:15]
Krystal Ball
couldn't believe even Rand Paul was like, yes, let's fund the ballroom. Like, dude, aren't you supposed to be, like, against wasteful government spending? Didn't we have a whole thing at the beginning, this administration with DOGE that was like, my God, we can't afford $10 million of research into pediatric cancer or whatever? And now we're like, we must. It is the most essential task of the federal government. This is like the language they were literally using. It is the most essential task of the federal government to build this ballroom. We will have this ballroom. I don't know. Wild times. So if. If that was. If it was a false flag and the goal was to push the ballroom in that way, soccer, you have to admit, it would have been a successful.
- [19:57]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
I guess it seems pretty stupid to me, but yeah. All right. Keep believing what you want to believe.
- [20:06]
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- [20:35]
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- [22:00]
Krystal Ball
speaking of things that are stupid and offensive, let's talk about this push. Another legislative push here. Really love the way our legislators are spending their time to provide certain benefits to that are normally only available to US Service members to those who serve in the idf. Like I could not really have. I could not have imagined something that is so insane. And so, as we said yesterday, like tailor made to make people resent Israel even more than they increasingly do. But let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. From Military.com, the emerging push to extend some US benefits to IDF soldiers A real policy push emerged in 2024 to extend certain legal protections to Americans who served in the IDF. In 2024, members of Congress introduced HR 8445, a bill that would have amended federal law to provide for the eligibility of U.S. citizens who serve in the Israeli Defense Forces for certain protections relating to such service. They go on to talk about how under current law, these veterans benefits are tied to service in the U.S. armed forces. Oh really? Okay, that. That is the definition of veteran. Well, they want to change that definition for certain benefits and specifically certain legal protections. So specifically what they're trying to extend, and I'm still reading from this article, they say the Service Member Civil Relief act provides protections such as limits on interest rates, protections against eviction and foreclosure, and relief in certain legal proceedings. They also want to extend the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights act, which guarantees that individuals who leave civilian employment for military service can return to their jobs and are protected from discrimination. Both of these, Sagar, are really significant benefits. I mean, the ability to leave your job, go and serve in the IDF and come back with a guarantee that you're going to have that job protected and be able to return to that job, that is a very substantial benefit. Protections against eviction and certain, you know, special treatment in legal proceedings, also a very significant benefit. And the idea that we would give this to Americans who are serving in a foreign military is just completely bananas to me.
- [24:18]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, reading through this, the proposal explicitly frames it as deserving of treatment similar to military service for protections. Now, again, how real is this? I mean, it's been introduced in Congress at the very least. Look, all kinds of crazy stuff gets added into Congress every single day. Usually something like this gets headline treatment. Like, let's say if it were a Democrat, you know, or something, the Republicans would do a big press conference on it. To my knowledge, there has not been any sort of denouncement of this, let's say, by the Democratic leadership or elevation. It's been quietly published here over@military.com, it's gotten quite a bit of analysis from commentators and other people like us. But it's not the scandal here in Washington that it should be. And look, I don't expect this to actually become policy, but there are real questions that have always existed around the IDF and US Citizens serving in the idf. It literally says in your passport that you're not supposed to serve in a foreign military. And yet we just seem to turn a blind eye to all of these Americans who go over there. You'll even see it with IDF casualties. They'll be like, so and so of Connecticut. And you're like, what? What was that? Or, you know, remember, didn't we play an IDF spokesperson here? This guy is clearly from America, right? I mean, we were like, oh, we're like, interesting accent. What was that? I remember when I was in Israel, I would meet people like, oh, where are you from? Expecting them to say like, you know, Haifa. And they're like, oh, I'm from Boston. I was like, what? Like, okay, you know, I wasn't aware there's over a million people who are citizens who live in the country. It's not that big of a country. So you could see very clearly like there's a lot of Americans who are over there and there's a real culture of Americans going to serve in the idf. That's fine if you want to make that choice. I think you should lose your citizenship, like immediately. I definitely think you should. There's no such thing as dual citizenship. In my opinion it should be abolished entirely. It kind of goes against the idea of citizenship in the first place. But connecting it to something bigger, this is more of a, you know, this is more of the special exception policy that we've always made that it extends now to the very basis of citizenship itself. So put the next one up here on the screen. I think this one is just crazy. In guidance now to immigration officers, the administration describes participating in any pro Palestinian protest and criticizing Israel as overwhelmingly negative factors for any potential green card seeker here in the United States. So look, remember, like what should be extremely disqualifying as citizens should we all. Can we agree on things, Crystal, you may and I disagree. For me, what would be extremely disqualifying? Green card. You don't speak English, gtfo. You shouldn't be applying for a green card, do you? Don't. Or you aren't able to prove that you have a wage which is going to sustain you and make sure that you're not on welfare. Yeah, GTFO otherwise. But views on Israel has no bearing on my life or your ability to contribute or be a good citizen whatsoever. And yet that's being included here as overwhelmingly negative as a factor. And remember too, this is gonna apply for the World cup and for all of these foreign entrants to the United States. Cuz while this is for Green card, they're also screening a lot of travelers who are coming into the country and none of it has anything to do with us. That's the crazy.
- [27:42]
Krystal Ball
Well, it will not surprise you to learn that my criteria for green card holders would be different and less stringent than yours. But in any case, what I think is noteworthy here.
- [27:50]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Well, it's a good argument though. Don't.
- [27:53]
Krystal Ball
All right, what is noteworthy here though? And what's noteworthy with the previous story about extending veterans benefits to IDF soldiers is that this is the only country we treat this way. The only one. Like if you say nice things about like, you know, let's pick another official bad guy nation in the world about like North Korea. Yeah, that's not gonna, that's not gonna bar you, you know, that you'd be fine. They're not even gonna look for that right, they won't care. But if you have wrong, think on Israel. Oh, well, now this is, this is outrageous. Wait, you believe in human rights for Palestinians? We can't have that. That goes against our Western civilizational values. This belief in universal human rights, including for Palestinians, can't have that. And that's, I think, the thing that people are really picking up on and that's driving them crazy. You know, it's something we've talked about too, with all of the laws that have been passed that make it illegal to participate in a boycott of Israel. In that case, you know, you can, you can boycott American companies, but you can't. It's illegal to boycott this one country. That's absurd. It's a direct infringement on our rights as Americans. You know, some of the things that I actually really care about and appreciate about this country and think it's, you know, some of the best parts of what makes, you know, this nation something that you would be proud of. And with regard to the IDF service members, things, you know, even Ukraine, we have Americans who have gone and flown to Ukraine to fight for the Ukrainians. They don't get these benefits either. So it's, it really is just this one country. And why? It's because they're very well organized. You have this religious component where you've got. So you've got a very fervent ideological push, and then you have a lot of organized funding that pushes in this direction. So Mary Madison is oftentimes held out, but she's an important example of just how much money is in being pro Israel and supporting whatever it is that Israel wants to do. So not only does it help push us into wars that, you know, most Americans don't support, and again, I've talked about how it's not all Israel. There are empire interests at stake here as well, or at least perceived empire interests as well. But that is a major factor. But it also then gets into infringing on our own rights. And I think that is something that Americans are increasingly aware of and just find the whole situation to be sort of insane and crazy making.
- [30:26]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Yeah, I just, I really don't. Look, it's like you said, we can all have good and fine disagreements about what it means to be a US Citizen. I just don't think it's. I think it's nuts for anybody who is so clearly loyal to a foreign country to allow that level of influence, like Miriam Adel. I mean, Trump literally said it. Don't believe me, where he's like oh, does she love Israel or America? She didn't say. I think we know what was the joke. I mean, he said it. He says it out loud in the open. So.
- [30:51]
Krystal Ball
So.
- [30:52]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
And yet if anybody else says it, you're an anti Semite, it's like, well, Sheldon Adelson, her husband, deceased husband. Didn't he literally say, I wish I had served in the IDF instead of the US Army?
- [31:03]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did.
- [31:06]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
What are we doing here? These are real quotes. It's not just me. So anyway, that's legislation. Is it being denounced? No. Is there any of this, you know, even going to. Is any of this gonna come to fruition? I hope not. At this point, though, I'm not so sure I'd put it past him. And at the very least, we already know. Weren't there cases of. There's some guy who served in the idf, he came back here, and I think he was facing, like, some sort of threat. Not like a real threat, like somebody. I forget exactly. But the Trump administration, like, freaked out and provided all of his security. It's kind of like you said about Ukraine. I mean, if you go and fight for Ukraine and some Russian guy is mad at you, I mean, that's on you, man. You know, it's like you're the one who chose to go to Ukraine and to go into. To insert yourself into a foreign. You asked me. You shouldn't even have citizenship, period. All right? You should get pulled the moment you're fighting in a foreign one. But, okay, so you come back and then we're supposed to embroil ourselves on your side. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
- [32:05]
Krystal Ball
At least not for me. Well, and I mean, this thing about the moral landscape here, too, like, you're gonna go and go be in Gaza and murder, like, women and children, and then we're gonna celebrate you and give you benefits for that. It's just. I mean, it's sick. It's sick for all the people who talk about Western civilization and values and blah, blah, blah, that that's the actual values that you're representing, and it's representable. I mean, for any. Anyone who wants to consider themselves civilized. I think that's a reprehensible moral landscape.
- [32:33]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
There you go. All right, let's get to. Let's get to Shael Ben Ephraim. He's standing by.
- [32:38]
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- [33:08]
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- [34:20]
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- [35:01]
Krystal Ball
joining us now to talk about a little bit of Israeli domestic politics, what's going on with the quote unquote ceasefire in Lebanon and also some very Interesting comments from ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt is Shael Ben Efraim. He's a geopolitical analyst and host of Dispatches from Hell with Shael, which I recommend. I'm gonna be checking out your video content there and also histories of the Holy Land. Great to see you.
- [35:23]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Good to see you, man.
- [35:24]
Shael Ben Efraim
Always a pleasure.
- [35:25]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. So let's go ahead and throw this tear sheet up on the Screen. We're interested to get your analysis of whether or not this is significant. So two quote unquote opposition leaders, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, who no one would call really moderate, they also have very extreme views. But in any case they are teaming up together in an attempt to oppose Netanyahu. We've got this new poll from Times of Israel showing that this Lapid Bennett union is edging out Likud. That of course is Netanyahu's party as the largest party party. Give us a little bit of background here and how people should be thinking about the significance of this development.
- [36:00]
Shael Ben Efraim
Yeah, so the main importance of this regards the internal allocation of seats within the anti Netanyahu block. It's really an ego personality thing. You had Gadi Eisenkot, who's a former general who has a lot of popularity and then you had Yair Lapid and you have Nathalie Bennett and they were all fighting over who, who would be running this, this block. So this cements the dominance of Naftali Bennett who was probably going to be getting the most seats anyway. So it matters in, in that sense you mentioned that, that Bennett and Lapid are both quite extremely. But traditionally Lapid was much more moderate than Bennett. They, they, they always had good personal relations, which is one of the reasons this happened. But on an ideological spectrum, the Lapid is from Tel Aviv liberal elites. Naftali Bennett is more pro settler. So they wouldn't be sitting together a few years ago. But today the liberal Zionist movement doesn't really have any content to it because you can't be for a Palestinian state anymore. It's, you can't be for dismantling settlements anymore. All things that Lapida said in the past. So now his views are actually indistinguishable from Bennett's. So he has become extreme, but that's not where he comes from and that has, has a lot of significance. As for their popularity vis a vis Netanyahu, I think the fact that they're only one mandate ahead of Lee could, according to the latest poll I've seen when they just got united and they have that early enthusiasm, quote, unquote, is not a very good sign for this Bennett Lapid union. I wouldn't be surprised that they end up getting fewer votes than Netanyahu, but their bloc will be larger then Netanyahu's block. But without cooperation with the Arab parties, which they seem to be against especially Bennett said he wouldn't sit with the Arab parties. They may not have enough votes to unseat Netanyahu and may end up in a coalition with Netanyahu. So it's very cosmetic and very internal to the anti Netanyahu bloc.
- [38:28]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Got it. So if we're keeping with what's going on, obviously we trying to decipher this is very difficult. Let's go to the next one. This is the E1 Al Jazeera. The Israel's army chief says 2026 is likely to be the year of fighting on all fronts. Adds urgent need for more soldiers. So Sha', El, no matter who wins the election, from Yair Lapid to Naftali Bennett to Benjamin Netanyahu, they do seem completely united in continuing the war on all fronts, or am I looking at that in correctly in conjunction with this army chief of staff statement?
- [39:02]
Shael Ben Efraim
So it's very hard to answer that in advance. And on a very basic level, you're correct that whether it's Bennett, Lapid or Netanyahu, with the current viewpoint of Israeli society and the current geopolitical alignment, fighting will likely continue for a very long time. But I wouldn't take what the IDF chief of staff is saying too seriously in terms of politics, because keep in mind 2026, we're already deep into it, and the elections, should they be held normally, Israel has its doubts, just like the United States has about the midterms are going to be held in, in October and then the new government won't be in until sometime in 2027. So this isn't really a comment on the next government. This is more a comment on Netanyahu. And there is a difference between Netanyahu and Bennett in terms of waging wars. Not so much that Bennett is a dove and Netanyahu is a hawk, because that's certainly not the case. Rather that Bennett wouldn't have that same structural need that Netanyahu has to have constant war in order to avoid a investigation of October 7th and in order to try to distract and end his criminal trials, those aren't things that Bennett has. Bennett has more flexibility to come to a deal with, whether it's Hamas, whether it's Hezbollah, whether it's Iran, that he thinks is beneficial for Israeli security. Netanyahu has an urge, based on his legal and political troubles, to keep escalating. So with Bennett, we might see fighting that's just as fierce as under Netanyahu, maybe even more so, but perhaps deals that will last longer than they currently do because he doesn't have that domestic political impetus to keep going.
- [40:57]
Krystal Ball
That's an interesting point. I also think there could be some American political ramifications because the remaining people here are trying to hold on to liberal Zionism as a coherent position. They like to point to, like, oh, well, Netanyahu is just a bad guy, you know, I got to get him out of there and then everything will be fine. They lose that talking point if he is no longer Prime Minister of Israel. So it'd be interesting to see what new narrative they shift to an attempt to excuse the unexcusable coming from Israel and in collaboration with the United States. I also wanted to get shy out your view on what is going on in Lebanon, because I think you've been a very keen observer here. You know, you had this supposed ceasefire. I mean, that's completely over at this point. You've had Israel, you know, engaged in massive bombings. Hezbollah is bragging about some of their capabilities. They released this footage of drones successfully targeting IDF soldiers. And in fact, there have been a few IDF soldiers who have been killed in recent days by Hezbollah. And I know you've been talking about some of the technology that is being deployed here, but just give us a sense of the status on the ground and where you think this is headed.
- [42:04]
Shael Ben Efraim
Yeah, so it's really been a bad few days for, for the IDF in Lebanon. So the first thing is they feel very constrained by this quote, unquote, ceasefire. Now, it's not a ceasefire in the traditional term because the fire hasn't ceased. So it's a misnomer, but it doesn't mean that it's not significant because Trump has basically ordered Israel to stop advancing. And Israel's not advancing anymore. What they're doing is destroying everything where they are. And that matters a lot because the IDF soldiers are standing pat more or less in certain positions. This is allowing Hezbollah to use IEDs, as they always have, that kill two soldiers that way, but also to use these kind of drones that are attached to ethernet cables, which are impossible for the IDF to intercept or to identify before they make impact. That's what killed a soldier two days ago and that's what injured several other soldiers yesterday. And really they have no, no real solutions for. You know, Hezbollah learned a lot from what's happening in Ukraine and are using a lot of those relatively combined high tech, low tech solutions like these drones. And Israel hasn't learned enough from that, just like the United States hasn't learned enough from that, like we see in the, in the war in Iran and, and that's leading to, to loss of life. And then there's also the wider strategic question of what happens if Israel does achieve its goal of reaching the litany. The IDF believes, correctly, that Hezbollah now has the ability to overshoot any security zone very easily with drones and missiles and will be able to continue to hit northern Israel. So there's so much frustration among the idf and a lot of people are saying that it would have been much better to, to keep the previous ceasefire and that there's really nothing to be gained by this current operation. There's real fear that the IDF will do everything that they can in Lebanon and Hezbollah will still be able to shoot northern Israel. And this is very consequential because the people living in the towns in northern Israel, they've never really returned. And Israel's worried that they'll turn into ghost towns. And that would be a major strategic boon for Hezbollah if they're. They're able to, to achieve this. And also on a, on a political level, Hezbollah has gained a lot of power in Lebanon now that Israel's invading, because that puts a lot of sympathy towards them when Israel is seen as the invader, instead of in the past when Hezbollah was seen as sort of a troublemaker for. For no reason in Lebanon. So also on the political level, Israel is very concerned with how this is going. None of this is going well for him.
- [45:00]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
While we have you, Sha', El, we wanted to get your reaction to a new statement from Jonathan Greenblatt over at the ADL and why and how the term of universal or universalism and protecting Jews should be restricted only in his view, to Jews. Let's take a listen.
- [45:18]
Eric Schmitt
So we were founded, original people. They wrote a charter that we still use today as our mission statement, or words from it that we exist. Our mission is to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all. I am not for myself. Who will be if I'm only for myself, what am I? Jews can only be safe when everyone is safe. So adl, for literally more than a century, has focused on fighting for the Jewish people and fighting for all people who experience bigotry and hate.
- [45:45]
Shael Ben Efraim
Why isn't the ADL just about antisemitism?
- [45:49]
Eric Schmitt
It's interesting. So this was the founding kind of precept of the organization. It was predicated on this idea. But I think there's something to keep in mind. ADL's, you know, here I am. And what kind of Jew are you? ADL's, what is our mission statement? Like what we do. Stop the defamation up. But that's not our why, our why our core purpose. Why we were founded. What was the reason to create. It was not. Jews are safe families. That's the hypothesis of what we do. The why is to protect the Jewish people, to protect the Jews. That's why we exist. So we don't exist for some universalist ideal. We exist to protect the Jews because when Leo Frank was hanging from a rope, there was no one there to stop it from happening. When Jews were being slaughtered, there was no one there to stop it. So that's why we exist.
- [46:34]
Shael Ben Efraim
Your reaction there, it's very distressing to hear, to hear him move away from the actual mission statement of the adl, but it's also really not at all surprising. That's the direction the ADL has been going in since Trump was elected, towards just focus on only Jews and often supporting, and this is why he's saying it, supporting very violent Islamophobia and other forms of racism when it's deployed by people who are pro Israel. And what's missing from this statement, of course, is, is the fact that he's not even. The mission statement of the adl, in reality, isn't to protect the Jews either. It's to protect Israel and to protect pro Israel activists, to protect the Zionist movement. You know, there's an increasing number of Jews who are either anti Zionist or not Zionist or very critical of Israel at least. And Greenblatt defines those Jews as anti Semites and attacks on them, for example, protesters, Jewish protesters against the genocide in Gaza, he sees as anti Semites and as enemies. And not only does he not protect those Jews, but also he demonizes those Jews and is happy to see them pay all sorts of consequences for expressing their rights. So even the fact that. That he's narrowing the mission of the adl, officially so much in such a distasteful way is actually still not an honest assessment of what the ADL is doing. They're protecting people who are pro Israel, including Christian Zionists, and they're not protecting Jews who don't support genocide and don't support the horrific policies of the State of Israel. So the reality is actually more chilling than the disturbing things that Greenblatt just said.
- [48:45]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Got it?
- [48:45]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. And not only that, but, you know, he is one that insists on conflating all Jews and associating all Jews, including those like yourself, who've been deeply critical of the genocide with the barbaric acts of the Israeli state. So, you know, far from combating any sort of anti Semitism, you know, he probably is one of the leading purveyors of antisemitism in certainly American politics. Shael again, Dispatches from Hell With Shael, we're going to do the collaborate thing so people can find your channel. Really appreciate your analysis. I follow everything that you post out there really closely because I think you are such a keen observer on not only this but also been following your AI posts as well. So we'll have you back sometime to talk about that too.
- [49:28]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Thanks for your time man.
- [49:30]
Shael Ben Efraim
Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.
- [49:32]
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- [50:02]
Martha Stewart
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- [50:47]
Jana Kramer
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- [51:28]
Lindsey Graham
well,
- [51:28]
Interviewer
we're joined now by Ann Coulter, I guess, who really needs no introduction, but Ann has a substack now. You can go ahead and follow that. She's going to be doing a live rumble on Thursday, so she's of course the New York Times bestselling author of 13 books and has been speaking out against the war in Iran. So first, Ann, thank you so much for Joining us. We appreciate you being here.
- [51:50]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Thanks, Anne.
- [51:51]
Saagar Enjeti
Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Of course.
- [51:54]
Interviewer
Let's start with this post. This was after the White House Correspondent center attempted assassination. You wrote on X at this point, more California teachers have tried to assassinate Trump than Iranians have. I really wish he'd get back to domestic concerns and stop cleaning up the rest of the world for you. Or have you been surprised that Trump went to war in Iran? I mean, you've, you've sort of famously had a break with him over many years now. You wrote. What was the joke? You wrote that he could perform abortions on the Resolute desk and you would still vote for him in 2016, if I remember incorrectly. So is any of this surprising in Iran?
- [52:32]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes. And I wrote that after his immigration policy paper came out, written by the brilliant Stephen Miller. It's still, I think, should be the touchstone for any Republican running or, well, for anything, any Republican in office. In any event, they're finally getting around to some of that second term. He sort of blew it off first term, thus my break with him. So it isn't. The Trump supporters aren't entirely a personality cult. I always found his personality rather repulsive, but loved the stuff he was running on so I could overcome such superficialities. And yes, I think like most people, it's unbelievable that he started another pointless war without provocation. Let's just, you know, drop bombs on countries all over the world and see if we make friends that way. It really, I mean, every president, Paul Johnson wrote this in modern times. I think it's in modern times, the great British historian that every US President runs on not taking the country to war. And they almost always get us into war for some reason. President seem to think that's what makes them great. This is turning out to be, as many of us suspected at the time, a much bigger quagmire that is going to turn out much worse than the status quo, Andy, certainly than Iraq. Iraq is at least better off. And I was a big supporter of the Iraq war. They did hit us first. If we're talking about the craziness out of the Middle East, I mean, this has just been a disaster from beginning to end.
- [54:16]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Anne, how do you think this keeps happening? Like you said, you supported that war with Iraq. Yeah, I mean, Al Qaeda hit us first. I don't know if Saddam Hussein did. But in the interim, yeah, we can understand, I think, the fervor of the country, even if we think it was built on lies. But you were a key part I think with your book Adios America, which I remember having read my first couple days over at the Daily Caller of the architect really of the move, I think, for immigration restriction in a reaction to the Romney and the Bush era. So you broke with Trump, really, over that. But one of the parts that we all kind of thought was there was a rejection of neoconservatism, specifically with the selection of the vice president and many of the other national security officials who work in the government. And yet we actually got something much worse this second time than even in the first. What's your assessment? How do you think this happened?
- [55:12]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, it's, it's weird out. I've always, I've always liked the neoconservatives. Um, it's weird how that has just come to mean nothing but pointless wars these days. I mean, back when I was supporting the Iraq war and I would again, I always sort of want to go back and argue that one and point out it was very different. Didn't want to stay there for 10 years. But I know that's, that's kind of off the point. But they kept calling me a neoconservative back during those times. I had to point out, no, I'm not Jewish. The history of the neoconservatives were Jewish intellectuals who realized the Democratic Party was insane. And you had a lot of really smart, great people like Norman Pot Horetz coming out of that. So it's sort of unfortunate that the word has now come to be so closely associated with pointless wars around the world. And even if there were some point to this war, and I really don't think there is, I think there's a lot of fear mongering, as always happens. I'm interviewing on my live substack, or rather Live Rumble this Thursday. John Tierney was longtime science reporter for the New York Times and now is at City Journal. And he's written a lot of brilliant books, one of which is the Power of Bad and basically punishment works better than reward, that sort of thing. But one of the things he says about the power of Bad is countries always overestimate the threat when they're going into war, and they also overestimate the ease of their victory. And he talks about Germany before World War I and how it was so afraid and thought, oh, we'll just brush them aside. Talks about the Gulf War, talks about Iraq, and oh my gosh, did we see that in like three weeks time with the Iran war. Way overestimation of the threat. The only column I wrote about this was using the exact same arguments they use for Iran with, like, every other country in the world. Are we gonna bomb any country where 40 years ago someone held a death to America? So. And Trump did knock out their nuclear capacity last year. And as I said in a recent, I usually at the end of the week, do a five stories on my substack that either people have missed or they're missing some crucial part of it. My take on five stories and one, I did three and a half this week. And one was, does anyone really believe that Iran, if it had a nuke, and I don't think it was on the verge of getting a nuke, would bomb Miami, would bomb Israel? I mean, if, if, if Mutually Assured Destruction has worked for more than 50 years. A lot of awful countries have, have nukes. Start with North Korea. It's not like we're, we're constantly living in terror. Is North Korea going to nuke us? Well, they could. They could right now. And they're an awful regime. They're a more evil regime than Iran. And why aren't we worried about it? Because if they did that, they would, to quote Trump from a few weeks ago, we would watch a civilization die. The entire country would be destroyed. And even I think people like you and me would say, you nuked Miami. We're leveling the entire country. It's a horrible thing to say, but it works. This idea that Iran was desperate to get a nuke, so we're hitting New York City. Does anyone seriously believe that?
- [58:48]
Interviewer
When I wanted to ask about, we're now two months in, just about to this war in Iran, and you've mentioned a couple of times that the way you see it, this is shaping up to be something worse than Iraq. And Professor Robert Pape has been on our show saying that it looks like it could potentially even be worse than Vietnam in some ways. So what are you seeing? I mean, as these peace negotiations go back and forth, Iran right now has reportedly said they would open the Strait of Hormuz if tabled. If there were negotiations over the nuclear material tabled, Trump has not taken that deal. So what do you make of where we are right now? Why is your sense that this could actually potentially put us in a worse situation than the Iraq war did?
- [59:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, I sort of wish everyone would stop reporting on the Iran war and just say, good job, Mr. President. Whoa. You've accomplished everything you wanted to, because, I mean, we're just waiting for a way out for Trump to be able to save face. Thus far in the war, the Claims were we wanted regime change. From what I understand, the new regime is same as the old regime. Some say worse. We were going to destroy their capacity to build a nuclear weapon. Oh, and we were going to inspire the Iranian people to stand up and overthrow the mullahs, and it would suddenly be a functioning democracy, much like Connecticut. Well, no regime change. They haven't risen up. And in fact, the bombing has turned as I interviewed Jacob Heilbron recently of the National Interest, and he made the point which I've heard before, but he's more intellectual than I am on these issues. He said, in fact, the attempt to demoralize civilizations by heavy bombings, like the Dresden bombings, does exactly the reverse. It gets even citizens who are opposed to a war with another country, you start bombing the civilians and they get their backs to the wall and suddenly they unite in patriotism behind whatever the regime is. So that has exactly the opposite effect of what it was supposed to do. And now we're basically down to our sole war objective is to open the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war started.
- [61:12]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Right. And I want to get your reaction to some rising tides in MAGA world supporting Marco Rubio for 2028. Let's go ahead and put F2 guys up there on the screen. This is from Politico. They say White House insiders see Rubio on the rise as a picture potential 2028 pick. Marco Rubio, of course, famously failed in his 2016 primary, in large part, I think, in support of amnesty and some of the work that he did in the Obama years. And yet he's kind of beloved by Trump right now for his work on Iran and the poster boy for the successful Venezuela operation. What do you make of this in context of Trump's, you know, air in 2028?
- [61:56]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't want Marco Rubio within 10 miles of the White House. I will never, ever relent on that. It is. He is Mr. Amnesty. It was. I mean, I've talked to Stephen Miller and a few others about this. When that when Rubio's amnesty bill was going through and he had pushed for it in the Florida legislature, I should say he lied to the voters. It was a big issue. Joyce Coffman, big talk radio host in Florida, expressly made him promise when he was running as the Tea Party candidate for Senate in Florida, made him promise he would never push or vote for amnesty. When he got to the U.S. senate, he swore on his mother's life, swore up and down. He gets elected as a Tea Party candidate, gets to The United States Senate and first bill amnesty. And what was terrifying about it is, I mean, it's hard to sort of switch gears when you're so. So in favor of. Of a Republican candidate running against the rhino. You just have it set in your head, much like it's happening with Trump right now. This is our savior. This is the guy who's standing up to the establishment and going to defeat the swamp. You couldn't get people to switch off of Rubio. Wait, now he's pushing amnesty. So who supported Rubio's amnesty? Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin. I remember hearing them all say, not Mark Levin, the principled Mark Levin. I distinctly remember him saying. I mean, I almost crashed my car in the radio. What, what, What Rubio was saying to push it. We have de facto amnesty now, which has been an argument forever. Yeah, okay, let's deport them. In any event, Levin's saying, oh, I've never heard that argument before. So, anyway, they all supported. I didn't even know Stephen Miller then. We met soon thereafter, and we all thought, that's it. Of course, Rupert Murdoch was courting Rubio and, you know, taking him into lunch. And he is my candidate because he's pushing amnesty. I don't know what it is with Rupert Murdoch and open borders, but he loves them. And, you know, we were just thinking, wow, if this goes through, it's over, it's done. It's what. What George Bush said about terrorists. We have to win every time. They only have to win once. Same thing with amnesty. We have to win every time. They win once. The country is so done. It may be done now, but it is so done. So, no, I'll never. I mean, yeah, he talks a good game now. Glad to have him aboard, but I will never, ever, ever trust him. Marco Rubio, that is.
- [64:42]
Interviewer
What do you think Republican voters do if they have a choice between Rubio and Vance? They've said that they wouldn't run together, but if that's the direction, where do you think Republican voters go?
- [64:51]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, let's hope there's a debate. You may recall Vance is. Has a very high IQ and is very good in debates. Rubio, not so much. Remember his little exchange with Chris Christie? I mean, I will say I will give him credit for a few things. He has come around. He's good on amnesty and deportations now. Great. Glad to have him aboard. He's also very glib, and he's a good talker when he's just giving a straight speech. I noticed this even When I hated him when he was campaigning. When he's standing in front of a town hall, he'll give a good speech, but he is not quick on his feet. So I'd say after a debate or two, Vance will be the clear winner. I also think Vance, I mean, I don't know. He's part of this administration. He is really, really in a bind. I feel sorry for him, but everyone knows he was against this war. He's kind of kept his mouth shut. I don't know. I talked to Jacob Heilbron about this and said, should Vance come out and say he's against this war, should he go on some huge podcast and say, this is a disaster? Well, it's betraying the president.
- [65:59]
Eric Schmitt
Right.
- [66:01]
Saagar Enjeti
But perhaps saving his political career. And as between the two of them, I think it's pretty clear Rubio is actually a strong supporter of the war and Vance is keeping his mouth shut and just being a loyal vice president.
- [66:16]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
And do you worry that, in the way that the Iraq war kind of killed an entire generation of conservatism, do you think maybe that the Iran war and some of other Trump's more brazen stuff, corruption. I know you've highlighted that before with Steve Witkoff or Jared Kushner. Do you worry that it'll kill immigration politics forever in terms of immigration restriction or not forever, at least for a generation?
- [66:36]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't think so. I mean, for one thing, even now, with Trump's poll numbers just in the toilet on every issue, the one issue he's winning on is immigration. That is always popular. It's like chocolate ice cream. You can never go wrong. It's always a winner. Immigration and, oh, my gosh, I wish he'd get back to that. Not just because he would become popular again, but because that's what needs to be done. And from what I can tell you, people may be closer to the ground on these young people in Washington and political types, but I get the sense that, yeah, they're really ticked off at the war, but it seems like, and it is an utter aberration, that's why we liked Trump. I mean, he attacked Jeb Bush and called his brother a liar and took us into this. He was so aggressive against a more rational war, the war in Iraq, that who could have possibly seen this coming? I was at a Real Clear Politics salon a week ago, and there was a liberal there saying, surprisingly, everyone there but one person, I thought it was going to be me against the room. It was like 30 people, both Conservative and liberal, and it was all off the record, so I can't mention any of them. I probably shouldn't even be saying what I'm saying now, but shockingly, I was in the majority. So anyway, a liberal yelled at us all. Not yelled at us, but taunted us and said, why didn't you see this coming? Because he lied. How can you possibly see that coming? He could not not have been clearer. I mean, it would be like Ronald Reagan getting elected and saying, oh, to heck with taxes. I'm hiking them through the roof and it's gonna be total capitulation with the Soviet Union. All you can do is look at what people say. And unlike immigration, where every once in a while there's a little backsliding with Trump, there was never even any backsliding on the pointless wars. I mean, just before the election. I'm sorry I'm rambling so much.
- [68:43]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Oh, God.
- [68:43]
Saagar Enjeti
But no, your viewers probably know this, but just before the war, there were all these tweets from people like Stephen Miller and J.D. vance and being retweeted by Trump, kamala will take you to war. If you don't wanna go to war with Iran, vote Trump. I mean, every possible signal. Nobody could have seen this gigantic of a betrayal. I mean, I still think the immigration betrayal is bigger because it's more important. This is just, you know, $200 billion being wasted. We could have built 17. We could have built 100 walls for that. But that's more important to saving the country. Immigration.
- [69:25]
Interviewer
And then I wanted to also ask you about the DOJ indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Given your legal background and also the fact that you have been following closely the SPLC for many years, there are competing interpretations of what was in that grand jury indictment that was Unveile week. There are clearly a lot of bank records showing what appears to be money from the SPLC to confidential informants who may have been then getting funneled to the government. We don't totally know that yet, but then into groups like. What is it? National alliance, some clan groups and the like. What was your takeaway from what we saw out of the DOJ last week?
- [70:05]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, a couple of things. The first thing is it's absolutely driving me crazy how many alleged conservatives that is on Fox News keep saying, oh, well, the Southern Poverty Law center, they used to do good work. They started as a serious civil. No, they didn't. They never did good work. They're getting Southern Poverty Law Center. I assume this is the most generous interpretation. Confused with those two, the student nonviolent organizing Committee, whatever it was called. And another one with very similar initials. Martin Luther King's organization, Southern Poverty Law Center. I just did one of my three and a half things. Free no ad subs on this. It started in 1971. At that point, well, Richard Nixon had been in office for three years. And despite what liberals might have you believe, there was never a greater civil rights champion than Richard Nixon. In fact, that's why he chose Agnew as his vice president. He was just some little known Maryland politician. But Agnew had aggressively pushed fair housing laws so that black people couldn't be discriminated against in housing. He gave an inaugural speech. I wish I had the precise lines from it, but it was about how after all, America had put black people through. No, we owed them a dividend now, something to that extent, to that effect. There was more school desegregation under President Richard Nixon than before or after. It basically ended segregation. He ended segregation of the schools. So that had already been going on for three years. And then the Klan didn't even exist in 1971. And Morris Dees, the head of Southern Poverty Law center, when he first got out of law school, had a client that was funded by the kkk. He defended white supremacists. Of course, he was famous in his office, Southern Poverty Law center for discriminating against black people, for sexual harassment, and eventually got moved out from that. It's a money laundering organization to hit up gullible, frightened liberals in New York City to say, Klan is rising, Klan is rising. And no, the Southern in Poverty Law center never did anything good. Even the ones who defended the liberals who worked for it realized it was utterly corrupt and left. They'll say, well, it did some good things. We fought to keep a Ten Commandments monument out of a courthouse and thus was poverty ended.
- [72:50]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
My last question for you, Anne, is about. Is just about populism in general. So you were an early supporter, 2016. You recognized those currents. It's worked out a little bit less than I think many of us would have hoped. We've seen titanic amounts of corruption with Jared Kushner, with Steve Witkoff. I saw you retweet this one. Let's put F3 up here on the screen, which is just like a perfect example is some DHS counterterrorism official allegedly was under investigation for a sugar daddy complaint. You've got cash, Patel. You know, guys like this who are, you know, who's a 41 year old man with a, you know, with his Nashville girlfriend tweeting about how incredible she is. How do you think all this happened? You know, these types of people who came into power under this administration. You're a competent, you're a very intelligent person. You've observed all this over the years. What, what happened here, because I'm mystified too.
- [73:47]
Saagar Enjeti
Some of them, I think, were very, very poor choices. And I made my opinion very clear on that from the beginning. Like, Kristi Noem wasn't a huge fan of Pam Bondi. I mean, she did well in her hearing, I will say that. But I didn't really think that was Attorney General material. I mean, he definitely wanted to choose people he could trust who would be loyal, who were not from the swamp. Some of them, I think are quite. I mean, I like Tulsi Gabbard. I love the guy who's head of housing, I forget his name, but he's been doing great stuff. Obviously, I love Scott Besant. There are others that are just fantastic. And I noticed that two of the worst ones. Well, I'll say I like Tulsi Gabbard. To proceed. What I'm about to say, even the most retrograde right wing Republican, they still feel like they need diversity and gotta hire the ladies. Gotta get the ladies. No, I promised you, President Trump, we would be so happy with the cabinet of nothing but white men.
- [75:04]
Interviewer
And when you say we mean Republican voters.
- [75:07]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes, we're the Republican, we're Republicans, we believe in competent white men. I mean, it's fine. I actually like, I like cash. I will say that really, he might be a little young for the job and he's made a few errors. I don't believe the drunken stuff. I think they're gunning for him. He's done good work. Let's put a pause and see what else he does. I mean, he needed to clear out a lot of the FBI and I think he is doing that. And I think he's a good hater and I like, like that. But Republicans just generally, you got to stop feeling like, oh look, we have
- [75:46]
Interviewer
a woman, you know, to that saga. One more thing on that. I see so much of it, from my perspective at least, stems from Trump himself. Like it emanates from the way Trump has done business for so many years and he surrounds himself with sort of the media circus intentionally because he can play the media like a fiddle. And that attracts people who will try to enrich themselves off of government service, political service. Is that your too? I mean, even some of these folks, like Scott Bessant has done some interesting stuff with beef and His. His buddies down in South America. I don't know, I. I just wonder if some of it is the culture of Trump world, and that was always kind of there for us to see. It's just that some people had different priorities.
- [76:31]
Saagar Enjeti
That's interesting. I mean, you certainly don't get that vibe from J.D. vance, right? I feel very confident in his integrity. Nor, I think, Tulsi Gabb, the ones I like. I don't think you see that. And I don't know anything about. About what you're talking about with Besant. I'd be surprised. He's already a very rich man. I mean, I think the. The ickiness you're describing. You see, my guess is you see a lot more of that at. At Mar a Lago. The plastic surgery and the Real Housewives. Look, it's all. It's all just so tacky, which I would like to make clear I was perfectly open about in my book, In Trump We Trust, there was no sugar coating the tackiness.
- [77:22]
Krystal Ball (co-host)
Yeah, that's right. There we go. All right. And we appreciate your time. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. We will see you all later.
- [77:47]
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Krystal Ball
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