4/29/26: Trump Spirals On Iran War, Oil Price Spike, Dystopian AI Car Surveillance

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – April 29, 2026

Episode: "Trump Spirals On Iran War, Oil Price Spike, Dystopian AI Car Surveillance"

Overview

This episode dives into a whirlwind of current issues: Donald Trump’s erratic Iran war rhetoric, the oil market’s dramatic price spikes amid geopolitical turmoil, OPEC upheaval with the UAE’s shocking exit, and growing concerns about government and corporate surveillance—including mandatory AI “kill switches” in all new cars. Hosts Krystal Ball and Ryan Grim provide sharp, wide-ranging, and often irreverent analysis from both the left and right, holding power to account in classic Breaking Points fashion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Iran War Rhetoric and Reality Disconnect

• The hosts open with Trump’s escalating “truths” on social media (08:23–11:08).
  • Trump claims Iran is in a “state of collapse” and is begging the U.S. to “open the Hormuz Strait.”
  • In a state dinner speech, he boasts about “militarily defeating” adversaries in the Middle East and preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, invoking King Charles as agreeing “even more than I do.” (08:23)
  • Reporting from The New York Times and Wall Street Journal shows Trump rejecting Iran’s supposed offers, painting a far less dramatic situation than his posts.

Notable Quote

• Ryan Grim [10:11]:
  “If we're to believe the president here, Iran called him or maybe they went through mediators and said that we are in a ‘state of collapse’ and please open the strait… I suspect you'd get an average of about 1.8 [out of 10 for truthfulness]—he's not even trying at this point.”

• The hosts emphasize the disconnect between Trump’s portrayal of events and actual diplomatic happenings, suggesting he’s spinning reality for political points and market impact.

• Trump is also accused of timing posts for market effect, such as posting at 9:29am, just before the markets open (11:03–12:12).

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2. Oil Market Turmoil and the UAE’s OPEC Exit

• The episode details a global oil price spike—Brent crude hits $114 and surpasses $100 shortly after the UAE’s announcement to leave OPEC on May 1 (19:41–24:26).
  • The UAE departure, the hosts argue, is less an immediate blow but a significant long-term threat to OPEC’s power (21:34–24:09).
  • The UAE has already been struggling to meet OPEC quotas due to conflict-related export bottlenecks.

Notable Quote

• Ryan Grim [21:34]:
  “Are you also leaving the laws of physics as well as OPEC? ... Also, they can just bomb that pipeline. If you start hostilities, then what are you going to do?”

• The UAE’s move is framed as desperation—struggling with cash flow, trying to regain export capacity after Iranian drone attacks, and flouting OPEC rules.

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3. Economic Fallout: Oil Prices & Public Blame

• Surveys and public opinion polls discussed show most Americans—77%—blame Trump for gas prices; even Republicans are joining in (24:26–25:54).

  • Rising prices are causing despair globally, especially in Africa and Asia, as well as ripple effects on inflation and public sentiment in the U.S. and South America (25:54–26:57).

• The Treasury Department’s attempt to manipulate oil and futures prices is detailed:

  • U.S. government is “knowingly losing money on purpose” by trading to keep oil prices down for geopolitical reasons (16:58–17:11).

Notable Quote

• CrystaI Ball [16:58]:
  “For a war that taxpayers are also funding…”
• Ryan Grim:
  “That they're also funding. And then when the oil tankers show up, they're not paying as much attention to futures contracts prices.”

---

4. Israel, Lebanon, and the Human Toll of Geopolitical Decisions

• The ongoing Israeli conflict in southern Lebanon—including the targeted killing of medics and journalists—feeds into American frustration at paying higher prices and sustaining endless conflicts (29:00–30:46).
  • Ryan Grim recounts the harrowing incidents and asks why Americans should endure economic pain for ongoing military actions that primarily benefit Israel’s regional objectives.

Notable Quote

• Ryan Grim [30:00]:
  “Why are we paying higher gas prices so that Israel can continue to kill medics and journalists in southern Lebanon and destroy towns and villages all across the region to try to make it uninhabitable?”

---

5. Corporate Winners: BP Profits, Jamie Dimon’s Bond Crisis Warning

• BP posts record profits, which the hosts tie directly to the ongoing geopolitics.
  • The British involvement in Iranian oil goes back to the 1950s; the hosts joke about BP’s “staying power” and influence (34:18–35:46).
• Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase CEO) warning: a global bond crisis is now likely due to unsustainable government debts, ongoing wars, and economic instability (35:47–36:54).

Notable Quote

• Jamie Dimon, as quoted [36:51]:
  “The way it's going now, there will be some kind of bond crisis and then we'll have to deal with it. I'm not that worried... but we don't know what confluence of events causes the problem.”

• The hosts reflect on how billionaire power concentrates risk and makes society less stable, with 30% of the S&P 500 now composed of “the Mag 7” (Apple, Microsoft, etc), and how billionaires’ fortunes are insulated from downturns while ordinary people suffer (38:44–39:27).

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6. Billionaire Tax Push in California and New York

• Unions in California secure enough signatures for a billionaire tax ballot initiative, circumventing a legislature seen as “too bought off.”
  • NYC Council Speaker Julie Menon (herself ultra-wealthy) is shown visibly unhappy as she stands by councilman Zohran Mamdani supporting a tax closing the PTET loophole for millionaires (41:04–43:03).

Memorable Visual Moment

• Ryan Grim [42:53]:
  “She looks pissed. You're not gonna get tears. Like, it's just rage.”

• Discussion about the necessity of taxing the ultra-rich to avoid revolution and restore fairness—while acknowledging the uphill political fight (44:10–44:51).

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7. Dystopian Car AI & Surveillance: Government Kill Switches

• Focus on new federal law: by 2027 every new car must come with AI-powered drunk driving detection and a “kill switch” that can prevent operation if “unfit to drive” (48:37–53:25).
  • The technology, first marketed as a safety/law enforcement tool, is criticized as a huge expansion of government and corporate surveillance.
  • Ford is already patenting systems to remotely control vehicles and monitor drivers in real time, marketed to insurance companies as well.

Notable Quote

• Ford Patent Narrator [51:24]:
  “Your name might actually be on the title of this truck and you may have paid for it, but you don't own it.”

• Discussion points to the dangers of “mission creep”—initially introduced for “safety,” but empowering massive abuse by government or private actors.

---

8. FISA, Government Surveillance, and Section 702 Battle

• As the House debates reauthorizing Section 702 of FISA—a major national surveillance authority—the episode highlights bipartisan unease over warrantless spying and the extensive “data broker loophole” (53:25–61:22).
  • Jamie Raskin, Ron Wyden, and CBC members now push for civil liberties reforms after public pressure, as opposed to a “clean reauthorization.”
  • Jim Himes (D-CT), described as a “Wall Street Democrat,” pushes for more surveillance powers, clashing with reformers.

Notable Quotes

• Ryan Grim [55:29]:
  “What Anthropic was saying is we reserve the right. We want to reserve the right to say no if we see you doing that, because I don't necessarily know that anthropic is sincerely opposed to that happening...”

• Interview excerpt [58:43]:
  “The backdoor search loophole was used to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020.”

• The stakes: whether the government can legally buy up Americans' data and use it for intelligence/policing—without any public constituency for expanded spying.

• Comparison to post-9/11 mass surveillance.

• Reminder that both parties have been inconsistent—opposing or supporting spying depending on who it targets (61:43–63:30).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Ryan Grim (re Trump’s “truths”) [10:11]:
  “If we're to believe the president here, Iran called him or maybe they went through mediators and said that we are in a ‘state of collapse’ and please open the strait… I suspect you'd get an average of about 1.8 [out of 10 for truthfulness]—he's not even trying at this point.”

• Crystal Ball (re oil market manipulation) [16:58]:
  “For a war that taxpayers are also funding…”

• Ryan Grim (on OPEC/UAE) [21:34]:
  “Are you also leaving the laws of physics as well as OPEC?... Also, they can just bomb that pipeline. If you start hostilities, then what are you going to do?”

• Ryan Grim (on Israel’s actions and US costs) [30:00]:
  “Why are we paying higher gas prices so that Israel can continue to kill medics and journalists in southern Lebanon and destroy towns and villages all across the region to try to make it uninhabitable?”

• Jamie Dimon (as quoted by Crystal Ball) [36:51]:
  “The way it's going now, there will be some kind of bond crisis and then we'll have to deal with it. I'm not that worried... but we don't know what confluence of events causes the problem.”

• Ford Patent Narrator (on car surveillance) [51:24]:
  “Your name might actually be on the title of this truck and you may have paid for it, but you don't own it.”

• Ryan Grim (on government surveillance mission creep) [55:29]:
  “Basically what they [the bill] would do is continue to ... basically allow that to be codified into law for not just the military, but for everybody.”

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Content Structure: Major Segments and Timestamps

• Trump’s Iran Fantasies & Market Impact - [08:23–14:17]
• Oil Price Spikes & UAE Leaves OPEC - [19:41–25:54]
• Economic Fallout, Blame, and Treasury's Manipulation - [24:26–27:23]
• Israel/Lebanon Conflict: Human and Economic Toll - [29:00–30:46]
• Corporate Profiteering (BP, Jamie Dimon’s Warning) - [33:49–39:27]
• Billionaire Taxes in CA/NY; Wealth Clampdown - [39:27–46:02]
• Mandatory Car AI/Kill Switches & Oriented Surveillance - [48:37–53:25]
• FISA & Section 702: Congressional Discontent - [53:25–63:30]

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Conclusion

The episode is a whirlwind tour of American and global dysfunction—illuminating how political grandstanding, profiteering, and creeping surveillance state measures intersect, all while the public bears the brunt of economic pain and freedom erosion. Krystal and Ryan’s honest, wide-ranging back-and-forth gives listeners a sharp, irreverent lens through which to view news the establishment would rather bury.

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Recommended for listeners interested in unfiltered political analysis, economic consequences of endless wars, and the mounting surveillance creep in American life.

Transcript

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[Crystal Ball]

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[Crystal Ball]

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[Ryan Grim]

all right. Happy Wednesday morning. Welcome to Breaking Points. Emily, Our president has reached a peak state of delusion, I think, although there could be higher.

[Crystal Ball]

I was gonna say a higher peak.

[Ryan Grim]

Is that a previously unknown peak?

[Crystal Ball]

We don't know what the ceiling.

[Ryan Grim]

That's true.

[Crystal Ball]

We don't know that there is a ceiling.

[Ryan Grim]

I think we're gonna get to find out.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah. Well, Ryan was using the word flailing before we went to air, so there will be some flailing that we'll cover. Yes, it actually reminds me, Ryan's debate with Scott Jennings is airing tonight live, 9pm on the After Party channel. I was thinking what should we plug?

[Ryan Grim]

Because it already happened.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, we didn't do before and after votes. It's not a voting debate.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, you're the moderator. You gotta, you can decide who won.

[Crystal Ball]

That's true. So first of all, I mean, you know that we disagree on immigration. So there's a question of then who won the debate? Who, like, outmaneuvered the other person in the debate. I would say you won the room.

[Ryan Grim]

This is a right wing.

[Crystal Ball]

I would say you outmaneuvered. So that's my take. That's the preview. But we still. You didn't persuade me.

[Ryan Grim]

That's okay.

[Crystal Ball]

In some ways you persuaded me. You had some interesting history that Ryan brought in. So tune in live tonight. That will be on at 9pm and you can watch it of course, afterwards as well on the After Party channel. But Ryan, let's. Lots of news to get to today. Yes, Premium subscribers. If you're not a premium subscriber, go ahead, head over to Breaking Points.com, get a premium subscription that gets the full show in your inbox early every day. No breaks, no commercials. It's really the way the show is meant to be watched. So if you want to support the show, it helps us a lot if you go to breakingpoints.com and get a subscription. Otherwise, no problem. If not, go ahead. Like, like, comment, subscribe. Those help us a lot as well. But big, big, big show today. Huge news about OPEC that broke yesterday morning. Crystal and Sag a bit of it. But there's all kinds of fallout that we're going to get to markets. I mean, Ryan, Jamie Dimon warning yesterday of a bond imminent bond crisis.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. And the good news is BP British Petroleum announced doubling of profits yesterday, which is only fair because without bp, the US Wouldn't have had to topple the shah. Right.

[Crystal Ball]

And yes, no.

[Ryan Grim]

Or install the shah, topple the democratic government, the nationalized bp, and install the shah, leading to the Iranian revolution. So an ip BP just stays winning.

[Crystal Ball]

Right. Right.

[Ryan Grim]

So congratulations to them, Ryan.

[Crystal Ball]

I'm really glad we're going to talk about FISA and surveillance in general. There's a huge fight happening on Capitol Hill right now. Obviously, Republicans are trying to pass government funding legislation and a few are holding the line. Thomas Massie obviously holding the line on that. It's been a big flip flop for House Speaker Mike Johnson. No surprise at all. But we're going to break down this big fight over surveillance that's happening on Capitol Hill. Some Democrats actually working to save Trump's massive surveillance powers right now. So we're gonna break all of that down. We have Branko Marcellic, who's going to join us.

[Ryan Grim]

From Jacobin, I learned how to pronounce his name, Marchetti. That's basically it. Yeah. He told me March teach is the way to remember it. Oh, March teach, but I like yours.

[Crystal Ball]

We'll find out who's right in the middle of the show, so stay tuned. Well, he did a really good investigation, just taking every Peter Thiel email in the Epstein files and stringing them together to help us kind of understand exactly how deep and which directions the Epstein relationship with Peter Thiel went in a lot with crypto, obviously, and how that friendship developed, how deep that friendship went. So I'm really glad that Branko is going to be joining us. And then, Ryan, we're going to talk about this fight over glyphosate. We which I guess I'm glad that it's happening. But we'll see where Republicans are. This is a huge Maha civil war moment. The left kind of joining with Baja as a opportunity to take out a huge, I mean, like one of the biggest criminal chemicals that we have with us.

[Ryan Grim]

And we'll have an AOC clip. We'll also have some Lee Zeldman, back and forth. Rosa DeLauro, I don't know, AOC plus Maha. Is that a coalition?

[Crystal Ball]

We'll see how long that lasts. A fragile coalition.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, apparently the Trump Maha one was pretty fragile, too.

[Crystal Ball]

That was, I feel like that was kind of pretty obvious. All right, then we have two more guests. So Ryan, we're gonna talk about why TikTok won't verify you Crystal and soccer.

[Ryan Grim]

That's not the essence of the segment.

[Crystal Ball]

But yeah, no, that's, it's all, it's only, that's all we're talking about.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. We're gonna be joined by Leben Muhammad, who was a top TikTok official on their, on their congressional policy team. So he was interacting with Congress for years as Congress is trying to get them to stop putting up so much evidence of Israel's genocide. He's now running for Congress in Utah. He actually just won the Democratic endorsement for the primary in Utah's first district. So he'll join us. And then Professor Pape, he's back.

[Crystal Ball]

Right. And so we'll be going through the latest in the Iran war with Professor Pape. As a reminder, breaking points.com that's where you can go to get a premium subscription. So let's go ahead and get started with the show. We can put a 5 up on the screen. This is a truth social post from Donald Trump yesterday where he wrote, iran has just informed us that they are in a, quote, state of collapse. They want us to, quote, open the Hormuz Strait as soon as possible as they try to figure out their leadership situation, which I believe they will be able to do. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump. Then, hours later in the evening, at a state dinner for King Charles, Donald Trump had this to say. A6.

[Donald Trump (quoted)]

From the trenches of World War I to the beaches of Normandy, from the frozen hills of Korea to the scorching sands of North Africa and the Middle east. And we're doing a little Middle east work right now, two of you might know, and we're doing very well. We have militarily defeated that particular opponent, and we're never going to let that opponent ever. Charles agrees with me even more than I do. We're never going to let that opponent have a nuclear weapon. They know that and they've known it. Right now, very powerfully

[Crystal Ball]

invoking King Charles, saying he agrees even more than I do, even more than I do, that we must prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. A6 we pop this up on the screen and then get your reaction. Ryan. Annmarie Horden over at Bloomberg put together this juxtaposition of the reporting from New York Times and the Wall Street Journal yester where negotiations stand. NYT Trump has told advisers he is not satisfied with Iran's latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war. According to multiple people briefed on discussions in the Situation Room on Monday, the Journal, Trump and his national security team are skeptical of Iran's offer of a deal that would see the Strait of Hormuz open and discussions about its nuclear work tabled. U.S. officials said Ren help us to the best of our ability understand what's happening right now.

[Ryan Grim]

Just for fun, let's put a 5 back up there because this is one of the most delightful the Truth like fantastical productions of his mind that we've had splayed up on Truth Social. So if we're to believe the president here, Iran called him or maybe they went through mediators and said that we are in a quote, state of collapse and please open the strait.

[Crystal Ball]

Yep.

[Ryan Grim]

And we'll get back to you very soon when we have figured out our leadership situation. And Trump then in parentheses, has great confidence that they will soon be able to do that because he produced regime change, as he reminds us constantly. So I wonder if you polled the global public or the American public and said from 1 to 10 like what is the degree of truth in that truth? I suspect you'd get an average of about 1.8 maybe like that is he's not even trying at this point.

[Crystal Ball]

I don't think that would even surprise him.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Crystal Ball]

I mean he is still trying. So actually while you were sleeping, Trump posted this truth social.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh 9 this 9:29am right as the

[Crystal Ball]

that was yet 9:29am yesterday.

[Ryan Grim]

Straight for the markets, just going right for the markets.

[Crystal Ball]

He was ready while you were sleeping last night. 4:05am Eastern Time. Donald Trump posts. Iran can't get their act together. They don't know how to sign a non nuclear deal. They better get smart soon. President DJT with a photoshopped image of him that says in all caps no more Mr. Nice Guy, American flag emoji. He is holding what appears to be a like an AR and he's in a black suit with bombs raining down in the background of like some Middle Eastern country behind him. So he's, he's still, I mean that one's not for the markets. That one's just for the love of the game.

[Ryan Grim]

And for our viewers who are not day traders, the markets open at 9:30am Eastern. And so literally he posted that at 9:29. Yeah, he was doing, he's sitting around like he had to pre write that. Well, you know he, like he was sitting there with it open. He loves wait, wait, wait to press,

[Crystal Ball]

publish, but he loves that. He loves manipulating markets.

[Ryan Grim]

The markets were not Manipulated by that one.

[Crystal Ball]

It's a thrill.

[Ryan Grim]

They're like, yeah, we're pretty sure that this didn't happen. Now, a 6 is, I think a little bit closer to some version of the truth, which is Iran. I, I don't. Iran did not put a quote unquote proposal together that would say, okay, you do this, we do this, we do this. Our understanding of what Iran did is they said, if you lift your illegal naval blockade, this is how our management of the straits will unfold and how ships will get through. Just to be clear that ships will be getting through, but we will still be effectively in control. So it wasn't a if you do this, we'll do that. It's just this is how, this is what the world would look like. And then we will sit down and we will discuss whatever else you want to talk about. Talk about the nuclear file more, talk about proxies, whatever you want to talk about, we'll talk about that. But this is what the straight has to look like first. That is more of a just a demand slash assertion. Like this is where we are in our position and this is where they have been for many weeks now. Trump doesn't like that. And it seems like Trump, according to the reporting, wants to try to wait them out.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, the post that he just put up actually on truth social at 4am is interesting because he's now referring to it as a non nuclear deal. And that's, I mean, he's trying to again, brand whatever they might be able to come to. But he says Iran doesn't know how to sign a non nuclear deal. So he's, I think it helps us look at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal reporting and say what he's not willing to do is table the nuclear discussions because he, I mean, getting the strait reopened already an L because it was open before the war started. And then if you table the nuclear negotiations, double L, you can't even brand that in a way that Trump would feel like is victorious, is persuasively victorious to the public. So I think you're right about that, Ryan.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And so just checked Brent crude and we can put up, what is this, a three. But in real time, you know, in the morning here we're looking at $114 a barrel, which is, you know, this is like, so what's that? That's an incredibly high price for oil. And so what, what we're looking at here is the product of the real world, in my opinion, starting to overwhelm what the Treasury Department has been able to do and I've started to do some reporting on this. Hopefully maybe next week we'll have like a fully fleshed out piece. But what's going on? And you've got the like the attempts by, you know, Trump and Axios to like prop up the markets constantly with the 9:30 or the 3:55 or the 3:30, 3:30pm news that turns out to be then fake. But what you also have is the treasury itself through Besant, engaging directly in the markets. And there seem to be a variety of different ways that they're doing it. But effectively think about it like this. If you're trading oil futures contracts and you think that prices are going much higher, right? So you're in, you know, in a normal market prices are going to move up, but if you have the treasury coming in through intermediaries, selling short positions, pushing it down, then that changes the tenor of the market, that changes the participants in the market. And the same with stock market or the same with the Gulf allies getting currency swap deals so that they don't have to sell their stock assets or sell their Treasuries. What ends up happening is that the price that you're looking at in the futures market does not reflect what the market actually thinks it should be. Market thinks it should be much higher. What that also means is that the treasury in every one of those trades knows that they're on the wrong side of the fundamentals and is losing money on purpose. Well, okay, so taxpayer money that is being used in the markets knowing you're going to lose money, but for a geopolitical purpose of keeping the oil future prices down.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, for a war that taxpayers are

[Ryan Grim]

also funding, that they're also funding. And then when the oil tankers show up, they're not paying as much attention to futures contracts prices.

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[Crystal Ball]

Pets Age 0 to 10 first tanker yesterday New York Times let's put a 2 up on the screen. This just happened yesterday. The first tanker was loaded with LNG since the war began yesterday and it appeared to have crossed the strait.

[Ryan Grim]

So yeah, this ship, sometime in March it started leaving, snuck out, tried to make it run. A lot of good movies. Maybe we'll get out of this. Or like Mr. Beast videos. Like, you know, sneaking your way through Mr. Beast challenge. Yes. So congratulations to them. But yeah, like 20% of the world's LNG is running through there. This one ship is carrying the weight of the world's LNG needs on its shoulders. And while Singapore or whoever gets to dock this ship will be very pleased, this is not how you run an entire regional economy.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, really big OPEC news yesterday, whether it's symbolic news or not, let's put a one up on the screen. This is the headline from CNBC. UAE to leave OPEC May 1 Energy chief says still committed to oil price stability. The uae will exit OPEC. CNBC reports on May 1. In a major blow to the cartel that coordinates production among many of the world's largest oil producers, particularly those in the Middle East. The shock announcement Tuesday comes after the UAE was the target of missile and drone attacks for weeks by fellow OPEC member Iran. Tehran's attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz has also severely constrained the UAE's ability to export oil, threatening the foundation of its economy. Now, Ryan, the copy of this lead here would be a source of debate because it's described as a major blow to the cartel. The OPEC is what it's saying, the OPEC cartel. Do you agree or disagree?

[Ryan Grim]

Well, it's not an immediate blow because the UAE is, I think its quota is something like three plus million barrels per day. And right now it's doing like a little over a million. So it's not, it's not hitting its quota anyway. So it's. So there's no risk that the UAE is going to all of a sudden start, you know, exporting a huge amount of oil because it, you know, it has this pipeline. And there was this viral tweet from some Emirati booster yesterday that was like, oh, checkmate, libs, checkmate Iran. We've got this pipeline we're going to. And now that we're out of OPEC, we're going to move an extra 2 million barrels per day out of it. It's like, bro, that pipeline is already fully operational. Where are you going to sneak more oil into it? Are you also leaving the laws of physics as well as opec? Get out of here. And also they can just bomb that pipeline. If you start restart hostilities, then what are you going to do? So short term, no, but long term, yes. And I think, I think it's a signal that the UAE that we have come to know and love over the last 15 years that plays this, like this punch above its weight role in the region, producing a famine and a civil war in Yemen, producing a genocide in Sudan, Playing in kind of an Israeli role of attempting to destabilize the region for in a zero sum game and in pursuit of kind of commodity routes and control over commodities and trade in the region. Like that uae, who we don't actually love by the way, I think is coming to an end and this is a kind of flailing death row of it. And I also think that they are, as they've acknowledged, clearly short on cash flow. They feel like if they can get oil flowing again and oil and gas flowing again, get the straight up formulas open, then they could start pushing above their OPEC limits, which they did already. That's the other funny thing, the knock on UAE as a member of OPEC is that they don't recognize rules at all. Oh yeah, that's our quota. We're going to sell what we want. Just what are you going to do? So in that, in that sense, I think it will, it'll matter. Matter long term.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, that makes sense. We can put this headline here, A3 Crude Oil Surpassing $100 a Barrel as of yesterday. That's. That happened after the UAE said it would leave OPEC. No surprise there can move to a 4.

[Ryan Grim]

We're pushing 115. Right.

[Crystal Ball]

And this is, let's take a look

[Ryan Grim]

at the poll yesterday. Fifteen, that's 15%. I can do that math.

[Crystal Ball]

This is a Reuters poll that found 77% of people agree that Donald Trump is to blame for the rise in gas prices.

[Ryan Grim]

I like the people who disagree on that.

[Crystal Ball]

Who are they blaming?

[Ryan Grim]

Israel actually. Probably the rest are Israel.

[Crystal Ball]

I'm blaming Ryan Groom as me.

[Ryan Grim]

Even Republicans, if you look at that next one. Yep.

[Crystal Ball]

Republicans by a margin of 11 points. And Trump obviously needs Republicans to.

[Ryan Grim]

How's that number with independents looking? 67.

[Crystal Ball]

67. And I mean that's a massive gap also just between Republicans and independents. Democrats are obviously at 90, but where you have, I mean that's a massive, like we're talking roughly 50 point difference between Republicans and independents, which in a midterm cycle makes the work of the president of the party in power rather difficult because you have to persuade people to keep voting for Republicans. Now I think Trump has kind of given up on caring about the midterms. To be honest, I don't think that would come as a surprise to anybody. It sort of sucks. If you're a House Republican, you're trying to get reelected and normally you would have the president trying to make your job easier. But I don't think Trump is particularly concerned, concerned anymore about that.

[Ryan Grim]

And as, as we have said over and over again, the, the crimping of the, of the kind of oil export markets takes months, you know, for it to really ripple through the economy. Our Godfrey Oluka, our Africa correspondent at Dropsite, was telling us the other day that things are just collapsing all over the place there, like just utter despair from the surging fuel prices and fuel shortages. Like not just high prices, but no prices because you can't buy it. Asia, Australia and we are all linked, so the US And South America, it takes a little bit longer for us to hit. We're energy independent. It doesn't matter. No, it's a global market. And so we export a huge amount of oil. And as the price for that goes up, the price that we're paying goes way up. And that is going to ripple inflation through the entire thing.

[Crystal Ball]

So this is a number before that happens. Keep that in mind.

[Ryan Grim]

And also, as I was saying the beginning, we through the treasury, have been artificially inflating the markets and deflating energy markets. And so we can't do that forever. We're going to run out of ways to do that and when we lose control of could be run away in a truly disastrous way.

[Crystal Ball]

And we're going to talk more about markets in just a bit. Yeah, I think when you are trying to hold together this. Well, so. So to what extent does Trump care about his coalition at this point? I don't know. I think he cares about his legacy at this point more than anything else and he feels like this is a part of his legacy building world peacemaker truly. I'm trying to understand what's happening in Donald Trump's mind and that's my best guess, like great man of history legacy that he's trying to establish himself as being. So for House Republicans speaking senators who are on the ballot in November and so like Susan Collins, really tough races. Maine, Nebraska, if you're Pete Ricketts going up against Dan Osborne, these are going to be really, really tough races. A poll yesterday showed Talarico actually outperforming both Republican candidates. We'll see how long that lasts. I'm more skeptical of that one, but I think they have real problems in obviously, North Carolina, Alaska, Nebraska, Ohio and the like. So I think Donald Trump has just given up on holding house or Senate. And that's normally public opinion, is a check on executive power just implicitly, you don't really want to be disastrously on the wrong side of public opinion. But I actually think what we've seen is that Trump, A, always blames voters when they don't agree with him and B, now that he doesn't have to get reelected, and he sees that the midterms are likely not going in his favor either way is just kind of yolo.

[Ryan Grim]

And one reason that this conflict is more difficult to resolve than it should be is that Israel has continued its war on southern Lebanon, even through the ceasefire, which has now expired. We can put up a seven There was another medic massacre in Majd al Zun in southern Lebanon, at least five, I believe, medics killed in another double tap strike, which takes the number of medical workers killed in Israel close to or maybe now actually over 100. They've killed a huge number of journalists deliberately on purpose over the last several weeks, including Amal Khalil recently from Al Akbar where this, you know, infamously they bombed the car in front of her, then chased her and her colleague into a nearby home and then bombed the home over the span of hours with the Red Crescent nearby, with political leadership in Lebanon, which is very sympathetic to Israel, begging them to not kill her. And they killed her anyway. And so this is happening in the backdrop up, making it significantly more difficult to get to an agreement here. And I think a lot of American people are wondering why are we paying higher gas prices so that Israel can continue to kill medics and journalists in southern Lebanon and destroy towns and villages all across the region to try to make it uninhabitable? How is that something that we want to see our economy crater for?

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[Crystal Ball]

let's transition to talking about the markets and put the first tear sheet up on the screen because here we see CNBC reporting based on an earnings call yesterday, BP profits more than double, beating expectations as Iran war boosts oil prices. Ryan, you pointed this out yesterday. These earning calls can sometimes be fascinating windows into the motivations of the leadership class, the Epstein class, dare I say, say yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And I think today I think we're getting like Microsoft, Google, a bunch of others because like it's all for the first quarter which ends March 31. Since then, then they get their paperwork together and then they do their, their earning earnings calls. So that's why you're going to start to see these roll outs. You're going to get a lot of insight into how the first quarter of 2026 went for corporate America for BP. Pretty incredible.

[Crystal Ball]

Things are, things are going great as

[Ryan Grim]

as we mentioned, BP had its oil industry nationalized.

[Crystal Ball]

BP is the historical origin of this

[Ryan Grim]

entire conflict in the 1950s by Mossaddegh in Iran. CIA then overthrew him. I think the Brothers one of Emily's favorite books.

[Crystal Ball]

It's a banger recommendation from Ryan.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

Fantastic author. Reads everything.

[Ryan Grim]

Read the Brothers, read the Brothers. If you haven't yet. Kermit Roosevelt and and a little ragtag gang of CIA agents and Brits overthrow the democratically elected government, makes sure BP gets its oil back, puts in a dictator. That dictator is then overthrown in 1979. That dictator's son now lives in Potomac, Virginia.

[Crystal Ball]

Great.

[Ryan Grim]

And loves to go on CNN and play drum. And play drums in a local dad band in Potomac.

[Crystal Ball]

I did not know that. Lord.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

Doesn't change anything.

[Ryan Grim]

Terrible drummer from what I'm told.

[Crystal Ball]

Does not change anything.

[Ryan Grim]

Somebody who jams with him told me he would be a worse leader of a country than he is a drummer. And he's a terrible drummer.

[Crystal Ball]

That's a great line. Of course, it's also just of course that you've been in touch with somebody who jams with the Shah's son. I think that's perfect. Okay, let's move on to Jamie Dimon. Another CNBC headline for you right now. Jamie Dimon yesterday warns of quote, some kind of bond crisis. That's reassuring ahead as global Deb risks build. What he said at an investment conference that was actually held by the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund yesterday. The way it's going now, there will be some kind of bond crisis and then we'll have to deal with it. I'm not that worried we'll be able to deal with it. I just think maturity should say you deal with it as opposed to let it happen. He also said the level of things that are adding to the risk column are high. Like geopolitics. It's kind of a catch all. Oil, government deficits, they may go away, but they may not. And we don't know what confluence of events causes the problem. That last sentence is chilling. We don't know.

[Ryan Grim]

Giant shrug emoji from Jamie Dimon on the economy.

[Crystal Ball]

Right. And just to. I wanted to add actually, so Rod Dreher, who's obviously on the right, has been working on a book about fleshing out his thesis that we're in a Weimar America period. And he like just looking at what happened over the weekend, wrote that he believes we're one major economic crisis away from another potential like global conflict on a World War II level scale. And I actually think that's really interesting. Like I disagree with Rod on some things, but when you hear Jamie Dimon then coming out and being like, well, you know, we don't know what confluence of events causes the problem. We have two hot conflicts right now actually. Really? Three, because you still have to add Gaza, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, where the US is in proxy wars essentially. Not great.

[Ryan Grim]

No, not great.

[Crystal Ball]

It's a powder keg.

[Ryan Grim]

Not great indeed. I've tried every argument in the book to try to persuade people that these billionaires are a mistake and that this concentration of wealth is rotting our society from within. But another one that you can add on the pile is that when you have all of these intense concentrations of wealth. Wealth that's actually more opportunity than for economic meltdowns and economic crisis. Because if you have wealth spread.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, of course.

[Ryan Grim]

Kind of absolutely. Across and you have a broad strong middle class.

[Crystal Ball]

Yep.

[Ryan Grim]

Then that middle class can kind of support itself.

[Crystal Ball]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

If everybody is dependent on like 15 guys and those 15 guys go to Vegas and bet every. Bet the house on AI or whatever.

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[Ryan Grim]

And come and they lose, then we all, we all have lost because we have nothing. We were all just riding on. On them. So there. But there is pressure on that point.

[Crystal Ball]

I keep trying to hammer this on there. 20% of the. I'm sorry, 30% of the S&P 500 is the Mag 7.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Crystal Ball]

That's terrifying. And makes your point, Ryan. And on top of that you have Amazon, Google investing in anthropic and those types of big AI companies. So you have circular funding. It's like absolute house of cards. And they set it up that way because they'll profit. Fine. They already have their billions. They'll lose a couple billion, maybe they'll lose 60% of their money. That's fine. The 40% still makes them fabulously wealthy at the end of the day. And who suffers? It's the rest of the people who are dependent on the economy.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And our billionaires mostly live in California, New York, Florida and Texas. Two of those states are at least trying to do something about it. We can put up B3. So there's been an effort and it appears to have been successful. We used a CBS News terror sheet because it must drive Bari Weiss white with rage that she even had to publish this article. CBS News California Billionaire tax secures enough signatures to make ballot. And so Newsom actually has been pushing against this, or at least he does not seem remotely excited about this at all. But unions in California have successfully, it appears, managed to get enough signatures to put this to voters say, okay, the legislature's too bought off by these billionaires. Let's see what regular people think about it. And then back in New York City and New York State put up actually, let's just roll before here. This is a New York City mayor, Zoram Hamdani alongside New York City Council speaker Julie Menon, who is herself a centimillionaire, lives in an eight plus million dollar apartment in New York City and had consistently said that she would fight tooth and nail against any taxes on the super rich. Under pressure, she is now siding with Mamdani, calling for another for a tax on the super rich. Let's roll. Mamdani explaining what that one is.

[Mamdani]

The PTET is essentially a loophole that allows high income earners to reduce their federal tax burden. Who benefits? Millionaires and multimillionaires. More than 95% of PTET credits go to those making more than $1 million a year. More than 80% go to those earning more than $5 million a year. The PTET, in short, is a tax cut for the rich. We are not calling to eliminate the credit. We are rather asking the state for a modest reduction from 100% to 75%. That change alone will generate nearly $1 billion in additional revenue. Revenue we can invest in the buses that carry New Yorkers to work, the public schools that educate our children, the public parks and beaches where we spend our summers.

[Ryan Grim]

Okay, that was a lot of fun. But if you guys were watching mom Donnie that time or if you were listening, or if you were listening. Let's play that again, just for 10 or 15 seconds this time. Keep your eye on Julie Manon in the background. This is the extraordinarily wealthy city council speaker who said that you would not allow any taxes on the super rich being forced to stand next to Mamdani while he announces that they've come to an agreement on this. Which doesn't mean Hogle will do it, but it puts enormous pressure on her because she and Hochul are allies and she was kind of an obstacle there. Let's roll.

[Public Disclosures Reader]

That again.

[Ryan Grim]

Just keep your eye on here. Just keep your eye on Menon here for a second.

[Mamdani]

The PTET is essentially a loophole that allows high income earners to reduce their federal tax burden. Who benefits? Millionaires and multimillionaires. More than 95% of PTET credits go to those making more than $1 million a year. More than 80% go to those earning more than $5 million a year.

[Crystal Ball]

Ryan's losing it. Oh, man, she looks pissed.

[Ryan Grim]

You're not gonna get tears. Like, it's just rage.

[Crystal Ball]

She's not even trying to put on a brave face. She's just staring dagger the whole time like she looks like she's about to burst in a flood.

[Ryan Grim]

Look, she just beat him in the, in the Boylan race yesterday. So there was a city council special election where Mamdani had endorsed the woman who had come forward and helped kick off Cuomo. The demise of Cuomo. She had worked for Cuomo.

[Crystal Ball]

I remember we had her on rise.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, she's great. But she lost. And so Julie Manning can take solace in that, I guess.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, so the billionaire tax, I mean, we don't have to debate this. R. O' Connor refers to it as a anti revolutionary tax. I actually think it was like the one time in history where tax is, is the most agreeable way that you can brand this political posse. It's not really a tax because it's a one time thing on 5%. And I don't know, I mean, the hedge fund thing is really interesting. There's a lot of creative ways to start holding people accountable so that they actually are paying what they should be paying into this.

[Ryan Grim]

And this was Only introduced in 2017 or 18 by, by. By Cuomo as a response to Trump's first tax cut. Hit New Yorkers harder than others around the country.

[Crystal Ball]

Salt.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. So he, so he did a little something something to help out his buddies and then he happened to make it like tilted way towards the super rich.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah. Oh, he had.

[Ryan Grim]

That was a policy error. What was he thinking? He meant to just go for the 300, $400,000, you know, struggling crowd in, in Manhattan, in Brooklyn, but he accidentally made 90% of the benefit go to people making more than a million dollars a year. So this doesn't get rid of it, it just tweaks it a little bit.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah. And seriously, if you are looking around at Institutional Trust and you're mad about Brian Thompson or this apparently centrist White House correspondent's dinner alleged gunman, obviously there are anti revolutionary measures that need to be taken to have a more just society and just a safer Closing Blue sky. Closing blue sky is a national security imperative. As we've been saying for years, closing blue sky is the least we could do to make this country a safer place. But really, I mean like I'm not going to agree with everything just from the right and people on the left aren't going to agree with everything. But I think that's kind of the point of the show is that like the system, it's like a five alarm fire. The system is like everyone is telling you the system is broken, the system is corrupt and we're verging on disaster. And you just, I mean you need a Mamdani like figure to keep to drag people kicking and screaming to figure out ways to actually, actually bring relief to normal people and make the system more fair.

[Ryan Grim]

Hey, let's see what happens.

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[Public Disclosures Reader]

Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice.

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[Crystal Ball]

let's talk about FISA Brian One of the least discussed topics in media, but probably should be one of the most discussed topics in media. Ryan, I didn't know that you were on the car kill switch. You'd gone down that rabbit hole. This is one of my favorite rabbit holes because it sounds so dystopian. It is exactly what it sounds like. Exactly what it sounds like. You think this is crazy. Well, several years ago this was the Biden administration. I forget which big Biden bill it was in, but it was it was first passed by the Biden administration Democrats into law basically that cars manufactured what by 2027 will have to have a kill switch built into them. Now the debate is whether that's just for the manufacturers or whether the government will have have some type of access to that more broadly. We could put C1 up in the screen. Up on the screen. Every new car in the US will be required by law to have tech that puts constant surveillance on the driver. By 2027, AI in your car will determine if you're sober and fit to drive, automatically turning off the vehicle if it determines you're a danger on the road. So this is something that Mothers Against Drunk Driving is very, very supportive of. A difficult, obviously a reasonably difficult lobby to overcome. A very, very strong, powerful lobby for good reason. But this is always how it starts, of course, Ryan, is that you have a serious safety concern that is put on the table and then it gets abused, predictably gets Abused by the government. And you can see very clearly how this would be abused.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. And we often are like, there are often interesting battles going on in Congress over these authorities and in our editorial meetings around, like, should we cover this? And there's always so much else going on.

[Crystal Ball]

Yep.

[Ryan Grim]

So. But as the media, we've gotta like do a better job in general of like talking about this stuff in real time because then it just creeps. It just creeps in. And then it's like, wait, where did this come from? How did this happen?

[Crystal Ball]

And this is now part of negotiations happening. Right. So the Hill needs to pass. Republicans on the Hill wanna pass a government funding package. And some Republicans are holding it up. You know, the centrists are holding it up for their reasons. The hardline conservatives are holding up for their reasons. And one of the reasons is actually this. And also, also fisa, which we'll get into in a second. But first let's put C2 up on the screen here. Come on. No, no, no, no.

[Ford Patent Narrator]

Now imagine there was an emergency outside the truck, an accident, something terrible on the ramp Ranch with a chainsaw. And I jump in this truck. But the truck, it won't shift into drive.

[Ryan Grim]

Why?

[Ford Patent Narrator]

Because the cameras and sensors inside this cab won't let it shift because it detects my eyes are big. There's a lot of emotion, there's some panic, and it doesn't feel that I'm fit to drive. Now that's not science fiction. That is happening because Ford just filed the patents. Ford actually has a series of patents down at the US Patent and Trade Office that deal with the sensors and cameras inside the cab of their truck.

[Crystal Ball]

Truck.

[Ford Patent Narrator]

And if the sensors in that truck determine that you're not fit to drive, that truck will not actually shift from park to drive. Now they already have a system called telematics and that's where they can actually pull up cameras in real time inside the cab of their fleet vehicles. Now they actually market this to insurance companies. Because the truth is this is really about who owns the data and who owns the liability. Now your name might actually be on the title of this truck and you may have paid for it, but you don't own it.

[Crystal Ball]

Okay, that is, I mean, that should be chilling to people. And just a little bit of background on this. I'm reading from a News Nation article in January when a bunch of Republicans voted against a Massey led effort to kill the kill switch. They wrote at the time. This is from the Biden era Infrastructure Investment and Jobs act act, which compelled the NHTSA Highway Safety Administration to set a rule requiring new cars to come equipped with the ability to detect drunk, drunk driving and prevent it. You can fact check that. Plug that into Google, do it yourself. It is absolutely what was in the legislation. It sounds too crazy to be true. It's not. The bill required, quote, advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology in new cars by 2024. The technology would, quote, passively and accurately monitor driver performance to detect impairment or passively and accurately measure driver blood alcohol concentration, or both in combination and prevent or limit vehicle operation if impairment is detected. That is ripped right from the bill itself. Ryan.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. And so the House today will be taking up the reauthorization of Section 702 FISA, which is basically the, the government's spying authorities. By the time the first vote on what they call the rule will probably have happened. By the time this show goes out, it's expected it'll fail. There's so much pressure against the leadership here and against this kind of the idea of just passing it that that is the expectation. But there's a massive pressure campaign from basically the deep state to move this forward because there's no constituency out there that's organized among the public that is like, oh yeah, we desperately need more spying authorities for our government and we need to curtail our civil liberties even more. That's not a, there was after 9, 11, an actual public constituency for that. Yeah, that doesn't exist today. So and maybe, you know, because it's expected to fail, maybe they will hold it and there won't be a vote around 10:30 this morning. We'll see. But we'll, we'll keep on this. The Senate also is there's, you know, serious opposition over on the, over on the Senate. So this is so. And basically what they're what you know, the fight is over a couple of things, but significantly it's over how Anthropic told the Pentagon, screw off. We don't want to do, we don't want to use the data, data broker loophole to like hoover up all of this information on Americans and plug it into our AI and then execute policy based on that data broker loophole means, okay, the government is not allowed to track you.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, basically what they data brokers can

[Ryan Grim]

and the government then buys it.

[Crystal Ball]

But buys it. Right. The Ron Wyden has been on top of this for years. But basically what Anthropic was saying is we reserve the right. We want to reserve the right to say no if we see you doing that, because I don't necessarily know that anthropic is sincerely opposed to that happening if it makes sense or if that makes sense. So much as they wanted to be able to say if they notice the government doing it, no, we're out. Which is also fair.

[Ryan Grim]

Either way, what this bill would do is basically continue to, it would basically allow that to be codified into law for not just the military, but for everybody. And there's pushback against that. But it's really wild how it's unfolding. Let's, let's put up. Where's the Jim Himes one?

[Crystal Ball]

Yes, this is great. This is the Politico article. We can see three.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. So C3. So this is great. Yeah. Jim Himes has taken a very strange role. He's kind of the, he's a Democrat from Connecticut who's.

[Crystal Ball]

You've said enough.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, but kind of a Wall Street Democrat who has for some reason taken on the role as kind of chief advocate for spying authorities in the House Democratic Caucus. It's a very interesting kind of choice to make. But he's been, and he's been clashing heavily with Jamie Raskin, who is kind of the lead advocate who is in the conversation around curtailing some of these authorities. And they've been going back and forth with each other, making, making it kind of personal. The lever had a good scoop Yesterday, put up C5. And I encourage people to just go read this entire piece. But he's been telling people two different things. One, publicly, he's been saying that he wants a lot of reforms and he understands people's concerns. Privately, he's been urging Democrats to just, just vote with Trump mounting a full

[Crystal Ball]

fledged campaign whisper campaign in the background.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And getting out of there. Now, one of the dynamics here is that the cbc, the Congressional Black Caucus, had been firmly aligned with what they call a clean reauthorization, just kind of moving it forward, giving Trump the blanket authorities that, that he's asking for. Julian Andreoni over at Dropsite spoke to a bunch of different CBC members and under pressure from constituents, they actually seem to be now backing off and are no longer like, they seem to have shifted. They're saying, no, no, no, we actually, we demand some reforms here. Let's roll a little bit of C4.

[Interviewer]

Just want to ask you where you stand on FISA and the clean reauthorization, especially given that the backdoor search loophole.

[Pets Best Ad Reader]

I have some concerns about the, the

[Crystal Ball]

backdoor search loophole reauthorization.

[Pets Best Ad Reader]

I think there should be some report. Yes, I will call you.

[Interviewer]

You Said there should be.

[Pets Best Ad Reader]

I still have some concerns.

[Interviewer]

The backdoor search loophole was used to spy on Black Lives matter protesters in 2020.

[Interviewee 1]

I want some reforms. There's no doubt about it, but I haven't had a chance. There's a lot of things that they're working on now, so I'm reserving judgment until I see the final product. But reforms are essential.

[Interviewer]

And any specific, you know, with the data broker loophole, you've got the backdoor search loophole that was used. Backdoor search loophole was used to spy on Black Lives matter protesters in 20.

[Interviewee 1]

And that's a great issue for me, a real issue. So we're going to make sure that, you know, in our attempt to do what some think is right, we have to make sure that we're protecting civil liberties now. We're not putting ourselves in a position to be abused.

[Interviewer]

Has Congressman Meeks reached out to you at all to try? Because he's very outwardly spoken about.

[Interviewee 1]

I've not had a chance to speak

[Ryan Grim]

with him about it yet as he's

[Interviewer]

offering briefings to member of Congress. Has he offered one?

[Interviewee 1]

I've not had an opportunity.

[Crystal Ball]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

Where do you stand on the FISA vote tomorrow, the clean reauthorization? Do you want to see some reform with regard to the backdoor search loophole that was used to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters? Yeah.

[Interviewee 2]

I'm looking very seriously. I would like to see some reforms, but I don't think we can let FISA lapse altogether. And so I'm hopeful we're able to. In an ideal world, we pass it with

[Crystal Ball]

reforms.

[Interviewee 2]

But I think. I don't know that I'm comfortable letting it lapse all together.

[Interviewer]

Is there a rush to vote for it now? Because I know there's concerns about Section 702, but the new York Times reported on Thursday that actually that was renewed individually in March, all the way through March 2027.

[Interviewee 2]

I'm not in a rush as long as it's not expiring, but I'm not in the majority.

[Interviewer]

Okay. And specifically with. With regard to Congressman Meeks, he's been very vocal. He supports a clean reauthorization without the reforms. And there's been some reports. In fact, I just spoke with members of the CBC who confirmed it, said that he's been whipping up some votes. Have you spoken with him or spoken with Congressman Himes?

[Interviewee 2]

I've not spoken directly with either of them.

[Crystal Ball]

I know.

[Interviewee 2]

I don't know. I've been a little distracted with redistricting, so if they have, my staff probably knows. And I don't know if it's on my calendar.

[Interviewer]

But you haven't done to any.

[Interviewee 2]

I haven't. Not this year. I went obviously the last time.

[Ryan Grim]

What's good about that from a kind of democratic Somali perspective is that the CBC had basically been on board, but amid a lot of public pressure like, no, actually we do need some reforms here. It's the kind of thing that if there's sunlight on it, you get a slightly different outcome. Then if there's nobody watching and you're getting pressured by basically the deep state and Greg Meeks, you're like, okay, well, yep. Also imagine you're a member of Congress. Do you want the deep state angry with you? Probably not, no.

[Crystal Ball]

And this is where it's never done anything wrong ever. Glenn, there's an episode of System Update. Well, first of all, there's an episode of System Update where pre. Mike Johnson, as Speaker Mike Johnson goes on Glenn's show and talks about how we got to get rid of. We have to reform section 702. I don't know if he said get rid of it altogether. I think he said get rid of it altogether. But that was a really powerful.

[Ryan Grim]

That was great. He used to be great on.

[Crystal Ball]

It was a really popular position, even among sort of main quote, unquote, mainstream Republicans. He wasn't Freedom Caucus or anything like Mike Johnson earlier in the Trump era, because obviously FISA had been abused to obtain warrants on people like Carter Page and with pretty clear evidence someone was actually prosecuted for lying on a FISA warrant application. So that obviously happened. It's a good litmus test. Like, imagine the worst, your worst president if you're Democrats, probably Trump. If you're Republican, maybe it's Obama. I have no idea. And then think about whether you want them to have and their administration to have FISA powers. And then if your answer is no, then probably nobody should have it. But that was so. So Mike Johnson literally walks into a skiff. It's kind of a joke on the right. Like he walks into a skiff when the reauthorization was up, what, two years ago for a vote, and comes out and is like, oh my gosh, we desperately need section 702 for national security purposes. Like, we cannot afford to reform. 702. And so it's the most predictable Washington cycle ever. Like, oh, for partisan reasons. This was used against Donald Trump. We gotta kill it. We gotta end it. Trump himself was really. He was posting like, kill FISA in all caps, several years ago. FISA itself came out of the church committee hearings and the reforms that came after the church committee. It was supposed to be a barricade, and it really hasn't been.

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