4/7/26: Trump Journo Jail Threat Backfires, US Low On Interceptors, Tucker Turns On Trump

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – Episode Summary

Episode: 4/7/26: Trump Journo Jail Threat Backfires, US Low On Interceptors, Tucker Turns On Trump
Date: April 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Breaking Points, hosted by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, delves into three major stories dominating U.S. politics and foreign policy:

• Donald Trump’s threat to journalists over leaks related to a downed American pilot in Iran, and how the leak investigation unraveled.
• Acute shortages in U.S. military interceptors and the wider brittleness of the American defense industrial base amid the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict.
• Tucker Carlson’s explicit public break with Donald Trump, denouncing his rhetoric and leadership at a critical war moment.

Ryan Grim joins Krystal for a serious and occasionally dark discussion, with the episode punctuated by moments of biting satire, historical analogies, and candid calls for accountability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Threat to Jail Journalists Backfires

Key Segment: [00:38]–[10:52]

• Trump called for identifying and potentially jailing the journalist who leaked information about a missing U.S. pilot in Iran, claiming it jeopardized national security.

• Ryan and Krystal unpick Trump’s statement, pointing out contradictions and absurdities in his argument.

  “So, first of all, none of that makes sense. But let's just pretend for the sake of Trump's argument... that what he's saying is serious and makes some sense.”
  —Ryan Grim [02:05]

• The supposed leaker, Amit Segal, an Israeli journalist with close ties to Netanyahu, both took credit for the leak and then walked it back, saying other outlets (The Guardian, Israeli channels) broke the story first.

• The story had already spread within Iranian media and officials right after the incident, reducing the plausibility of Trump’s “threat to national security” claim.

  “As soon as people understood that it was a F15E, they know that there's two people in that. Anybody with access to Wikipedia knew there were two.”
  —Ryan Grim [06:23]

• The hosts satirically encourage the administration’s leak investigation to continue “wherever it may lead,” hinting it could go as far as the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

• They highlight the self-defeating nature of trying to control information in a modern, globalized media environment.

  "The whole thing is ridiculous. However, look, man, we don't make the rules."
  —Ryan Grim [08:34]

2. US Military Capacity Stretched to Breaking Point

Key Segment: [11:27]–[27:55]

• The U.S. faces severe shortages of interceptors and missiles (notably Tomahawks) after weeks of intense action in the Middle East.

• Equipment meant for Asia-Pacific allies (e.g., Japan, South Korea, UAE) and even Ukraine is being diverted for use in the current conflict, risking future strategic vulnerabilities.

  “We ordered 57 [Tomahawks] as of last year. We've used 800 so far.”
  —Krystal Ball [13:50]

  “…we just went to them yesterday and they're like, yeah, just so you know, that's not going to be fulfilled, even though you've paid for it already. And we will be taking the Tomahawks.” —Krystal Ball, discussing Japanese Tomahawk order [14:09]

• The defense industrial base was not designed for prolonged wars, only short, sharp conflicts.

  “It was designed in a corrupt fashion, but also literally not designed for an extended war against a real country. It was designed for like 2003, three or four day bombing campaign of Baghdad.” —Ryan Grim [15:40]

• Depletion of critical components, like tungsten, is a growing concern. Many essential materials are imported and hard to replace, especially from countries like China.

  “We hollowed out our productive capacity over the course of the last 50 years... things are going well in northern Virginia and suburban Maryland, then things are going well for everybody who's going to rock the boat.”
  —Ryan Grim [14:54]

• Ryan and Krystal emphasize the grim dilemma: as conventional weapons run out, leaders may be pushed toward either using ground troops or considering unconventional (nuclear) weapons.

  “When you start to run out of conventional weapons, what do you do?... You have to start thinking about unconventional weapons or ground troops. And that's exactly where things are going.”
  —Krystal Ball [16:46]

• The Israeli military is also facing critical shortages of missile interceptors, making it dangerously vulnerable if Iran deploys hypersonic missiles or targets crucial infrastructure.

  “...the number of interceptors that Israel has left that are capable of taking on ballistic missiles is at a critically low point.”
  —Saagar Enjeti / Ryan Grim [21:51–22:19]

• Loss of power plants isn't just a military issue; it has devastating real-world consequences, as illustrated by Ryan’s experiences in Cuba.

  “The most immediate thing... is patients who are in hospitals on ventilators die. They die.”
  —Ryan Grim [24:12]

• The global economy is more dependent on physical resources and infrastructure than most realize—if helium supply is disrupted, even advanced western healthcare and tech would be affected.

  “It's very critical for semiconductor manufacturing.”
  —Krystal Ball [26:15]

3. Tucker Carlson Turns on Trump

Key Segment: [28:07]–[38:19]

• Tucker Carlson delivers a blistering critique of Trump’s leadership style, religious mockery, and Easter message, accusing him of hubris and evil.

  “Who do you think you are? You're tweeting out the F word on Easter morning. You'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. ... But to mock other people's faith is to mock the idea of faith itself. ... To send out a tweet with the F word on Easter morning promising the murder of civilians, and then saying praise be to Allah without explaining any of it. You are mocking me and every other Christian because we're Christians. We can't support that. That is evil.”
  —Tucker Carlson [28:23–30:16]

• Tucker also questions Trump’s decision not to place his hand on the Bible during the inauguration, suggesting a deeper moral transgression.

  “That suggests you know it is real and you're rejecting it intentionally. ... That is immoral. That will never be moral.”
  —Tucker Carlson [32:42–34:19]

• Trump fires back, insulting Tucker as "a low IQ person," deepening the rift within the right.

  “Tucker is a low IQ person that has absolutely no idea what's going on. He calls me all the time. I don't respond to his calls. I don't deal with him. I like dealing with smart people, not fools.” —Donald Trump (quoted by Krystal Ball) [35:08]

• Krystal and Ryan discuss how this split represents a "time of choosing" for Trump allies and the broader conservative movement, with echoes of past failures to hold power to account after Iraq.

  “If you do not resign by the time of 8pm and that's when the bombs are going to drop, you are in this, we will never forgive you.”
  —Krystal Ball [36:29]

  “We should go to the greatest lengths possible that if you did not do what you could to stop this … you are now beyond complicit. And we will treat you the way that we should have dealt with George W. Bush, with Dick Cheney, with Paul Wolfowitz, and with every single other person. ... we didn't do enough to punish the people who were complicit in the Iraq war.”
  —Krystal Ball [37:29–38:19]

• Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alex Jones are reportedly also calling for the 25th Amendment, but the hosts see little evidence of movement within the administration.

  “Now is the time for action, to literally save the world from the precipice of disaster. This is what people do movies about. And now you find yourself a central character.”
  —Krystal Ball [41:08]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ryan Grim’s Satire on Leak Investigation:
  “It is just utterly comical that it does appear that the first leaking came through the Israeli media, like we said.” [07:41]
• Krystal on U.S. Hegemony and Military Procurement:
  “What is property and money really? You know, when you're a hegemon. Well, we're just going to go ahead and borrow these.” [14:56]
• Tucker Carlson on Faith and Trump’s Easter Message:
  “To send out a tweet with the F word on Easter morning promising the murder of civilians, and then Saying praise be to Allah without explaining any of it. You are mocking me and every other Christian ... That is evil.” [29:31]
• Trump Responds to Tucker:
  “Tucker is a low IQ person that has absolutely no idea what's going on. He calls me all the time. I don't respond to his calls. I don't deal with him. I like dealing with smart people, not fools.” [35:08]
• Krystal’s Call for Responsibility:
  “If you do not resign by the time of 8pm and that's when the bombs are going to drop, you are in this, we will never forgive you.” [36:29]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Trump leak threat + investigation:
  [00:38]–[10:52]
• US military shortages, interceptors & global consequences:
  [11:27]–[27:55]
• Tucker Carlson denounces Trump:
  [28:07]–[38:19]
• Broader call for accountability, 25th Amendment discussion:
  [38:19]–[43:56]

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Overall Tone & Closing Thoughts

The episode is somber, urgent, and direct—reflecting the gravity of both the military crisis and the moral/political reckoning on the American right. Hosts use sharp satire and vivid analogies to communicate the seriousness of the situation, call out hypocrisy, and demand accountability from leaders and staffers. There’s a heavy undercurrent of frustration at repeated systemic failure, plus a warning of the potentially catastrophic consequences of running on empty—both militarily and morally.

Closing sentiment:
“I apologize, but I mean, when you set the tone from the beginning of civilization will die... That’s gotta be the least fun bro show we’ve ever done.”
—Krystal Ball [43:57]

Transcript

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.

[Krystal Ball]

Hey, guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

[Saagar Enjeti]

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.

[Krystal Ball]

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

[Saagar Enjeti]

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.

[Krystal Ball]

We're we need your help to build the future of independent news media. And we hope to see [e-mail]

[Ryan Grim]

Donald Trump at his press conference yesterday said he is on the manhunt. Sagra and I are going to help the brother out. Let's roll. Trump here.

[Donald Trump (quoted)]

As you probably know, we didn't talk about the first one for an hour. Then somebody leaked something, which we'll hopefully find that leaker. We're looking very hard to find that leaker and talked about there's somebody missing. They basically said that we have one and there's somebody missing. Well, they didn't know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information. So whoever it was, we think we'll be able to find it out because we're going to go to the media company that released it and we're going to say national security. Give it up or go to jail. And we know who and you know who we're talking about. There's some things you can't do, because when they did that, all of a sudden, the entire country of Iran knew that there was a pilot that was somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life. And it also made it much more difficult for the pilots and for the people going in to search for him. Or all of a sudden, they know that there's somebody out there. They see all these planes coming in. It became a much more difficult operation because a leaker leaked that we have one, we've rescued one, but there's another one out there that we're trying to get.

[Ryan Grim]

So, first of all, none of that makes sense. But let's just pretend for the sake of Trump's argument, because he is, after all, the president of the United States, that what he's saying is serious and makes some sense. Again, so suspend your disbelief, your normal disbelief of this guy. All right, so according to Trump, the people who reported first that there's, you know, one pilot's been rescued, but there's another pilot out there that they put the entire operation at risk because it alerted the Iranians to the fact that they're alive and made it put then hundreds of American service members at risk. Let's pretend that that's true and that Trump is serious about hunting down a leaker as patriotic Americans. Sager and I went on the hunt.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

Did not take us long to find the leaker.

[Krystal Ball]

We didn't. We found him. In fact, you found him. You found him almost immediately. Who is he?

[Ryan Grim]

His name is Amit Segal. Oh, put up this next element on the screen. An Israeli journalist flagged for me almost immediately. They're like, hey, guess what? His name's Amit. He's a very famous. He's a famous Israeli journalist.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

He's known for his direct proximity to Netanyahu's office. That's kind of how he. That's just. In Israel, like, that's not an insult, it's just, It's a compliment.

[Krystal Ball]

You know, he's like the Barack Ravid of Israel.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And he's. And people assume that unless otherwise explained, his source on things is Netanyahu.

[Krystal Ball]

And we've quoted him many times on the show, as you said, specifically to give a view into the Israeli government.

[Ryan Grim]

So he has a telegram channel, and he was live tweeting, whatever you want to call it on his telegram, English language telegram channel while Trump was doing his press conference. And he writes. So he writes, trump quote, trump, colon, we didn't talk about the first one we rescued. And then someone leaked something about the navigator. We're going to find whoever leaked it, whoever it is. We'll manage to track them down through the network that published it. We'll ask for the leaker. We'll say it's national security and therefore it couldn't end up in prison. And then Siegel adds, as you may recall, this was first published here, which Israeli journalists had been reaching out saying, hey, it was Amit Siegel, by the way, that first published this. And so I was going around looking for evidence that he was the first one to publish it, and then he just tweeted it out himself. Like, he just comes out and says, yeah, actually it was me. I was the one who did this. So we go to the White House. Yeah, we can put up C3.

[Krystal Ball]

We asked the White House for comment,

[Ryan Grim]

say, hey, White House. Yeah. We're like, might have found your guy. His name's Amit Segal. And they say on background, an investigation is underway.

[Krystal Ball]

Such a funny an investigation is underway. Now, to be fair to Amit, here's what he says. After all of this broke, he says Newsweek, First Post and New York Post have all pointed the finger at me. While appreciate the attention, I fear it's undeserved. I was not the first journalist to report that the pilot was.

[Ryan Grim]

So then why'd you lie about it?

[Krystal Ball]

Nor that he was injured. Oppose. The accusations are a testament to my timely reporting. But the fact is the Guardian and two Israeli channels broke the story before I did. I imagine Israeli journalist endangered American pilot makes a better headline. And then he says, if you're looking for cutting edge news that doesn't breach national security, subscribe to my telegram. So he is now backtracking the initial claim he made on his telegram and says actually it was the Guardian and two other Israeli channels that broke it. Nobody has been able to effectively say for sure who the first person broke it. What seems obvious is that it's not just the Israelis that broke it. That multiple like channels across the world. It is also a little bit absurd because let's put C4 up there on the screen. The Iranians are the people who actually were also quote, leaking it because they shot the plane down. And I mean they were boasting about it obviously, as they did to Jeremy in the immediate aftermath. They said in Iranian officials.

[Ryan Grim]

This is 3:09am, right? Many hours before the Amit secret stuff.

[Krystal Ball]

3:09am so yeah, maybe it's Jeremy. Maybe they should, maybe they should prosecute Jeremy for leaking it from. I guess, yeah, from the Iranians.

[Ryan Grim]

Tell us your Iranian source.

[Krystal Ball]

They say that because the nature of the strike, the pilot could not evacuate. Intense fire at the scene. No remains have yet been found. There are conflicting reports on whether any military personnel may have successfully evacuated before it went down. There's military helicopter activity reported in the area conducting on what appears to be a search.

[Ryan Grim]

And so this is interesting. So to give Trump some credit, what he's saying here or what he's trying to say is that maybe the Iranians thought that they both died. And so that, so there's some support for that. In Jeremy's first tweet, which is which he sources to an Iranian official, the official said that because of the nature of the strike, the pilot could not evacuate before crashing. And so what he's saying, what Trump is saying is that they initially thought there was one pilot and he was killed. And so therefore American and Israeli reporters who later said there were two and one had been found and the other was being looked for, put Them at risk now. Yes. Amit, I don't actually think was even the first, even though he claimed he was. And as soon as people understood that it was a F15E, they know that there's two people in that. Anybody with access to Wikipedia knew there were two. And also the idea that Iran would be like, well, looks like we got him. Let's just. Let's move on about our day. And wouldn't like Hunt. That is also absurd. So the whole thing is absurd. However, it is just utterly comical that it does appear that the first leaking

[Krystal Ball]

came through the Israeli media, like we said. Yeah. The Israeli media, as Amit acknowledged, appears to have been some of the first people to report it. Amit himself took credit for it. There's another Israeli journalist, Ariel Kahane. Right. So you want to explain that there's another Israeli journalist who also either took credit for it or seemed to be very, very early in his reporting of the story.

[Ryan Grim]

You put up Ariel Kahane's Hebrew language Telegram post here. This is that kind of famous image

[Krystal Ball]

of the ejector seat.

[Ryan Grim]

Of the ejector seat. Yeah. And this is. But all. All Ariel Khan at. Reports in this. And you guys can try to translate this or you can just go find and translate it all. He's basically saying there is that there's been a downing. He doesn't really give away any information that wouldn't be also available on Wikipedia. But he also very clearly is citing Israeli sources.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

And so if you take Trump seriously and you want to know where the original leaks came from, they came from Israeli sources, but the Americans were leaking it as soon as they found the guy too. So the whole thing is ridiculous. However, look, man, we don't make the rules.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, look, we are not Israeli. Israeli law, I checked. It makes clear that a journalist must report his source if it's deemed a national security crisis. I oppose that law in my own country. However, you know, I'm not Israel. You have to respect Israeli law. How many times have we been told

[Ryan Grim]

that is Trump just gonna memory. Is Trump gonna completely memory holistic?

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, this will be totally mem. You will never hear about it again after it turns out that it was very like. Again, it's not. We're not saying it was Amit Segal, but we are definitely saying that it looks like Israeli media were some of the very first to report it. And so we encourage this leak investigation wherever it may lead us. In fact, it may even lead us to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which that was an entire memory hold, part of this story is initially, oh, this is so good. The Times of Israel reported. The Times of Israel reported that it appears that it came from the sources within the Israelis Israeli Ministry of Defense. That was tweeted out. Then they removed that from Miranda Devine, a New York Post reporter. Is that right? So New York Post reporter was like, she tweeted that. She was like, oh, my God, I can't believe this. So then they immediately deleted that part of the story and they updated their story to say, we erroneously reported that this.

[Ryan Grim]

Did we say. Did we say an Israeli source?

[Krystal Ball]

We erroneously reported that it was an Israeli after the Israeli Ministry of Defense was like, whoa, it wasn't us. So you take that what you will.

[Ryan Grim]

So either.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't know where that erroneous report came from. That would be interesting. Should they explain that? Yeah, they should think about how funny they erroneously told you.

[Ryan Grim]

So either the Times of Israel is saying that they completely made up a source and published something fake, or they actually did have a source and are now lying because Trump is angry at them. Yes, I have a lot of respect for their integrity. So I think they did not fabricate a source. I think they had a real source and now they're like, oh, we didn't realize that we were going to get in trouble for that, so never mind.

[Krystal Ball]

All right, well, all right, let's go to the Interceptors, shall we?

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[Ryan Grim]

The US Is reaching the limits of its physical military capacity as it enters into what, the seventh week or something of this U.S. israeli conflict with Iran. We can put up this Bloomberg article, US deploys bulk of stealthy long range missiles for Iran war. To put this into some context here, you know, we had two carrier groups that were in the region. One of them, because of what they said as a result of a laundry fire. But, you know, I think more accurately as a result of just being deployed for too long. You know, this is the gel Ford was sent to, you know, down to Venezuela to carry out the operation there against Maduro. And then was. They were told they were going home right after that instead they steamed across the ocean, headed over close to Iran to take part in that along with the Lincoln Aircraft Carrier group. At the same time, the US has been using an extraordinary amount of its resources to defend against Iranian attacks, particularly against Israel, but also against the rest of the Gulf countries. The Gulf countries upset, saying that Israel gets greater priority. And also they have access to the Thaad and the Patriot and all these other things. US Pulling assets out of Asia to bring them over to the region. The US Also getting the carrier groups and others, and the bases are getting emptied out by Iranian attacks on the Gulf bases, which means that you then have to fly further. Spain, followed by Italy now followed by the UK have said, forget it. You're not using our territory to fly over. You're not using our bases to launch attacks on civilian infrastructure. That stretches the US thinner. The recognition that the claim of 100% air superiority turned out to be false also changes the equation, because now you can't use your more conventional bombing aircraft. You have to send in F35s. An F35 gets clipped. Now, that means you have to take a lot more care around what you can do. Then you have to rely a lot more on Tomahawks. Only have so many Tomahawks. You know, the. Like, how many Tomahawks do we make a year out of dozens?

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, well, we ordered 57 as of last year. We've used 800 so far.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

So, yeah, a little bit of a problem.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Also update on that. We don't even have this in the story. I know. Only just happened yesterday. The Japanese press reported yesterday that they had a huge order of Tomahawk missiles, which, by the way, they did because we asked them to.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

Because we were like, hey, you need to buy some. They're like, okay. So they did. And we just went to them yesterday and they're like, yeah, just so you know, they. That's not going to be fulfilled, even though you've paid for it already. And we will be taking the Tomahawks, this very same missiles which we wanted them to buy for some deterrence effect in China and also against North Korea.

[Ryan Grim]

And we're keeping the money.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, yeah. And we're keeping the money. You'll eventually get your missiles, maybe. Ish.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, we'll see.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's kind of a disaster. Same thing with the uae, by the way, with many interceptors. South Korea is a similar problem. This is really bad.

[Ryan Grim]

And a bunch of weapons that were intended for Ukraine. Yep. The US Said, actually, you Know what, we're going to go ahead and take those. And Europeans like, wait, didn't we pay for those? We're like, yeah, you know what?

[Krystal Ball]

Right. You'll get it eventually.

[Ryan Grim]

What is property and money really? You know, when it's. When you're a hegemon. Well, we're just going to go ahead and borrow these. And so one piece of evidence of like how stretched in things are, you can put up D2 here, C17s just like a giant ant. March up the eastern seaboard over toward the theater there. Put up D3 as well. This looks at tungsten in particular. The headline, if you're just listening to this, is from foreign policy. America's war machine runs on tungsten. And it could run out. You could actually run that headline and put several other critical elements inside there and it would also be accurate. We hollowed out our productive capacity over the course of the last 50 years. We focused on this kind of, you know, shock and awe strategic approach. We enriched our military, our military industrial complex with this trillion dollar annual defense budget with basically no kind of checks and balance on it, like no quality control. No. Because it feeds itself. Because things are going well in northern Virginia and suburban Maryland, then things are going well for everybody who's going to rock the boat. And so it was designed in a corrupt fashion, but also literally not designed for an extended war against a real country. It was designed for like 2003, three or four day bombing campaign of Baghdad.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

Followed by, you know, sending in a bunch of troops and paying Halliburton, you know, to, to supply it.

[Krystal Ball]

Let me. Did you put D1 yet up on the.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, you can put D1 back up if you want.

[Krystal Ball]

I want to expand a little bit on some of these missiles is that they are explicitly being taken away from the Indo Pacific region. It's not just about a shortage. It's that you're burning through the vast majority of the stockpile. There were over 2,400 before the war. If they take all of them out, there'll be about 400 left. So do the math about what that means. Almost 2000 in a single one month period. Also to connect this to my great fear of what we talked about in our A block. When you start to run out of conventional weapons, what do you do? Ryan, you have to start thinking about unconventional weapons or ground troops. And that's exactly where things are going. If we take this whole civilization will die tonight. Truth. And we combine that with what's left in the US Military arsenal. Well, let's say you're in the same boat as Truman. You put yourself in this boat. But what was his calculus? His calculus was, well, 250,000 dead Americans, atomic bomb. Now it was a little bit more complicated than that, but in his mind that's what he was thinking at the time. And he goes, okay, I'm going with the bomb. Well, this is gonna be very similar. So after, let's say that this power plant bombing and it doesn't work, almost certainly just leads to horizontal, it leads to horizontal escalation with Iran. They wipe out all these power plants, desalination plants, oil infrastructure all across the Gulf. We're in a full blown global depression. And now he has a choice of a tactical nuclear, tactical nuclear weapon, not that there is such a thing, or he can use ground forces. Well, the war is only gonna be even more unpopular when America wakes up tomorrow. We're living in a whole new world, not just in terms of what we've wrought, but people will actually, at least I hope, finally start to pay attention to what the hell is going on here. And then you combine that with where the President is. He either has to order ground troops or he has to order some sort of unconventional weapon. Especially when the military is going to start coming to you and say, listen, we can't keep up the sustained bombing campaign or we're going to rip everything dry like the, all of these munitions. This isn't just, this is just the way that wars are not meant to be fought. They either have to be fought on the ground, have a diplomatic solution, or you need to bring this to an end immediately. So the brittleness of the U.S. defense industrial base is right around, right around now is when we expected things to break, right in the early days of the war. I quoted a expert named Seth Jones over at csis. As you know, CSIS is like this with the Pentagon. Right, right. They're basically the arm of the Pentagon, which is why you should listen because they tell you the things that the Pentagon wants to say but can't. And he said neither Israel nor the US has the munitions. But for a months long war, out loud, he said it on the very first day. When I put that out, I was ridiculed by the Zionists, by the pro war lobby. Here we are, we're a month in, we're stripping interceptors. I mean, oh God, we already stripped the interceptors out of South Korea. That took two weeks. Now we're stripping all these missiles out of the entire Indo Pacific. We've got these large C17 refueling tankers which we've had to bring back. Many have been struck. We had that U.S. navy. What was it? The E3 spy plane that was taken out. There's only 14 in the whole world. It was bombed. Let's put D3 up there on the screen. Already they're talking about a big tungsten shortage. This is from foreign policy. It could run out. The U.S. operations are draining limited U.S. stocks that show how reliant the war machine is on tungsten and exactly that material, which is very low in supply for a lot of the munitions and piercing rounds that we want to use. Very low. We don't have enough. A lot of it is in China, and they don't want to sell it to us. Shocker. In order to fund, you know, this war which is currently happening. And so what do you think it's going to. What do you think is going to happen? So as we start to dwindle, and this is the same playbook that we saw in the First World War, as I've said, if you look back, the amount of munition artillery shells that they had budgeted for the whole war, they blew through in a month. In a month. So they were like, oh, my God, what do we do? They were able to go total war, nationalize the economy, put everything into production. Obviously, nobody really ran out of shells. But when you start to run low, you have to start thinking about, how do we change the status quo? And right now, there's only two options. Unconventional weapons or ground troops. Both are a horrific disaster for the world, for us. I mean, for the economy in the middle. You know, so many millions of people are going to be affected, and this is the danger. Not even to think about the bigger picture about the Asia Pacific, our real allies. I mean, you know, we talked earlier in the show. How crazy is it that Trump is like, yeah, our only real allies are the Gulf and Israel. You're like, what? Australia, South Korea, Japan? I mean, look, you know, people know I hate Europe, but, like, come on, like, I'll take London over Tel Aviv. Like, what are we doing here? Asml, like, all these companies that come out of there again, you know, sure, they're sclerotic, but it's not. What are we getting from Israel? Waze? All right, I'm good. All right. You know, if I have to choose between the two of those things, Waze is pretty good.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it's fine.

[Ryan Grim]

But if I had to use Google Maps, I could suffer through it. And at the same time that we're getting exhausted, Israel's getting exhausted, too. You know, as we're told, the number of interceptors that Israel has left that are capable of taking on ballistic missiles is at a critically low point. And that's obvious. We don't have to be told that, though.

[Krystal Ball]

We are.

[Ryan Grim]

It is obvious just from the math, the numbers that they had, the numbers that they've been using. And at the same time, the Iranians haven't deployed their many of their most sophisticated hypersonic missiles, which are capable of more precise targeting and of evading these very interceptors that they're running critically low on. And so Israel is relying very heavily on the US Navy and its interception capacity as it is much more vulnerable to attack it also. And this is, this is why I just like Israel's decision to want to continue going forward with this at this point is so maniacal and so suicidal, because it is. I heard somebody describe it as an energy island, because it is, you know, this country that is isolated from all the other countries in the region. It's not connected in a lot of ways. It has its own kind of energy island grid. If a few different nodes of that are hit, it is plunged into darkness. Iran, you can plunge it into darkness. We still have enough munitions that we can do extraordinary kinetic damage to Iran, no doubt about it. But Iran has hundreds and hundreds of power plants. Israel has, what, 10, eight? Like, not many. So if they're hit and if they can't protect them from getting hit, and if Iran decides to use its hypersonic ballistic missiles against a much depleted ballistic missile defense, they're going to get through and hit Israeli power plants, which then kills like it kills people. I was just in Cuba.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, you were saying you should tell people about this because you were just in Cuba and tell them what you saw. What does it mean when you lose power?

[Ryan Grim]

The most immediate thing. And so we might have for a range of different people, but the most immediate and obvious thing is patients who are in hospitals on ventilators die. They die. Or the nursing staff has to run to them with their iPhone camera on or their smartphone light on and hand pump, which is not what you want because you also want to be able to check their vitals constantly and you want to be able to give the right amount of oxygen so you can keep them alive for a while, but like, not forever. We also talked to a mom whose kid is on an oxygen tank, and she said in the hospital, the nurses are so good that they're not as worried that when the power goes out, but at home they have to Rush to get the oxygen tank, get the mobile one, the one that's battery powered. If the battery's not charged up, you're screwed. Also, the shutdown, the immediate shutdown of power damages all of this equipment. I talked to a researcher at Cuba's neuroscience center who was saying that they're losing a bunch of data to corruption because you can't just done shut down. You just lose stuff. MRI machines crash because the cooled helium, the cooled liquid helium that is essential to an MRI machine. MRI machine loses power. That helium becomes a gas.

[Krystal Ball]

Ryan, do you want to tell me where helium comes from? Do you want to tell me where 30 to 40% of the helium comes from?

[Ryan Grim]

Qatar makes that. From the fields that. We even bombed one of the fields that makes that helium. So if you're a Cuba, you can't get it just because you're sanctioned and told that you're terrorists. But if you had money a month ago in the United States, you can buy new helium.

[Krystal Ball]

If Trump goes through with. If Trump goes through with what he threatens and the entire strait is mined. If Qatar's gas field is destroyed, there is a world where in a year, Europeans are waking up and there's no helium in your mri.

[Ryan Grim]

And that's also. It's for.

[Krystal Ball]

It's a perishable good.

[Ryan Grim]

It's for AI. Like, it is a.

[Krystal Ball]

It's very critical for semiconductor manufacturing.

[Ryan Grim]

Right? You. So you, you. What I didn't know before I went to Cuba, because I know this is not kind of stuff. I know you cool helium to an extraordinarily low temperature, and that interacts with the magnets in these semiconductor and MRI technology in ways that allows it to move. Very frictionless. And that lack of friction is essential to the advanced, sophisticated technology and economy that we have today. When that stuff warms up to anywhere remotely approaching. Think of a helium balloon, right? Like, it becomes a gas, it seeps out, it's gone. You can't chase it. You have to produce it in Qatar and then ship it around. If those facilities are on fire, you can't. So if you need an mri, like, get it now.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, you're right.

[Ryan Grim]

And I would suggest you don't get cancer or anything else that's going to require an MRI in the near to medium term.

[Krystal Ball]

Who knows all the other petrochemicals, all of these.

[Ryan Grim]

We're going to. We're going to find out how physical our economy is. We think. We think our economy is fantasy and imagination, and we just press these buttons and things work. We're going to find out that there are actually things underneath here that.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, last ama, someone was like, how do I prepare for this? And I was like, honestly, just save your money. I was like, have cash. I was like, that's. That's all I can really say, because we'll be okay. We're a rich country, as in, like, we won't starve to death. A lot of other people will probably starve to that or may starve to death if you know, things.

[Ryan Grim]

Starvation will go up.

[Krystal Ball]

The worst case scenario for us.

[Ryan Grim]

We won't.

[Krystal Ball]

But things will become massively expensive and effectively unlivable. So, yeah, that's the only advice that we can get. By the way, that's extremely privileged piece of advice because most people, if they could be saving, they would be. So.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

There you go. What a disaster. All right, let's move on. All right, turning now to Tucker Carlson, extraordinary new remarks in his latest episode, effectively calling Donald Trump the Antichrist, blasting him for his Easter message. Let's take a listen.

[Tucker Carlson]

Who do you think you are? You're tweeting out the F word on Easter morning. You'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. So obviously you're mocking the religion of Iran. Okay, if you seek a religious war, that's a good idea. But by the way, no decent person mocks other people's religions. You may have a problem with the theology. Presumably you do, if it's not your religion, and you can explain what that is. But to mock other people's faith is to mock the idea of faith itself. And we should never mock that, because at its core is the acknowledgement that we are not in charge of the universe. We did not build it. We won't be here at the end of it. We can destroy life. We cannot create it because we are not God. The message of all faith at the biggest picture level is the message in our Bible, which is, you are not God. And only if you think you are, do you talk this way. But it's not just mockery of Islam. And no president should mock Islam. That's not your job. This is not a theocracy. We don't go to war with other theocracies to find out which theocracy is more effective. We are not a theocracy, and God willing, we never will be because theocracies corrupt the religion. No, this is a mockery not just of Islam. It's a mockery of Christianity. To send out a tweet with the F word on Easter morning promising the murder of civilians, and then Saying praise be to Allah without explaining any of it. You are mocking me and every other Christian because we're Christians. We can't support that. That is evil. That is an intentional desecration of beauty and truth, which is the definition of evil.

[Krystal Ball]

So defending Islam. Didn't think I would see it in my lifetime. But the bigger thing that he's talking about there is the departure, first of all, major political implication here. This is the biggest shot Tucker's taken. I, you know, I, I took a shot at Trump on Tucker show, and I will admit it's not really just about Tucker, Joe Kent as well, but there was this, you know, like, oh, it's Israel's war and kind of the bad boyars, like the czar has bad advisors. But, like, that's out the window now.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Krystal Ball]

It's very odd. This is Trump. Look, we had to be honest about it. And now it's just so obvious, I think, to everyone. But I think with the Easter message and now the departure of the open strait, and now this morning, civilization will die. This is, I mean, genuinely, probably one of the most insane statements by a president at war ever in modern history. And when you open the door to nuclear weapons, like he is in that statement, and it actually does, that is the time to start talking about good and evil and humanity. And I'm a secular person, as people know. But, like, this is then the time, I think, to be talking in explicitly apocalyptic terms. And, yeah, religion is going to be

[Ryan Grim]

a part of that.

[Krystal Ball]

Right?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, no, agree. I'm secular, too. And so I really, like, avoid phrases like good and evil.

[Krystal Ball]

Right, Same.

[Ryan Grim]

But you're right, like, it, there's no other way to describe this sort of thing. And I'm somebody who, even though I'm secular, I don't have the, like, Bill Maher, like, hatred for religion.

[Krystal Ball]

I did when I was a teenager.

[Ryan Grim]

I don't. Sure, that's a normal teen thing, but as you grow older, you see the beauty and the wisdom in it. And he expresses it, I think, quite well that there is beauty in faith, and it is rooted in faith in humanity, ultimately. And it is in a kind of Islamian submission or a sense that there's something greater than us and that we have to all love each other. And that part's terrific and essential to what it means to be a human. And Tucker, yes, just absolutely obliterating him on every level. Let's roll F2 as well.

[Tucker Carlson]

On Inauguration Day, the president did not take his oath of office with his hand on the Bible. His wife Stood next to him holding it. I was about 15ft away and saw it. But he did not put his hand on the Bible. And that should have been maybe a clue that we need to pause and think about. What is this? Why wouldn't you put your hand on the Bible? If you don't believe in the Bible, you think it's just a book, there's no cost to you to putting your hand on it. Just kind of following the protocol, going along with the tradition. All presidents do it. Why aren't you doing it? And you're not doing it intentionally. You're choosing not to put your hand on the Bible. When you take that oath, that suggests. Not that you don't believe it's real. Because if you didn't believe it was real, why would you care? You'd put on the costume and take it off. It doesn't matter. That suggests you know it is real and you're rejecting it intentionally. You know what you're doing and you're doing it anyway. That is immoral. That will never be moral. That can never be justified. That is always wrong. It can be expedient. We need to do this. It doesn't mean it's right. It's the most wrong thing. And we should always remember that what we do will be done to us. Live by the destruction of civilian infrastructure, live by the killing of children, the bombing of elementary schools and colleges, and you will die and your children will die by those same things. That's just a fact.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, and I was thinking about that a lot as he was. I watched this last night and listened to a little bit again this morning. It is a very interesting observation, actually, because his point is, to me, correct, that if you actually are just a straight up atheist like you or I. Yeah, just put your.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I don't care.

[Ryan Grim]

Put my hand on the book. It's a book. Yeah, like, if that's what you believe.

[Krystal Ball]

I have two Bibles in my house.

[Tucker Carlson]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

I have Gita too. I've got a Quran.

[Ryan Grim]

Interesting books. Right. There's something profound in that gap between his hand and the Bible, which I guess people are going to now OSINT and fact check as much as they possibly can. Have you noticed if they're.

[Krystal Ball]

No, I haven't. All I've seen, actually, by the way, breaking news. Here's a response. President Trump has responded to Carlson.

[Donald Trump (quoted)]

All right.

[Krystal Ball]

Tucker is a low IQ person that has absolutely no idea what's going on. He calls me all the time. I don't respond to his calls. I don't deal with him. I like dealing with smart people, not fools.

[Ryan Grim]

Liar. He says he likes to be surrounded by losers.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, that's right. The best part too is when Tucker does call him, it's usually to try to say because as he said openly, I try to maintain an open line so that I can try to talk to him about things like hey don't, don't do this. Right. And in the latest time that he attempted to get some sort the latest time that he tried to make contact with Trump, he was told, he told me this explicitly on the air. So I'm not breaking any confidences that he was told even by the White House don't bother coming cuz we are being, he's being shown polls that 95% of people support this war.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

That's the reality of where we are. Look, I do think this is commendable and important from Tucker and I do think at this point any of us who were, you know, who were in any way like supportive of Trump or were supportive of the Trump project or boosted for years, many of the people who work now in the Trump administration, like I alluded to earlier, it's over. This is a time of choosing. If you do not resign by the time of 8pm and that's when the bombs are going to drop, you are in this, we will never forgive you.

[Ryan Grim]

We never.

[Krystal Ball]

Look, Trump for me was already long go over but I do think for everybody else at this point, low level and all the way up, you all talked a big game about the Iraq war. If you stay for one second when we're going to destroy a civilized call us a panic and I don't care. You people have the power of God in your hands as Tucker is saying which alludes to what to power to destroy great civilizations. Also I was just looking this morning. Apparently the only parallel to Trump's civilization, civilization will die quote is from Please forgive me. I'm not as read up on Greek history. But it is the Delphic Oracle said to Crassus of Lydia in the histories that if you cross the Halys you will destroy a great empire. But the irony is that he thought that the great empire was Persia. So he attacked Cyrus the Great AKA Iran of that time. But what actually happened is his own kingdom was destroyed.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Krystal Ball]

That's right.

[Ryan Grim]

Oracle was right.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. So this isn't even talking about Jes take it back to the Greek gods of what they were trying to tell us about this. That's the only comparison that we have here. So if you have complicity in that it is so beyond over. You're done. We will never defend you, protect you. In fact, we should go to the greatest lengths possible that if you did not do what you could to stop this when you had real power in your hands, you are now beyond complicit. And we will treat you the way that we should have dealt with George W. Bush, with Dick Cheney, with Paul Wolfowitz, and with every single other person. In fact, my lesson from all of this, Ryan, is we didn't do enough to punish the people who were complicit in the Iraq war. We should make it clear, like, I'm about to dye my hair pink. We're going for truth and reconciliation, bitch.

[Ryan Grim]

That's exactly right. Yeah. And in 2009, when Obama came in, he, he had this famous quote where he said, we're looking forward, not backward. And the left at the time, what little there was of it, absolutely freaked out making the argument, you cannot allow that to be business as usual if you don't have some consequences for somebody. And the next two years, there were many opportunities for consequences. There's an entire movie about the Senate torture report that was, I remember that was circulating.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And the Obama administration's intelligence apparatus doing everything it could to suppress this report and water it down and make sure that there were no prosecutions. You didn't even have to go after Bush and Cheney and Wolfowitz, which I thought at the time you should. And I think you're right today that we should have. You could go after some mid level or even slightly higher CIA officials that engaged in torture and rendition. Even just that small amount of criminal accountability is a shot at the heart of that impunity and would and could have reshaped how people think about what's allowable. I think you're right. Do you follow that up by bailing out the bankers and not prosecuting any of them as well, instead went after like Joe Giudice for like some mortgage fraud that was like the extent of the prosecutions. And it created this sense that the swamp was in control. And so you needed somebody who alone can fix it. And so he comes in and he, instead of fixing it, absorbs the lesson that there are no laws.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

And there are no consequences. I can do whatever I want.

[Krystal Ball]

See, this is why, you know, a lot of people attacked the hell out of us at the time, Ryan. This is why Russiagate was such a disaster. It resuscitated all of these Bush era neocons like Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney. And all of these other people who were elevated exonerated them.

[Ryan Grim]

And in service of not actually looking at what really happened.

[Krystal Ball]

In service of what really happened. Exactly. It became Russia did it. And not, oh, we screwed up. Generation of policy and all of it. And that, I mean, I know attacked has said it so often at the time, but it is so deeply true. And then now you have those very same people whitewashed, famously now trying to control whether people are allowed to talk to Hasan Piker. It's like, bitch, you had it in the Iraq war. And you're right. Yeah. What are we doing here? Who do you think you're talking to?

[Ryan Grim]

And so one of the guys that's been tightest with Trump and taken so many arrows for him was Alex Jones.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

He's now calling for the 25th amendment, and so is Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie Taylor Greene, do you see any. Is there any movement inside the administration?

[Krystal Ball]

I don't see it.

[Ryan Grim]

I mean, obviously not for the 50th

[Krystal Ball]

Amendment, but like you spoke earlier about J.D. vance. I mean, wouldn't it be him? As I understand it, he would be the person who has to do it. He's going to care more about his career. Sad to say. You know what? I knew somebody different, but the truth is, is that we didn't. Is that absolute power does corrupt. Absolutely. And I've read about it in a book. It is another thing to experience it on a deeply visceral and a personal level. Now is the time for action, to literally save the world from the precipice of disaster. This is what people do movies about. And now you find yourself a central character. And it's not just about him. It's about all the other people who surround Donald Trump who are inside of the White House. Do they have the courage to actually do something about. Let's Even put the 25th Amendment aside, offer your resignation, Create a titanic political scandal. Do you have the courage to do something like that? And I think the answer right now is pretty clearly no. So we're in it now.

[Ryan Grim]

The irony is, if all you care about cynically is your own personal advancement, showing courage in this moment is actually the way to advance your. Your own individual interests. Anybody who stands up to this at this moment will be rewarded by the public and by the global public and, but particularly by the American public, as Tucker clearly knows. And, you know, we could have a whole conversation about the electoral implications, all of that, but it feels crass in this, in this moment of absolute desperation for the entire world. But if you are Cynical. In this moment, the play is courage, not. Well, maybe, Mr. President, we should go ahead and do it. You're the greatest, Mr. President, ever.

[Krystal Ball]

Which the problem, though, is, ironically, that might be the only way to do it if you were in power. That's the story that they always tell themselves, is that, oh, well, we have to gas him up in order to give him, you know, to get him to do what we want. But at this point, things are so dire, like, there's only one language, right? The Joe can't, by the way. Look, Joe can't. Maybe he didn't change anything, but he created a problem, right? He created a problem. Create problems, resign, do something. All right, because, look, maybe you can't stop Trump, and it probably is unstoppable. That's the truth. The way that the Constitution, the nuclear codes and all of that work. Look, you know, this fantasy, it's not going to happen, all right? If he wants to do it, he's going to do it. And I mean, look, I hate to say that, let me tell you, but at the very least, for whoever of us survive, you know, you need to be able to put it down in the book. X and Y and Z did something whenever they could. Tucker's joined. He's done whatever he could. I did what I could. I guess, you know, at a certain point where we're just YouTubers, like, we're looking for people who are in power for God's sake, right? And for them, outside of Kent, we've seen nothing. Nothing. All right. Very depressing show. I apologize, but I mean, when you set the tone from the beginning of civilization will die.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, it's hard.

[Krystal Ball]

That's gotta be the least fun bro show we've ever done.

[Ryan Grim]

I believe so. Thanks. Y.

[Krystal Ball]

All right, well, Ryan and Emily will be on tomorrow. Hopefully not for a very historic show. So you'll see them all then and we'll continue to give you a special coverage as much as we can. And I guess Ryan and I are going to go do the ama. Every question is going to be about the civilization will die truth. So there you go. All right, we'll see you later. Thanks so much for watching.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Day or night, VRBoCare is here 247 to help make every part of your stay seamless. If anything comes up or you simply need a little guidance, support is ready whenever you reach out. From the moment you book to the moment you head home. We're here to help things run smoothly because a great trip starts with the right support and, hey, a good playlist. Doesn't hurt either.

[Krystal Ball]

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