← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
4/7/26: Trump Threatens Iranian Civilization, US Strikes Kharg Island, Trump Trashes US Allies
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- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
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- [01:08]
Sponsor Voice
the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public 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. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures hey
- [02:08]
Krystal Ball
guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [02:10]
Producer Griffin
Independent Media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
- [02:17]
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.
- [02:23]
Producer Griffin
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:34]
Krystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. Bro show people. Live for the pound. It's great to see you, Brian. Man, it's been a while since our last.
- [02:50]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, yes. Long time. Since the Bro Show.
- [02:52]
Krystal Ball
Been too long.
- [02:53]
Ryan Grim
A lot has happened.
- [02:54]
Krystal Ball
A lot has happened. And of course we find ourself on the precipice of potentially one of the most important days in modern history with Donald Trump doubling down on his timeline and gave a press conference at the White House yesterday. We watched all of it so you don't have to. We pulled some of the highlight lowlights, whatever you wanna call them, including the deadline for striking. We also have breaking news as of this morning. The United States military conducting strikes all across Carg Island. And Ryan, you have been on top of the case of some major energy infrastructure hits that happened in Saudi Arabia overnight, which the Western press is completely ignoring but highly significant. So you're gonna dig down into all of that?
- [03:32]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, it's not good. Yeah, if you like the economy and having income. Not good.
- [03:36]
Krystal Ball
All right, so that's that. And then we have Professor John Mearsheimer. He's gonna stop by, he's gonna tell us and obviously give us reaction not only to the Donald Trump press conference, but the deadline about what it would mean to wipe out energy power plants where America stands in the globe. Then Ryan. And Ryan and I have a very fun story for everybody. So yesterday, Donald Trump took to the podium and he announced that he was going to be prosecuting whoever it is that leaked the story of a downed U.S. airman. Ryan, you have now uncovered that it was actually an Israeli journal. And it seems that the source was probably, at least initially, according to the Israeli media, the Israeli Minister of Defense himself. And you know, Ryan, no one is above the law. I am a journalist. I protect first Amendment American rights. But I checked Israel's law is very clear. Resources, they must be able revealed. There is no protection for national security. So will our president demand extradition of the Israeli Minister of defense and this journalist or a prosecution in their homeland? I am simply just get a long
- [04:39]
Ryan Grim
line of people not being extradited.
- [04:41]
Krystal Ball
I am just A simple Israeli law respecter. That's all I am. I just want to see.
- [04:46]
Ryan Grim
You don't make laws.
- [04:47]
Krystal Ball
I don't make the. They made the law. Let's apply it equally, shall we? Interceptors, we're going to talk. We didn't have time to get into this yesterday. A huge drain in the US Interceptor stockpile here in the United States. Some very troubling reporting already. Stuff being pulled out of the Indo Pacific. And then our producer Griffin did a good deep dive and prepared all of us. There has been some fascinating developments with AI Sam Altman declaring super intelligence. He wants a new social contract. There's a new New Yorker profile about him, some very troubling stuff inside of it that we'll break down. And then finally, Tucker Carlson having a show last night with his most vociferous attacks yet on Donald Trump, effectively calling him the Antichrist and saying that he didn't put his Bible hand on the Bible whenever he swore the oath of office. Something, you know, you and I are secular, we don't notice these things. But apparently Tucker did. And expounding not only that, but on the president's deranged praise to Allah Easter message. Before we get to that, thank you to everybody. Subscribing breaking. Please support the show. Ryan and I are doing the AMA today. A very coveted Sager and Ryan AMA that I think we've maybe only done one or two. So there you go. That's what is in special. And then of course, if you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, we would deeply appreciate it. And if you're listening to this as a podcast, please share an episode with a friend. But with that, let's get to the show. Some major breaking news, literally right as we're recording. Let's go and put it up here on the screen from Donald Trump. A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that, that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have a complete and total regime change where different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows? We will find out tonight. One of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran. And so that is, of course, an extremely disturbing message there from the president. And after coming after Ryan, the praise be to voila. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards. I also am struck how I've almost never seen an American president Declare a civilizational war effectively, maybe. I think since the Second World War. And even at that time, we tried to make it clear we're not at war with the German people or the Japanese people, were at war with the Japanese empire or with the Nazi regime. I mean, if you were thinking about the great people of Iran who are going to rise up, we're saying we're effectively in a war with them. We already were. I mean, this is Genghis Khan. Who is it? Who's the Khan who took Baghdad in the air? Is it Hulagu Khan? I think off the top of my
- [07:22]
Ryan Grim
head, I can't remember which it is.
- [07:23]
Krystal Ball
But, yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure Hulagu Khan was the last person to have this type of rhetoric before trying to start, before trying to storm into the Persian Empire and into Baghdad and all of those regions.
- [07:36]
Ryan Grim
Or maybe, maybe Hitler.
- [07:38]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, it is shocking in the East. You and I are replaced, you know, responding to this live. But the implications of this are extremely dire because we're talking here about a president with the ability to end the world, literally. Who. This is a gateway, I think, to nuclear weapons use. It's not just about power plants. And like, we are. This is the worst case scenario. I don't think that there's another way to describe it.
- [08:03]
Ryan Grim
No, I think that's right. And it seems like Trump is banking on the Iranians backing down. And I have never wanted to be wrong about something more than I want to be wrong about this. But my understanding is that the Iranian government does not feel like Trump is in a pole position, does not feel like Trump has the cards, as Trump likes to say. My understanding is that they are not going to submit to greater and greater threats on social media.
- [08:32]
Krystal Ball
Would you?
- [08:34]
Ryan Grim
I mean, if I really thought the nukes were going to go off, then I don't know. But it doesn't matter what I would do, really, because, yeah, my sense is that they are not going to back down to this. So if Trump's calculation is that he's going to be able to ratchet up his tea in the taco to such a degree that the other side is going to fold. He is miscalculating. And that is going to mean either something cataclysmic in a biblical scale or a taco of the highest order, well,
- [09:14]
Krystal Ball
let's make sure that we lay the ground for that. Let's put a six up there on the screen before we even get to Trump's press conference. This was from you guys over at drop site, Iran has rejected the temporary ceasefire and says it has already laid out its terms to for agreement. I do think this is very important to put together with that truth social post. Cuz obviously Trump is both trying to sound extraordinarily incendiary but also leave himself. I guess like you said, some sort of major taco. It is Taco Tuesday after all, where he says we have a complete and total regime change. We're different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail. Maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows? I mean, it is difficult to see whether he is talking about an organic revolution after collapsing the country into a state of civil war or some sort of temporary ceasefire that would be put into place. But what did Jeremy and you guys find out from the Iranians about what they want for some sort of temporary ceasefire? And remember, all of us are on watch. 8pm Tuesday is when the President says that his deadline expires.
- [10:14]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. What Jeremy found is that they are not interested in a temporary cease fire. That they seem to believe that the US which keeps asking for this temporary pause of anywhere from two days to three days to 45 days, they need it, or that the United States needs it. Like the sense is that the US is exhausted, that Israel is exhausted, that it is firing off its ammunition and its defense measures at a scale that really wasn't contemplated by our kind of productive capacity. And so they want a break. And the Iranians are saying, we're not giving you a break. What we want is a permanent end to the war. And if you look at the, so they keep, you keep seeing circulated this like 10 point plan. This is what the Iranians have been putting forward for many weeks now. And if you look at it, it actually in significant ways preserves the American dollar. It preserves American hegemony in a way that it's not obvious the US can even get it militarily. In other words, let's say they finish up with some type of a toll where they split $2 million a ship or whatever and they split it with Oman. But the strait is open. You still then have the capacity for oil to be sold in dollars and for the US to control kind of energy supplies and maritime shipping, which is the essence of the American empire. Like that's it. And everything that we enjoy here in the United States rests upon that. The $40 trillion in debt is financed by the fact that the entire world uses the dollar. If the world stops using the dollar, then they stop buying treasuries. If they stop Buying treasuries. The cost of our borrowing makes it impossible for us to have the economy and society that we have. It all crumbles down. And I've seen a lot of people like, oh wait, this is cool. Like oil's going down, plastic is going down, like AI is going down. All the like, worst things in the world are going down. Well, Gulf money also finances, kind of clean energy. But also, yes, there's too much plastic and takeout, but there's also plastic everywhere. Hospitals, you know, fertilizer. Without fertilizer, you don't have food. So the entire. You get a massive. Just social collapse. And yes, okay, there'll be less plastic in the ocean, but you'll also have
- [12:52]
Krystal Ball
society, civilization, like literal, literal pan famine.
- [12:56]
Ryan Grim
Like across the world, there is a way to transition away from some of the poisons and toxins that are in our world now. This is not it. I mean, this is a way to transition to something different.
- [13:09]
Krystal Ball
Well, that's, that's the thing. And I, I don't think people under. I mean, again, for most people who are normally living about their daily lives, I really don't think they know much about this war. I think it's very Covid esque. I've compared it to February 2020 right now. Let's speed it up. What was the day before the lockdown? It was like March 15, mid March 2020.
- [13:27]
Ryan Grim
March.
- [13:28]
Krystal Ball
Hyper online freaks like me had my mask, had my goggles, had my. I'd already been wearing masks, stocked up on coffee and toilet paper. I had emergency rations. I had it all ready to go. The vast majority of people I remember I lived across from a bar. People were out at the bar and the lockdown was literally the next day. And I was like, oh my God, they have no idea what is coming.
- [13:46]
Ryan Grim
I had this crazy experience. I was like, alzanne, we gotta get to Costco and eat all our crap.
- [13:51]
Producer Griffin
Yeah.
- [13:51]
Ryan Grim
And I was like, it's gonna be a madhouse. And she calls me from there. She's like, there's nobody here. What are you like, I think you might be mentally ill. I was like, oh, well, that's how I feel for two weeks earlier.
- [14:00]
Krystal Ball
I feel like everyone is gonna wake up tomorrow. And that is how history happens. Like it genuinely does turn on a dime. And then all of a sudd. Genuinely living in a new world. And just to show you all how close we are, I mean, this genuinely might be one of the most historic shows we ever do, considering, you know, we're in a new. We're in an old world and tomorrow might be a new world. So here is Donald Trump. He laid out his full deadline yesterday from the White House podium. A1. Let's take a listen.
- [14:26]
Producer Griffin
Said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.
- [14:32]
Donald Trump (quoted)
Very little is off limits.
- [14:33]
Producer Griffin
Are there certain, certain kinds of civilian targets, though? I'm thinking.
- [14:36]
Donald Trump (quoted)
I don't want to tell you that. I don't want to tell you that we have, we have a plan because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o' clock tomorrow night. Where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean, complete demolition by 12 o'. Clock. And it'll happen over a period of four hours. If we wanted to, we don't want that to happen. We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation. And you know what? If that's the case, the last thing we want to do is start with power plants, which are among the most expensive thing, and bridges.
- [15:21]
Krystal Ball
8pm to midnight Eastern time is definitely the time, I think, to be aware that's when all of these strikes will be happening. I do think it is very important to note here that the maximalist positions, as you said, have not been backed down. Iran remains steadfast, as you laid out. And Jeremy, in their story, look, we'll let you preserve the dollar, but we are charging tolls through the strait. We are making sure that you're not going to attack us in the future. There will be no temporary ceasefire. When the guns stop, they stop forever. And you will be paying us some sort of reparation. Now, we can fudge the way that Reparations math.
- [15:57]
Ryan Grim
They're willing to ditch the reparations if they can charge the toll.
- [16:00]
Krystal Ball
I was gonna say, so that we can fudge the math in terms of how that reparation gets paid. They either get to earn it or not. But this is on the brink of a literal, as the Trump said, a civilizational collapse in Iran, a country of some 94 million people. Trump was asked specifically about those tolls being charged. And ironically, while the rest of the world is like, we need to establish freedom of navigation in the Straits of Hormuz, he's like, well, instead of the Iranians charging a toll, maybe I will charge a toll. Let's take a listen.
- [16:29]
Sponsor Voice
Are you allowed to or are you
- [16:31]
Krystal Ball
willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passengers through the street?
- [16:37]
Donald Trump (quoted)
US charging tolls? Iran, what about us charging tolls.
- [16:41]
Sponsor Voice
Is that something you're considering?
- [16:42]
Donald Trump (quoted)
I'd rather do that than let them have them run. Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won, okay? They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water.
- [16:56]
Krystal Ball
All right.
- [16:57]
Donald Trump (quoted)
No, we, I mean, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant your question. Your question would, your question would have been more accurate if you said it
- [17:08]
Krystal Ball
so you can see what he's laying out there. And I do think, you know, if we combine the civilization truth with what he said yesterday on the White House lawn when he was asked specifically about whether he would be committing a war crime to strike Iran's bridges and power plants, he called them animals. It links very directly with what you were talking about, with the civilization war. Ryan. Let's take a listen and I'll get Ryan's reaction. Mr. President, how would it not be a war crime to strike Iran's bridges and power plants?
- [17:36]
Donald Trump (quoted)
Because they killed 45,000 people in the last month. More than that, could be as much as 60. They kill protesters, they're animals, and we have to stop them. And we can't let them have a nuclear weapon. Very simple.
- [17:49]
Krystal Ball
Trump was asked about the war crimes question multiple times yesterday. Brushed him off. Both basically said, we can do whatever we want. That is true. You certainly can. But then, you know, the rest of the war, don't be surprised. How many strikes have we covered of the Iranians hitting, you know, Israeli location or something like that. Civilians are buried under the rubble. And then when the Israelis complain, people are like, really? You people are the ones to complain. I mean, you and I are horrified no matter what at the people's bodies getting dug out of the rubble, whether it's a Gazan, whether it's an Israeli, whether it's an Iranian, hopefully not in the future, a US Citizen. But this is the world that we're going to live in now. And it's not that there was a law constraining it, it's that the US didn't operate this way specifically because, A, we didn't want it to happen to us. We wanted to make sure also that, you know, any allies or the way that wars and all of that would be fought would to be to minimize explicitly some sort of cash. And also of the international picture. I don't think it's a surprise. Just yesterday, the UK Announced they will not allow the use of any of their bases to be used for any strike on Iranian energy infrastructure. They're like we will have no part in this whatsoever. This is not like Spain. We're talking about the United Kingdom.
- [19:00]
Ryan Grim
Yeah.
- [19:00]
Krystal Ball
Literal.
- [19:00]
Ryan Grim
Our special friend or whatever.
- [19:02]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. Of of the United States.
- [19:05]
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- [20:05]
Sponsor Voice
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- [21:07]
Ryan Grim
justifying killing civilians by saying they're animals is genocidal language. Notice he now that now he's saying there were 45,000 people killed in the protest. He says Maybe there were 60,000 people killed in the protest. This is just after he acknowledged that the US Sent in a bunch of. A lot. He said a lot. A lot of weapons to the protesters trying to create the very thing that he is saying happened. Iranians have put out the names of roughly 3,000 people, many of them police and security officials who died during those clashes. They say it's 3,000 and they say if you have names of people who died during those days, submit them to us and we will add them to the list. Where are the names of these 45,000 to 60,000 people that he just keeps manufacturing? In any event, that would not be a reason to kill 90 or 100 million people or to destroy an entire civilization. The protests were centered around universities. Trump is blowing up all of the universities. So how does he even remotely begin to square that? I mean, he doesn't even try. Like, I don't even know what we're talking about. So Trump also. You wanna roll a four? Oh, yeah.
- [22:29]
Krystal Ball
This is great. Yeah. So this is. Trump was asked was something I laid out earlier. It's like, hey, we're in a civilizational war. We're gonna bomb you. We're gonna destroy your entire country. We're gonna bomb you back to the Stone Ages, and Iran is actually going to like it. And he keeps. He actually even at one point, I believe he said that the Iranians are actually asking the US to keep bombing them. Let's take a listen. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure? To cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?
- [23:03]
Donald Trump (quoted)
They would be willing to. They would be willing. And it's suffering. They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have. We've had numerous intercepts. Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it. And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not not hitting those areas, they're saying, please come back, come back, come back. These are the people.
- [23:32]
Krystal Ball
This hoax is one which exists deeply in US Media. In fact, do you want to talk about the BBC thing? There's an unfolding scandal.
- [23:41]
Ryan Grim
Oh, yes, yes, right now.
- [23:42]
Krystal Ball
Of the b. Maybe we'll edit this in post, but it does matter. Just to show you the manufacturing consent, the way that this type of BS probably makes its way up to the President. But effectively there was a quote in the BBC and also we can verify here at Breaking Points, this is the second time such a thing has happened. Our friend Trita Parsi was actually on BBC and had multiple clips played to him of Iranians who were saying that they liked the bombing. And he called them out live on the air. He was like, guys, maybe that that is a view, but to say that that's the only view in Iran is preposterous. And it does now appear that the BBC put a quote in one of their stories where they quoted some guy living in Tehran saying, quote, about them hitting energy infrastructure, using an atomic bomb or leveling Iran. My honest reaction is that I am okay with all of these. The quote, after it was called out, was silently disappeared and then was replaced by something completely anodyne. And it is now appears they may. They either fabricated it or they silently removed it. They have issued no correction. What's the new quote?
- [24:51]
Ryan Grim
The new quote is, if attacking targets in the country brings down the Islamic Republic, I'm fine with that. Because if the Islamic Republic survives this war, it will stay forever. Yeah, that's the new quote.
- [25:02]
Krystal Ball
Okay, that is not even remotely the same thing. And so that was either a paraphrase, a mistake. Is there an edit, by the way? Any sort of correction? No, listen, so far all they've done is silently edit it. Now we're not. Look, it's a minor, not minor. It's a big story. Obviously it's a scandal, I think, for the BBC. But the point is, is that this is how it works, is you find these fringe actors, Remember that Afro woman who was on television who was like, Please, Mr. President, keep bombing my country, and then was so upset whenever he did. And she was like, no, not like that. That's not what I meant. I just saw this morning a advisor to or some analyst for Iran International, some monarchist is out there being like, trump should nuke Iran. I mean, this is a sickness. Were there a Japanese. Like, can you imagine in 1945 that there were like some Japanese American, he's like, please, President Truman, nuke my country. Like, you have to do it for the good of the Japanese people. This is a perverse, like, 21st century creation.
- [26:03]
Ryan Grim
An even better example, a Pakistani friend of mine was just saying the other day, he's like. He's like, I think Asim Munir is a Brutal dictator who kills innocent people in the streets is dragging Pakistan, you know, back into the past. I could not. There aren't enough adjectives for me to describe how I feel about that man and the military establishment that runs Pakistan. Never in his wildest dreams, he said, would he imagine urging other countries to bomb Pakistan. That's. I think sickness is. Right.
- [26:35]
Krystal Ball
Literally. It's like, perverse.
- [26:37]
Ryan Grim
How your mind even gets to that place is.
- [26:39]
Krystal Ball
It's a mental illness. But the point about this mental illness is that this artificial narrative has been elevated by extremely fringe elements of the Iranian diaspora, which bubbles up to Fox News and to BBC. And then this BS gets put in front of the president. He's like, you know what? That's it. They want me to bomb them. Right. This is how somebody psychologically can either say that the regime are animals, but I care about the great people of Iran. Well, if you only talk to these 2% or whatever of Iranians who live in, like, Los Angeles, and they're the ones who are telling you and encouraging you to keep bombing. This is the condition. And of course, in our media, the scandal of the BBC, quote, is effectively nothing. It's not like any of the media, journalists or misinformation. Where are they? Where are you? Right. This stuff matters. It is literally being used to perpetuate potentially one of the worst bombing campaigns since the Second World War on an entire civilian population for nothing. At least Japan attacked us in World War II. Okay. Yeah.
- [27:42]
Ryan Grim
And this brings us actually to the next element of this conversation, because if it was true that the Iranians were begging to be bombed because the bombs represent liberation, the way that the saga around the downed airmen played out would have been completely different. Instead, you have U.S. officials who have said, everyone with a gun in Iran who was in range of us and many people who weren't even in range were shooting at us.
- [28:10]
Krystal Ball
Yes. That was a direct quote from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is that everybody in Iran with a gun was shooting at us. Does that sound like a population that wants to be liberated? Oh, absolutely not. You know, I've done a lot of reading. I recommend the most successful book on the Second World War bombing campaign from the US Perspective, the eighth Air Force, Masters of the Air. They made it into a TV series, and they talk explicitly about how when these airmen would get shot down, they would often be, you know, terrorized and, like, in some cases, killed U.S. airmen by the German populace, because I think I forgot the German word. They would call them, like, it's like, terror Fliege or something like that. Terror flyers because of the bombing campaign. And that was in a much more targeted bombing campaign by the United States. But they'd been whipped up by the Nazi regime and also, of course, by the bombing itself. To be like, you're the people who are bombing our cities into oblivion. And they would attack them, they would kill them. Right. Well, that was a little bit later on. But my point is that even in the midst of all of that, of the, you know, they vigorous attempts of the US to try to bomb like, you know, railways or something, people don't like being bombed, right? Yeah, people do not like to be bombed. And so it's the same scenario. Right. Vietnam. Read the testimony of any of these flyers shot down who became POW in North Vietnam. If you think about it, very often the villagers would take them captive and turn them over and go on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It'd be horrible for all of these
- [29:36]
Ryan Grim
people because you can't sleep at night because of the. The fear and the sound of the bombing. They probably killed some people that. You know.
- [29:42]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [29:43]
Ryan Grim
So. And they're so distant from you. They're way up there in the sky. When you finally get them, like, oh, my God, this is the person that.
- [29:49]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. Are we justifying. No, what we're saying is that this absurd idea that, you know, they're wishing to be bombed, there's no evidence of that whatsoever. Trump also. Look, just last thing here before we move on to these recent strikes by Carg Island, I do think it is just, just very important to lay out. You know, we talked yesterday about what that rescue operation looked like. We don't know the full details. Remember, it's not like the US Military hasn't lied to us about Jessica lynch or about Pat Tillman. So, like, for anybody saying that, they always tell the truth. Yeah. Be around the block a little bit.
- [30:23]
Ryan Grim
Or the Osama bin Laden raid filled with.
- [30:27]
Krystal Ball
Even to this day, people are still litigating what happened on the bin Laden raid. So. So what is important to say, at the very least, is you can look at it two ways. This is an extraordinary operation. We got our guy. Nobody was killed. Great. Also several hundred million dollars of aircraft. It took hundreds, hundreds, by the testimony of the president, to be able to get these people out. It didn't go exactly to plan. There were significant amounts of fire, enemy fire, helicopters, A10s, and all of that shot down. And this is on the brink of a potential ground operation that could be happening around either tonight or sometimes in the future. So let's take a listen. A nine, please. Of what the President said.
- [31:01]
Donald Trump (quoted)
We immediately mobilized a massive operation to retrieve him from the mountain holdout. And he kept going higher and higher. The mountain kept getting rougher and rougher and really very, very hard to find. The second rescue mission involved 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft and more. We were bringing them all over, and a lot of it was subterfuge. We wanted to have them think he was in a different location because they had a vast military force out there. Thousands, thousands of people were looking. So we wanted them to look in different areas. So we were scattered all over. Like, we were right on top of them. We had seven different locations where they thought. And they were very confused. They said, well, wait a minute. They've got groups here, they've got groups there. It's amazing.
- [31:59]
Krystal Ball
155 aircraft. He said several hundred Americans were involved in this operation. So, look, I mean, I tend to think it was a little bit of both, that they were both, you know, battle testing. So this potential.
- [32:11]
Ryan Grim
You're seeing what they can pull off
- [32:12]
Krystal Ball
operation, seeing how many guys can we get down there? Can we get a forward refueling point? How many people? How long can we be on the ground? Right. We have to go do it anyways. Let's try and do a little testing. And so you can see while as well as it went from the tactical point of view, it also showed the many perils of what prolonged deployment deep inside of Iran could bring for all of us. And again, right before we move on to Kharg and let's just say, like the civilization tweet, I don't know about you, Ryan. I have never actually. I've always been afraid Israel would use a nuclear weapon. When you read a whole civilization will die tonight, I'm not really sure you can rule it out. And I had. I'm being honest, like, this is. Even as far as upset as I am about this, I really did not fear a use of a tactical nuke until right now.
- [32:59]
Ryan Grim
And we'll talk about Tucker later. He's suggesting that Mark Levin is urging it, and Mark Levin has been getting his way every step of the way.
- [33:10]
Krystal Ball
I think it's just important to say, like, you know, there's no such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. No, it doesn't exist. Nuclear weapons, nuclear weapon, whether it's an artillery shell or not, once you cross that threshold, you've crossed it, and then it's. It's over.
- [33:21]
Ryan Grim
I mean, what A devious term.
- [33:22]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've got North Korea with ICBMs. We've got all the. All these other countries with ICBMs. They're going to be like, well, you did it. All right, so now that's just the reality of war. China, okay, Tactical nuke. We're going to nuke Taiwan if you don't, you know, peacefully reunify. I'm not saying they would do that. They probably fool foolish to do so, but maybe they would be within their rights. Now. There's no rights.
- [33:42]
Ryan Grim
Everything is called wind.
- [33:44]
Krystal Ball
Yes, right, of course. Radioactive fallout.
- [33:46]
Ryan Grim
Strait of Hormuz, as people love to say. It's not very wide. You're going to put a nuke right there. It's terrible if the wind is blowing west.
- [33:53]
Krystal Ball
It really is. And just to see it, you know, it's not just about crass. It's like, this is real. There's 93 million people's lives who are at stake. And who even knows about what this will mean and who are offering a fine deal?
- [34:06]
Ryan Grim
Like, the deal's fine.
- [34:07]
Krystal Ball
I know. That's the craziest part is, guys, take the deal. The deal. The deal before would have been better. It would have been better than the Iran deal. The deal now is better than whatever the hell this is. Can you imagine what is if you collapse a civilization of 93 million? The refuge. Syria. How many people live in Syria? Priyasad?
- [34:25]
Ryan Grim
Or about 20 or 30.
- [34:27]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. Nothing, right? A third.
- [34:29]
Ryan Grim
Something like that.
- [34:30]
Producer Griffin
That.
- [34:30]
Krystal Ball
And it caused the worst refugee crisis in modern history. Just destabilized all of Europe, changed the country of Turkey forever. Demographically, Syria alone, I mean, God. Oh, you know, think about what happened to that. Yeah, isis. I mean, all of the fall, even Iraq. Iraq was nothing compared to this. This, really.
- [34:49]
Ryan Grim
And if you have a famine in Africa.
- [34:50]
Krystal Ball
Oh, man. Yeah. Libya. The gateway. All right, well, it looks like. Well, at the very least, we'll be here covering it with all of you. Okay, let's move on to Car Island.
- [35:02]
Producer Griffin
When your schedule sounds like this. Are you kidding me? An oil change is the last thing you have time for. So drive into Take Five and let our techs change your oil, check your tires, top off your fluids, and have you back on the road, pit stop fast, all while you stay in your car. No putting your entire schedule on hold. No upsells, no problem. So you can get back to your to do list or not. Find your nearest shop@take5.com. Take 5. The Stay in youn Car. 10 Minute Oil Change.
- [35:32]
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- [36:33]
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- [37:05]
Krystal Ball
some of the breaking news as of this morning. Let's put it up here on the screen. The US Military is conducting strikes on military targets on Kharg Island. So all of the information that we have now so far, right Ryan, is that these strikes on Kharg island are so called on military targets. As in not on the oil landing platforms, not on any of the places,
- [37:27]
Ryan Grim
the little military stations, the docks, right?
- [37:29]
Krystal Ball
There's small military stations. Now remember we were told previously that actually we had already wiped out the military targets all over Carg Island. So it does make you question why do you have to do it again? But there's a lot of things that you can see into this. It could be a precipitation of a ground operation to take Kharg. I don't think that that will happen, but it also could Just be. Could be one to faint. Exactly. Before some sort of ground operation elsewhere in the country. It could also be a demonstration obviously of US power or intelligence.
- [37:58]
Ryan Grim
Not.
- [37:58]
Krystal Ball
I think we've already done that. But bigger picture, it could also just be a retaliation for what happened yesterday, which again, the whole Western press is silent on. So I'm going to give you the floor to tell us about what happened in Saudi Arabia because these seem massively important, these strikes that happen. People are totally silent. The Saudis are claiming basically. What are they saying? They're like, oh, it was just debris from thawed missiles. The videos coming out with huge fires seem to indicate much bigger percentage of their oil is offline than they're indicating. So go ahead.
- [38:33]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, we put up an A11. So there's the Jubail industrial city in Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia. But there's a major industrial hub there partly owned by Sabic, which is a Saudi owned company. And it's been hit and it is on fire. And it is extraordinarily central to Saudi Arabia's economy. And Saudi Arabia's economy is extraordinarily central to the Western economy and to the global economy as drops are right here. Al Jabail is one of the world's largest industrial cities and a core pillar of Saudi Arabia's petrochemical economy. You add this to Iran's petrochemical industry getting hit yesterday. So this is a retaliation for Israel and the US hitting Iran's petrochemical production facilities. I've seen estimates as high as 20% of the petrochemical production in the world. And so we're talking about everything. So you have plastic pipes that connect the piping of civilization. That's where these are made. Everything in a hospital pretty much. And what am I doing? I don't need to explain to you how important plastic is. And these polymers are too, the underpinning of the entire economy. Somebody needs to explain it perhaps to Trump. I think everybody watching this basically understands, just look around you, the entire underpinnings of our civilization as it exists run through these production facilities. And you say, oh well, 20%, that's not so much. We still got the other 80%. That's not exactly how it works.
- [40:25]
Krystal Ball
That's not how it works.
- [40:26]
Ryan Grim
Everything seizes up, up. You've got you as a business, export, import, business, you've got your supply lines. All of a sudden you no longer have those. You then collapse. You were a node. You don't exist on an island either. You at your business was a node for other Businesses that. That collapses. And so you don't just get the kind of violent combustion of the petrochemical industry. You get the slow collapse of bankruptcies of companies throughout the world. And then like, okay, well, we need financing to get this going again. Well, who do we go to? Whenever you need financing, we go to the Gulf. And the Gulf says, wait a minute. And I reported this on Sunday, wait a minute. We don't actually have the money. We're reviewing all of our deals. So the financing that we were able to make before, we cannot make now. If you want to pay us a much higher premium, obviously we still have some money. They're extraordinarily wealthy. They've got sovereign wealth funds worth trillions of dollars or whatever. Hundreds of billions at least. But is it trillions? I think it actually is trillions. But instead of 3, 4%, we're going to need 8, 9%. And instead of this being silent partners, we're gonna be active partners here. So that's the petrochemical industry in the refining process. We can put up a 12. So in the UAE, you have. So finally. So this is coming from Sentinel 2. The US is doing its absolute best to make sure that satellite imagery is not circulating to Americans to see what's happening. So Adnoc is one of the UAE's main kind of oil companies. This one here is the Assab oil field. So this is an image that our team took before and after April 5th. Before. On the screen here, it's on the right, that's the before. That's what a refinery. That's what you want it to look like. On the left there, that's what it looks like now. That's what you don't want it to look like.
- [42:41]
Krystal Ball
Yeah,
- [42:45]
Ryan Grim
that's not the only one that was hit in the uae. And so Kuwait is getting absolutely blasted refineries. And now for the United States and Israel to respond by hitting Carg island and also, what's it called, Parse oil
- [43:07]
Krystal Ball
field, which Israel did yesterday.
- [43:10]
Ryan Grim
Right. So Iran is now saying the restraints are off. So what we just showed you is damage done to the Gulf economy with the restraints on. Yes, now they're saying the restraints are coming off.
- [43:26]
Krystal Ball
Well, let's get into that. So the IRGC announced earlier today that after the strikes on Carg island that all of the strikes, all of their prior restraint and red lines on energy infrastructure will be put away. There's also this element, guys, I sent it, and let's put it in post, is that Israeli media is reporting that attacks on Iranian railway tracks appear to have isolated Tehran from the rest of the country. A step quote that will help protesters take to the streets if needed. Some 10 different railway sections have been struck. Now, you could read that the way you want it to. You could also read it as, now we can starve the entire population of the capital city because no infrastructure, food or anything can get on its way. And if we bomb all of the bridges and the power plants, then we're going to have mass chaos and no way for any of those people to get out. So you choose the way that you would want to read that one. I think I'll probably read it in the latter, but you can see very clearly. Israel actually issued yesterday, ironically, a message to the people of Iran. They said, please stay off of the railway tracks. Of course, Iran has no Internet and hasn't had Internet for a month. And so. Oh, and the message I think was put out. Well, at least one part of it was in English. So, okay, was it intended for the Iranian people or was it intended for the Western media to say, oh, wow, thank you so much for putting that out there? The intent, nonetheless, less is the same. They're disguising it either under regime change and or regime collapse. Regime collapse is what their modal outcome is, what they would like to see in this. And so, I mean, all you can say from these strikes so far is this is a preview of where things are going. It can get a hell of a lot worse. As Trump has said, civilization will die tonight. But the retaliation from Iran, these are people who have dug missile strike missile cities out after they've been bombed. They've proven extraordinarily resilient. They studied the United States. They've been able to shot down an F15, they clipped an F35. They shot down two different A10s. They have struck refueling tankers via their proxies. The Houthis are sitting there. Who knows if they're going to enter the war after what happens tonight, if it does happen, what that will all look like. And the IRGC is taking, saying that we're going to take off all of the guardrails and if we do wipe out their power plants and the power plants and the desalination. And then you have the Qatari, I believe, the prime minister this morning or the president, whatever the their ruler saying this morning we are at the tipping point for the region, entire region from spinning out of control. So the signs are all there, you can all see it. And what we saw may be extremely tame from what we will see sometime in the future. I also think it might be worth noting. Why don't you talk while I look at what's going on with the oil markets as a result.
- [46:12]
Ryan Grim
And so the, the final thing to think about is where we are in this process. So we talked at the very top of the block that the US Keeps pushing for a temporary cease fire. And that appears to be because the US and Israel are both exhausted because they are not built for this type of what is now becoming long term. They're built for this shock and awe. Two or three days. One aircraft carrier group is already offline. The Ford had to depart the entire battle space. We have lost, you know, significant numbers, you know, amounts of equipment on the ground. We have fired off extraordinary amounts of our, both defensive and offensive munitions. And in general, aircraft being deployed at this pace require maintenance. You can't just constantly run these things. And so the US is hoping for some kind of stop down where they can kind of, you know, you got to change oil, got to change the tires, you got to get these things up and going again. We are reaching the actual physical limits of American capacity. And so that could have something to do with, with why the President is ratcheting Things up to 11 at this point because we can't actually go on forever like this. And as long as Iran can maintain kind of quote unquote control of the strait, which means as long as they have a drone somewhere in Iran that is capable of reaching that area, ships can't get the insurance to go through like that. That one $20,000 drone, one theoretical potential $20,000 drone is all we're talking about. And Iran has not yet used, has used a few of its hypersonic, most sophisticated ballistic missiles, but has held those back. So at the exact same time that the Israelis and the Americans are depleted, Iranians, yes, are smashed into oblivion, but still have countless numbers of hypersonic missiles that have even more sophisticated targeting capacity than the ones they've been using to date. And if you push this war beyond where we are now and they're saying that they're lifting the restraints and you also have the entire backbone of the economy in this small area. I don't think people have like absorbed.
- [48:59]
Krystal Ball
I agree where this goes, it's very Covidian in that sense.
- [49:03]
Ryan Grim
And think about who cares more like the. I think it's the Greeks who say a wet man's not afraid of the rain. Iran has been getting smashed by sanctions for decades and so you can make them more miserable. They already have have a Currency that's worthless. An economy that is grounded to dust. So, yeah, you can make them a
- [49:23]
Krystal Ball
little bit worse and you can bomb
- [49:24]
Ryan Grim
them and you can keep bombing them. The west doing okay? Or was or is today, like right now, as we sit here today still. Okay, the hammer's coming, it's been swung. It hasn't hit the nail yet, but we have a lot farther to fall. And so. So there's that asymmetric gap as well.
- [49:46]
Krystal Ball
Right. And what level of pain do you want to suffer for what?
- [49:50]
Ryan Grim
Yeah.
- [49:50]
Krystal Ball
And for what reason exactly? It's not like we're fighting, you know, World War II or something worthwhile. It's something completely a war of choice. It's unpopular. It's not what anybody wanted, what they voted based on. And it will go down as I genuinely. Look, I never thought I would see an Iraq event again. If we go through with this, it will be worse. I actually am convinced this will be worse. And Professor Pape even said like, this could be worse than Vietnam. Remember he said that to you? Vietnam? He's like, yeah, it was a tiny little country with no control over 20% of the world's oil. Now we've created an intolerable geopolitical situation for everybody involved, from the Iranians to the US to the Gulf, which just means more and more and more full blown total war. That's where everything is in.
- [50:31]
Donald Trump (quoted)
Yeah.
- [50:31]
Ryan Grim
And Vietnam broke the back of the American economy. It brought in stagflation, it broke the New Deal coalition apart. Iraq allowed China to spend 20 years investing in its own kind of development while we burned trillions of dollars doing war. And now we're going to I just finish ourselves off with this one.
- [50:57]
Krystal Ball
Very possible. Yeah. All right, let's move on.
- [51:01]
Producer Griffin
When your schedule sounds like this. Are you kidding me? An oil change is the last thing you have time for. So drive into Take five and let our techs change your oil. Check your tires, top off your fluids and have you back on the road pit stop fast. All while you stay in your car. No putting your entire schedule on hold. No upsells, no problem. So you can get back to your to do list or not. Find your nearest shop@take5.com Take 5, the stay in your car 10 minute oil change.
- [51:31]
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- [52:32]
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- [53:03]
Producer Griffin
all
- [53:03]
Krystal Ball
right, we were supposed to have Professor John Mearsheimer. We had a bit of a scheduling snafu, but we will get him back on the show very soon, we promise. Why don't we talk about some of the things that we were going to talk about with Professor Mearsheimer, and that is Trump effectively saying there are no allies but the Gulf country and Israel. B1 let's take a listen.
- [53:22]
Donald Trump (quoted)
And it's not just NATO. You know who else didn't help us? South Korea didn't help us. You know who else didn't help us? Us. Australia didn't help us. You know who else didn't help us? Japan. We've got 50,000 soldiers in Japan to protect them from North Korea. We have 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to protect us from Kim Jong Un, who I get along with very well, as you know. Do you notice he said very nice things about me? He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person. Okay, so don't tell me about your stuff. Joe Biden. He said he's a mentally retarded person. He was so nasty to Joe Biden it was terrible. But to me, he likes Trump. And you notice how nice things are with North Korea. It's very nice.
- [54:08]
Krystal Ball
Who didn't help us? South Korea, Japan, Australia. Earlier in that he also was like, but you know, the Gulf, they've been tremendous. I'm like, yeah, they're tremendous because they're getting hit right now. Otherwise they could care less. I think about all of it. And then of course, he name checks Israel. Let's think about how inverted this is. Like, he calls out NATO. And again, look, no NATO defender. If anything good comes from the war,
- [54:32]
Ryan Grim
maybe he's turned soccer into a NATO sympathizer.
- [54:35]
Krystal Ball
No, no, not a NATO sympathizer because people confuse it, as I've said, with NATO. The problem with NATO is that we have all these countries which are completely irrelevant to the US in NATO. However, the original idea was not wrong. Well, yeah, Germany, the uk, France might be it for me, but you know, maybe a few others can, can add you, Estonia. No, you could. Oh, hell no. Yeah, you can. You can petition from, from that point forward as to who you, who else do you think should be from NATO? But that's my starting point. Okay, so let's take those three countries. Japan, South Korea. So Japan, number three economy in the entire world, South Korea, probably In the top 20 economies, top trading partner of the United States. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops who were there fought side by side in the Korean War. South Korean fought side by side with America and Vietnam. Now, we shouldn't be there, but when the call came, they answered the call. They fought side by side with American troops. By the way, South Korea creates, has some of the best military technology and has sold much of it to the Gulf and replaced much of the US Ammunition stocks at our request, by the way, even though they had to strip their own stockpile after we asked them to do so. When we gave it all to Ukraine, Japan, 90% of their oil comes through the Straits of Hormuz. As I said yesterday, I read the Korean, Japanese, Singaporean and Chinese press every single day, especially since this conflict happened. Every day when I read their press, they are full blown panic mode. That is what we have done to these people. And we're scolding them for not using their military. The Koreans are like dispatching people to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan with their hands out, being like, we need oil now, right now. The Japanese, I mean, they're on a full blown crisis. Their prime minister this morning was like, I will not rule out having to tell people in the future to ration like, she's like, I can't even tell people that. That's not.
- [56:25]
Ryan Grim
They're annoying.
- [56:26]
Krystal Ball
And yeah, it's probably going to. I mean, the 90% of their oil, what are they supposed to do? And if we go through with this power plant, the irgc, by the way, apologize for the fact this is all breaking literally as we're talking. They just said, in response to Trump's civilization truth, they said if that happens, Saudi Arabia and the entire region will then plunge into complete darkness. So they have the coordinates. So what will happen? That means 20% of the world's oil is not just choked in the straight. It's cut.
- [56:57]
Ryan Grim
Right?
- [56:57]
Krystal Ball
As in, there's no refinery being operated. There's no, you know, the. I mean, I mean, if you take a well down, as I understand it now, having spoken to some of these oil people, is the worst thing in the world is to shut down a refinery. It takes. You would actually refine. You would prefer to refine at 10%, at 10% capacity, rather than zero, because zero back to 10 apparently takes forever. And then zero to 100 is like a whole thing. Again, I don't understand the machinery of it all, but that's what I've been told by these oil experts. Well, that's Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar. Already 17% of Qatar's natural gas is offline. This could be 100%. I mean, that is 40% of LNG in the whole world. Right. So that is blackouts everywhere. You talk a lot about Pakistan. 100% of Pakistani LNG comes from Qatar. 100%, which is why they're so desperate to have a peace deal. This is why. So there will be, I mean, not just rolling blackouts. Blackout forever for months, potentially on end. So, yeah, to inflict this level. Because we just talked about the human damage of Iran, to inflict this level of damage on the top trading partners of the whole United States of America. You are fundamentally flipping them the burr and basically saying, I'm with Israel and with the Gulf over you, when the combined trade of those places I just listed is probably 1.5 trillion with Israel and the GCC. I don't even think Ike would try out 155 billion. It's so crazy.
- [58:35]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. And the problem is that Saudi Arabia has been doing okay up until now
- [58:42]
Krystal Ball
because of the problem and the Red Sea.
- [58:44]
Ryan Grim
Exactly. They were incentivized to not find this to be that awful for them. And I did a story on Sunday over at Dropsite about how a lot of the Gulf financing is now being reconsidered as a result of the deprecation of the Gulf finances that is coming from the collapse of their physical infrastructure and their ability to produce oil, sell money, get capital, which then turns into the financing of the entire Western, Western world. But as one of these top officials, Gulf officials told me Saudi Arabia people think that they're getting killed, but actually, yes, they can't export as much through the Strait of Hormuz and their ability to export is slightly down. They were able to move a lot of things, as you were saying, out other directions. And the fact that they're now getting double or triple what they were getting before makes up for the difference. And they're seeing their competitors getting smashed as well. So from a very cynical perspective, it's like this is actually not so bad for us. Like we can manage this. If their power plants get hit and their petrochemical plant just got hit, their industrial base just got hit. If Iran retaliates for being plunged into darkness by plunging Saudi Arabia, the UAE in Qatar into darkness, like you said, that sets them back. Right now they're set back two or three years. Bunch of investment, you rebuild things.
- [60:14]
Krystal Ball
Billions and billions.
- [60:15]
Ryan Grim
But it's doable. But it's doable. You get back online, it'd be a lot of suffering for several years. Higher prices that probably never come down totally. But you can bring back things to some semblance of what they were like on February 27th before Trump and Israel launched, launched this war. You plunge all of these countries into darkness. Now you're talking about a decade, a lost economic decade. Yeah.
- [60:39]
Krystal Ball
And let me read you what the Iranians. This is senior Iranian source director. Again, this is all breaking because they're responding live. If the situation gets out of control, Iran's allies will close the Bab Al Mandeb Strait, which is the Houthis closing down the Red Sea, and then it's over. There's no more oil, period. There is no more oil. Right, Because Saudi's coming out of the. Saudi's backup plan is now the backup plan is over. You will almost certainly see suicide drones that try to hit the pipeline. They already were able to hit the Yanbu terminal. They will try to destroy Also, by the way, I just saw a report Yanbu was down significantly in terms of the amount of oil they were even able to export just last week compared to the week before. So clearly there's something going on that they weren't telling us. But that trickle of oil is really keeping to the extent that the oil Market is still afloat. That is one of the main reasons that, that it is. And they say specifically they will close the strait or they will close Baba Mandab if the situation continues, there are no negotiations with the Americans, we will strike energy plants in response to these attacks and the entire region will then reciprocally be plunged into darkness, including Saudi Arabia. All of this I think really backs up Professor Robert Pape's New York Times op ed, which coincidentally they stole from his Breaking Point segment. Love it. Let's put it up. Yeah, I guess we'll take it. But I mean there's no attribution, which is kind of annoying, but it's okay. So they say the war is turning Iran into a major world power from
- [61:59]
Ryan Grim
professor, you heard it here first.
- [62:01]
Krystal Ball
You heard it literally here first. Don't forget it. They almost certainly stole it from my Twitter feed after I tweeted out the clip of Yur and Emily's fantastic interview with him. And look, I mean, I think this is a very obvious. The leverage points that we've now seen Iran be able to hit that are very tactical, precise, but important for the strategic picture of their ability to exact pain. And with one fifth of the world's supply moving through this strait and then potentially also being able to shut down Saudi Arabia, the Bab Al Mendeb in the Red Sea, those two things really would, I mean, I don't even know is there a price of oil? And at that point the price doesn't reflect reality. Right. If the price is 400 a barrel, that's basically only the US and the richest countries in the world will have it. For everybody else, like they can't afford it. There'll just be no oil. And even for us, like we may be able to, we may be willing to pay X amount for oil. Luckily we're okay, we're a net exporter. But even then, as I understand it, refinery capacity and all that gets very complicated. Even if we were to do some sort of an export ban, it would probably lead to an eventual shortage of some kind. Like there's a full blown shortage that could happen. Or diesel or jet fuel, like all of these types of refined products, which fundamentally that's why we care about oil in the first place. So just looking at all of this happening live and seeing, look, this will have a major impact on us, as I said, but we're not gonna starve, we're gonna be okay. But for the rest of the world, like Japan, South Korea, it might actually be full blown, like rationing. They might have to say, nobody can drive. They might have to do. I mean, what's the worst case? Rolling blackout. Like, they were like, look, between, you know, in the hot part of the day, no ac. I've lived through that. When I went to India as a kid, we had periods during the day where they're like, look, from three to nine, no current. It's just, that's how people live. There's no power. Well, that really could be the reality even in very developed countries. And then total blackout in the rest. So just watching his, you know, his statement and then seeing also the reaction where the Japanese and the Australians. I saw the Australian Prime Minister, he's like, look, we just want peace. We had nothing to do with this. But now it's a disaster for us. And the Japanese, I mean, literally, this is a full blown crisis. Koreans, it's a crisis. Of course, for the Europeans, it's a crisis too. It's a crisis, you know, for almost every single major US ally, which is not named Israel, is very unhappy about this. And then you have the UK denying our base rights. I mean, you can't go back from that. Like, that fractures the alliances as we know it.
- [64:37]
Ryan Grim
And the question is, who is telling Trump this? Because as we talked about in the first block there, you've been hearing Trump say a lot of completely delusional things, one of them being the Iranians. We have signal intercepts. I don't think he made this up. So Trump said we have signal intercepts of Iranians begging us to bomb them. So the reason I don't think he made it up is because he's using the word signal intercepts. I think somebody in his orbit told him that.
- [65:09]
Krystal Ball
Oh, of course.
- [65:10]
Ryan Grim
Now, I think it's a fabricated thing. I don't think they have actual telephone communications where just two regular Iranians are talking to each other and they're saying, if America's listening, please keep bombing us. I don't think that's real. What I do think is real is somebody told Trump that. Setting that aside, what are, what are Dan Cain, Pete Hegseth in particular telling Trump about how this war is going? What is Besant telling him about what the effect is on the economy, where. What are J.D. vance, Tulsi Gabbard, I don't think can even, like get into the White House anymore.
- [65:45]
Krystal Ball
She's tweeting Aloha from Hawaii doing nothing. What a joke.
- [65:49]
Ryan Grim
Just sitting around waiting to get fired at this point.
- [65:51]
Krystal Ball
What a joke of a person. Can we say that?
- [65:53]
Ryan Grim
Yes.
- [65:54]
Krystal Ball
All these people, you're dear.
- [65:55]
Ryan Grim
What are you doing?
- [65:56]
Krystal Ball
You disgust me.
- [65:58]
Ryan Grim
Your whole point, your whole point in compromising all of your integrity is that you're gonna be in the room at critical moments and your voice is gonna make a difference. That's the argument for why you do this. And if you can't, then you quit.
- [66:14]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, it's joke, Kent. Joe can to his credit. Yeah, look, he can hate the guy and all that. I made a mistake.
- [66:22]
Ryan Grim
And he talk about the hermeneutic seal around Trump, that he's not getting the information that we all have because he's not getting it from cable news. They're not being honest about what's going on here. He talks to a lot of people. So if you're one of these people that talks to Trump all the time, Come on, guys, somebody tell. Because clearly Hegseth and Kaine Rubio and these rest are afraid of telling Trump the truth. To me, they should be more afraid of what the political implications are gonna be for them. I mean, they should be more afraid of what they're doing to the world. But I think we've dispatched with the idea that they care about that. But hey, Rubio, Hegseth like Vance, too. How do you think your future looks in a world that is in global depression because this unfolded?
- [67:25]
Krystal Ball
Can we not even talk about that? That's so far beyond that. I don't give a fine fuck about their future.
- [67:31]
Ryan Grim
Then what motivates them? Something has to motivate them to shake them out of this.
- [67:35]
Krystal Ball
I don't know. Look, you know, I'm a cynical person, Ryan. We've talked about it many times. Even this, I mean, like, this is sick. This is. The world is on a precipice of disaster, potential nuclear weapons use. Some of these fuckers are sitting in their offices thinking about running for office. Oh, you think you're running for office after this, I'm going to tell you this. I'm going to do whatever the I can to make sure you don't get a single inch closer to power. Now, I'm nobody. All right? But maybe enough people together will be some.
- [68:02]
Ryan Grim
The entire world agrees with you and is going to roll with you. Yes.
- [68:06]
Krystal Ball
Tulsi, J.D. all these other people. Yeah.
- [68:11]
Ryan Grim
All right, you got. You got 12 hours, guys. Like 10. You got 10 hours. Like, get it together.
- [68:16]
Krystal Ball
You at this point. All right, anyway, let's move on.
- [68:18]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, it's true, but still. Don't dial. Dial it back. Come on. Come on, guys. Come on.
- [68:25]
Krystal Ball
Let's move on.
- [68:31]
Donald Trump (quoted)
Foreign.
- [68:42]
Producer Griffin
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Krystal Ball
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