5/12/25: Trump Folds On China Trade War, Trump Bypasses Israel In Hamas Talks, Qatar Shocking Plane Bribe To Trump

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar: May 12, 2025 Episode Summary

Episode Title: Trump Folds On China Trade War, Trump Bypasses Israel In Hamas Talks, Qatar Shocking Plane Bribe To Trump
Hosts: Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti
Release Date: May 12, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti delve into significant geopolitical developments involving the Trump administration. The discussion centers around the latest moves in the China trade war, Trump's unprecedented negotiations with Hamas, and allegations of corruption involving Qatar.

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2. Trump Administration's Trade War with China

Temporary Tariff Suspension:

The episode begins with a detailed analysis of the Trump administration's recent decision to temporarily reduce tariffs imposed on China. Krystal Ball outlines the specifics:

• US Tariffs on China: Reduced from 145% to 30%.
• China's Tariffs on US Imports: Decreased from 125% to 10%.
• Duration: The suspension is set for 90 days.

Krystal highlights a press conference by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen (09:53) where he stated, "We concluded that we have a shared interest," indicating a mutual desire to de-escalate the trade tensions.

Hosts' Analysis:

Sagar Enjeti interprets this move as a potential capitulation by the Trump administration, attributing it to:

• Market Pressures: Concerns over the bond and stock markets pushed the administration to soften its stance.
• China's Resilience: China's ability to endure the trade war longer than expected forced the US to reconsider.

Krystal adds, "Underlying this announcement is a realization that the initial aggressive tariff strategy was unsustainable," emphasizing the high level of uncertainty that still looms over the trade relations.

Notable Quotes:

• Trump Administration Official (07:10): "We have put up tariffs to push back on that. So it will be a matter of what is the equilibrium level on tariffs..."
• Krystal Ball (09:53): "This is really being interpreted as, I mean, I think you have to call it effectively a capitulation on the part of the Trump administration."

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3. Middle East Developments: Trump's Negotiations with Hamas

Release of American Hostage:

A major highlight of the episode is the discussion surrounding President Trump's direct negotiations with Hamas, leading to the release of Adan Alexander, an American-Israeli citizen held hostage since October 2023. Krystal Ball reads Trump's announcement from Truth Social (34:17):

"I'm happy to announce that Eden Alexander... is coming home to his family. This was a step taken in good faith..."

Guest Insight: Jeremy Scahill

Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Dropsite News, joins the conversation to provide context:

• Historical Context: This is the first direct deal between the US and Hamas without Israeli mediation.
• Hamas' Perspective: Hamas views the release as a goodwill gesture but remains steadfast in their demands for a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal.
• Future Implications: Scahill warns of ongoing tensions and the possibility of renewed conflicts despite these negotiations.

Notable Quotes:

• Jeremy Scahill (33:28): "This is a major step away from Biden-era policy... the U.S. is beginning to engage in direct talks with Hamas."
• Sagar Enjeti (37:24): "Does this signal maybe the next chapter in the United States relationship with Israel?"

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4. Corruption Allegations: Qatar's Luxury Plane Gift

The "Flying Palace":

A significant portion of the episode addresses allegations that Qatar is gifting a luxury Boeing 747, dubbed the "Flying Palace," to the Trump administration as a form of bribery. Saagar Enjeti presents evidence (54:49):

• Details of the Gift: A $400 million Boeing 747 intended to replace the aging Air Force One fleet.
• Legal Loophole: To circumvent the Emoluments Clause, the gift is being directed to the Department of Defense and subsequently to Trudeau’s presidential library, distancing it from direct personal benefit to Trump.

Hosts' Discussion:

Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti critique the blatant nature of the gift, highlighting potential conflicts of interest:

• Historical Context: References to previous instances of corruption in Trump's first administration, such as lobbying efforts by Jared Kushner’s father.
• Ethical Concerns: The duo emphasizes that while the gift might be technically legal, it raises severe ethical questions and undermines trust in the presidency.

Notable Quotes:

• Krystal Ball (57:48): "It will only ever benefit him. It's not like whatever the next president... is going to benefit from it. It's just going to be Trump."
• Sagar Enjeti (59:58): "Trump is an open store ready for more business... Qatar is recognizing that it's increasingly an influential player."

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5. Implications and Conclusions

Economic and Political Fallout:

The hosts discuss the broader implications of these developments:

• Trade War Uncertainty: The temporary pause in tariffs leaves significant uncertainty for small businesses and the global market.
• Middle East Stability: While direct negotiations with Hamas could lead to a ceasefire, there's skepticism about the sustainability of such agreements given ongoing regional tensions.
• Corruption Risks: The Qatar plane gift exemplifies the escalating corruption within the Trump administration, potentially setting dangerous precedents for future presidencies.

Future Outlook:

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti express concern over the long-term damage to US credibility and governance norms:

• Need for Reforms: They advocate for stricter legislation to prevent such conflicts of interest and restore ethical standards in governance.
• Public Awareness: Emphasizing the importance of public scrutiny and accountability to combat systemic corruption.

Notable Quotes:

• Krystal Ball (72:02): "The ideal here is that you want them to be representing the interests of the country, not the interests of their own bank account."
• Sagar Enjeti (70:55): "We just have no idea... whether it's just a temporary situation or something that will have lasting impacts."

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Conclusion

This episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar provides a comprehensive analysis of the Trump administration's recent geopolitical maneuvers. From a temporary easing of the trade war with China to unprecedented direct negotiations with Hamas and allegations of international corruption involving Qatar, the hosts dissect the implications for both domestic and international landscapes. The discussion underscores the enduring challenges of maintaining ethical governance and the profound impact of presidential actions on global stability.

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Notable Timestamped Quotes:

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen (09:53): "Neither side wanted a decoupling..."
• Trump Administration Official (07:10): "We have put up tariffs to push back on that..."
• Jeremy Scahill (33:28): "This is a major step away from Biden-era policy..."
• Krystal Ball (57:48): "It will only ever benefit him..."
• Sagar Enjeti (59:58): "Trump is an open store ready for more business..."

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Note: The above summary excludes advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content sections as per the request.

Transcript

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

[Krystal Ball]

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

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left.

[Podcast Announcer]

And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Krystal Ball]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad, free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Sagar Enjeti]

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

[Krystal Ball]

Good morning everybody. Happy Monday. Welcome to Breaking points. Great to see you, Emily.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm back. I'm so sorry to the haters.

[Krystal Ball]

Three lady shows in a row.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's been a while.

[Krystal Ball]

See if the audience can handle it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We did say that Ryan is going to have to compensate with extra masculinity this week.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. So he's mentally preparing for that. Tomorrow we have. Should I reveal the special celebrity guest host?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Absolutely.

[Krystal Ball]

So Tim Miller of the Bulwark. So we can talk about his evolution, which I'm curious to hear him talk about, and get his, of course, opinion on news of the day. And he and I may have some disagreements about where the Democratic Party should head from here, so it should be fun. I'm looking forward to it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Cause he's really a convert. He's not just a never Trump Republican. He's actually, like, had an ideological transition, really, to the left, at least the center left, not the left left. So he has a fascinating story. This is really exciting. He's also fun and he's got a great sense of humor.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. So I don't know him at all. So I'm looking forward to, you know, having a dialogue with him and see where that goes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

A dialogue. Okay, tune in tomorrow for dialogue.

[Krystal Ball]

Dialogue. That's what everybody. That's why we put in the headline, Crystal Dialogues with Tim Miller. That'll be a hot ticket for that one.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Listen, I would still click. I would still click.

[Krystal Ball]

Thanks, Em. Appreciate that. You and my mom. Thank you. Okay, there is a lot of breaking news this morning. We have, I don't think you can call it a China deal, but a major step back from the tariff regime. Some may call it complete capitulation, but we can. We can talk through the details of what we know after those meetings. We've got big news coming out of the Middle east as President Trump heads the region this week. Confirmation that we are now in direct talks with Hamas and a US American citizen hostage is going to be released as sort of like a, you know, attempt by Hamas. Sign of good faith, Something of that nature. So Jeremy Scala is gonna join us to break down all of that. He has some new reporting, so. Always great to talk to him.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, no, I mean, he has fresh reporting. So we are gonna get updates straight from Jeremy in just a bit. So make sure to stay tuned for that.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. We also have Stephen Miller floating the suspension of habeas corpus. So that seems pretty significant. We have President Trump out with a big truth social about prescription drug prices.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is big. This is big. We'll see what happens.

[Krystal Ball]

Maybe I mean, he did, we can talk about. He did the same thing basically, in the first term.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's just an executive order blocked it. Y.

[Krystal Ball]

So it may not be something you can do by executive order.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It likely is not, although I think Roe kind of has legislation on that front. So there might be something they could do through Congress if Trump has the will and if Congressional Republicans want to get on board.

[Krystal Ball]

And that is a big giant if there. In addition, we have a new Kanye west song. I regret to inform you it is everything you would expect it to be at this point in his life and career. And I recorded yesterday an interview with the mayor of Newark. He is the one who was arrested outside of that ICE facility, charged with trespassing. He, of course, denies the charges. Trump administration is now threatening the three Democratic members of Congress who were there at that ICE facility as well with, you know, threatening them with arrest and claiming that they assaulted ICE agents who were there, federal agents who were there. So in any case, I asked him all the questions about that, his timeline, what his experience of what went down there was as well. And we had some video, too, that we could take a look at. And then after the show for our premium subscribers, Emily and I are going to be doing that AMA live. So if you want to participate in that. BreakingPoints.com thank, thank you so much to everybody who has been signing up and supporting the show, making that Friday show happen, which I personally really enjoy doing.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So much fun.

[Krystal Ball]

I think it's really fun.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So much fun. Also, you and Kyle last week just taking the second half and it was like cathartic, I think, for everyone.

[Krystal Ball]

Was it?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, you know, it's fun.

[Krystal Ball]

Like, the opinions are divided on that, but yeah, no, I enjoyed it. Kyle enjoyed it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Of course. I mean, it would be bad if you didn't. That was the worst.

[Krystal Ball]

That would be a bad sign. So, in any case, thank you for supporting us and making that happen. And thank you guys. Also to those of you who are just liking sharing, subscribing, all of that really makes a big difference as well. So with that, let's go ahead and get into what we know about these China talks. All right, guys, we have some huge news with regard to the Trump administration's trade war vis a vis China in particular, where negotiators met over the weekend in particular. The specifics as we know them are there's going to be a 90 day pause on the full 145% tariffs that have been levied against China. China is going to drop their tariff rate for us down to 10%. We are going to drop our tariff rate on China down to 30%. Trump administration officials were out making the case for this temporary pause and deal. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that, Joe.

[Trump Administration Official]

This is going to go where the President wants it to go. I was in touch with him over the weekend and he wants free trade, free and fair trade. We've had free trade and as you said, that has not worked for the American people. There's something called the China shock which has gutted our manufacturing sector. And China has a different form of government for us. They have a different economic model where they subsidize labor, they subsidize capital goods and they have exported that to us and the rest of the world. We have put up tariffs to push back on that. So it will be a matter of what is the equilibrium level on tariffs and also getting China to open their markets for American companies because China actually has a low tariff regime. But it is the non tariff trade barriers that can be the most difficult to overcome. So we will be focusing on the non tariff trade barriers and the subsidies and the idea that China can become more open to American business and the things that are sold into the US can not have the same level of subsidy. And no one wants to do a generalized decoupling, but we are going to do a strategic decoupling because we realized during COVID that efficient supply chains were not secure supply chains. So with steel, with semiconductors, with medicines, with a couple of other strategic categories, we are going to have to become self reliant again.

[Krystal Ball]

So Emily, he's calling this a strategic decoupling. Let's go ahead and put New York Times up on the screen. We've got a great chart here showing the levels. First you had 10%, then you had 20%, then you had 54%, then you had 104%, then you have 145%. I'm just going to read a little bit of this article as well so you can hear the specifics as we know them at this point. The US And China said Monday they reached an agreement to temporarily reduce the punishing tariffs they've imposed on each other while they try to defuse the trade war to threatening the world's two largest economies. In a joint statement, the country said they would suspend their respective tariffs for 90 days and continue negotiations they started this weekend. Under the agreement, the US would reduce the tariff on Chinese imports to 30% from its current 145% while China would lower its import duty on American goods to 10% from 125%. We concluded that we have a shared interest, said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen at a news conference in Geneva. The consensus from both delegations is that neither side wanted a decoupling, he said.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Said.

[Krystal Ball]

So this is really being interpreted as, I mean, I think you have to call it effectively a capitulation on the part of the Trump administration. And some of the numbers, Emily, that came in that I think have to impact them is number one, concern over the bond market, concern over the stock market and how dour things were looking there. But in addition, China seemed much more able to withstand this extraordinary trade war than perhaps the Trump administration anticipated. We covered mentioned last week, and numbers just came in that actually showed Chinese exports rising even as these punishing tariffs had been levied against them. So that indicated that they were kind of in it for the long haul. They took some initial retaliatory actions, including, you know, one of the things they, they instituted export controls on these rare earth minerals that are really critical. I'm seeing some indications on Twitter, but I don't have it confirmed yet that those are actually going to stay in place. But they got to a certain point where they said, basically, we're not going to do anything else and you're going to have to come to us when you're ready, when you're ready to act responsibly here. And I think the Trump administration realized between the stock market, the bond market, and also the Chinese government's ability to withstand these tariffs better than they had previously expected, that they needed to act or there was going to be an imminent economic catastrophe, complete with shortages, empty shelves, you know, inflation. And it's also not clear that all of that will be forestalled because 30% tariffs is still a very high number.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I was going to say, yeah, I think whether this is a capitulation is going to play out over the course of the next 90 days, because this is a 90 day pause. And if you are a small business owner, that's still really terrifying. That's still a lot of uncertainty. I'm perfectly prepared and eager to be pleasantly surprised by this. I think the idea of a strategic decoupling is directionally exactly accurate. The confusion and chaos that reigned for a couple of weeks after Liberation Day, if it, if it goes down in the analysis of history as being a month of chaos and confusion that led to a quote, unquote, strategic decoupling, it's interesting to see Besant saying, on the one hand, we realize we have multiple interests that align and that at the same time, nobody wants to do a general decoupling. So we're doing strategic decoupling. It's really interesting. And his number here is that both sides de escalated by 115%. That's more from his interview on Morning Joe. Very interesting, by the way, that they sent Scott Besson onto Morning Joe the day after this announcement is made. He was on Bloomberg as well, I think. But for him to go on Morning Joe is actually pretty interesting to make a big trade announcement.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, true.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, but we'll put that aside for now. So what this actually accomplishes I just think is still completely out in the open for the next 90 days. I hope it's good. But 90 days from now we could be, we could be back where we were tomorrow. Let's say the 90 day pause becomes an 89 or a one day pause. We actually still don't really know.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. So yes, you still have a high level of uncertainty that hangs over this whole trade war. Charles Gasparino, who's the FOX Business senior correspondent and who's been the beneficiary of a lot of leaks from the Trump administration. So he's been really important to read. He says breaking Trump raised tariffs on the world, the markets, particularly the bond market, which we need to finance our debt, rebelled. Trump then was forced to back off. End of story. Film at 11 of the President spinning this as a major victory. Okay, sorry, I couldn't help myself. But what we have seen is a little lesson on how markets exert their power when you have to depend on them, as we still do. And remember, it's really the budget deficit that's causing the trade deficit and we need the budget deficit to maintain our standard of living. And you can't go to trade war with the world without bad stuff happening. So this is someone who's been very sympathetic, I would say, to the Trump administration. He's on Fox Business. So he has those ideological inclinations saying basically Trump folded. And I think you have to look at it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's definitely a free trader for sure.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, true. I think you have to, though, look at it in that light. Just given the fact that there really was not much here in terms of quote, unquote, face saving gestures even from the Chinese government. There was some discussion of fentanyl and some talks about how they may do more to curb the production, export of the ingredients that go into making fentanyl. So there was some discussion around that. That's really about it. So the Chinese government's calculation that they could basically do nothing and that the Trump administration would have to fold and come to them to back off of this ends up pretty much being correct. Now, again, that doesn't mean that I think the most dire possible circumstances of a complete economic collapse, I think that will likely be forestalled by this announcement and scaling back. Because when you are talking about 145% tariff, you are talking about a complete cutoff. And you all know how many things that we need in this country that you have in your own households that are made in China. So that is forestalled. So the very worst of a potential economic calamity at least gets pushed off for the moment. But we also shouldn't underestimate that 30%. I mean, if you think of if they directly hiked your taxes, 30% or even 10%, that is really significant. So if we had started Liberation Day well, I think what was the initial tariff that was announced on Liberation Day vis a vis China? It very quickly escalated. But if we had started from a position of 30% across the board tariffs on China, that was more than what Trump ever floated during his campaign. So it's still quite a high and very significant number. And I think you still have to worry about the inflationary impacts, both of this 30% tariff on China and the 10% tariffs that are sort of across the board. Howard Lutnick was out saying effectively that he thinks 10% may just be the going rate, tariff rate going forward. That alone could have significant inflationary effects. But there's no doubt some of the most potential catastrophic fallout here should be forestalled by walking away, by deciding, by effectively blinking vis a vis this trade war with China. One last thing, Emily, before I get your reaction, too, is I think it's also an indictment of the strategy that they deployed of pissing off everyone in the world going into this. If this really is about China, then you would want to have Japan on your side. You would want to make sure Europe's on your side, you want to make sure Canada's on your side. You would want to gather your allies and have some sort of a unified front. Instead, those allies were increasingly uniting against you and with very few exceptions, actually sort of holding the line together in a relatively unified front. That also made the position fundamentally unsustainable from the American perspective.

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[Sagar Enjeti]

I want to say also, I mean, there will be a lot of people coming out afterwards if, let's say, 90 days from now, there is a. This is fine. Things have stabilized. And, you know, maybe if you're a free trader, you're still upset with this, but things are stabilized and they aren't. The chaos that people felt on April 2, Liberation Day, there will be a lot of people saying, you know, you were Trump, was Right. All along the haters were wrong once again. But I think also in this case, it's very clear that the haters put up guardrails. I think the good faith haters, let's say on the right at least, probably convinced people like Besant and Trump himself to take another look at the execution of these policies. Now, the 10% tariff was, before it was actually implemented, seen as insane and extreme. And now because the reciprocal tariffs across the board were even crazier, Trump has successfully, at the very least, numbed people to the idea of a 10% tariff across the board. The Liberation Day announcement was a 34% tariff on China. So reciprocal tariff on China. So to Crystal, that gets to your point about capitulation. He's coming down pretty damn close to that level. Now. The Dow has surged more than 1,000 points as of when we're taping this. So big market jump. I think CNBC and some coverage this morning used the word explosion. The markets are exploding. So we'll see to what extent the Trump administration touts that. I will still say this is Joe weisenthal S&P 500, only down 1.25% this year. I'm sure some people in the Trump administration actually will tout that. But the point that they made actually remains when the market was plunging, that, that does that has limited impacts on the working class compared to the wealthy. And so they still have a long way to go to dig themselves. I shouldn't say dig themselves out of the hole, but to prove that this strategy is more stabilizing than chaotic, because these 90 day pauses, if I'm a small business owner, these are just. They're killing you.

[Krystal Ball]

Horrible. Yeah. And 30% is still quite significant. But you also have to ask like, okay, so you did all this. Okay. The market isn't down catastrophically, but it's still down. The likelihood of recession is still up significantly from where you started, the administration, and for what, what did you accomplish?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

So for the people who thought that there was a grand plan that was being executed here, who were all on board for a kind of, you know, very radical reorienting of the global economic order that's decidedly off the table, at least for 90 days, that is very much off the table at this point. This will, if anything, be a mild sort of tinkering around the edges. So I think that theory that there was a grand plan, maybe there was a grand plan, but they had to back away from it in the face of realizing that they had made some faulty assumptions going in, I Think the.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Grand plan was chaos.

[Krystal Ball]

I think that's really my theory of the grand plan was always just power for Trump being able to do whatever he wants.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I mean, I think he wanted to be able to set off global chaos and with the belief that that was his leverage, that his leverage is that we're the United States, we can upend your systems, we can upend the global financial system with the flick of a pen from the President, United States, with this chart that we printed out that has Penguin tariffs on it. I think part of his strategy was actually just throwing everything into chaos. And I think when the bond market started freaking out, the realization is that that leverage only goes so far because it ends up hitting your own people at some point.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And I do think there was just a fundamental miscalculation, both with launching the trade war against everyone in the world and with thinking that the Chinese. That we were in a stronger position than the Chinese were, and we just weren't. You know, we just weren't. It was easier for them to find other customers around the world, as evidenced by their exports actually rising during this period, than it was for us to be able to replace all of the goods that we rely on importing from China at this point. Now, that could be done over a longer period of time, which will require, as we've discussed many times on the show, significant investments in industrial policy. And yet they were going the opposite direction of that. And I know they were, you know, had big hopes for the tax cut that is supposed to be in the reconciliation bill, but none of that has even come to pass as of yet. I wanted to read because we've relied on his analysis a fair amount for a read on how the Chinese may be viewing these events. Arnaud Bertrand had initial reaction to China's statement on the agreement with the U.S. he says they highlight that besides the fact that tariffs would be reduced, he says, to 10%, there was some confusion about this. We went and checked. It's actually to 30%. But in any case, he says a key outcome of the meeting is that both sides recognize the importance of bilateral economic and trade relations to the two countries and the global economy, recognize the importance of sustainable, long term and mutually beneficial bilateral economic and trade relations, and continue to advance relevant work in the spirit of mutual openness, continuous communication, cooperation, and mutual respect. This is indeed perhaps the most important outcome. Trump's tariffs mark the apex of Washington's decoupling illusion, and this reversal should deter any future attempts of doing the Same to use the card analogy that the Trump administration loves to use, Trump went all in with his extreme tariffs, but when China called his bluff, he was forced to fold and accept that his approach could not be sustained. It is now clear when it comes to severing economic ties with China, the US Simply does not have the cards, no matter how aggressively they try to play them. So with that in mind, you're left with only one viable strategy, cooperation and mutual respect. So that's his reading of the, you know, the contours of the at least temporary agreement that we have at this point.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And I wonder to what extent China was reacting to other deals that the Trump administration was working on with places like, like you said, they had already found some willingness in that region particularly to have, you know, Temu ship things over to Cambodia.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Or Vietnam or. Yeah, yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And I wonder to what extent actually they saw that some of those countries actually do rely so heavily on US business that the Trump administration was coming to, if not great deals for the American people, at least deals. So I'm curious to what extent they were reacting to that. I'm also really curious what this does to the crackdown on de minimis and I'm really curious for how this pertains to the Hollywood announcement last. What was that? Sunday? Yeah, last Sunday. So week.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And then that's another thing I always thought was fake TikTok.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm really curious what this does for the TikTok deal because remember China's retaliation about a month ago it scuttled that last minute deal that the Trump administration allegedly was very close to working out for a sale of TikTok from ByteDance to a US company. And by the way, I've always thought that that was fake because not that there aren't buyers here that'll snatch up TikTok very eagerly, but that I don't think China has any serious intention of actually selling TikTok because guess what? There they have the freaking leverage because Trump doesn't want TikTok be sold to a US company over and over again. That's why he's delaying it over and over again. He knows that they have the leverage on that point. So that's just a huge section of the economy and of the average young American's daily life that's on the table here. And we don't really know what's going to happen going forward.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, no, that is a good point. So, you know, all of the, and this has been the overall trend of the Trump administration trade war because We've had all these fits and starts. First with regard to Canada and Mexico. And you'll have his defenders defend these extraordinarily maximalist policy positions of 145% tariffs and total decoupling of China. And they're all in on it. This is delivering for Main street and then they get rolled back and it's art of the deal. But with this, it's hard to even point to what was actually achieved here because now they're backing away from the total decoupling. So if you were in the we're gonna do this hard reset and it's gonna re industrialize America. That's not happening. Apparently the tariffs are not going to be paying for the budget deficit. That's not happening. And you have not actually gotten any real concessions from the Chinese government out of this. You've just made it more likely we're going to face recession, more likely we're going to face inflation and higher cost on goods. So Trump walking away from this, walking back from the most maximalist policy position, it's just hard to see how we're in any way better off and not worse off from before Liberation Day was originally announced. I mean, the lack of even any real face saving gesture here I think is pretty extraordinary. But you know, I mean, I'm glad to see that the worst of the potential economic calamity is at least for the moment, being put off the table. At the same time, just to conclude here, I don't want to underestimate how there still, first of all will likely be reverberating impacts from this pause in trade that we did have. We saw in Covid how the supply shocks took a long time to work out. So I think you could have reverberating impacts from that and then the continued tariff regime that does exist around the world impacts from that. And to your point, Emily, the continued uncertainty, because this guy, if he doesn't like the headlines that come out of this and he's feeling a certain kind of way and he wants to reassert his authority or whatever, they could be hiked back up to 200% tomorrow. We just have no idea.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, and China has a very long, long, long, long, long term strategy and its economy and its society more broadly. And right now, by the way, if you're a foreign investor, not even in China, you don't even know how the next United States president is going to handle this question, let alone the next three years. The level of uncertainty in the US Market right now is just dramatic. And to Underscore that crystal, even as we were talking here, Trump is giving a press conference and he has said that he's not looking to hurt China, that he plans to speak to Xi Jinping maybe by the end of the week, and also that the China deal does not include tariffs that are already on. So we're learning more about this by the minute based on what the President of the United States says. But it's really, really, really hard not just to understand what's happening, to get the exact numbers we had to sift through just this morning before Trump started speaking, we had to sift through a lot of different reports because the flow of information is confusing. So that's just day by day, let alone trying to project out into the future the uncertainty is so, so significant.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, indeed. So I'm sure I'll be covering this more tomorrow as we get more information and we'll be able to play some of those clips from Trump's press conference today and figure out what exactly the hell is going on. And speaking of figuring out what exactly the hell is going on, Trump is also headed to the Middle east this week. There are a lot of reports coming out of Gaza. One thing we know in particular is that IDF soldier who's an American Israeli citizen, Adan Alexander, is being released by Hamas in sort of a gesture of goodwill as the Trump administration is doing something that the Biden administration never did and talking directly to Hamas, bypassing Israel in negotiations moving forward. We don't know what that exactly is going to lead to or what it means, but if one person can help us understand what is going on, that would be Jeremy Scahill, and he joins us now.

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[Krystal Ball]

Happy to be joined this morning by co founder of Dropsite News, Jeremy Scahill. Great to see you, sir.

[Jeremy Scahill]

Thank you, Crystal. Hey, Emily.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, of course. So let's go ahead and put this first element up on the screen. There's a lot going on this week as President Trump heads to the Middle East. We got this announcement that I'll just read from President Trump's Truth Social here. I'm happy to announce that Eden Alexander, an American citizen who's been held hostage since October 2023, is coming home to his family. I'm grateful to all those involved in making this monumental news happen. This was a step taken in good faith towards the US and the efforts of the mediators, Qatar and Egypt to put an end to this very brutal war and return all living hostages and remains their loved ones. Hopefully this is the first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict. Look very much forward to that day of celebration. So Jeremy, just to start off with, can you break down some of the context in which this agreement and this ability to return Adan Alexander was obtained.

[Jeremy Scahill]

Well, I mean, one of the aspects of this that is truly extraordinary is that this is the first time that the United States has made a direct deal with Hamas that does not involve Israel. That's a major step away from Biden era policy. For instance, there were a number of people with US citizenship who were taken captive on October 7 during Operation Al Aqsa Flood. And the Biden administration stood by and refused to actually negotiate directly with Hamas and constantly deferred to the Israelis. So what we're seeing is a kind of unorthodox aspect of Donald Trump's presidency. He recently made a deal with what the US Considers to be a foreign terrorist organization and a non state actors, Ansar Allah, the Houthis of Yemen. Now you have the US Beginning in February engaged in direct talks with Hamas that is now leading to the release of a dual US Israeli citizen. The other aspect of this crystal that's really significant is that during this entire 19 month period, there has not been a single male Israeli soldier that has been released from captivity in Gaza. And it's important to remember a lot of the coverage of this implies that Idan Alexander was a civilian that was kidnapped. Well, Hamas considers him to be a prisoner of war because he was an active duty soldier in the Israeli military. On October 7, he was captured by Palestinian fighters in uniform while serving in a military that the Palestinians view as an occupying force that is operating on behalf of an apartheid entity. So, you know, there are details of this that I think we need to remember factually. Recently when I was meeting with senior officials from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, they indicated that for months they have told the United States that they are willing as what they call a goodwill gesture to release Idan Alexander. And part of this is that Hamas views Trump. They know that Trump's administration is filled with Zionists. They know that Trump's administration is very pro Israel. That's the big picture of this. But on a sort of technical level, they feel that they have a better shot with negotiating something with Steve Witkoff and Adam Bowler than they did with Antony Blinken or Bill Burns when Biden was president.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, let's put the next element on the screen, Jeremy, because this kind of gets to exactly what you were just saying. I mean, you pointed out that this was the first deal brokered directly between the United States and Hamas without Israel. And I mean, there have been some interesting comments from the Israeli right in the last 24 to 48 hours. And I just wanted to see you know, what you make of all of these developments? Does this signal maybe the next chapter in the United States relationship with Israel? Is Israel realizing sort of the hardcore Israeli right, realizing that maybe they want to disentangle from the United States States as well? I mean, basically, what, what's the reaction been like in the last 24, 48 hours politically from Israel?

[Jeremy Scahill]

Well, you know, I mean, last week you saw Miriam Adelson, who is a US And Israeli citizen. Her husband, of course, was Sheldon Adelson. She gave $100 million to Trump's reelection effort in the last election cycle. And she owns a newspaper in Israel. And that paper really was kind of fanning the flames of this. The idea that there are indications that the Trump administration is sort of kicking Netanyahu under the bus, is distancing itself from Israel. I think we should be really careful about embracing that narrative too much. There's, there's a big picture here, which is that Trump's agenda is an extremely pro Israel agenda. He puts Mike Huckabee in as the ambassador. Their rhetoric on the west bank indicates that they're moving toward recognizing a full Israeli annexation of the West Bank. We could talk for, you know, hours about the ways in which the Trump administration has facilitated Netanyahu's agenda, including taking the leash off and letting Netanyahu go scorched earth ever since March 18, killing upwards of 2,600 Palestinians, many of them women and children, including really indiscriminate attacks on camps housing displaced persons. But on a micro level, yes, Emily, there's something really interesting going on, which is that Donald Trump, of course, is a transactional guy. He also thinks very highly of himself. He thinks very highly of his legacy. And he is right now on his way in a day to the Middle east where he's going to meet with Saudi Arabia and try to secure this more than trillion dollar deal that involves weapons sales and other economic matters. Similar deal being made with the United Arab Emirates. Of course, there's going to be a lot of focus on the airplane that Qatar is reportedly going to be giving Trump. Trump seems to really want the Gaza war to be done. He called it a brutal war and said that it's time to wrap it up in that truth social post that you cited earlier. So I think what we're seeing here is have no illusion about the fact that Donald Trump wants to facilitate a horrifying agenda on behalf of the Israelis. But on the technical aspects where Netanyahu starts to mess with, let's just say, America's business as Trump views it, which is also Trump's business and his family's business, then I think we have some space that opens up where people like Witkoff and Adam Bowler become quite interesting to the Palestinian negotiators. And I've said on this show many times before, and I'll say it again, there is a chance that Trump's interests align enough with stopping that war that it benefits the Palestinians of Gaza, who have endured a horrifying genocide under both Biden and Trump.

[Krystal Ball]

How does this square with the reporting we saw last week from Reuters that there were high level discussions centered around a US Occupation of Gaza that would be based on the Iraq government, you know, our occupation of Iraq after and during the Iraq war. How did these talks square with that, square with Trump previously floating? You know, we're gonna clear out all of the Palestinians, we're gonna let the world's people be in Gaza, you know, his big real estate development plans there. How are you making sense of those things? And how are the Hamas officials you're speaking with making sense of those things?

[Jeremy Scahill]

Yeah, I mean, this morning I was communicating with a leader within the Palestinian armed resistance, and he was saying, look, Hamas is taking a gamble here by making this deal for Idan Alexander because they're not getting anything on paper in return that we know of. None of my sources have said that the US Committed to anything. And the calculus here on their part relates to what I was saying earlier. They feel that their best shot right now is to try to accentuate the divisions on a tactical level between Netanyahu and Trump in the hopes that Trump then will ultimately force Netanyahu to end the war. That's the gamble that Hamas has taken. Their broader position is we will not release a single Israeli captive unless there is a deal that leads to a permanent ceasefire and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces. I spoke to a senior Hamas official last week about these aid plans that you're talking about, and he said, no one has consulted with us about this. We're not involved with this. And the dime's worth of difference between the Israeli position and Trump's position on how aid should be administered ultimately plays to Israel's agenda. Now, there's also discussion that there may be a summit involving the Palestinian Authority. President Mahmoud Abbas, who's 89 years old, incredibly unpopular, is viewed by Hamas and in fact, many Palestinians as a collaborator with Israel. It's possible that Trump is going to try to make some deal that circumvents both Israel and Hamas and Islamic Jihad and try to say, well, we're going to make a deal with Mahmoud Abbas. There's a lot of complicated politics behind that. So I would say, Crystal, that what Trump is trying to do with his proposal for having a so called ngo, which really isn't an ngo, it seems, as you indicated, it's more like a Paul Bremer Coalition Provisional Authority type Iraq 2.0. What Trump is sort of trying to do is get enough aid to say, I'm doing something into the country, but not really linking it to an end to the war, which ultimately is what Netanyahu wants. So let's see. I mean, Hamas, I think, has shown an ability to really hold out despite the massive human consequences. And I don't see them just folding because Donald Trump wants photo ops in the Middle East. I think we're still in for quite a battle, both diplomatically and potentially militarily on the ground. Look, Netanyahu has responded to all of this in public, all of these reports about Trump and Hamas, Trump and Ansar Allah. Ansar Allah in Yemen, as sort of saying, well, we're gonna go in and conquer all of Gaza, we're gonna take all of Gaza, we're gonna force the Palestinians into the south, and then we're gonna have to try to figure out what third countries are going to take them. So he's really telegraphing, I want to continue this genocide. And the question is, is Trump willing to actually rein him in, in a, in a serious way, or is Trump going to try to have it both ways, let it be a little bit calmer for some months and then it all blows up again, which is basically what happened with the January ceasefire deal.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And it seems like a lot of that rides on what he hears from Steve Witkoff. So we can go ahead and roll B2B on the screen. These were celebrations from Palestinians in the aftermath of the news. You can see this on your screen. This is a spontaneous march that was in Gaza City after the announcement yesterday. And when, when that's finished, we can put B3 on the screen. This is from Steve Witkoff. It is a drop site tweet noting that Israel's Channel 12 reported that Steve Witkoff's meeting with hostage families. He said that basically, quote, Israel is prolonging the war even though there's no path forward, which is what a lot of the hostage families actually already believe as well. So, Jeremy, this brings us to the momentum, at least. If people are looking for a glimmer of good news, the momentum is at least in a positive direction towards a Ceasefire. But what could a potential timeline look like? I mean, if we put before on the screen, Jeremy, you had, and we talked to you about this last week. You had an interview with a top Hamas official last week in drop site on May 5th. So you have a sense of what might be on the table right now in the next week or so. While there is this sense of momentum, maybe what is the best case scenario and what is the worst case scenario?

[Jeremy Scahill]

First of all, it really is heartbreaking. And this has happened a number of times over the past 19 months when Palestinians in Gaza hear any sort of good news or something that feels like a step forward. You know, people are so desperate for an end to this that they do go into the streets and they do celebrate. And sometimes it's real, and sometimes a deal is in the works. And other times Israel just responds by escalating the attacks. I mean, just in the last 24 hours, we've had a couple of dozen Palestinians, most of them women and children, killed in heavy attacks that were conducted by Israel. So, you know, on that front, it continues to be very heartbreaking, but understandable why people are so desperate for this. On the issue of Wyckoff, Witkoff is saying what is basic common sense now among the families of Israeli captives and that they've been saying for a very long time. So from their perspective, you now have an American official in Steve Witkoff and to a degree, in Donald Trump that are willing to openly criticize Netanyahu for not prioritizing the freedom of Israeli captives. This is a departure from the way Antony Blinken or people in the Biden administration were conducting themselves. They were very reluctant to publicly criticize Netanyahu. At the end of the day, I think the best case scenario is that the United States recognizes that Netanyahu's agenda is totally counter to what would be good for the United States in the world, is totally counter to what would be good for stability in the region. And that means actually being willing to speak with organizations and movements like Hamas, because whatever one thinks about Hamas, they were the last democratically elected government in Gaza. They're not particularly happy about continuing to be the government. But if you are able to work with them to try to stabilize the situation, I think that we would find that the Middle east would. That there would be steps in the right direction and that Donald Trump's sort of accidental way in which he could end up making a deal ends up being a good case scenario because it ends war, because it gives some opening to talk. The worst case scenario is that Trump is very crassly and cravenly trying to secure these deals, give the facade that he actually wants peace, and at the end of the day, washing his hands of it and allowing the Netanyahu's and the Mike Huckabees of the world to determine what American policy is going to be, that would be a catastrophic series of events. I think it's more likely we'll have some sort of a deal. Whether that deal is going to be acceptable to the Palestinians and make it more likely that they're going to get liberation or self determination is a very, very serious question that remains unanswerable right now.

[Krystal Ball]

To that point, Jeremy, if it ends up that Hamas committing to demilitarize, if that ends up being a red line, where are they on that question?

[Jeremy Scahill]

You know, I mean, it often gets thrown around in the media in a simplistic way. What does it actually mean? Let's not just talk about Hamas in a broader sense among Palestinians. The idea that Palestinians are supposed to just hand in all weapons and trust that the world is going to somehow keep Netanyahu or Israel at bay is a farce that history shows is a total lie. So it's not just about, oh, Hamas has some weapons stored somewhere that they want to use to go attack Israel. We're talking about the very existence of the Palestinian people. There have been suggestions that if there's a hudna, the Arabic term for a long term truce, that Hamas would be willing to make concessions on how weapons would be stored, how weapons would be held. But right now they're not really engaging much with that discussion outside of a technical framework that results in a US Guaranteed end to the genocide and full withdrawal of Israeli forces. So of course Hamas is going to say this is a million red lines at present, but the devil will be in the details. If the international community ensured that Palestinians were going to have sovereignty and were going to be able to constitute an armed force capable of defending its territorial integrity, then I think that the rationale for groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad having the weapons goes away. When people get their freedom and they get their stability, they don't need to be engaged in resistance movements, armed resistance movements. That's the core of the story. So from their perspective, weapons aren't the issue. The issue is their rights as a people. And you can make the resistance movements irrelevant by respecting the rights of Palestinians, as all other people in the world are supposed to have under international law.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And. Oh, go ahead, Crystal.

[Krystal Ball]

Last question for you, Jeremy. We're about to talk about the air Force one replacement from Qatar and the extraordinary corruption of this administration. But I wanted to get your opinion on the reason why, why Qatar wants to gift this plane to the Trump administration and how that ties into the various negotiations that are going on here.

[Jeremy Scahill]

I mean, I have no idea what the actual. If there's like, a specific policy motivation for it. But, you know, Donald Trump. The store of Donald Trump's presidency is wide open for business, and that's very clear. You know, Qatar is obviously an incredible, increasingly powerful player in international diplomacy. It is a major figure in the Gaza negotiations, but also in other regional issues. So, you know, Qatar is subjected to a lot of smears. Qatar also is playing its own game here and recognizes that it is increasingly an influential player. And I think that it's symbolic of the fact that we have a man in the White House who views the White House as a business that can benefit himself and his family. And at the end of the day, maybe we'll do something good for America. But let's be clear about it. Donald Trump is an open store ready for more business.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I know Ryan was pointing out on Twitter that in the first Trump administration, there was apparently some sort of real estate bailout that Jared Kushner's dad was looking for from Qatar, and they declined. And then they felt that they really screwed up by not just giving the, you know, the Trump administration whatever grift and gift and corruption that they were asking for at the time. So apparently they learned that lesson.

[Jeremy Scahill]

Yeah, I mean, it is extraordinary. It's Presidency Inc. No doubt about it. But, you know, I'll just go back to actually what Hamas people have told me. They recognize all of that and they realize in that kind of specific, kind of, kind of institutional corruption, there may be opportunity to accidentally get something better than they would have gotten about, you know, from the adults in the room under Biden. And I think they're right.

[Krystal Ball]

Who were ideological, committed Zionists. So we'll see where all of this goes. Jeremy, thank you so much for taking the time to break it all down for us. Great to see you.

[Jeremy Scahill]

Thank you. As always.

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, as we just mentioned in our conversation with Jeremy, if we put B6 on the screen, news broke yesterday. That kind of the details of this news broke yesterday. To be clear, some of this we kind of already knew. But then Jonathan Karl at ABC broke the story open and there were some follow up reports that Qatar is essentially giving the United States the gift of a to be fair, beautiful luxury plane.

[Krystal Ball]

They call it a flying palace.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Flying palace. And Semaphore has pictures of it, and it is indeed a flying. They came out with that, I think late last night or earlier this morning. Actually. We have some pictures here. If you put B7 on the screen, we could go through them. So the way this arrangement is going to work is basically that you have the plane being gifted to the Department of Defense used as Air Force One, because this will come as a shock to no one. Boeing has been mired in delays and all kinds of problems with their efforts to, to rehaul the plane for the President. So this is what you're seeing side by side on the screen. Last week, the Trump Organization unveiled a new $5.5 billion golf resort project in Qatar. Today, ABC reports that Qatar is set to give Trump a $400 million luxury Boeing 747. And then if you're looking at those things side by side, Crystal, the dates are just incredible. April 29th and then May 11th and two weeks later. And, and you know, the true story of this, like how Qatar has worked out this deal with the United States government, the details are still a little bit unclear. We do know that Pam Bondi, who is the obviously sitting attorney in general, she used to be a lobbyist for Qatar. She was at Ballard Partners. And what she was doing the filing, you can look at the filing, it was to help Qatar basically improve its approach to human trafficking too. It was in the lead up to the World cup and she left and then came back and re picked up the contract. But it was like to help them message and deal with the United States, all of that stuff as it pertained to human trafficking. So we just have a web here of conflicts of interest. And before I talk about, she was.

[Krystal Ball]

Making 115k a month working for Qatar.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Those Qatar contracts are good, which is why Kash Patel, Lee Zeldin and Pam Bondi are members of the Trump administration who have previously taken money from Qatar before going into the administration. This is an Intercept story back from February that highly recommend everyone read. Obviously, Qatar is sort of infamous for doing this with Western countries, but this is the arrangement of this. The Trump administration says, Put B8 on the screen. This is the actual text of the emoluments clause which Crystal demanded we put up on the screen. She was like during the Tea Party, like the libertarians walking around with their pocket constitutions.

[Krystal Ball]

Pull out your pocket constitution, friends. This is the emoluments clause.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So the way they're getting around it with the gift of the Boeing 7478 is that it is going to the Defense Department. So the Emoluments clause prevents gifts to rulers, officers or representatives. So, Crystal, their way around that is saying it is a gift to the Defense Department, from what we can tell.

[Krystal Ball]

And then it's being given to the Trump presidential library.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

So it will only ever benefit him. It's not like whatever the next president, whoever the Next President is, AOC or J.D. vance, probably right. Is going to benefit from it. It's just going to be Trump. But technically, because it's going to the Defense Department, not directly to the person of him. That's how they're getting around it. And Barney, memo authored by Pam Bondi, who had previously been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Qatar.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, exactly. Crystal, this is their way around it is saying that it is a gift not to the president himself, but to a. The Department of Defense, which Cutter says it's just temporary. So, you know, the next three years, temporary, quote, unquote, and then it goes to the Trump library. So in neither of those cases is it going directly to Donald Trump. That's the. That's the line.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's so cliche to say at this point, but imagine if Barack Obama, you know, and, you know, so many Republicans, too, they consider Qatar to be just like an agent of Hamas and, you know, run by terror, like the language around Qatar that comes from the right. And then to have them making this extraordinary, just brazen gift of corruption, this $400 million plane to Donald Trump is. I mean, what can you even say about it? This is what I was referring to with Jeremy, what Ryan said on Twitter, which I think is good sort of context for how this and why this all is happening. He says during Trump 1, Jared Kushner's dad shook down Qatar for a real estate bailout. Qatar turned him down. The US Then let Saudi Arabia and the UAE blockade Qatar, and they very nearly invaded. Secretary Tillerson tried to stop them and defend Qatar, where the US Has a major military base, but Kushner intervened against Qatar. Qatari officials told us at the time they understood it all to be payback for not making the investment and said if they'd have known the consequences, they would have just paid it. Clearly, they've learned from last time, and that's where you are. It's very clear he's for sale to the highest bidder. So they're like, okay, he's always had this fixation on Air Force One and wanting a new Air Force One and upgrading Air Force One, blah, blah, blah. So they picked up on this and they're like, okay, well we can play that game too.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, Trump put out a truth social on it as well. And yeah, it's just completely. The word is shameless. So he says. So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a gift free of charge of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One temporarily in a very public and transparent transaction so bothers the crooked Democrats that they insist we pay top dollar for the plane. Anybody can do that. The Dems are world class losers. Maga Crystal. So this introduces an interesting question which is to his point, they are so shameless about this. We are just seeing it transpire completely nakedly in public. So maybe there's a benefit in a weird way to Trumpism, which is literally just we are treating. Jeremy just said this, actually, we had him on. We are treating the American government as a business and we're doing it out in the open in ways that other presidents hadn't previously done it. So I guess it's A, on another level of like just money going back and forth, but B, at least we get some more insights into it as it happens.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm sorry, I can't get on board with you glasses half full. The positives of the American presidency being for sale to the highest bidder. I mean, and that truly is what it is. And I think, you know, to zoom out to the meta perspective because you see these things, you see this, you see, I will never get over the Trump crypto coin and the way that that is just a direct pipeline for bribery and it has already been utilized. We don't even know by how many people and to what ends. We have no clue. So to the point about, you know, at least it's transparent. It's not transparent. We know that the vast majority of the largest, most purchasers of Trump shitcoin are foreign nationals. We have no idea who they are, what they want, or what they're gonna ask for when they get their little private dinner with him. We know that some people who are involved in various crypto scams have used that in order to get their enforcements dropped against them. So I think you have such a brazen ramping up of outright theft, corruption and bribery in this administration. And it can sometimes boggle the mind as to why there isn't just this mass public reaction against it, because obviously the public is disgusted with corruption. And I do think that it's this thing where number one, it's just become sort of accepted with Trump, like, well, yeah, he's just what it is. And Number two, because he ran on.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It, I know the system, I alone can fix it, blah, blah, blah.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, he ran on draining the swamp. He did not run on, I'm going to be the swamp times 1 million. But I think because he just does these things out in the open and because there are so much to get outraged about, people get sort of fatigued over and it just becomes kind of like, baked into the cake. I think that's number one with regard to him. But number two, I do think, because you have this sense and reality of a, granted, much lower level, but still significant and outrageous and unacceptable levels of corruption that have been endemic in the American government across both parties for so long, it's hard to make plain how much of a different scale we're talking about here. Even if you consider what I think are some of the most grotesque abuses, like the insider trading of Nancy Pelosi and things of that nature, that cannot come close to getting a direct $400 million gift from a foreign government, it doesn't come close to getting. To getting literally billions. I mean, I saw recently a huge percentage of Trump's net worth is now because of his crypto coin, which is just about overt bribery. It's a huge chunk in history. There is nothing that compares to this level of corruption. But when you have so much corruption that was already endemic to the American presidency and American politics, with the floodgates being opened under Citizens United and how big money flows into and courses through the veins of our political system, I think it becomes very difficult for people to really wrap their minds around how much of a different scale we're talking about here. With Donald Trump.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's true. And I was sort of being tongue in cheek earlier, so forgive me for that. I mean, it is with Trump, kind of interesting to see his justification for these things as they happen, that he is merely getting the Trump plane, or he's merely getting the plane back when Boeing couldn't make all of the necessary improvements. By the way, the right answer to that is to make Boeing get its shit together.

[Krystal Ball]

Right?

[Sagar Enjeti]

You have all of the. As Trump would say, you have the cards. Make Boeing get its shit together. But, yeah, I mean, I think with him, it's easy to, I guess, forget that he can say these things are transparent. What we do not know is what's happening behind closed doors. So Ryan putting out that point about the Kushner family and Rex Tillerson, a lot of that is known in retrospect, after the first Trump administration, a lot of the like, even the broad contours of that we understand post presidency, there are always things happening that we don't know about. And right now, Donald Trump is going to the Middle East. He's attempting to broker a ceasefire, he's attempting to calm tensions. But. But how you get from point A to point B, we would be foolish to think that we know everything that is being negotiated with Qatar and with other countries that also may be engaged in soft levels of corruption. And by the way, I don't know that this will actually be called illegal. I don't know that this will. I'm sure it'll be challenged in court. I don't know that they will actually. I think they have found a pretty good loophole here legally. But it's obviously on its face, corrupt. So something not technically being against. There are things all of the time, like actually a lot of the stock trades that happen. You just mentioned Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, a lot of the stuff, sometimes they don't comply with the law, but a lot of this stuff actually is compliant with the law. They're trading and they disclose it, but it's still completely unethical.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, the Supreme Court has made it basically so that corruption or bribery literally has to be like, I am taking this bag of money from you in exchange for this thing, which I then actually accomplish. I mean, they have narrowed it extraordinarily so that the general baseline level of corruption in D.C. is wildly unethical. To your point. Yes, but much of it not illegal. And so in terms of how the courts will view this particular. I have no idea. I haven't read any legal analyses of what direction they could go in with this. But I think it's important to think about why the monuments clause is in the Constitution. And it's because, listen, zooming out from. Look, it may end up that the $400 million plane here actually helps secure a better deal for the Palestinians and ends in a place where. I'm glad that the thumb was put on the scale in that direction, that we're a long way from that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

As opposed to Democrats taking a bunch of money from AIPAC and then pretending that they.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, he's got. On the other side, he's got Miriam adelson giving him $100 million. So maybe the $400 million plane comes out in the back. I don't know. But I'm just saying, zoom out from these particular details. You don't want an American president to be operating foreign policy based on what is in their own personal financial Interests. The ideal here is that you want them to be representing the interests of the country, not the interests of their own bank account. And with Trump, this has always been a problem because his business obviously has tentacles all around the world. You raise the element here of they just did a business deal in Qatar as well. He's got the Saudi live golf deal, real estate developments all over the place.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Gaza, he wants to be a real estate development, apparently.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And the level of foreign entanglements with this president has always been extraordinary, always, really, truly been unprecedented, I think, in American history. I don't think there's any parallel that you could really point to with this. And now you layer on top of that just these totally outright, brazen bribery schemes. In Trump 1.0, you had the Trump Hotel, and the way to get in his good graces here in D.C. was to come with your foreign delegation and book a large block of rooms and spend wildly and lavishly at Trump Hotel. That was your way to signal that you were helping him out personally and financially with the crypto coin. And then this just like brazen, fierce, $400 million luxury palace in the sky plane that we know that you'd be really excited about, those things are just on steroids in a way that we could not have possibly imagined. And you can never know when he's making decisions. Are these actually the decisions he thinks are good for the American people, American interests, and good for whatever goals we would want to establish, or is this just about who came in as the highest bidder?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, and it's also not about money like this is. It shouldn't be about money. Foreign policy shouldn't just be about money, obviously. And that's another problem with this, is, you know, the blend in his true social post, I think, is genuinely a very interesting glimpse into how he views these things. It is this Trumpian pragmatism, which is that it's not corruption, it's this pragmatic way to get around Boeing and do what's in the best interest of the United States. And how could you possibly be upset about that? But it's not just about getting a new plane. It's about what Qatar thinks it's getting for giving you the new plane. And that's why we talked about this on the show last week. And the problem with conflicts of interest, which we cover here all the time, whether it's Republicans or Democrats, is the appearance of the conflict of interest. It is not merely whether someone acts in a way that exposes their conflict. It's actually this is what the United States for a long time was at least slightly better than some other countries in actually cracking down on the appearance of conflict of interest. And by the way, I said slightly better that the bar in global politics for this is low, such as the nature of humanity. But we used to take that much more seriously. And now there's just a complete shamelessness to it, at least around Trump. And I mean, I hope that Democrats being scandalized by this and even like the center and everyone basically being scandalized.

[Krystal Ball]

By this, Laura Loomer is also scandalized.

[Sagar Enjeti]

By this, as it would be consistent. And so I hope people being scandalized by this means that in the post Trump era, we go back to being scandalized by these things in general, because it really is the appearance that gives other countries the idea that maybe something happened, that he can be bought, that the United States can be bought, that in and of itself, just the appearance of it, whether or not he actually acts in their interest. I mean, obviously it's worse if he does. But the appearance in and of itself is part of the problem here because it erodes the reputation of the United States and it erodes the credibility of whatever deal is ultimately reached.

[Krystal Ball]

And that's the sort of long term damage. Obviously, I'm worried about the immediate damage with the Trump presidency, but I also am worried about the long term damage because typically when these things get put on the table, then you don't walk back from it. Like what president, future president, Republican or Democrat, is going to look at the opportunity to become massively wealthy and, you know, take these sorts of corrupt bribes from foreign countries and is going to turn away from that. You're talking about people who are extraordinarily ambitious and power hungry who ascend to those levels. So I think that post Trump, I think it's going to take more than just a sort of return of norms. I think you're going to have to codify, you're going to have to have some new laws. Like post Watergate, post Nixon, there was a rash of legislation that was meant to ensure, ok, we're not doing that again. We need to return to good governance. Some of that was campaign finance reform, by the way, that has been completely destroyed and decimated by this point. But you're gonna need some actual legal teeth and legislation to put this toothpaste back in the tube.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think we saw that with Joe Biden refusing to acknowledge his mental capacity after Trump won and a lot of establishment Democrats helping him cover up the state of his health, no matter what they say now. I think a lot of it was because of the first Trump administration, which by the way, we have to acknowledge in and of itself. Donald Trump was elected because of in part Clinton corruption, because people were so disgusted by Clinton corruption. So we can keep pulling back the layers on this, but there has never been, I mean Clinton Foundation I think was utterly egregious. I think Joe Biden's part in the Hunter Biden and Frank Biden and James Biden and Valerie Biden lobbying scheme was grotesque. I think it was undercovered. All of that is true. But on the scale of what's happening with Donald Trump, you mentioned the net worth. I looked that up while we were talking. CBS reported on it. This is a Norm Eisen Richard Painter thing from sort of left of center nonprofit, so take that for what you will. But they estimate the Trump family's net worth has increased by 2.9 billion because of the crypto holdings. And that represents about 40% of Trump's net worth. 40% of his net worth, Imagine. So this is a man who is spent decades in business. These meme coins lost launched in January. We're five months in and 40% of his net worth is now tied up in those meme coins. This is remarkable. Tells you remarkable.

[Krystal Ball]

Tells you everything right there, that statistic. Are you still quoting 30 year old movies?

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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