5/14/25: Trump Drops Syria Sanctions, GOP Revolt On Trump Budget, Biden Decline Coverup & MORE!

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Episode Summary (Released May 14, 2025)

Introduction

On the May 14, 2025, episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti delve into a plethora of pressing political issues encompassing President Donald Trump's activities in the Middle East, GOP maneuvers regarding Trump's budget, revelations about President Joe Biden's health, and the high-profile Diddy trial. The episode provides a comprehensive analysis of these topics, enriched with expert insights and notable quotes.

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1. Donald Trump's Middle East Diplomacy

President Trump's recent diplomatic trip to the Middle East forms the cornerstone of the episode's discussions. The hosts dissect his impactful speech in Saudi Arabia and his subsequent moves towards Doha.

• Syria Sanctions Lifted: Trump announced the cessation of sanctions on Syria, a move that Krystal Ball emphasizes could lead to significant geopolitical shifts in the region.

  Krystal Ball (02:40): "We need to end the war and release all hostages in one deal. This is the nightmare that for Israelis, including my family, started on October 7th."

• Strategic Alliances and Commerce vs. Chaos: Saagar highlights Trump's strategy of fostering deep financial ties with Gulf states, believing that commerce can supersede regional chaos.

  Saagar Enjeti (03:23): "Donald Trump absolutely openly believes that the best way to do business with these countries and achieve peace is through deep financial entanglements."

• Notable Quote from Amira Tabon, Haaretz Columnist:

  Amir Tabon (17:34): "If Trump doesn't end the war this week, thousands upon thousands of people will die in the coming weeks. This is a critical moment."

2. GOP Revolt on Trump's Budget and the Reconciliation Bill

The episode transitions to the intricacies of the GOP's efforts to finalize Trump's budget within the larger reconciliation bill framework.

• Tax Cuts and Trade War: The discussion centers on making Trump's tax cuts permanent to counterbalance the ongoing trade war, with a particular focus on reshoring industries.

  Krystal Ball (03:39): "Trump's big beautiful bill encompasses tax cuts, AI investments, and more, all while trying to navigate a fragile trade situation."

• State and Local Tax (SALT) Deduction Controversy: A significant portion is dedicated to the debate over tripling the SALT deduction, which has sparked intense negotiations and protests.

  Sagar Enjeti (75:12): "The SALT deduction tripling from $10,000 to $30,000 is a major sticking point, reflecting deep divisions within the Republican Party."

• Baby Investment Proposal: Senator Ted Cruz's innovative yet contentious proposal to create investment accounts for every newborn in America is examined as a potential negotiating tactic.

  Saagar Enjeti (76:39): "Senator Cruz's MAGA Baby investment idea could be a negotiating chip with the SALT proponents."

3. Biden's Health and Media Scrutiny

A particularly heated segment revolves around Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's forthcoming book, Original Sin, which alleges a cover-up of President Biden's health issues.

• Revelations on Biden's Health: Critics argue that Biden's physical and mental fitness for a second term is in question, citing anecdotes from prominent figures.

  Jake Tapper (100:58): "President Biden's doctor warned that one more serious fall might require him to use a wheelchair."

• Media's Role in Political Narratives: Krystal Ball critiques the media's delayed and selective coverage of Biden's health concerns, suggesting it hampered potential Democratic primary challenges.

  Krystal Ball (110:33): "There was a significant 25th Amendment conversation every year of the Biden presidency, yet it remained underreported until now."

4. The Diddy Trial and Accountability of the Elite

The trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs is another focal point, highlighting issues of power, accountability, and complicity within elite circles.

• Testimonies and Evidence: Victim Cassie Ventura's harrowing testimonies about abuse and coercion, supported by incriminating surveillance footage, form the crux of the prosecution's case.

  Cassie Ventura (recap at 114:34): Testified about being forced into "freak offs" and detailed instances of physical abuse by Diddy.

• Systemic Complicity: The hosts draw parallels between this case and other high-profile trials like Harvey Weinstein, emphasizing the challenges in holding powerful individuals accountable.

  Saagar Enjeti (125:02): "It's incredibly easy to take shortcuts in these trials because of the public momentum against a certain character."

5. Current Political Climate and Future Implications

Krystal and Saagar contextualize the discussed events within the broader spectrum of American politics, forecasting potential shifts and their ramifications.

• Republican Party's Internal Struggles: The GOP faces significant challenges in unifying its factions to pass the reconciliation bill, balancing tax cuts with necessary spending reforms.

  Saagar Enjeti (75:12): "With such thin margins in Congress, navigating the reconciliation bill is a monumental task for Republicans."

• Impact on US-Middle East Relations: Trump's actions could redefine America's role in the Middle East, potentially easing tensions but also raising concerns about deepened ties with controversial regimes.

  Amir Tabon (39:12): "If it helps end the war in Gaza, Qatar can buy a second plane for Sarah Netanyahu. Maybe that's what we need right now."

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Conclusion

The May 14 episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar offers an incisive examination of pivotal political events shaping 2025. From Trump's strategic maneuvers in the Middle East and the GOP's intricate budget negotiations to the scrutiny of Biden's health and the high-profile Diddy trial, Krystal and Saagar provide their listeners with a nuanced understanding of the complex political landscape. The inclusion of expert opinions and firsthand accounts enriches the discussion, making it a valuable resource for those seeking to grasp the multifaceted nature of contemporary American politics.

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Notable Quotes:

• Krystal Ball (02:40): "We need to end the war and release all hostages in one deal. This is the nightmare that for Israelis, including my family, started on October 7th."

• Saagar Enjeti (03:23): "Donald Trump absolutely openly believes that the best way to do business with these countries and achieve peace is through deep financial entanglements."

• Amir Tabon (17:34): "If Trump doesn't end the war this week, thousands upon thousands of people will die in the coming weeks. This is a critical moment."

• Saagar Enjeti (75:12): "The SALT deduction tripling from $10,000 to $30,000 is a major sticking point, reflecting deep divisions within the Republican Party."

• Jake Tapper (100:58): "President Biden's doctor warned that one more serious fall might require him to use a wheelchair."

• Saagar Enjeti (125:02): "It's incredibly easy to take shortcuts in these trials because of the public momentum against a certain character."

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Note: Timestamps correspond to segments within the provided transcript to aid listeners in locating specific quotes and discussions.

Transcript

[Sagar Enjeti]

You're listening to an iHeart podcast.

[Krystal Ball]

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[Emily]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

Hula we got one play. Everything we work for comes down to this. Quick question. Speaking of workouts, how would you rate your athletic program?

[Krystal Ball]

Bro, we're in the middle of the state championship.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh, so like a B then.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Dude, get out of our huddle.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Well, at holmes.com, we leave it all on the field to get you detailed information on local schools. Off the field, off the copy. All right. Go sports.

[Krystal Ball]

How'd he even get in here?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Homes.com we've done your homework.

[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.

[Amir Tabon]

Can find honest perspectives from the left 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.

[Sagar Enjeti]

A member today and you'll get access.

[Krystal Ball]

To our full shows unedited ad free.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And all put together for you every.

[Krystal Ball]

Morning in your inbox.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com.

[Krystal Ball]

Happy Wednesday. Welcome to Counterpoints. How are you doing, Emily?

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm good. Crystal says Counterpoints doesn't exist anymore. It's all Breaking Points.

[Krystal Ball]

I was going to say breaking points, but there's the Counterpoints logo.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We have some things to work out.

[Krystal Ball]

I guess we'll figure it out once back.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That sounds good. So we have a big show today. Donald Trump is in the Middle east, some great job site reporting to talk about actually on the Syria situation. But Trump gave a hell of a speech in Saudi Arabia that we're going to go through.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes. And now he's on his way to Doha.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's right.

[Krystal Ball]

Maybe he's going to pick up his big beautiful plane.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

We're also going to have Amir Tabon join us. He's a Haaretz columnist going to talk about what this means for the genocide in Gaza and whether or not we're going to actually see an end to this or and as I was talking to Amir about this yesterday, if Trump doesn't end that this week, almost certainly thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people will die in the coming weeks. This is at a critical moment. So the question is Steve Witkoff and Trump, they got in on Alexander out. Are they happy and they just move on and they just leave thousands of people to their fates or does he actually put a stop to this? We'll talk about this kind of pivotal moment here. He's also pushing his big beautiful bill Congress. This is happening.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's right. No, I mean the second component of their trade war is getting this tax bill passed because they see it as well we'll get into all of this, but they see this as a necessary component of the trade where you can't have the trade war without, as they see it, these big tax cuts or the continuation of these tax cuts.

[Krystal Ball]

But people notice the trade war is not on the bottom there. Trump basically gave up this weekend in his talks with China.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But even if you keep a 10% global tariff, they want to have all of these incentives to reshore and they don't feel like the markets will continue to react as they are. It's a fragile situation. If they don't get the tax cuts that they were promised, the continuation of tax cuts, they're promised. The Scott Bessant has been pushing 100% write offs on building and factory equipment. So all of that stuff is on the line in a big reconciliation bill that congressional Republicans with their raises, the majority are trying to stuff all kinds of stuff into from AI to salt deductions to Ryan nonprofit exemptions. And they were the House was in session like 4am so we're going to bring you all the details from that fight. It's a big one. Also Ryan, the Jake Tapper, Alex Thompson book on it's called Original sin on the COVID up of Joe Biden's health is causing a stir. A big excerpt was published yesterday in the New Yorker about Biden failing to recognize George Clooney at that now infamous LA fundraiser last year. Go ahead.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. If you remember, that's when things started to break because Clooney came out publicly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right. In the New York Times.

[Krystal Ball]

Right? Yeah. And it was like, I don't think that this guy really is up for another term. And now we know that specifically Joe Biden did not recognize George Clooney, which would put Joe Biden in the 0.001% of people. I don't know about the world, but certainly in the United States who wouldn't recognize George Clooney. It's George Clooney.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Plus they have had a relationship for.

[Krystal Ball]

As Clooney, even if you don't. It's George Clooney.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. I mean the man is very recognizable. Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

Who's that handsome man?

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's. There's a raging debate once again about the media's role in all of this and about the Biden family's role and all of this. So we'll bring you the details on that huge day in the Diddy trial yesterday. Cassie testified with some, really not just Cassie, others testified too. But Cassie's testimony was as wrenching as you can imagine. So we will dip into the trial and bring you some important updates on how that is proceeding. Let's return to the Middle East, Ryan, and start with Donald Trump making his way through this trip, giving this massive speech in Saudi Arabia yesterday that you can tell, usually tell from the writing. But the writing of this speech was meant to be very consequential.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes. Trump doing a regional tour. He's going to hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey. He's very deliberately and conspicuously skipping Israel in 2009. And I've seen some people compare this. Obama went to the Middle east on what the right called an apology tour. If you go back and read the speech he gave there, it's very similar to Trump's. They're coming at it from a different angle. Obama was saying the United States needs to step aside and just allow the Middle east to develop itself. And that nation building he was attacking George W. Bush was the wrong thing to do. Trump now saying basically the same thing. And he's also going after the same guy, George W. Bush. So the only thing Obama and Trump really agree on is that George W. Bush really screwed up that region.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It brings the whole country together, really, except for Michelle Obama, who still has.

[Krystal Ball]

His own, we can all rally around that now. The difference is I watched the entire Trump speech and of course the first like 15 minutes he's talking about how many counties he won in the election. Red stands for Republican. The specific number of counties that he won. He makes sure everybody at this Riyadh conference knows that he won all seven swing states. So Obama didn't do that. Obama didn't go over his kind of county by county to his loss.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, he could have, yeah, he.

[Krystal Ball]

Had some interesting things he could have pointed out. He won Iowa. And people, people seem to love that. So when he gets into the historic nature of the speech, that's when it does become very interesting. So let's roll. This is the piece that's kind of going viral in the Middle East.

[George Clooney]

Before our eyes, a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts of tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle east is defined by commerce, not chaos, where it exports technology, not terrorism, and where people of different nations, religions and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence. We don't want that. And it's crucial for the wider world to note that this great transformation has not come from Western interventionists or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop cabal Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle east has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives. Developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions and charting your own destinies in your own way. It's really incredible what you've done. In the end, the so called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built. And the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves.

[Krystal Ball]

So there's an interesting through line here from Obama and an interesting contrast. Obama in his speech was talking about how this isn't for the United States to decide how the Middle east is going to develop, it's for the people of the Middle East. And the people in that room really blamed him when the Arab Spring kicked off a year and a half or so later. And Said, look, you got all these people's hopes up that actually. That they can control their own destinies. And if you notice Trump's phrasing, he says the people who are here. And then he's like, the people here, like the ones that I'm looking at, it's like, I'm not talking about the Arab street, so to speak. I'm not saying that you need democracy. We're not exporting democracy to this region anymore. He's saying, look, you're a king. You have the crown prince over here. These are your cultures, this is your tradition. Cool. You guys in this room have developed this stuff, and I'm going to support you to do that. So it's. And the reason I say it's an interesting through line is that if you want to respond to that, let me know. Otherwise, we can go to the Syria thing, which is an interesting connection.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, I mean, I think that's all part of exactly what you're talking about.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. So one of the things that flowed out of the Arab Spring was the uprising in Syria, which began nonviolently and then turned into a civil war that then Qatar was funding elements of it, UAE was funding elements of it. Saudi was funding elements of it. The CIA was funding all sides of it. At different points, Russia gets involved and it ends with former terrorists taking power and setting up a meeting or trying to set up a meeting with Trump. But like Ahmed Al Shara, the Syrian president, went to Iriad trying to meet with Trump with an offer to the United States saying, please lift sanctions on us and we will open up all of Syria to American oil and gas companies. So a delegation went to Damascus recently, met with Al Shara, returned here to Washington last week. I sat down with them and a group of other reporters, and wildly, I left that meeting. I was like, we need to write this fast. Like, this is an on the record offer from Alshara to the United States, saying, we want. We're going to. We will allow American companies to do all of the reconstruction. We'll allow American companies to exploit the oil and gas. It's not a completely clean offer because the Kurds control a lot of the oil and gas. So it's like, can you really give away the Kurds oil? Anyway, that's just a minor concern, Maz. And I like race to write it up because there's reporters from the Times, the Post, you know, everywhere else at this meeting. Nobody else wrote it. Like, nobody else wrote the piece. It's hilarious. So that offer was made last week and he said, I'm gonna be in Rio. I'd love. Give me five minutes with you. I will give you this store.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Were other people not taking it seriously because it's so unorthodox? By no political statement?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I think it was the editors. I think the reporters were all like, whoa, this is really interesting. Maybe. Yeah, maybe.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But if you know Donald Trump, you know that that's completely serious. Like, if you followed him closely and taken him as a serious figure, not just this, like, flat caricature. You know, he hears something like that, they're speaking his language, and they're doing it sort of cleverly and strategically.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what on earth's up with them. I don't know. Something weird is going on. So in this speech, the biggest news he made, besides, I think the speech itself is news because it's kind of reframing and framing his approach to the Middle East. But the specific news he made was on Syria. And this is the kind of the end of the arc that begins with Obama. Let's roll a one here.

[George Clooney]

And also with President Erdogan of Turkey, who called me the other day and asked for a very similar thing. Among others and friends of mine, people that I have a lot of respect for in the Middle East, I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness. Oh, what I do for the Crown Prince.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, what'd I do for the Crown Prince?

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's unbelievable.

[Krystal Ball]

I think Tom Barrack, by the way, is.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, is he on the trip?

[Krystal Ball]

A friend. I think he was referring to a friend who asked him to do it, who has experience in the region. I think that's Tom Barrick. Look him up.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Google Ryan Grim.

[Krystal Ball]

Tom Barrack, good friend of Trump's. But in any event. So Trump is saying, hey, I'm gonna lift sanctions.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And massive applause in Rihanna.

[Krystal Ball]

Standing ovation.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Mm.

[Krystal Ball]

I owe what I do for the Crown Prince. But actually, he loves the Crown Prince. So how are conservatives responding to this particular element of it?

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, it's really interesting because everyone seems like they're on the right, at least on board, and except for the Qatar stuff, and we're gonna talk about that in the next block, that has generated a pretty significant backlash. But I think this. What did he say? Commerce versus chaos, that dichotomy that he landed on in the speech is an interesting one, because commerce often brings with it lots of geopolitical chaos. In fact, the sort of original sin of America's relationship with Iran came because of commerce, which is like, has the entire Middle east, you know, to this very day in upheaval constantly. And it's because of what the United States and the UK Were doing with oil. And so I think most people on the right see it as. You know, it's interesting, you talked about the through line with Obama's first trip and his first term on the apology tour, as people on the right called it. And I think there was some truth to that. But I think a lot of people on the right now look back and say, gosh, we should have been apologizing.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

When Trump said in that speech, the nation builders destroyed more than they ever built. Again, if John McCain had won the presidency in 2009, in 2008, and then in 2009 said that to Arab leaders overseas, the backlash would have been incredible. I mean, it would have been a completely different world.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And we learned, speaking of nation builders, that there's a new report. I forget. I think it might have been the New York Times, that the Biden administration and just the Harris team had put together this massive plan to basically completely destroy Yemen over a period of like a year and a half or something to take on the Houthis. But they didn't do it because they wanted to wait for either their reelection or to let Trump do it. So, like, the. The nation building and the interventionism is still very much a live faction. Trump is not just pushing on an open door here. Like, there is resistance to this. And so that does make it consequential. It's ironic that he has to agree with Obama while the Obama position is now a real minority faction inside the Democratic Party.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And so I think some of the Qatar battle is a proxy battle for that. People who don't necessarily want to say openly that they. And maybe they don't even want to think openly that they support, you know, ground invasions in a place like Iran or more confrontation with Iran. But I think some of it comes out in the Qatar fight. It feels like an easy battle for the people who are hawks to take Trump on. Now, I will say, I think a lot of the American public, and I think the same thing about the plane. We'll talk about this later. But the American public looks at this, and it's the same thing with Obama. If it gets us closer to peace and stability, we can have a raging debate about whether it does. But if they get that sense, they'll support it.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. So at the same time, the PKK just a couple days ago, this is the militant group in Turkey that's been waging war for Kurdish independence for decades. Just a couple days ago said it's wrapping up business at their Congress, they voted to dissolve themselves. And so everywhere you look in the region, there's something kind of seismic going on with Iran kind of at the center of it with Witkoff and Bowler or in Wyckoff in particular, still pushing hard to bring Iran in against the objections of Israel, which we'll get into later when we have our guest on but it does seem like the time is ripe to kind of reshape this Middle east, ironically, in the exact way that Obama wanted to do because he did the deal in 2015 to say, look, enough. Why are we doing this? Why are you guys all at war? And Obama and I think Trump too, they all want to do it because they want to focus on other stuff.

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

We've seen this throughout the trip, by the way, even just where he talks about. Oh, the things I do for the crown prince. So he was being driven around in a golf cart by Mohammed bin Salman yesterday. They brought out. Do we have this, guys? They brought out the McDonald's trailer. Yeah. We can roll through some of these videos that you can see on the screen. But they brought out a McDonald's trailer.

[Krystal Ball]

YMCA is playing while this is going.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yep, they played the ymca, which some noted is a.

[Krystal Ball]

Right after his speech.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right after his speech.

[Krystal Ball]

Just like a Trump rally.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Here he is with Sam Altman and MBS having what appears to be a very friendly conversation, which drives me insane.

[Krystal Ball]

Why is Sam Altman there?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, you know why. Come on, you know why.

[Krystal Ball]

Sam Altman, like this AI guy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. This very awkward signing ceremony where they're sitting at tables like 20 yards apart from each other, maybe 10 yards apart from each other. Here's the famous McDonald's trailer that they rolled out for Trump because that man loves McDonald's and they know how to work with Trump. That's pretty cool.

[Krystal Ball]

The filet o fish all the way out in Riyadh.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But you know the, what I was getting at with this is I think Trump has this sense that he wants, if you're going to do the anti nation building thing, like Obama did, you also, or Obama tried to do early in this term before, you know, drone striking US Citizens and all of that. If you want to be in that position, Trump believes that you have to frame it differently, that you have to look like you're the winner, not that you're prostrating yourself to these powers. And so with the Iran deal, for example, I think there are some. It's looking like there would be some significant differences, but broadly the point is the same. Why is this like, why are we not just ending this? Why are we continuing to allow people to come in between the peace process and set things back decades and all of that. Trump is just. The difference between Trump and Obama is that he knows the people who would have been furious at, say, John McCain for going to the Middle east and saying something about anti nation building in 2009. Actually probably were anti nation building, meaning it's about tapping into the sort of nationalism. Right. So, like, the people who end up voting for Trump, who maybe voted for Obama too, by the way, were just as opposed to George W. Bush's foreign interventions, but they didn't want to apologize for it. And I think Trump has. That's a difference between Trump and Obama. And I think it speaks to Trump knowing his constituency, which is. Which is different.

[Krystal Ball]

I also think Republicans love to talk about Trump derangement syndrome, and it's definitely a thing. Trump plays plenty of a role in triggering the derangement.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You take medication for it.

[Krystal Ball]

I take medication for it. The Obama derangement syndrome was unlike anything related to Trump. I think, like, there's, like, the derangement was so much wilder for people who are old enough. And if you're not old enough, you can Google this. One of the big scandals, when Obama went over to the Middle east for the first or second time, they said he bowed to the king.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That was Saudi Arabia, wasn't it?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, Saudi Arabia. Yeah. So he bowed. And how dare he? Like, it was an impeachment worthy allegation. Like, how dare this American president bow to a Saudi king. In his speech last night, Trump starts reading this line about how because of his amazing first hundred days and he's cleaned up everything Biden has done wrong, the US now has the most dynamic, incredible economy in the world. And he stops himself. He's like, I can't believe I almost said that. Right here in front of the Crown Prince. Of course, Crown Prince, you have the greatest economy. Your economy is incredible. How awful would it be if I even finished that sentence? Like, go find the clip. It's classic comical Trump and like, what do you like? So he's up there on stage debasing himself.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

In front of this crown Prince.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

And doing it, like, fabulously with the ymca. Yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Which people were pointing out is a gay anthem in Saudi Arabia. Sort of a.

[Krystal Ball]

Though that's pretty funny.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

That's almost more a troll of the Crown Prince than a bow to him.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

But the speech itself, he was just bowing constantly to and all, look, Saudi Arabia. Like, the citizens of Saudi Arabia are doing well. Their economy overall is not better than the United States. Like, it's a broken economy that is kept alive by oil. Congratulations. Good for you. You can pump oil out of the ground and spend the money, but doesn't mean you have a great economy. And for Trump, he's just lavishing with praise. If Obama would have done that like, it's just different.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Just different worlds. The two. The two live in just completely different media environments.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Sam Altman was there, by the way, because I think we've covered this before, Ryan, Saudi Arabia is a massive investor in AI and what, Trump.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm not surprised he's there. It's just. I just don't like that these AI kingpins. No, they're part of our.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, the same thing with Elon Musk. And we saw Elon Musk sitting down with Modi, what, two months ago, with all appearances of being a representative of the United States government at that point, but also a business leader with massive interests in the Indian market. And that's what Sam Altman was doing there. There was also, like, Jensen Wang was there. Andy Jassy was there. And what Donald Trump is trying to do. And maybe you can flesh this out more, Ryan, to that point, again, about commerce vers chaos, which sounds almost like Fukuyama, by the way. Interesting, because there was literally a McDonald's trailer. Two countries with McDonald's just won't go to war with each other. Right. But it sounds in that sense a little like the exact ideology that people who are now regurgitating the Samuel Huntington thesis have sort of staked their worldview in opposition to. But, Ryan, what Trump is trying to do basically, is spur massive investment between from actually, not just Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states that he is visiting this week. And your point about Syria is an important one, but that's what he's trying to do is basically explode the business interests between the United States and places like Saudi Arabia, probably Qatar, too.

[Krystal Ball]

And you'll like this. So we can roll A8 here. This is Trump being asked if he did have the meeting with the Syrian president. He did, which is kind of fun to think like, drop site was the first report.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's crazy.

[Krystal Ball]

Al Shara wanted to meet with Trump and then at Riyadh, and they're like, hey, okay, let's meet. Let's do this. We're just out here making deals for Trump. Shara, formerly, what, number two, ran Mosul for ISIS or something? Like it was like, formerly Al Qaeda, then rebranded it as Nusra. Like, this is a guy with a very interesting past. Let's see what Donald Trump has to say about his meeting with a guy who up until very recently had a $10 million bounty on his head for being a wanted terrorist. How did you find the Syrian president?

[George Clooney]

Right, right. I think very good. Young, attractive guy, tough guy. You know, strong pass. Very strong pass.

[Krystal Ball]

Fighter Very strong pass.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's a fighter.

[Krystal Ball]

He's a fighter.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Is that what he said about the Houthis last week?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah. He loves the Houthis too.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, they're very brave.

[Krystal Ball]

He respects. Yeah, he respects strength.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

Whether that's.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

And if you are a member of a designated terrorist organization at war with the United States, he respects you even more because he sees his beefy generals given the briefings about all the different munitions and billion. They dropped a billion dollars worth of weapons on the Houthis and they withstood every bit of it. And Trump's like, gotta respect that. And yes. Like strong past.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, yeah. So I think it's important. I think the backdrop to all of this is important. This is a six. We can put this on the screen. So the Wall Street Journal did a big report ahead of the trip laying out and this was a gargantuan task. This is a breaking point graphic from the Wall Street Journal article. But they were. I mean it must have taken them a long time to get all of this straight. These are all of the different deals right now. We'll read them for you. If you're listening to this that Donald Trump and his family have in the Middle East. So residential towers are going to be constructed in Dubai, Jeddah and Dublin.

[Krystal Ball]

And the Al Qaeda guy offered one in Damascus too.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Damascus. Yeah, I think that's what I meant to put there. Okay, so then there's.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh yeah, not Dublin.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it's supposed to be Damascus. Yep. And then there's.

[Krystal Ball]

They have one in Dublin too.

[Sagar Enjeti]

There's the Trump owned luxury golf course in Qatar. Stablecoin by the Trump organization has $200 billion in funding from the UAE and Saudi royals.

[Krystal Ball]

Two billion.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Two billion in funding from the UAE and saudi royals. Royals of three states have committed three and a half billion dollars to the Kushner PE fund. State backed funds have raised $606 billion for Trump adviser Elon Musk's ex AI Dubai just made a deal with the boring company or is trying to in the process of making a deal with boring company for an 11 mile tunnel network. And the Saudi prince, nephew to the king, is an investor in Xai. I mean this is like.

[Krystal Ball]

And then one other put up. This is a four. They announced this. This is the thing that you were signed that you were. That they were signing that. We showed that footage. $142 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, which would be the largest arms deal. I think that we've agreed to the largest security pact we've Agreed to. They're Talking about a $400 to $600 billion trade and business commercial agreement. Trump is saying it might go up to a trillion. Take that with a huge grain of Salt. The entire GDP of Saudi Arabia is like 1 trillion. And so that's a fake, made up number. They're not going to send every penny of their GDP to Trump, but they're going to send as much as they possibly can.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And you and I and probably a lot of our audience are the naive remaining critics of this level of. In the Trump orbit.

[Krystal Ball]

And we can get into that in the next block, which I think is interesting.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, right. It's very much baked into Trumpism. I completely understand that. So I think the important way to see what's happening this week is that Donald Trump absolutely openly believes that the best way to do business with these countries and the best way to achieve peace with these countries is to have these entanglements, these deep financial entanglements with these states, no matter how problematic they are, no matter how much they don't want you to play the ymca. Like you have to have these. And it's very, it's actually sort of a mirror image of the way that they approach policy domestically and foreign policy with like family ties, personal ties. Trump admires that and likes it and it speaks to him, and that's why he has these great relationships with the Saudi countries, is because he does believe that commerce will win over chaos and not cause the chaos, because he's sort of seen that happen, from his perspective at least. I mean, I don't agree with that, but he believes that he's seen that happen. As a businessman, you look at Steve Witkoff, for example, a close friend of Donald Trump's, who' swe'll talk about. We talk about him when we talk about Qatar too, but big investments in this space. So I don't think Trump is in any way hiding from the appearance and reality of corruption. He's kind of embracing it. He wants that to be the foundation of the policy going forward, is that there are deep financial entanglements between government and business.

[Emily]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

Is the only place where you can find specialized neighborhood guides with the in depth insider info home shoppers want. Very in depth info. Want to know if there's homes for sale in the area? We've got it. How long has a home been on the market?

[Krystal Ball]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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[G]

Uh huh.

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Of course.

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[Krystal Ball]

At Amica Insurance, we know it's more than a life policy. It's about the promise and the responsibility that comes with being a new parent, being there day and night and building a plan for tomorrow today for the ones you'll always look out for. Trust Amica Life Insurance Ameca Empathy is our best policy. President Donald Trump is facing increasing pushback for accepting a $400 million plane from Qatar. Here he is on his old raggedy plane, Air Force One, responding to some of this criticism.

[George Clooney]

The plane that you're on right now is almost 40 years old. And when you land and you see Saudi Arabia and you see UAE and you see Qatar and you see all these, and they have these brand new Boeing 747s mostly, and you see ours next to it, this is like a totally different plane. It's much smaller. It's much less impressive, as impressive as it is. And you know, with the United States of America, I believe that we should have the most impressive plane. So anyway, so they said to me, we would like to, in effect, we would like to make a gift. You've done so many things and we'd like to make a gift to the Defense Department, which is where it's going. And they said, well, that's nice. Now some people say, oh, you shouldn't accept gifts for the country. My attitude is why wouldn't I accept the gift we're giving to everybody else? Why wouldn't I accept a gift? Because it's going to be a couple of years, I think, before the Boeings are finished.

[Krystal Ball]

Why wouldn't I accept the gift? This has roused Democratic leadership and a bunch of Republicans to finally get up and offer a little bit of criticism of Trump. Here's both Senate leaders, Schumer and Democratic leaders. The leader of the Senate, leader of the House, Schumer and Jeffries pushing back.

[Amir Tabon]

Let's roll those news of the Qatari government gifting Donald TRUMP A $400 million private jet to use as Air Force One is so corrupt that even Putin would give a double take. This is not just naked corruption. It is also a grave national security threat. So, in light of the deeply troubling news of a possible Qatari funded Air Force One and the reports that the Attorney General personally signed off on this clearly unethical deal, I am announcing a hold on all DOJ political nominees until we get more answers. And Donald Trump is publicly defending accepting a $400 million flying palace from a close ally of Iran and Hamas. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. Which is why even some of his closest MAGA sycophants have made clear this.

[G]

Is a plane too far.

[Krystal Ball]

Close ally of Iran and Hamas. We have a giant military base there. Anyway, here's Ben Shapiro agreeing with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Let's roll that one.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's not America First. Like, please define America first in a way that says you should take sacks.

[Krystal Ball]

Of cash from the Qatari royals who are behind Al Jazeera.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It just isn't America first in any conceivable way. If you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeezy stuff needs to stop.

[Krystal Ball]

My problem with taking this plane from.

[Amir Tabon]

Qatar is I do not think the President of the United States of America should sit and fly on a plane purchased with the same money used to murder American citizens.

[Krystal Ball]

And the most powerful person who's not in the White House in the United States. Laura Loomer also came out against Trump. Put up B3 here saying, I love President Trump, but this is ridiculous. Come on, get out of here. You can't accept a $400 million gift. And then she dips into her classic Islamophobia.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Rare that Ben Shapiro and Laura Loomer agree on something.

[Krystal Ball]

And with Schumer and Jeffries as well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes. But I think just quickly, Trump would, to Ben Shapiro say, oh, it's easy to define this as America First. He just basically did it in the.

[Krystal Ball]

Clip that we wrote.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's like, the plane is too small. We're the United States of America. And this makes us have a better relationship with another powerful potential in a potentially hostile area. So he would have no problem answering that question. I think the problem for him at this point is that most people aren't buying his argument.

[Krystal Ball]

All right, so joining us, more to discuss the implications of all of this is Haaretz journalist Amir Thabon. Amir, thanks so much for joining us. The timing of this, just kind of delightful, just hilarious. Right before he travels first to Riyadh, then to Doha with A series of historically consequential decisions in front of him. We hear that he's going to be getting this $400 million plane. How is this news being received in Israel?

[G]

I'll say two things about it. Number one, you may recall that in February, Prime Minister Netanyahu came to the White House to meet President Trump. And there was a lot of thought in his close circle what they could give him in order to create a good atmosphere and kind of, you know, give him a gift, really. Okay. I mean, let's put it in his terms. And eventually they brought Trump a golden beeper, right? Because related to that famous operation in Beirut with all the Hezbollah beepers that blew up. And so they brought him a golden beeper. Pretty small. And there was a whole ceremony where Netanyahu gave it to him. And, you know, I don't think that made much of an impression. I also don't think it was real gold. It was probably gold filled. And then you look at the Qataris who, how they're playing the Trump game. You know, they give him a plane, and God knows what's in that plane. And I mean, who would be surprised if there are all kinds of other gifts flying with it? So they know what they're doing in terms of appealing to President Trump, and they are better at this game than anyone else, probably. Okay. I mean, they're not giving him something small, you know. And I have to say, about a week before his trip, I was talking about this with a friend from the newspaper, from Aretz Chaim Levinson, who writes about diplomatic affairs. And he mentioned to me that he watched a news segment where a Qatari official was talking about the country's deliberations, whether or not to buy new planes from Boeing or from Airbus. Right. Basically American or European. And after the Trump plane story came out, he wrote, I feel ashamed of myself as a journalist. I thought the gift that we're gonna give Trump is to buy Boeing planes for Qatar. I'm not on their game. I don't even. Not even close. They may do that as well. But that's the change. What they're really doing is giving Trump a Qatari plane from Boeing. They know what they're doing. They're good at this. And the other thing I want to say, and you're putting aside all the just unbelievable nature of it, if it helps end the war in Gaza, I would say give. Qatar can buy a second plane for Sarah Netanyahu, Bibi's wife, if it brings an agreement to end the war in Gaza. Release all the hostages, stop all the suffering and the death. Maybe that's what we need right now. Because I'm a bit hopeless this morning, I got to tell you, I'm seeing the negotiations happening there in Qatar for ending the war. I don't think it's moving fast enough. So whatever works at this point. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And we want you to stick around for an update on those negotiations, where that's going to go first. Let's unpack a little bit more about this situation because here in the United States, from my perspective at least, Israel and its backers here in the United States in Joe Biden had a fierce ideological supporter, like absolutely unapologetic supporter of Israel. Yes. He pressed Netanyahu to allow a couple hundred trucks of aid in every day. And for three or four days he withheld 2,000 pound bombs after, you know, a series of like over the top massacres, but otherwise carte blanche for Israel's war effort, or if you would even call it that at this point. And they fought him and traded him for the most transactional politician the US has had in that office for as long as anybody can really remember. And if you're going to have the most transactional guy in office, like you said, you've got to be on your game and you know, gold plated beepers just aren't going to do it. So is there any reflection in Israel about a strategic error, a blindness in throwing out these Democrats who are going to, who were willing to self immolate for Israel in exchange for this guy who's like, you can just be outbid.

[G]

I'll tell you what, Ryan, I think it's a little too early to reach the conclusion that Trump is actually changing the Biden policy on Gaza. I think you're right that we saw some important arenas in the Middle east recently where he was willing to go against the stated position of the Netanyahu government. We saw it on Syria. Netanyahu appealed to the Trump administration not to lift sanctions on the new Syrian government because of the jihadi past of Ahmed Al Shara Abu Aljolani, the new leader of Syria. And Trump ignored Netanyahu's requests and went with the policy that was advocated by Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and President Erdogan of Turkey and lifted all the sanctions of Syria. Met Ahmed Al Sharat in Riyadh and yes, he asked him to join the Abraham Accords with Israel and I'm sure the new Syrian president told him would be willing to consider it once the war in Gaza is over. Okay. Because they're not going to do it while Israeli planes are bombing and killing in Gaza. That's just not going to happen, realistically. So on that issue, obviously a disappointment for the Netanyahu government was Trump's policy on Yemen. I'm sure you've discussed this. The fact that he reached a ceasefire with the Houthis that does not include their continuous attempts to launch missiles toward Israel, including one that landed at Ben Gurion Airport, Israel's only international airport, last week. And almost every day now, you have about a million people in Israel running into bomb shelters because of the Houthis, while the American ceasefire stands on Iran. I think we'll have to wait and see. We don't really know what is the actual content of the negotiations. And what we hear from Stephen Witkoff, every week is different, right? One week it seems closer to the Israeli position, the next week it seems more detached from it. Wait and see. But on Gaza, I think that's where Netanyahu is playing the fiercest game right now against Trump. And that's where he's being the most really kind of, you know, bare knuckles approach. He's not willing to budge on the American attempts to move toward ending the war and releasing all the hostages in one deal. I call it the end, the nightmare deal. Okay? And the nightmare that for Israelis, including my family, started on October 7 and has been going on every day since in Gaza and in the region broadly. Okay? This is just a nightmare. And if we don't end it soon, it's going to get much worse, because right now there are preparations for another military operation in Gaza, and I don't want to think what would happen. This is very personal for me because I have a friend who is held hostage there for 586 days now. Omrim Iran was kidnapped by Hamas from my community kibbutz Nachal Oz, on the border with Gaza. We fear for his life. And we know that President Trump and Wykoff, they want to end the war. We know that. And honestly, guys, Biden wanted to end the war, too, okay? He had his whole. If you remember, in May 2024, almost a year ago, he presented a plan to end the war, but he didn't really use any leverage to actually bring about that result. And right now, I can't say for sure that there is a change on this issue, that Trump is actually going to use the immense leverage that he has to bring about an end to the war. Maybe something will emerge out of this visit right now to Qatar. We are all hoping and praying we haven't seen it yet.

[Emily]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Free [e-mail] iheart greenlight.com iheart homes.com has.

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, let's put on the screen here some of your points actually that you've made. Amira C1 we can start with C1 wanna so Amir, you posted on X Trump's statement now in the release of Hostage of Don Alexander is the first time since January 2025 that he explicitly mentioned ending Gaza war as part of a deal to release all hostages and finish the nightmare that began on October 7th. Huge positive sign. Only he and Wyckoff can do it. And then we can move to the next element where you point out a mere less than a day since his return from Hamas captivity, the PRO Netanyahu Channel 14 is attacking Adan Alexander and his family on live television because his mother thanked President Trump for Adan's release and not Prime Minister Netanyahu. Sick, twisted, narcissistic behavior. And I just want to ask Amir if you could tell us a little bit, share a little bit about how this is being received domestically in Israel. The developments just of the last couple of days, it's been really I can't remember seeing such an interesting or interesting sort of political dynamic between The US and Israel. Interesting, maybe surprising is maybe one way to put it.

[G]

Unprecedented. Listen. Yeah, you're right, because let's look back what happened here, okay? Idan Alexander is this 20 year old guy, grew up in New Jersey, son of Israeli parents, when he was 18, decided he wants to go back to Israel, serve in the military. And then he was taken by Hamas on October 7th and held in terrible, inhumane conditions for so many days, you know, tortured and went through hell. And for a long time there was an attempt to release him as part of the broader deal. But at some point, when people in the Trump administration, specifically Adam Boller, who was in charge of hostage negotiations, realized that Netanyahu and Ron Dermer, his right hand man, were wasting time and were not serious about moving into the second phase of the January 2025 ceasefire. And then we saw of course, that the ceasefire collapsed because Netanyahu wasn't willing to continue. They began an independent effort to release only Idan Alexander, who is the last living a hostage with a dual Israeli American citizen. There are also four hostages who were murdered on October 7 and are held by Hamas. Their bodies are there, but Idan is alive. And Adam Boller went to meet directly with some of the most senior people in Hamas without notifying Israel about it. And there was a whole crisis about this in March. The Trump administration suspected that it was leaked by the Israeli government after they found out about it through intelligence in order to sabotage those negotiations. Two months pass and eventually again the Americans try a separate channel with Hamas. Barak Ravid, my friend, wrote a very interesting article in Axios about how exactly it was negotiated and they succeed to reach some understanding with Hamas. We don't know all the details and Hamas releases Idan Alexander. So that by itself is incredible and like you said, unprecedented. And in Israel, everybody's happy that Idan is out. Okay? This young man came to Israel to defend the country. He didn't have to do it, could have gone to college, like everybody his age in America. So everybody is really happy for him. But we're also asking, wait, what does this mean? Is there a difference between an Israeli citizen who also has an American passport and all the others? If you're taken hostage by a terror organization, you better have an American passport or otherwise your own government. I mean, I don't even want to continue the sentence, but it raises really disturbing questions. And then the second part of it was that yesterday his mother Yael gave a short statement to the press at Ikhilab Hospital in Tel Aviv. We already done his recovering. And she thanked President Trump and Mr. Witkoff and I think also Adam Bowler. And she thanked the soldiers who fought to bring her son back and the doctors who are treating him. And she did not thank Prime Minister Netanyahu. And I think for obvious reasons, because he's been stonewalling, he's been wasting time, he's been avoiding a decision to make a deal and end this war. And again, there is suspicion that he harmed the previous attempt to release her son. And as a result of this, you had this ugly phenomenon of pundits and media, people and people with large following on social media attacking her and attacking him, her son, simply because she thanked President Trump and not Prime Minister Netanyahu. And I also wrote a column about it today in Haaret. It's unbelievable. It's despicable. And instead of attacking her and saying, why doesn't she thank Netanyahu? Maybe we can just move along to actually do a deal, bring out all the other hostages and end the war, and then we can have a lot of time to fight over who gets the credit.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And so there are a couple different reactions you could have as an Israeli public to that. Like, one is the one that you're describing, like, anger at the mom, like, how dare you? We don't have it, but there's this amazing clip, I'm sure you've seen it, where Witkoff and Netanyahu are talking. And Witkoff thanks Netanyahu for not getting in the way of the deal.

[G]

Yeah. For not sabotaging it, basically.

[Krystal Ball]

Absolutely. Striking thing to say while in a public call. And maybe this is Witkoff and Ryan.

[G]

I want to interrupt and just note that. But the very situation that this guy is an Israeli soldier and an Israeli citizen, and Witkoff is the one who greets him and then gets his own prime minister on the phone is by itself, you know, unusual. I mean, why should. But that's just the situation right now. And this feeds into a greater feeling that you hear from a lot of the families of the hostages who tell the press that they get a lot more empathy and a lot more support and a lot more understanding from people in the Trump administration, especially Wyckoff and Adam Boller, than they get from people in the Netanyahu government. And they have more meetings and more briefings and more access to Mr. Witkoff and the others working on this issue in Washington than in Jerusalem, where many of the ministers in Netanyahu's government look at them with scorn and look at them as a burden that is hurting the war effort. So that's what we've come to. It's very sad.

[Krystal Ball]

Right? So the one response would be, well, let's burn this woman for being disrespectful to the prime minister who so selflessly didn't sabotage the deal. Can't he get some gratitude for that? The other reaction would be the one that you alluded to earlier, which is, what is wrong with my government, that you have to have an American passport for them to care about you? Why don't they care about the Israeli citizens? So why isn't that more predominant? Why isn't that driving the politics? And what did you mean earlier when you were saying that you feel a lot of pessimism this morning about the state of the negotiations?

[G]

Well, the two things are connected to one another because you see in public opinion polling that around 70% of Israelis tomorrow morning would gladly take a deal to release all the remaining hostages and end the war. This is something that has a lot of support in Israel. The government is refusing to do it. There is no real external pressure on Netanyahu to do it because Trump so far has not crossed the Rubicon of actually applying pressure on Netanyahu in this direction. And you showed my post from a few days ago where I noted that he used those words for the first time, you know, end the brutal war. Those were the words that Trump used in a post on X. That was the first time he even wrote it or said it. So the movement on this is slow. And as a result, a lot of people feel depressed and feel helpless because they want the war to end, the hostages to come back, and this nightmare to be done with. And there have been demonstrations, some of them very large. And, you know, it's hard to keep momentum all the time, but people have come out again and again into the streets. And yet Netanyahu completely ignores this. And it's not clear that there is external pressure that will lead in a different direction, and that leads to a sense of despair and hopelessness. And I really hope we'll get some news out of this visit by President Trump that would change the momentum, take it in a different direction. I do believe that he and Wyckoff can do it. I think they have enough, you know, especially after this visit and after Idan's release. They have strong public standing in Israel that most of the Israeli public would 100% support such a move if they decided to go for it. And even if there was some kind of a confrontation that evolved as a result of it, I don't know that they're there yet.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And just my question on that is, what are you looking to see from Donald Trump now? He is in Qatar today. We were just talking about Qatar. He was in Riyadh. Are there particular interactions or statements other than kind of the obvious, as you were just mentioning, that you might expect to see from Trump? That would give you more hope?

[G]

Amir, I think it's very important that he keeps saying out loud in a very clear way what he wrote on Sunday. I think, yeah, it was on Sunday regarding this, you know, that all the hostages end the war. And I think it's important to put a proposal like that on the table and create broad support for it. And that will be easy because this is what the Saudis want, this is what the Qataris want. This is what the Emiratis wants. This is what all the world wants, really. And you can create strong momentum toward it. That would also create a momentum in Israel for people to come out and say, okay, let's do it. And I want to remind you that Trump, really, one of his biggest goals before he embarked on this trip was to expand the Abraham Accords and add Saudi Arabia to the normalization a pact with Israel. The only reason this isn't happening is because of the war in Gaza. And the Saudis are willing, are interested, they want to do it, but they can't do it while bombs are dropping and people are dying in Gaza. That's something that they just can't do because of their own domestic public opinion. And this is something that is also, I think, in Trump's clear interest to get this problem out of the way. But of course, it will involve a direct confrontation with Netanyahu who doesn't want to do it. And it's up to President Trump and Mr. Wyckoff to decide that they're willing to go that distance and to actually do it. They're the only ones who can. I mean, you're hearing other countries, you know, Britain, Germany, France, everybody saying it's time to end the war and are using very strong language. You know, Macron yesterday said, and this was an interesting choice of words, by the way, he said what the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza is beyond shameful. And he didn't say Israel even. He said the Netanyahu government, because I think he's been briefed that today most people in Israel want things to go in a completely different direction, want a hostage deal and an end to this. We're not hearing anything like that yet from the White House.

[Krystal Ball]

There are Some interesting tea leaves in his Riyadh speech yesterday. And I want to play a little clip and you tell me if I'm reading too much into this, because sometimes I'm prone to do that. But let's roll C7 here.

[George Clooney]

The transformations have been unbelievably remarkable before our eyes. A new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflict, conflicts of tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle east is defined by commerce, not chaos, where it exports technology, not terrorism, and where people of different nations, religions and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence. We don't want that.

[Krystal Ball]

Amir, I don't know if you noticed it. That last part looked to me like an ad lib, like he's reading off the teleprompter. And then he goes to. We don't want people bombing other people's out of existence. We don't want that. Like that. That felt like something he added in. Who else could he be talking about? Like, I mean, I guess Iran heal out of existence.

[G]

I think that was the reference to Iran. I think on Iran, Trump is more kind of willing to go beyond the limitations of the classic, specifically in the Republican Party, the politics around this issue. He's willing to push it more on that in order to get a deal. And I think one of the reasons is reflected in the difficulties that he found out once the bombing campaign against the Houthis went into its fourth or fifth week, that the Americans were bombing every night again and again. And the Houthis, despite taking the hits, continued to cause a lot of problems. And they actually managed to take down several American drones that were very expensive and almost shot down, from what I read in the news, you know, advanced American planes and you had these, you know, weird accidents on the Harry Truman Air Force carrier. So I think at some point, you know, Trump said, okay, let's cut the losses and get a deal here. And I think going into a war with Iran would pose even greater complications. You know, of course America can bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. That's obvious. Okay, The United States has the ability to do it. Technically, it's not even a question. There is a question whether Israel can do it alone. I don't know the answer, but it's clear that the United States can do it. But then what happens next? Let's say you bomb it for four or five straight days. What happens on day six? What happens on day seven? If they attack Saudi Arabia, if they attack the Emirates, if they attack American military bases, if they carry terror attacks against Americans in the region, what do you do then? And I think that's perhaps something that the campaign in Yemen brought to Trump's thinking. You know, that there are also limitations to the use of power in these situations, especially when you're fighting against people who are religious extremists, who don't really care to die in some situations, who have a messianic worldview. And I think that is also influencing his thinking right now about the Iran negotiations.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So, yeah, my last question for you, Amir, is basically how this dynamic, where potentially the Israeli far right is realizing the limitations of the deep entanglement with the United States, I've seen that sort of cheered in some corners, especially here in the United States, as a good thing. And obviously, the Israeli far right sees this as potentially a good thing, and probably not even just the far right. You can understand why, because in a sense, it looks like, okay, Israel can do what Israel wants to do, and the United States doesn't have to be, you know, if you'reisraeli doesn't have to be the kingmaker anymore. Israel can sort of do what's in its best interest without having to get permission from another country. And the arguments for this are myriad. And I'm just curious, though, if you could maybe give us what the. I mean, there's a downside to it, too. And the downside might be actually an unleashed Netanyahu, an unleashed Israeli far right that could make the problems that are already there even worse. What do you make of that?

[G]

Yeah, I understand the argument, but I'm not convinced by it because I think Israel still needs the United States for many, many reasons. And the relationship with the US Is one of a kind for Israel. There is no replacement for it. There is no other country in the world that can replace the US from the Israeli perspective. I don't know another country that would be willing to offer Israel such generous military assistance and intelligence sharing and to make the defense of Israel from its regional enemies part of its own national security strategy in some cases. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. And there is no country in the world where you have such a large part of the population expressing such positive views toward Israel as you have in the United States with Christian evangelicals and large parts of the Jewish community and more broadly, the American public. And I think the real question for Israel is what you're seeing politically right now in the United States, maybe not with the Trump administration. Maybe there it's a little early. You know, I'M on the side of caution about this Trump versus Bibi narrative. I see, like I told you, I see it in some places. I don't see it on Gaza yet. But I want to give you something that was amazing for me. Over the weekend, Tom Friedman wrote an article in the New York Times that was very critical of Netanyahu. Not for the first time, obviously, but. But the language was pretty strong. He basically appealed to President Trump and said, netanyahu is not your ally. And that article began spreading among some corners of the American right until no other than Steve Bannon shared it on his own social media network, basically writing fact in capital letters. I don't remember Steve Bannon sharing an article by Tom Friedman that's like hell freezing over kind of two distinct corners of the American media ecosystem. And to have them in agreement on this statement that Netanyahu is not an ally of President Trump's agenda, that's something that should be concerning to Israelis, and it shows how the political winds are shifting in a direction that in the long term could be very bad for Israel. And.

[Krystal Ball]

And before we let you go, I wanted to ask you about the kind of Israeli journalism community and how it's been responding to the unprecedented number of killings of Palestinian journalists. And this was brought to mind just yesterday, I guess it was two nights ago. We got the news that Hassan Saleh, one of the most prominent journalists in Gaza, and all a sudden of. Of Palestine, as a matter of fact, was killed in the burn unit of the Nasser hospital complex. And he was in the burn unit because his tent had been struck in April outside of the Nasser hospital complex, which killed two journalists and badly, severely wounded him. People will probably remember the horrifying images from that strike of journalists burning alive. So the one, the man who survives, was then targeted in his bed in the hospital and was not collateral damage. The IDF came out and said he's a terrorist and he was with other terrorists, and we targeted him. Their evidence for that was a photo that he had taken with Sinwar at one point, which all of his colleagues have talked about for years. This was many, many years ago, when Sinwar had been been kind of underground for a while, out of public view, and came to a public event. And he saw Hasan there. And Hasan being one of the most famous journalists in the pictures.

[G]

He gives him a kiss or something.

[Krystal Ball]

He gives him a kiss. And Hasan told a lot of his friends he was deeply unhappy about that. But as you know, you've been around public officials who.

[G]

I think, Ryan, that specifically in this case. And I'm not passing judgment, but I do want to bring the Israeli perspective on this. There was also the issue that there were images of him that became very famous in Israel and all over the region on October 7, kind of embedded with the Hamas forces that attacked Israel. And I think there was this picture next to a burning tank. And that was, I think, how most Israelis came to know him and identify him. And that's why when the IDF announced this attack, a lot of people kind of said, oh, this is the journalist from October 7th.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. And that's what struck me, too, because, you know, he was freelancing for the Associated Press and others at the time. He went over the fence about an hour after the attack. And yes, a lot of the images that we have, a lot from that day were taken through.

[G]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Came, came from him, which is. But that's, that's, that's the job of a journalist. Like a journalist documents scenes. So, yeah, he was being, they were saying, oh, he's being a secret terrorist, but covering it as a journalist. Well, if you're going to be a.

[G]

Terrorist, that he was. That. Their argument was that he was, you know, knowledgeable about it. Part of it. I don't know. Okay. Because that's not, you know, I can't pass judgment on this. I do want to say that we have seen in a lot of cases during the war where you had journalists being hurt. And I want to say one person that I really appreciate was spoken out about this is Trey Inkst from Fox News.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[G]

Who works for an outlet that is obviously very supportive of Israel most of the time. But on this issue of Palestinian journalists, he has spoken out again and again on the need to protect them. And from my point of view, I don't want to litigate every terrible thing that happens. Right now. I'm speaking about the need to end war and to put an end to it and to bring the hostages and to end all of these terrible. Because if we start litigating this case and that case. So I'll bring you the Israeli perspective and what the IDF is saying, you'll bring me the other perspective. And we can go on for hours, and I don't think we even have the time for those hours. What we really need is to say, how do we put an end to this? How do we put an end to this terrible, terrible situation?

[Krystal Ball]

It's a good point. In the time you would spend discussing the details of it, 30 more Palestinians would be killed in another strike. And it's got to end.

[G]

We got to find a way. We got to find a way to put an end to this. And it's really in the hands of President Trump more than any other person right now.

[Krystal Ball]

All right, Amir Thabon, journalist with Haaretz, thank you so much for joining us.

[G]

Thank you guys for having me. Appreciate it.

[Krystal Ball]

Author of Gates of Gaza. By the way, terrific book.

[G]

Thank you, Ryan.

[Emily]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Congressional Republicans are scrambling this week to try and finally hammer out the details of the big beautiful reconciliation bill that that Donald Trump has staked part of the success of his trade war on and also his legacy. The Trump tax cuts being made permanent would be a significant campaign promise coming to fruition, but also as seen by the president and his allies as a necessary sort of counterweight to that 10% global tariff at the very least. And whatever reciprocal tariffs may be hammered out in the days and months ahead, they're hoping to use it as something of an industrial policy to attempt to juice the market and get some companies reshoring to the United States. We will see. But the House Ways and Means Committee, literally, I think it was 18 hours. They just ended a couple like an hour before. We're taping this right now. On Wednesday morning they had A marathon session marking up the bill throughout the evening and last night. And we have video here actually already of this bill getting protested in the Rayburn House office building yesterday. You can see on your screen this is someone sarcastically said, like Boomer, January 6th, although the original January, what are they? Boomer, January 6. Medicaid cuts, potential Medicaid cuts in the bill. So they were trying to get into the hearing and we're being foresaw the.

[Krystal Ball]

Right calling it an insurrection.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, an insurrection. We have a motorized scooter. Insurrection.

[Krystal Ball]

The Republic is secure from that insurrection attempt. We should make sure the public is aware.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, everything is okay. And they were able to work Till what, like 8 in the morning?

[Krystal Ball]

They could leave because of the terrorists outside.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The would have been too hard. But you know, this is a really interesting bill because with reconciliation bills, obviously you end up with these fascinating negotiation processes and they become, you know, the smoke filled backroom deals. And we're just seeing the early stages of that played out, playing out now, Ryan, we're seeing kind of what, what some of the pieces might be. But Mike Johnson, Speaker Mike Johnson has a long way to go, obviously. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has a long way to go, but Johnson particularly is in a very difficult position. He has a razor thin margin in the House of Representatives and already his conference is divided deeply. Not just over things like salt, which we'll get to the state and local tax deduction, which we'll get to in a minute, but also just spending in general. So I wanna start with one of the more interesting ideas. This is from the Senate side that Senator Ted Cruz has come up with for the bill. We're going to go ahead and roll D1. This is the Maga Baby investment idea from Senator Cruz. The idea is simple, which is that we're going to create an investment account for every newborn child in America at birth.

[Krystal Ball]

And that investment account, the federal government.

[George Clooney]

Will cede with $1,000, but that account can receive every year up to $5,000.

[Krystal Ball]

In contributions from friends and family members and from employers.

[George Clooney]

And those contributions grow on a tax deferred basis and they can take it.

[Krystal Ball]

Out after they turn 18. What it does is it takes every.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Child in America and it gives them, number one, the miracle of compound growth, the ability to accumulate wealth, which is transformational. But number two, it makes them stakeholders, it gives them a stake in the.

[George Clooney]

American free enterprise system. And you asked how much they can save if you, if you have, have.

[Sagar Enjeti]

A baby that is born this year.

[George Clooney]

That starts with the initial $1,000 seed.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Contribution over the next 18 years.

[George Clooney]

If $5,000 a year is contributed at 7% growth, by the time they're 18.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They have $170,000 in this account.

[George Clooney]

By the time they're 35, they have.

[Sagar Enjeti]

$700,000 in the account. Brian, I actually think this is a brilliant idea. I'm curious what you make of it. So if you. I think the estimate is there's like, like 3.6 million babies born in the United States per year, roughly according to the Census Bureau. So compared to other things we spend ridiculous amounts of money on, it's relatively cheap to seed an account with $1,000 per baby. This is in the bill. It is somewhat hilariously called, like the money account for growth and Advancement. So MAGA account, which is an appeal, obviously to Donald Trump. I think this could be a very interesting negotiating chip, maybe with the salt. The SALT conference.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, if you want. Take the money from the babies.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm not against it. Free money for babies. Fine. Like having a. If people think that that's going to change the calculation on whether to have a baby when it comes to, like, just, you know, your first five minutes in the hospital is going to cost you more than that, aside from all the other costs associated with having a baby. But if you're going to try to help kids out, help parents out, go for it.

[G]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Have fun.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, I think it would be a fun negotiating trip with the SALT guys. Like, oh, you want your state and local tax deduction tripled? Okay, well, you're going to have to get rid of the babies to.

[Krystal Ball]

I think they'll be fine with that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, they would be fine with it.

[Krystal Ball]

They'll get rid of the babies.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They absolutely would be fine with it. And it sets up an interesting. Also an interesting one of those conversations about, listen, why should those of us who aren't having children subsidize the people who are having children? Which. Which could become a pretty interesting debate as well.

[Krystal Ball]

Which. Yeah, I'd be happy to have. Like, what are you going to do when you're old? Like, you want to live in a society, but you don't want children. Like, get out of here. It's not how it works.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Or children are the means to. Yeah. Like, have productive lives.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And also, like, just productivity in general. Like, everything you do requires people to help you do it. And, you know, if somebody isn't raising those children into people, how you just going to do everything yourself, even when you're 90? Like, get out of Here, that's not serious. Now, the broad structures here. Right. Correct me if I'm wrong, Trump initially said he might go with some slightly higher taxes on the rich. And then he had this bizarre truth post where he says, I'm kind of for it, but I can see arguments against it. So you guys do what you want. And House Republicans are like, okay, cool, then we, we are definitely cutting taxes on the rich.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, exactly.

[Krystal Ball]

It's up to us more tax breaks for the rich. And then we have to break Trump's other promise, which is, I'm definitely not gonna cut Medicaid. And so in order to pay for the tax cuts for the rich, you have to then cut a bunch of Medicaid and then to say, well, we're gonna give $1,000 to every baby.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yep.

[Krystal Ball]

While cutting 800 billion or whatever from Medicaid is kind of insulting to people's intelligence, I would think.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right. So to be clear, the baby part of that is actually in the bill. And the bill wasit passed out of the committee just again like an hour ago after I think 18 hours of deliberation on a 26 to 19 vote. So that's a party line vote. It's going to the House Budget Committee. Now, it's about a 400 page bill and there's all kinds of stuff being crammed into it. Not just the baby stuff, but also, Ryan, something that you're paying very close attention to, the nonprofit status revocability from the Treasury Department. Many people paying close attention to that one, by the way. Not just left leaning nonprofits, but potentially conservative nonprofits who could end up getting absolutely wrecked should a Democratic administration turn that on them as they did even before a law like that existed during the IRS controversy, the lowest learner controversy, which is more nuanced, obviously than a lot of people on the right remember, but was still nonprofits being targeted by the government. It's a slippery slope no matter what.

[Krystal Ball]

So you think they'll pull this out? Yes. Drop site is a nonprofit.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yep. I thought.

[Krystal Ball]

And be annoying to allow the Secretary of the treasury just be like, actually, we don't think so. We don't like drop site.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yep, yep. That could absolutely happen. Which is why, again, I don't think this ends up in the bill. And another thing, I'm just going to skip ahead here, but D4, this is about AI. So there was a little provision inserted into the bill. Matt Stoller pointed this out. It bans regulation of social media. He also mentions its AI regulation. And one thing I heard yesterday is that some members might not have even been aware that this was dropped in. I mean, again, we're talking about page bill and it's being flagged. But, you know, this is one of the more interesting divisions in Trump's Republican Party is whether or not AI should be sort of unleashed or should be closely monitored because it is an apocalyptic threat to Western civilization. And all of that comes to a head in a question about these regulations going forward. Now back to the broader problems. This is D2.

[Krystal Ball]

Is that going to get that going to make?

[Sagar Enjeti]

I don't know.

[Krystal Ball]

Come on, maga.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I genuinely don't know where y' all at. I would be more confident that the nonprofit one gets cut than that one. Also taxing university endowments. Fantastic populist left and right type horseshoe idea that's in the bill. We'll see how much that stuff survives. These colleges and universities have very powerful lobbyists and they are lobbyisted up. I'm trying to do the mobbed up with lobbyists, but that's the best that I could come up with. D2 is from representative Chip Roy, Freedom Caucus guy, very much a leader in that space on the policy front. So he's saying there will be enormous pressure to, quote, get in line to support the bill because it does a number of things we support. Regardless of the merits, though, if we object, we will be called grandstanders and we must comply by influencers and some elected officials. I won't care about the pressure. He says he asks, does the bill meaningfully reduce the deficit, getting to 1.5 trillion in supposed savings plus the tax policy policy. It's good, he says, but it still leaves more than $20 trillion in additional debt in 10 years. And most of the, quote, unquote, cuts are beyond the Trump years. So beyond 3.5 years out, which is a fun way to do the math to get it to work out for you in CBO projections. And actually those Congressional Budget Office projections are something I think Republicans are planning to push back against really hard. Republicans and Democrats both do that. But then he asked, does the bill offer any transformative changes on Medicaid or otherwise currently new?

[Krystal Ball]

No.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It ignores the policy changes that matter. Meanwhile, Senator Josh Hawley is saying, do not touch Medicaid. It is what Bannon has made this point many times. It is Medicaid is what MAGA is surviving off of. Basically this matters to working class populist maga. But Senator Ron Johnson wrote an op ed in the Wall Street Journal just yesterday. This is defi saying that it doesn't make enough cuts. Sounding exactly the same note as Chip Roy. And this is probably a bill they're planning to get. They would like to have passed around July. So we are a month and a half out, which may seem like a long time, but trying to get Ron Johnson and Josh Hawley on the Senate side together and then Chip Roy and Mike Johnson and the centrist Republicans together on the House side when you have such a thin margin. Good luck. D6. This is a Politico article from yesterday from one of the.

[Krystal Ball]

Assault caucus.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, so this is Nick Lalota saying, quote, the bill is dead and absolutely blasting Jason Smith, who's the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Lalota said, actually this was on Monday, quote, the bill is dead effectively on the floor. The SALT caucus has been having an absolute meltdown. So the Johnson bill as of right now, triples.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's tell people what the SALT situation is.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So the state and local tax deduction is a wonky thing. That is actually a fascinating glimpse into how the Washington establishment works. They get their way all of the time because they pitch a fit. It's people in blue states, and particularly Republicans, who talk a big game about fiscal responsibility, wanting their constituents to get a deduction from their state and local taxes in high tax states. So those are typically blue states.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. So let's say you live in New Jersey and you pay, you know, $75,000 a year in state and local taxes. Before Trump's Reform back in 2017, you could take that $75,000 that you gave to the state and the local government and count it basically towards your federal tax obligation. And so obviously, in order to pay that amount of money in state and local taxes, you have to make an awful lot of money. So it applies to like the 1%, like the very top. As you get lower, then it starts hitting more people. The top 2%, 3%, 10%. Right now the cap is, is it 30 or is it 10? No, right now it's 10, but in.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The bill it's 30, which is a tripling amount.

[Krystal Ball]

So right now you can get if you any anything over $10,000 that you pay to the state and local government. You can't write that off of your federal taxes. So what Republicans were arguing is that that would push these blue states and these towns to reduce their taxes because they'd be pressured by their constituents. That hasn't really happened. So anyway, so now they're just trying, they're trying to go back and get a higher exemption.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, they shouldn't even be getting this tripling of it. But they have the audacity. There was some reporting from hill people last night that they had a blow up with Nicole Malliotakis of New York who has basically said she's okay with the tripling, the $30,000. She said that she's okay with that. That was a compromise number that Johnson landed on.

[Krystal Ball]

And again, it's a huge issue in a lot of these congressional districts is a huge issue because they'll get thrown out. It's thousands of dollars per wealthy household. And people are going to be mad at me when I say wealthy because like, you know, in a lot of these high cost areas, families making $400,000 a year are like, they don't feel wealthy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No.

[Krystal Ball]

When you have families who make $50,000 a year are like, f you, you make 10 times what I do.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Exactly. And when you hit a $30,000 deduction, we're not just talking about the people making $400,000.

[Krystal Ball]

It's a lot of money.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. If you're unhappy with a $30,000 deduction.

[Krystal Ball]

You'Re, you're doing really good.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. You're not middle class at that point, no matter how expensive it is to live in these high tax states. So Nicole Malitakis is okay with the tripling, was prevented from entering a meeting by the people who want that to go higher to $40,000 because they said, quote, unquote, she's against us. They didn't want her to go into the meeting with Mike Johnson. So I confirmed that with a source. And that's how brutal that this is getting just over the issue of salt. We're not even getting to the stuff about the baby investment fund or Medicaid, quote, unquote, reforms which will be framed as cuts because in some cases they absolutely will be cuts. They won't just be reforms, they will absolutely be cut. And Josh Hawley recognizes that in substance and in style that that's sort of a disaster for maga. Now, Trump was asked questions about this on Air force one. Here's D7. This is a clip of Trump talking about the American health care system.

[George Clooney]

I would fight so hard to get a half a point. And I actually had it down a half a point for one year. And I was so proud of myself because that never happened before. It was always going up. Drugs only went in one direction. That's up. And now after studying the industry, it's a very complex industry, but I figured it out and I said it's not going to happen. But the Democrats fought very hard to keep the prices of drugs very, very high. They really are to blame for this because they should have done something about it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay. So he says it's a very complex industry, but he thinks he's figured it out. D8. This is him talking about Ozempic. And this is a little off topic, Ryan, but delightful and funny enough that we had to roll it.

[George Clooney]

A friend of mine who's slightly overweight, to put it mildly, went to a drugstore in London and he was able to get one of the fat shots. I caught the fat shots of jabs that you lose weight.

[Sagar Enjeti]

A lot of people laugh at that.

[G]

Some people get offended, but I don't get offended by anything.

[George Clooney]

I'm just glad I didn't use his name. He's actually a very rich guy. He's a very successful.

[G]

He's glad you didn't use his name.

[George Clooney]

I know he's very happy. He knows exactly who I was talking about. He called, he said that was interesting. He said he was very concerned that I might use his name. It might slip. Now he doesn't have to work, but he went to. To London and he bought this Ozempic.

[G]

Wegovy.

[George Clooney]

One of those, I guess.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[George Clooney]

I'm not sure which one, but he bought. He bought one of them. Maybe Ozempic.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay. We had to include it. The serious.

[Krystal Ball]

It's relevant to the point.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

Go ahead. No, that people overseas pay a lot less for pharmaceuticals than we pay here. Trump's. The framework of Trump's idea is solid. Basically saying to a drug company, if you sell something for X price in another country, you have to sell it for that low price here in the United States. Where he falls on his face is that you can't do this by executive order. Drug companies have lawyers. They'll take it to court. They will win. But you can do it through Congress. Ro Khanna and Bernie Sanders have offered to introduce his idea as legislation.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They could put it in this bill, by the way.

[Krystal Ball]

Put it in the bill.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Reconciliation bill.

[Krystal Ball]

Hey. And you save a bunch of money then. Then through Medicare and Medicaid, then you don't have to do the cuts. He's lying when he says that Democrats did everything they could to keep drug prices high for the first time in decades. Democrats during the Biden era were actually taking on Big Pharma in a serious way. They could have done a lot more. I would have liked to see them do a lot more. But Pharma caught a bunch of Ls.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And so keep that momentum Going or is Trump gonna do what he did in the first time? Just talk a big game, write some executive orders and then watch them get ripped up by the courts and then move on and just tell everyone that you did wonderful things on drug pricing, which is the kind of lie that doesn't land with your base because they buy drugs. They know it. Like, you can't, you can lie about some things. You can't lie about what it costs to fill your prescriptions because every single day that you're going to the drugstore, you know, so, you know, we'll be nice to Trump and say we'll see if he actually takes it to Congress. What do you think, Willie? No, nevermind.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, I don't think.

[Krystal Ball]

Nicer to Trump.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I don't think so. Well, I think part of it is that they are continuously trying to make this point about executive power.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, this will like, make the opposite point because courts will be like, no, yeah, can't do this. You need a law, right? And guess what? We have a whole building, which is correct. This beautiful domed building. It's right down the street.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And he controls it.

[Krystal Ball]

It's controlled by Republicans on both sides of it and there's only two sides. So boom, put it. And you've got a bunch of Democrats saying that they're happy to do it. So just do it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It.

[Krystal Ball]

You said you're not scared of pharma lobbyists. Just go do it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The problem is a lot of the people who have to vote on the bill are. So let's tie a bow on all of this.

[Krystal Ball]

He's fine to hang out with Al Qaeda, but drug lobbyists is not going to take that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He'll take that $10 million bounty off Golani's head and.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, but by the way, and we didn't make this point in the SYRI block. He's from the Golan Heights. His name, his nom de guerre is like, like a derivative of that. And in his deal with Trump, he's just basically handing the Golan Heights to Israel. What an arc.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, it is.

[Krystal Ball]

So Trump, the people who said that the CIA was backing this thing the whole time are undefeated so far.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Trump posted on Truth Social. When I return from the Middle east, where great things will happen for America, we will work together on any and all outstanding issues. But there shouldn't be many. The bill is all caps. Great. We have no alternative. We must win. But now with the tremendous drug and pharmaceutical cuts, plus massive incoming tariff money, our great big beautiful bill just got much bigger and better. So he's making the direct connection between what we were just talking about, the drug and pharmaceutical cuts, the planned drug and pharmaceutical cuts, and the bill itself, and the tariff war. The golden age of America will soon be upon us. Make America great again. So all that is to say where Donald Trump is trying to say the bill is great. Chip Roy is already signaling that he is conditioning and he is conditioning himself. He's conditioning his constituents in Texas and other budget hawks to be immune to Trump like efforts to say this is a great bill, we need to pass it no matter what. In the Chip Roy post, he's talking about how some of these cuts are fantastic. The tax portion of the bill he sees as excellent, but the bill is still irresponsible enough in terms of spending that he doesn't want to get behind it. And by the way, if you are a Chip Roy and you look at the fact that Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency, you have every right to be frustrated with a bill that jams in some of these priorities without making what you see as important generational cuts. Doge is what, at 160 billion allegedly in cuts. So it's not making the 2 trillion or 1 trillion in cuts that they saw as something that would be a booster to this tax bill and a booster to those trade war in general, because you wouldn't necessarily need as much revenue coming in from reciprocal tariffs, whatever else. So this is a huge, huge mess for Republicans. Everyone predicted that it would be. It's not a surprise to Mike Johnson or it's not like they're caught off guard by what a mess this is, but actually sort of untangling this knot for them in the next six weeks with such thin margins in Congress needing to get a Chip Roy on board, Thomas Massie on board, and then the moderate salt people on board then needing to get a Ron Johnson on the same page as a Josh Hawley. Obviously the stakes are really high for them, but holy smokes, Ryan, this is going to be an incredible roller coaster. And as obvious as it sounds that they'll end up getting something done, I'm not sure that that's even the case. I think this is going to be a really bitter fight.

[Krystal Ball]

Or maybe they'll just continue the tax cuts as they are and not do the rest of it. But before we leave, before we leave, let's just put up D4 one more time. Just because just to underline is how completely crazy this is. This was D4 where they say in general, except as provided in paragraph two no state or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating AI models, AI systems, or automated decision systems during the 10 year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this act. That's just completely insane.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yep, it is.

[Krystal Ball]

And you know, people say, if you want to know who your ruler is, ask who you're not allowed to criticize. If you want to know who your ruler is, ask who you're not allowed to regulate.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, well, this is the type of thing that they drop into the bills. I think the same thing with the nonprofit. They drop into these bills when the sausage is being made to then negotiate down from a crazy position.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, let's hope.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. As long as people flag it and catch this stuff, I guess. 400 pages isn't that long of a bill, all things considered. Get a longer than that. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Tight margin. Narrow, wide margins.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We'll see where it goes with comprehensive.

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[Krystal Ball]

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[G]

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[Emily]

Oh, wow, A real person.

[Krystal Ball]

Yep.

[G]

I'm here to help you with everything from. From selecting the perfect window treatments to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, I've got a complicated project. No problem.

[G]

We make the complex simple, and I can even help schedule a professional measure and install.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I didn't realize you did that.

[G]

Yeah, we can also send you samples fast and free.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Wow.

[Emily]

I mean, I always thought I needed a designer to come to my home.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But scheduling's always a nightmare.

[G]

Not with blinds dot com. We're on your schedule. And there's no haggling, no pressure, no hidden fees either.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Hmm. I just might have to do more.

[G]

Oh, okay.

[Krystal Ball]

Whatever you.

[G]

How about you tell me what you had in mind? Okay then.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So the first room we're looking at is for guests coming over. Blinds.com has covered over 25 million windows all backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Shop blinds.com now and get up to 50% off with minimum purchase rules and restrictions may apply. Ryan let's move on to the roiling controversy over Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's forthcoming book. It's not even out yet. Excerpts are dropping original sin that details this cover up over Joe Biden's health over the course of the last couple of years. It is going crazy on like in political circles, in Dem circles. Just on the way here I was listening to David Axelrod being questioned about it on NPR and still trying to, you know, he's sort of blaming the Biden family and the people around Biden, which is interesting for David Axelrod, who, by the way, was one of the earlier voices.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Expressing some concern. I think it was back in 2022. Axelrod was expressing some concern about it.

[Krystal Ball]

Which is why he never liked Biden.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Never liked Biden. I think this is some of the problems that we're gonna get into with Tapper's, I guess I would call it revisionist history. Maybe. Ryan I will talk a bit about that. Here's a clip of Tapper on his own network teasing one of the critical details in the book, which is that Biden staffers considered putting him in a wheelchair while he was president.

[Krystal Ball]

In an excerpt published by Axios that aides were privately discussing putting President Biden in a wheelchair for his second term because of his physical deterioration. Sources telling me and Alex Thompson the Biden's team thought it was, of course, politically untenable to have the president in a wheelchair during his reelection bid. They took steps to try to protect him in the images of his halting gait, including finding shorter walking paths, adding handrails to steps, using a smaller staircase to board Air Force One. Aides would also accompany Biden across the White House lawn to Marine One or from Marine One, not only to disguise what was going on, but in case he fell. President Biden's doctor, White House physician Kevin o' Connor, warned behind the scenes that if Biden had one more serious fall, he might need to be in a wheelchair for his recovery. Dr. O' Connor had long worried about the toll the job had taken on Biden's health in general, joked behind the scenes that Biden's staff members were trying to kill him while he was trying to keep him alive.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The New Yorker published a very long excerpt of the book yesterday that included some quotes from David Plouffe, George Clooney and Jon Favreau. And if we Start with Plouffe. We can put this up. This is E3. Plouffe speaking, actually Ryan of Biden, of Obama advisers that really never got on the Biden train. At least. Least maybe behind closed doors at the time. Plouffe says in this book, quote, we got so screwed by Biden as a party and just said it was. He's just going off basically. On how Biden was, would you say? I think the implication is selfishly runs for president and PLEF seems to have always been irked by it. But it seems also like we're getting most of this from a book being published a year after the presidency.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, a lot of the. These Obama boys really never liked Biden.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, he says he totally fucked us and it's all Biden.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, but they didn't like him from the very beginning. Like they picked. It was either him or Evan Bai, if you remember, because they wanted.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Did they consider Joe Lieberman at one point? No, that was McCain.

[Krystal Ball]

That was the McCain campaign, right? Yes. They wanted a white right leaning, like a white conservative who would appeal to working class whites in 2008 who were afraid of having a black president. Like that was the rationale. And so it was a DEI pick. It was a diversity pick. They only considered white men. Nobody would dispute any of this. And because of, I guess the caliber of the candidates, it was down to like Biden and Bai. And they went with Biden and they then made it very difficult for him to run in 2016, such that he did not end up pulling the trigger. I think they've made so many interesting mistakes along the way. The Democratic Party, just tactical ones, like Biden beats Trump in 2016, I think because there's just the Biden, the onion guy who like, you know, likes to like wash his car in the White House driveway.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Like that guy peels enough working class votes away from Trump that Trump doesn't win. That fluke 2016, Trump lost by 3 million votes to Hillary Clinton, although Biden is also. And he won it. He won this fluke like Obama would have crushed. This is what's crazy about our politics. Obama would have annihilated Trump. Like Obama would probably still be president if it weren't for term limits, which is amazing. Like all of this political chaos we've had cause Obama can't run for reelection. I'm not an Obama fan. I'm just saying, objectively speaking, like, he would have won. I think Biden would anyway. So they didn't want him to run in 2016. They did not rally around him in 2020 until it was either him or Bernie. And then they're looking like, well, we definitely don't want Bernie, so we might as well. In that case, again, tactical decision. Democrats are probably much better off if Trump wins reelection in 2020. And then he has to be the one that handles all of COVID And he doesn't have four years to stew. Obviously he never would have done January 6th, cuz he would have won, so he didn't have to do it. And then he's out. He's probably unpopular because of the way he handles Covid or whatever, or he's popular, whatever, but he can't run again in 2024. And now we have. I don't know, who knows we have. Now we don't have this. Well, Democrats would like. It's hard to imagine a world where Democrats are worse off than they are today.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Let's look at the Clooney quote as well. So this is E4 and this all again from the big splashy New Yorker publication of an excerpt from the book yesterday. Clooney says it was was not okay of that big fundraiser that became, it's now sort of an infamous chapter in the 2024 cycle where everyone even publicly could see something was wrong with Joe Biden. I believe there was some quote unquote, cheap fake coverage afterwards where the media was criticizing the right for sort of ginning up a conspiracy theory with clips that were selectively edited allegedly. Clooney goes on to say that thing, the moment where you recognize someone, you know, especially a famous person who's doing a fucking fundraiser for you. It was delayed, it was uncomfort. And this is actually according to a Hollywood vip, not Clooney himself. And an aide had to go into Joe Biden and say, George Clooney. And then Biden goes, yeah, hi George. And the quote from the book is, quote, clooney was shaken to his core. The President had recognized him, a man he had known for years. So it sounds like what happened is Joe Biden is introduced and said, hey, this is George. Because you don't want to say Clooney, by the way, because that makes you look, you know, like, hey, Mr. President, we have George here, he's holding this massive fundraiser for you. And Biden is sort of like, hey, how are you? In a way that doesn't reflect a deep, like, friendship that he's had for, I guess, a couple of decades with Biden. Biden and Clooney have done some work together over the years, apparently. I was just Learning that. But then he gets a sort of nudge, being like, it's George Clooney and is like, startled into recognition that you actually know this person. And this is a man who is not a candidate for President of the United States. He is the sitting President of the United States.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's put Efeva in July 2024. George Clooney does his. Go ahead. Sorry, Go ahead.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, no, no. I think that's an important point. That is July 2024. So this is.

[Krystal Ball]

He writes his New York Times guest essay. I love Joe Biden, but we need.

[Sagar Enjeti]

A new nominee, George Clooney, because George Clooney behind.

[Krystal Ball]

He just witnessed this.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

So good for George Clooney to be like, he saw something in private and he immediately shared it with the public.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[Krystal Ball]

But imagine that idea, sharing what, you know privately with the public because we're a democracy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, so. Sure. But he didn't do it until after the debate. So he didn't come out and say that until.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, yeah. When was that event?

[Sagar Enjeti]

That event, I believe, was a couple of weeks before the debate. So it's. Yeah, the LA fundraiser. I'm going to make sure that I'm right on that right now. But we can also put E5 on the screen. This is a Jon Favreau quote. This is obviously, people know Favreau as the host of Pod Save America. This is from the book. This is how they describe it, with Favreau obviously being the source that night. To Favreau, Biden seemed to have aged 50 years and 16 months. This is when he met up with Biden. He was incoherent. His stories were meandering and confusing. Something about Iraq. What exactly was the point of this? He told one story twice. After the President left the group, Favreau asked the staffer about his demeanor. Oh, no. Oh, no big deal. The staffer said. The President must have been tired. It was nighttime at the end of a long week. This is again the sitting President of the United States States. It was nighttime at the end of a long week. And I think Dave Weigel made a really good point. He says the Favreau anecdote, which shows a sharp Biden in 2022 and a lost Biden in 2024, is the emerging Dem conventional wisdom, basically, that he started fading badly after the midterms, not unrelated to Hunter's Trouble. I just want to say I agree that this is the emerging Dem conventional wisdom. It feels like a concerted effort to rewrite history. And it is utter bullshit. You go back to 2019. Nate Silver back in 2019. I wrote a story about this yesterday, so I was peeling back all of this coverage. 2019 Nate Silver said he thought Biden's age was probably the biggest handicap in his candidacy.

[Krystal Ball]

Castro said that?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes. Well, this is the Democratic candidates in 2020 were dancing around it. Sort of like people criticized Bernie Sanders for dancing around Hillary Clinton's various liabilities in 2016. Nobody would just come out and say it back then, but everyone knew that it was a huge vulnerability for Biden because he was constantly messing up. I think at one point on the 2020 campaign trail he said he was proud to be running for United States Senate. I mean, he had some real eye popping gaffes that were obviously, I think age related. And it's subjective, but obviously age related. August 2019, quote, this is in the Hill. Biden has a tendency to make blunders late in the day. His allies say. His allies. You know, this was Jamal Bouie in 2019. Did I hallucinate last night? Because the Biden I saw was meandering and visibly tired by the end of a debate. He was acting weird back then.

[Krystal Ball]

I was just looking at September 29th. My article about his debate performance calls him, quote, staggeringly incoherent.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yep.

[Krystal Ball]

This is 2019.

[Sagar Enjeti]

2019.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And to be clear, that June 15th fundraiser we were just talking about about that is before the debate. And Clooney writes his New York Times op ed after the debate, which I do think is just like is cowardly. Maybe people at the time thought that they were better off expressing this through private channels. There's perhaps an argument to be made for that. But I think that argument is much more reasonable if you're just talking about a candidate. You're not talking about the sitting President of the United States who is running for reelection. So there's all kinds of frustrating stuff going on here. This is Chuck Schumer. E6 Chuck Schumer is now. And a lot of prominent Democrats are going to continue to get questions about it. And just before we tee this up, Kayce Hunt is talking to Chuck Schumer on CNN here. And I love that she is now suddenly playing the role of a very aggressive journalist. And I love that Jake Tapper is doing the same thing. And Alex Thompson posted some clips of himself and Tapper asking critical questions about Biden's age and his mental capacity in the months and maybe the last couple years roughly of the Biden presidency when to be fair to people like Jon Favreau, it did seem to be getting, like, precipitously worse. But it started from a low point already. All that is to say, yeah, I mean, I think this is one of those times where it's suddenly really easy because Biden is out of power, his family is out of power, to lean into this narrative and bolster your sort of tough, bipartisan, journalistic bona fides. But to me, it just means so, so little, given that there was a significant 25th Amendment conversation to be had for, I would say, like, literally every year of the Biden presidency, day in and day out, this is the sitting President of the United States. Nobody talked about it until he was back on the ballot. There was a freaking primary. That could have been dramatically different. There could have actually been a competitive Democratic primary if the media was asking DNC leaders, was asking Chuck Schumer serious questions about this all of the time, not just every once in a while. So here's Kacie Hunt talking to Chuck Schumer. Yesterday, you sat next to Biden in The Oval Office February 27, 2024, just a handful of months before the president took that debate stage. And it was later reported that you and other Democrats, Democratic leaders, were talking before the debate about having a plan. You and Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, I understand you later denied that that ever happened, but I am curious, I'm interested to know whether the man that you saw sitting there on that couch on that day, you were in there. You saw him up close and personal. Did you really not have any idea that he was not fit to serve a second term? Casey, we're looking forward. We have the largest Medicaid cut in front of us. We have the whole federal government. You're facing all of this because you lost a presidential election. And is that not Joe Biden's responsibility for deciding to run again? We're looking forward. That's it.

[Amir Tabon]

That's it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay, Ryan, here's Jake Tapper in 2023 was talking to Franklin for who had just written that book about Joe Biden. Ford claimed that Biden would pass a, quote, mental acuity test. And Tapper goes wrong. He's sharp mentally. I think the question is physical, right? More so. This is 2023. He said of in 2024, he said of Biden's memory while talking to Adam Schiff. It doesn't seem great. It's not horrible. He does have issues here and there. It's not disqualifying, but he does have some Memory issues. It's just, again, he's asking Schiff some tough questions in that interview, but had to couch it in that way because people were terrified of the White House. They were beingtheir access was being threatened. Significantly being threatened. The Wall Street Journal published a piece about that in what, June of 2024. And it's just crazy. We look back on that piece as an exception. Should have been, again, coverage about that every single day. Commander in Chief, guy with the nuclear codes declining every day in front of us. And I'm almost sympathetic to the point Chuck Schumer makes now saying, we're moving forward, Casey, because guess what, it's easy for the media to litigate this now and to look tough. And I get why they're covering it now, because they can look tough. They can look like they're turning the screws to Democrats. And it's still important. But it's like, yeah, at this point, we now have Donald Trump as president. The world is changing rapidly every single day. It's not the stasis of the Biden years anymore.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And in the Democrats defense, their leadership, Pelosi in particular, moves faster than the media. This was not a.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's true.

[Krystal Ball]

Like Biden's aides and allies, remaining ones will say, this was a media driven thing or there was this relentless media push for weeks. No, that's not right. It was a Pelosi driven thing. And because Pelosi kept driving it, then the news media kept covering it. But the media followed Pelosi and everything kind of followed the debate where he had a medical episode in front of the entire world.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yep, yep. No, it's just really frustrating, the two pieces of revisionist history. One, that this somehow started in 2022. And two, that there were corners of the media that were really tough on this the entire time. You know, Tapper said yesterday on cnn, he was asked by someone on the network who was giving an interview about the book what was, you know, why did, why was all of this kept from the press, basically? And his answer was really interesting. The person who was talking to him was like, why didn't we hear more about this in the media? And Tapper says the bottom line is that the White House was lying not only to the press, not only to the public, but they were lying to their own cabinet. So he also says a lot of our sources wouldn't talk to us until after the election.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, and that's totally true. But you could see it in public.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes. Like everyone saw it and you were running stories about cheap fakes. Again, there were bullshit videos circulating by Republicans. Absolutely. But to blow it up, up into a big narrative is different than just covering the bullshit videos that were being selectively edited. They blew it up into a big thing, literally taking the White House's press points when they knew because they were hearing off the record that the White House was lying.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Ridiculous. And I don't think anybody's falling for it.

[Krystal Ball]

No. And if breaking points was the like dominant news coverage of the world, nobody would have been surprised at all. We were covering it regularly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Again, it's one of those weird moments when the media's relationship with the Democratic Party's establishment actually hurts Democrats. Because if there had been good coverage of this, if the press wasn't so scared of the White House and the DNC and Pelosi world, they would have at the time they would have been covering the story much differently and there probably would have been a robust Democratic primary.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, there should have been.

[Sagar Enjeti]

There would have been a lot more pressure on Democrats to hold a serious primary process and to not mess with them it and for people to not just get in line. And Biden would do a damn debate. He wouldn't even do a debate despite all of this. All right, let's move on to the Diddy trial, which was incredibly, as you could imagine, grim. Yesterday. Cassave Ventura, victim and we can say, we don't even have to say alleged victim at this point because we have the videotape. More of the videotape from the Intercontinental in Los Angeles has come out over the course of this trial. Let's roll this recap of day two so the trial starts on Monday. This is day two being recapped on Fox News yesterday. F1. Cassie Ventura, who was still on the stand, has testified that she was a fan before meeting Sean Diddy Combs, describing him as larger than life. She says when they were finally introduced, he began to control her life and every aspect of it. She so. Ventura, who is now married with kids and due to give birth soon, testified she was 19 and there was a 17 year age gap when she met Diddy and signed with his record label. She said their relationship turned sexual when she was 21. The pair was in a relationship for a decade. She says at first it was private because Diddy was publicly with someone else and worried about optics. She says the rapper introduced her her to freak offs which are at the center of the case. According to prosecutors who described them as drug fueled sex performances with male escorts that Diddy coerced women into Having while he watched. Cassie testified that freak offs became something she did not want to do, but felt like she had to to keep him happy. She told jurors one of these encounters was happening when Combs was caught on camera assaulting her. In the this disturbing 2016 Los Angeles hotel surveillance video obtained exclusively and released by CNN last year. Diddy apologized in a since deleted Instagram post. She also said Diddy had mood swings and was often violent towards her, leaving physical marks and that instead of music, freak offs became a job for her. She testified that the longest of these sexual performances lasted four days. So that video of Diddy basically dragging, punching, kicking Cassi Ventura in the intercontinental hallway in 2016, as we mentioned, there was more of that. Really one of the things that broke this Diddy story wide open when it came out. Cnn, I think, was the first to have that video. The man, the security guard, Israel Flores, is testifying. Testimony from him yesterday included allegedly the claim that Diddy offered him a wad of cash from his thumb to his pinky to not tell anybody what he saw. The defense tried to say he's now including details that he didn't include at the time about how Cassave Ventura had a purple eye. Anyone who watches that video can be very reasonable. That she had a purple eye. Yeah. She's pregnant, by the way, which makes it extra awful to have to testify about all of this. So I mean, just completely awful. Mark Chutko is a former federal prosecutor who's done human trafficking cases. Told Rolling Stone yesterday that the prosecutors are doing basically a shock and awe strategy. That's his quote. He says they're trying to dismantle any, quote, positive feelings as soon as as possible. They really want to create an impression about him right out of the gate. So, you know, he goes on to say, the thing about video is you can't really cross examine video. And that's the importance of the intercontinental security camera footage. And also the testimony, by the way, of Israel Flores, the security guard who's called there to help a woman in distress and is now saying actually on the stand that he was bribinghe was being bribed by Diddy to stay quiet. And the reason that detail, I think, is really important, Ryan, I mean, there are a million reasons that it's really important. But this is a trial not just about Diddy. This is a trial about the massive business empire that popped up around Diddy that included in all likelihood, a whole lot of complicity, a whole lot of people knowing over the years what was going on and staying quiet to remain in proximity to power and money. And so just to be clear, he is accused of sex trafficking by force, transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy. As part of that federal indictment that was originally filed in September of last year. He's also on two additional indictment, superseding indictment, and is pleading not guilty to absolutely everything and completely denying this. Again, as the former federal prosecutor tells Rolling Stones, this is a video in the case of the 2016 assault on Ventura. So it's just in the context of the actual charges against Harvey Weinstein. And actually this happened with the Bill Cosby case as well. It does look like there were shortcuts taken by federal prosecutors to. Because they felt it was almost born of a hubris that these guys are obviously horrific and evil and the public wants a scalp. But if you take those shortcuts, you can end up with people getting released. Again, something that happened with Bill Cosby might happen with Harvey. And that's why I think just the broader context here around a very high profile case like this is to be on the lookout for things like that. It doesn't mean that these people aren't awful criminals. Of course, there's a difference between criminal behavior and deeply unethical, abusive, horrific behavior. In some cases, not always. But I think that's something to kind of keep an eye on in this trial because it's like those two trials.

[Krystal Ball]

As well, I guess. Yeah. Harvey Weinstein, do you think he'll ever get out?

[Sagar Enjeti]

He might have.

[Krystal Ball]

What's that looking like?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Like, it's genuinely a question because there was some stuff that's just. It's funny business that you do when you feel really confident about a case. And same thing with the Bill Cosby thing. So, yeah, it's not impossible that he gets out. So we'll see. I mean, the backlash to that would be swift. But, you know, and I'm not in any way whatsoever. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Old.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And I'm not in any point whatsoever endorsing like the Candace Owens effort here. But the trial itself is like, you cannot take shortcuts in these trials because there's this public momentum against a certain character.

[Krystal Ball]

Public moods swing. So you gotta make sure you're buttoned up.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right. Exactly. I haven't seen that in the Diddy case so far. But it's just this one is, again, it's really easy because there's literally video. It's just easy to see the momentum building and the snowball rolling down the hill. It looks like it's a pretty tight case. So far, but that is definitely. And Cassie testifying, by the way, for what? She's supposed to be on the stand again today. I think she might literally be taking the stand right now while we're taping this. I mean, that's going to be incredibly powerful as well.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, epic fumble of a billion dollar bag. Seriously, by Diddy here.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Not even like just a fumble, but a decades long criminal enterprise.

[Krystal Ball]

By all accounts, it is hard to be a billionaire and get held accountable for anything. You have to go pretty far.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You sure do. You sure do. All right, well, Ryan, that does it for us today. We will continue to follow that trial, obviously, because again, it's just in the context of a massive criminal enterprise that involved complicity on many fronts. Important to keep an eye out on. It's a theme actually of the American elite. Just wanting to be seen as an important political player, moral player, charitable person, and then in your own personal life, either staying quiet when you witness people doing awful things or doing those awful things yourself. So important trial definitely to continue following, which we will do. Thank you to everybody, by the way, for being a premium subscriber, the Friday show. If you're a premium sub over at breakingpoints.com, you get the second half of those shows. And as we keep saying, that's the good stuff. That's right. We're saving the good stuff for the second half. So thank you BreakingPoints.com, we appreciate it. And if you can't subscribe, we totally understand, like the videos, comment the videos, subscribe to the YouTube channel, subscribe to the podcast. We appreciate that as well.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, yes, we do. And I think I'll see you tomorrow.

[G]

You want to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You're here tomorrow with Crystal.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. So Sager is on his paternity leave. More news to come on that front, I'm sure. But Ryan and I, you'll be seeing a lot more of us in the weeks to come.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, indeed.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Lucky you.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes. See you later. Does friendly have a taste?

[Emily]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Emily]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Emily]

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[Krystal Ball]

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