5/16/2025: "HELL" Gaza Ground Invasion, Peace Talks COLLAPSING, Comey INVESTIGATED for Trump Threat

Summary

Detailed Summary of "Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar" Episode Released on May 16, 2025

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosted by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, is a fearless anti-establishment podcast that scrutinizes powerful institutions and figures. In the May 16, 2025 episode titled "HELL" - Gaza Ground Invasion, Peace Talks COLLAPSING, Comey INVESTIGATED for Trump Threat, the hosts delve into pressing geopolitical conflicts, domestic political turmoil, and notable controversies. Below is a comprehensive summary capturing the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode.

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1. Opening and Personal Updates ([02:10] - [05:40])

The episode begins with Emily Jashinsky stepping in for a host and greeting listeners. The hosts share personal anecdotes, including Saagar Enjeti discussing his recent Instagram post announcing the birth of his child, Priya June ([04:10] - [05:40]). This segment establishes a personal connection with the audience before transitioning to serious topics.

2. Escalation in Gaza: Ground Invasion and Collapse of Peace Talks ([05:40] - [10:04])

The central focus of the episode is the intensifying conflict in Gaza, marked by a large-scale ground invasion by Israeli forces. Reports from Jeremy over at Drop Site highlight the pessimism surrounding the possibility of a ceasefire ([05:40]).

Key Points:

• Israeli Military Actions: Continuous airstrikes and raids in various neighborhoods of Gaza, resulting in significant casualties and destruction ([06:37]).
• Hamas’s Stance: Hamas expresses reluctance and distrust towards American mediator Witkoff, fearing that the U.S. will not exert sufficient pressure on Israel to halt the invasion ([07:57]).
• Domestic Implications: Hostage families are deeply concerned about the fate of their loved ones, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former President Trump to negotiate breakthroughs ([10:38]).

Notable Quote:

• "[07:57] Emily Jashinsky: 'The families called on Netanyahu and President Trump to reach a breakthrough in negotiations in Doha, saying these are dramatic hours that will decide the fate of our loved ones and the future of Israeli society.'

3. Republican Tax Bill and Fiscal Concerns ([44:26] - [55:58])

The hosts transition to domestic politics, examining the GOP's proposed tax bill, which is estimated to add over $2.5 trillion to the U.S. federal deficit.

Key Points:

• Deficit Impact: Nonpartisan experts warn that the tax cuts, particularly for the wealthy and corporations, could exacerbate the national debt beyond current projections ([44:26]).
• Internal GOP Struggles: Conservative factions within the Republican Party, including figures like Chip Roy and Ron Johnson, express reservations about the bill’s fiscal irresponsibility ([45:50]).
• Ideological Divide: The Republican Party grapples with reconciling MAGA-era policies with sustainable fiscal practices, facing resistance from members who prioritize budget integrity over tax cuts ([48:52]).

Notable Quotes:

• "[45:50] Sagar Enjeti: 'I think some of that will be cope. I think some of it will be legitimate.'
• "[52:32] Ryan Grim: 'This is, you know, Democrats have their own version of this. This is how Republicans, you know, do it to their base.'

4. Controversy Surrounding Ms. Rachel ([20:44] - [24:32])

A significant portion of the episode addresses the controversy involving Ms. Rachel, a popular children's entertainer accused by some media outlets of having ties to Hamas.

Key Points:

• Allegations: The New York Times and NBC News publish articles alleging Ms. Rachel is funded by Hamas, largely based on unverified claims from anonymous sources ([20:44] - [24:32]).
• Host Responses: Krystal and Saagar condemn the baseless accusations, arguing that Ms. Rachel’s advocacy for children in Gaza is being mischaracterized and used to demonize her ([20:50] - [24:32]).
• Media Critique: The hosts criticize major news outlets for amplifying unfounded rumors, emphasizing the need for responsible journalism.

Notable Quotes:

• "[20:50] Ryan Grim: 'Let's all agree on that.'
• "[23:27] Emily Jashinsky: 'If you're gonna do an article about it, you have to frame it in terms of the insanity of the people who are attacking her for this.'

5. James Comey’s Controversial Instagram Post ([57:07] - [61:19])

The podcast shifts to discussing the troubling social media activity of James Comey, the former FBI Director, who was investigated for allegedly threatening President Trump.

Key Points:

• The Post: Comey shared an Instagram image with the caption "86, 47," which refers to obscure codes often interpreted as a call to "kill the boss" ([57:07]).
• Reactions: The hosts express bewilderment and concern over Comey’s actions, highlighting the inappropriate use of his platform given his former role ([57:18] - [61:19]).
• Character Assessment: Krystal and Saagar critique Comey’s judgment and question the implications of his behavior on national security and public trust.

Notable Quotes:

• "[57:20] Emily Jashinsky: 'He was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in addition to being the head of the FBI. He is. Damn. He damn sure knows that.'
• "[60:27] Sagar Enjeti: 'He was the FBI. He's a former FBI director. The idea that you're just tossing these shells up on social media, even if you just think it's like kind of.'

6. Foreign Policy Insights and General McChrystal’s Remarks ([26:23] - [33:12])

The hosts analyze comments made by General Stanley McChrystal, discussing the evolution of perceived enemies and the fluidity of the term "terrorist."

Key Points:

• McChrystal’s View: He argues that individuals labeled as terrorists can evolve and no longer be enemies, drawing parallels to historical figures like Nelson Mandela ([26:46] - [29:30]).
• Historical Context: Krystal and Saagar critique the simplistic view of terrorism, emphasizing the complex nature of geopolitical enemies and the long-term implications of such rhetoric ([27:36] - [29:38]).
• Middle East Dynamics: Discussion on Trump’s Middle East policies, including his interactions with Syrian leaders and the implications for U.S. foreign policy ([33:12]).

Notable Quotes:

• "[26:46] General McChrystal: 'The reality is people who are enemies often evolve into not being our enemies and people who are terrorists evolve into something else.'
• "[29:08] Emily Jashinsky: 'Some of whom self described as terrorists.'

7. U.S. Foreign Policy and Starlink’s Role ([33:12] - [36:21])

The conversation shifts to the influence of Elon Musk’s Starlink on U.S. foreign policy, particularly in conflict zones like Ukraine and Gaza.

Key Points:

• Starlink’s Impact: Starlink provides critical communication infrastructure in conflict zones, but its control by a private billionaire raises national security concerns ([35:07] - [36:21]).
• Policy Critique: Krystal and Saagar argue that relying on a single private entity for essential defense communications is risky and undermines governmental authority ([36:01] - [36:21]).

Notable Quotes:

• "[35:07] Ryan Grim: 'Starlink is a good product, but yesterday, did you.'
• "[36:21] Emily Jashinsky: 'Was using Starlink as a tool to, you know, coerce the Ukrainians.'

8. Abundance Debate and Premium Content ([61:49] - [61:59])

Although briefly mentioned, the hosts refer listeners to their premium content for in-depth discussions on the abundance debate with Sam Seder and Ezra Klein.

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode concludes with Krystal and Saagar summarizing the tumultuous events discussed, emphasizing the dire situation in Gaza, the fraught dynamics within the Republican Party regarding fiscal policies, and the unsettling behavior of high-profile figures like James Comey. They encourage listeners to subscribe to their premium content for more detailed analyses and previews upcoming discussions on migration hearings and other significant issues.

Overall Insights:

• The Gaza conflict remains highly volatile with little hope for immediate peace, heavily influenced by U.S. diplomatic involvement.
• The GOP faces internal conflicts over the proposed tax bill, risking significant budget deficits while attempting to satisfy different conservative factions.
• Media and public figures are under intense scrutiny, with controversies like Ms. Rachel and James Comey’s social media activity highlighting the intersection of politics, media, and personal conduct.
• U.S. foreign policy continues to grapple with the complexities of private influence and traditional diplomatic strategies, as evidenced by Starlink’s role in conflict zones and Trump’s Middle East engagements.

Notable Overall Quotes:

• "[25:39] Emily Jashinsky: 'Yeah, it is singularly horrific. And it's being done with our tax dollars also. And that too, as a, as a US Citizen, done with our tax dollars.'
• "[54:35] Emily Jashinsky: 'There are, there are $2 trillion of woke to cut out the federal budget.'

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This episode of Breaking Points provides a thorough analysis of current geopolitical conflicts, domestic political challenges, and media-driven controversies, offering listeners a critical perspective on the interplay between power, policy, and public perception.

Transcript

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We'll know it.

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Average lot size? Uh huh. Proximity to local parks, of course. Insight into your neighbor's divorce. We're working on it. Homes.com we've done your homework. Hey guys. Sagar and Krystal here.

[Emily Jashinsky]

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.

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[Emily Jashinsky]

Happy Friday. Emily and Ryan, nice to see you guys.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Great to see you guys.

[Ryan Grim]

How you doing?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Doing good. Thanks Emily for jumping in for me yesterday. Appreciate it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Of no problem. No problem.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And I guess we've had counterpoints this week but we've decided it's not really counterpoints anymore.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So I just like that we work it out in front of everyone. The reality tv. We have our meetings right here.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah it's transparent. So there's a lot going on. I want to get to this more. We'll see how much of this we get through. But we've got a massive ground invasion happening in Gaza and things not looking very good on the cease fire front in general. We've got some other foreign policy things, some very interesting comments from General Stanley McChrystal that I want to get you guys reaction to and also some discouraging movement or lack of movement in the Ukraine talks that are supposed to happen in Istanbul as well. So we get to that. See if we get to some of this Republican tax bill, the latest in terms of potential compromises and roadblocks there. We've got some economic news. We've got some significant developments on the migration front. There was a hearing at the Supreme Court with regard to Trump's ending birthright executive order that has implications not only for that, but also for the ability of district judges to issue nationwide injunctions. So that is definitely worth digging into and wanted to tackle. Wanted to dig a little bit into the abundance debate. Sam Cedar and Ezra Klein, a lot of clips flying around. I know. I watched the whole thing and I thought it was pretty interesting.

[Ryan Grim]

I watched it too.

[Emily Jashinsky]

You watched the whole thing too?

[Ryan Grim]

I did.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Awesome.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Emily Jashinsky]

So I pulled a couple time codes and we can just take a look at that as well. That part, it'd probably be in the, the premium half. So if you guys want access to the full thing, make sure you subscribe@breaking points.com. thank you to everyone who has. Who has made these Friday shows possible. Anything else you guys got on your mind before we jump in?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, I was gonna say Sagar did post yesterday, so we can acknowledge.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Okay.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He did. Yes, he posted. So Sagar is. Yep.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Hold on. Did he post a picture?

[Sagar Enjeti]

He. Yes, he did. He posted. I believe they call it a carousel.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Let me.

[Ryan Grim]

Let's pull this sucker up.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, I'm looking for it. Hold on. I did not know. Sometimes I avoid Sagar's Twitter.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's on Instagram. I saw it on Instagram.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Oh, it's on Instagram.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay.

[Emily Jashinsky]

All right. Hold on, hold on.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, you know, I always. I'm much more willing to share stuff.

[Emily Jashinsky]

On like Instagram then Instagram is much kinder than Twitter. People are just assholes, you know?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, Like I don't need people on Twitter seeing my kids or anything like that.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, it's just Instagram.

[Ryan Grim]

It feels different. Yeah.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Oh, here we go. Okay, here we go. Here we go. All right. Now it's making Me log in? Oh, my God, really?

[Ryan Grim]

I would probably have to log into Instagram, too. I'm like, never.

[Emily Jashinsky]

All right, well, anyway, go look at soccer's Instagram picture of him and Jillian and the baby. Does he say the baby's name? Am I allowed to reveal that? I don't know.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Priya.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Priya June.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yep.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Beautiful, Beautiful, beautiful. Very exciting.

[Ryan Grim]

That is a very pretty name.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, I love that mix between the. His heritage and her. It's very beautiful.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So, and, and yeah, they were in the NICU for a little bit, so it was. I'm sure Saga really appreciates he. He mentioned that in the Instagram post and just had an outpouring of support from you guys and I'm sure is incredibly grateful for it, so.

[Ryan Grim]

And I'm looking forward to his monologue after he gets the NICU bill. Like, those can put you into seven figures.

[Emily Jashinsky]

True. He's going to be Luigi posting before we know it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's been Luigi posting for years.

[Emily Jashinsky]

All right, let's go ahead and get to the news with regard to Gaza. Let me pull this up on the screen. That's actually your reporting. Well, Jeremy's reporting technically from. From drop site, saying that, you know, as these talks are going on right now, somewhat pessimistic that there's going to be any progress on a ceasefire. And I mean, Ryan, this always comes down to at the end of the day, like, the US can make this stop whenever we want to. Biden could have, Trump could. And there's this always learned helplessness of like, oh, well, they're a sovereign nation and they can do what they want. But we know the reality is they can't do what they want without us backstopping what they want.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. What does superpower mean if it doesn't mean you can have influence over your client states? A Haaretz reporter posted some news this morning that is kind of the mirror version of Jeremy's where she writes, Israel's position is. This is a quote from an Israeli source. Israel's position is rigid. Hamas hasn't folded. The Americans have lost interest. Trump is on his way home. And Witkoff is not currently dealing with this matter. He left it to us. The source added that Witkoff quote doesn't have a plan of his own and is waiting to hear what Israel wants, quote, and since we don't want anything, he has nothing left to do. And so this marries neatly with Hamas's analysis, which is that witness that they don't have confidence that Witkoff is going to be able to or going to be willing to, you know, pressure Israel enough to get them to a place they don't want to go to. What we've since learned about the release of Eden Alexander is that the private assurance that Hamas got in order to engage in that good faith transaction, getting, getting really nothing in return on paper, was that the Americans would agree to kind of finally put some pressure on the Israelis. How the Americans interpret what it means to put pressure on them remains to be seen.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Sort of like the. Facilitating the release.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah, right. And one of the fears among both, you know, Palestinians and the families of the, of the hostages who. Captives who remain in Gaza, is that Witkoff and Bowler, having succeeded in freeing the last living American hostage captive, would move on, would kind of lose interest in it and then would, and would pivot to focusing on Iran and other things and just let, and let things just go to hell, go further to hell. And, you know, that appears to be a possibility. There are material constraints, though, that exist. You know, Israel doesn't like to recognize such things because they never, they've never been had, they've never had to because the warehouses just keep getting magically stocked by, you know, new flights of weapons from the United States. But their reservists aren't showing up in the rates that they want them to show up. They're exhausted. All of this is discussed openly in the Israeli media. So what actual capacity they have to continue to pursue this massive invasion that they're trying to launch from the north down, you know, remains to be seen. And if, if they start, you know, taking, you know, significant casualties, do they continue to push forward? It seems like that's the only thing that's going to be holding them back at this point. That Wyckoff. Because Hamas is saying, we want an end to the war. We will exchange all the hostages, all the captives. Done. End of the war, Israel withdraws, war's over. And a technocratic Palestinian administration with whatever Western relationships you want, you know, kind of takes control of Gaza. Like that's what Hamas wants. Israel wants to keep the war going. Those are irreconcilable positions.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And so only, only the US can reconcile them by insisting that the war end. And so far the indications are that Witkoff's not going to do that.

[Emily Jashinsky]

There was a piece in Haaretz. Let me get your reaction to all of this. Emily Ryan was mentioning the hostage family concerns and Haaretz was also writing about that. They said they're concerned over there's a massive ground invasion right now. I'LL show you some of the images in just a minute. But hostage families are deeply concerned. They say the next hours are going to determine hostages fate. And I was struck by this quote here. The families called on Netanyahu and President Trump to reach a breakthrough in negotiations in Doha, saying these are dramatic hours that will decide the fate of our loved ones and, and the future of Israeli society.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They're absolutely right about that. I mean, they, they should be terrified right now. I think everyone understands what's so terrifying about that at this moment especially, I mean, there, the strategic approach or the, the, I guess like, see, here's the huge problem for them over and over again is what's the end at this point? What is the end goal? What is the, you know, what is the clear outcome that Netanyahu thinks that this can, is achievable at the end of this? And I don't think anybody agrees that it's to the satisfaction of the hostage families of the Israeli public. And that's because he's, of course, himself being torn in different directions and consistently giving more to the Israeli. Right. So it's, it's an incredibly bleak situation for the hostage families right now. I, you know, understand why they would feel terrified.

[Ryan Grim]

And so, and the, no, just real quickly, the reason I keep switching back and forth between hostages and captives because we, we were always told hostages, but we're now down to the, down to a place where everybody who's being held was in combat. Like, these are, these are soldiers. That's. So that makes them captives. And you know, the international laws of war say you're not supposed to trade prisoners of war for military concessions, but you, you can trade them for other prisoners of war and it's normal that you release them when the hostilities are over. This, this argument that Israel is making that they should release the prisoners of war and then immediately continue the war would be outside of this, the like pattern of how that goes. Like, that's, you know. No, no countries would do that.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah. And that language is important because the Israelis always refer to everyone they're holding as prisoners and everyone, regardless of whether they're IDF or not, held by Hamas as hostages. And that that language is very intentional.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And meanwhile, everyone is Hamas or a combatant.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Correct? Exactly, exactly. And, you know, is often echoed by, by the press. So that, that note is very important. And just to get to the, the invasion, you know, that we're seeing right now, we've got numerous accounts from the ground. These are, you know, are all compiled. We're being Eliminated people saying it's hell tonight. Our families are. Intense escalation. We're being eliminated now. We'll never forgive you. The bombing never stops. They've gone crazy. You know, some people are reporting that these are some of the most intense bombings that they've experienced during this entire onslaught, which is hard to imagine. We also have some, some images coming out here that you can see of, you know, the rubble being bombed. You know, there's, there's nothing left here that's still standing, but yet it's still being bombed. We have this reporting, Ryan, from you guys over at drop site from yesterday evening starting saying during the last 10 minutes, Israeli forces launched a new raid west of B Lahia. Is that right? North of Gaza. An Israeli airstrike on the Shujayi neighborhood east of Gaza City. The Israeli forces bombed a house in Bir Al Naja, west of Jabalia camp, north of Gaza. Injuries as a result of Israeli bombing of a house. Martyrs and injuries as a result of the Israeli bombing of a home. So, you know, huge indications here that this is a quite large scale ground invasion. We also had this heavy reinforcements in the Gaza border tonight gearing up for what's expected to be a brutal slaughterhouse like invasion. And you know, we're already seeing some of the aftermath of that at this point.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. The IDF soldiers keep posting their positions. It's, it's an incredible lack of discipline.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think they got them. I think Hamas is finally about to be over forever.

[Ryan Grim]

This is, this will do it. Yeah, that, that was Eunice Tarawi who's as soon as anybody in the IDF posts anything, he seems to be like immediately on it and yeah, so they're like giving away their positioning ahead of time.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And my things are more depressing than watching what should be the end stages of a conflict and seeing people die and seeing further destruction when they're are potential negotiations on the table. I mean, if you look at Ukraine right now, people feel similarly and they should. It's just, it's the most bleak and upsetting thing to watch play out.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And Ryan, what, what is the significance of the timing here? It's not an accident this invasion is happening and this, you know, massive escalation in the, the violence is happening as these talks are unfolding, as President Trump is wrapping up his trip to the Middle East. You know, what's, what's the significance of this timing?

[Ryan Grim]

Originally what they were saying in Israel is that they were going to give the talks in Doha time to work themselves out and see if they could come to some type of resolution, and they would wait until Trump had left the region before they would launch their massive assault, assuming that the talks failed. It now seems like they're pushing that ahead of schedule. It's kind of a slap in the face to Trump.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Is it Iran related at all?

[Ryan Grim]

I, I could, you, you could imagine that, you know, the, the wor. The, the, the worse things get in Gaza than the more difficult Israel believes that becomes for the US to strike a deal with Iran. That might not be the case. Like you're seeing, you're seeing, you saw Syria do this, you've seen, you saw Yemen do that, the Houthis do this. You're seeing people, you know, decouple agreements with the United States from agreements with Israel in a way that we haven't really seen in the past. Because I, a lot of these groups are encouraging the isolation of Israel. So it may, it may be a miscalculation. You know, the, the kind of, it's weird to call it a hope, but the hope among people was that this was the kind of murderous death rattle of this conflict, that, that they were just going to, you know, do as much killing of, of people that they were aiming for. Mohammed Sinwar, some others. A lot of journalists have been killed in the last week because they think the window is closing for the killing that may end up not being true. And we may just get this mass murder spree plus then the continuation, plus this, this imminent starvation. You know, the, this, this humanitarian crisis is reaching levels where even the IDF is acknowledging right. This, and, and even kind of create. And creating tensions even inside the IDF.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Right. Yeah. And lastly, before we get to Ms. Rachel and all of that, there was. Ryan, my understanding was Israel was pushing various humanitarian organizations to participate in a quote, unquote, aid program that would be used as a weapon of war. And those humanitarian agencies said, no thanks, we're not taking part in your war crimes. And Israel has now announced this partnership with the US to implement this, this quote, unquote, humanitarian aid program that would require, you know, would have very few distribution points, would have very limited calories, would likely force civilians to have to traverse, you know, active war zones in order to, you know, get the nutrition they need to survive. What do we know about what's going on there?

[Ryan Grim]

And even that hasn't been agreed to. And we could go back to this Haaretz reporter earlier who spoke with an Israeli source. So she adds, this is Liza Raskovsky. She adds, Israel has not yet approved the entry of humanitarian aid via a US Backed relief fund, the source added. Even if it does, the aid would be symbolic. Symbolic, quote, maybe five trucks here, 10 there. Nothing meaningful for 2 million people, the source said.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Jesus.

[Ryan Grim]

So even there, like even this carved up, you know, trimmed down, cynical, exploitative version of humanitarian aid, they haven't even agreed, agreed to. And if they do, it'd be just, just, just for the images of a few trucks going in so that all of the pro Israel accounts can then post these images of these trucks and be like, look, see, what are you complaining about, right?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Can you imagine any other nation sending food to their adversaries? Yeah.

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[Emily Jashinsky]

Think we all know who the real villain though is in all of this, guys. And that's Ms. Rachel.

[Ryan Grim]

Let's all agree on that.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Has has something we can all unite behind. Who has dared to actually care about the children who are being starved and murdered and maimed? Israeli kids.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's part of what's extra ridiculous about this controversy.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, that's exactly right. And so the New York Times wrote this piece why tot celebrity, Ms. Rachel waded into the Gaza debate. I mean, first of all, the framing of this is insane, right? Wading into the Gaza debate, she is caring about children who are being starved, like, and, you know, who have had their limbs blown off and are now amputees and whose families can't provide for them. In what world is there. I mean, unfortunately, it is a debate, but in what world is this properly framed as any sort of a debate? And then Mehdi is pointing out here, I'm embarrassed. The New York Times, they published this piece on Ms. Rachel in which they cite a ridiculous anonymous right wing website, stop anti Semitism, while indulging the mad, mad claim she may be funded by Hamas. The New York Times put this in their piece, the allegation that she was funded by Hamas. I mean, what can you even say about this?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, it's an anonymous troll account, makes a lurid, absurd claim, which is. That's. That's what trolls do. Not blaming the trolls. And then the New York Times grabs that claim and slaps it into their article and makes her respond to it.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, she had to, like, issue a statement like, what in the world are you talking about?

[Ryan Grim]

She's not getting paid to do this. NBC News managed to have an even more absurd framing. Their headline was, Ms. Rachel doubles down on support for children in Gaza. Doubles down is for anybody who's new to. This idiom means you're in trouble and you're doing something deeply controversial and you're, you know, facing cancellation. And yet even in the face of all of this criticism of your reckless actions, you double down.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's right. The headline doubles down on the claim that Haitian migrants are eating the cats and dogs. Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. Ms. Rachel, maybe I can pull this up. Ms. Rachel doubles down on support for children in Gaza. Yeah, here it is. Like, just in case you think I'm making this up, this is the headline.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Oh, my God.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Rachel Duff, you'll read her quote there. It's sad that people try to make it controversial when you speak up for children that are facing immeasurable suffering. Why is this an article?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, I mean, if you're gonna do an article about it, you have to frame it in terms of the insanity of the people who are attacking her for this. Like, that's the only appropriate framing. So, yeah, okay, you can quote anti Semitism, Stop Anti Semitism account, trolling account as like, example number one of the wild and insane and baseless claims that are being made about this. And the way she's being demonized for supporting Children. Here's the Fox News version of Radical nursery rhymes. Ms. Rachel just went from nursery rhymes to Hamas tied headlines.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Headlines. See, that's interesting. It's a meta. They're using the meta framing, the meta media framing to do guilt by association.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yes. Defending Gaza stats on an anti Israel platform. I presume they're talking about Zataya over there. Right. With Mehdi, While skipping over October 7th, if you're a parent, will that change whether you allow your child to watch her? So, yeah, they use the fact that the New York Times and NBC News and everybody else covered this to accuse her of being affiliated with Hamas. Tide headlines.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's ridiculous.

[Ryan Grim]

And the. When people think that they're being reasonable, they will say, but why is she singling out Israel's killing of all of these children? And to Emily's point, a, she doesn't. She speaks up for children all over the world when they're suffering, but also particularly Israeli kids. And she'll speak up for Israeli kids. Absolutely. But B, there have been more than 17,000 children killed in a year and a half in Gaza. If you add up Sudan, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, other conflicts there have not been. They don't add up to that many children being killed. And not only that, right now there are about a million children in Gaza. A million who have very little to eat and very little to drink and no medical care. Like, there is not a child in Gaza immediately right as we speak who's not suffering. So why wouldn't she speak out specifically for them? Yeah, that's, that's the part that, like, why do you single us out? Well, it's singularly horrific.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, it is singularly horrific. And it's being done with our tax dollars also. And that too, as a, as a US Citizen, done with our tax dollars. One more note on this. I don't have the. It pulled, but there was a student, what at nyu who in his speech mentioned the atrocities in Gaza and they're pulling his diploma simply for one mention of this because they say, oh, well, you didn't tell us you were going to say that. So. So we're stripping you of your diploma. I mean, it's just, just insane. Just absolutely insane. I wanted to broadening out to, you know, Middle east and Trump's very friendly meeting with the new head of Syria, which is very interesting in and of itself.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's very attractive, very strong, tough past.

[Ryan Grim]

Strong past.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Very strong, very strong past. Tough guy. Tough guy, young, attractive. Just unbelievable. Stanley McChrystal made some really interesting comments here that were clipped by Ken Klippenstein that I wanted to. Emily, Emily, let me get your reaction to this because I just think this is extraordinary. Hold on, I probably have this on 2.0. Let me change it. There we go. Okay.

[I]

The reality is people who are enemies often evolve into not being our enemies and people who are terrorists evolve into something else. Menakum begins was a terrorist in his early days. Nelson Mandela was labeled a terrorist. And so many people who feel very strongly about something actually exhibit a force of will and then they can mature and evolve into being more.

[Emily Jashinsky]

So Emily, what do you, what do you make of that?

[Sagar Enjeti]

It sounds like someone who fought in the decades after the United States armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. And you guys were like in Media during the McChrystal period of the Afghanistan war. But holy smokes, is that some cope man.

[Ryan Grim]

I mean also it's true. Like let's get the no lies detected gif out for that one. Like it is, it's accurate. Like.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And the mention of Beggin was interesting to me too, because that never gets admitted. I don't think I've ever heard that mentioned on Western TV.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They had to drag McChrystal out to talk to Caitlyn Collins to get that out in the open.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah. And for people who don't know that, you can look that up. This was one of the founders of the state of Israel and it was founded by terrorist organizations who drove the British out with bombings of civilian.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Some of whom self described as terrorists.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, absolutely. They were not your goon and the others, they were not afraid of the label terrorists. Like they, they embraced it. And yeah, Nelson Mandela and you know, he was involved in violent resistance to apartheid, but before he was jailed, like that's very true. And what's amazing, Jelani, or Alshar, whatever you want to call him now has actually made this exact same point because when he was asked, hey, weren't you like in Al Qaeda in the 2000s and, and killing a bunch of Americans? And he was like, look, I was young and hot headed and I thought the American invasion was an atrocity. You're like, okay, this is true. This is true. It was like, it was, it was really bad. And he's like, but you know, some of our tactics, you know, I, I regret but you know, I'm no longer young and hot headed.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And it's, he's put that strong true in the past. Ryan.

[Ryan Grim]

This is true. People are different in their 20s and their 40s. It's usually not an Al Qaeda or an ISIS terrorists that we're hearing it from, who's now shaking hands with Macron and Trump. And.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And it's wild to hear McChrystal talk about terrorists. Like, you know, they're. They're young, they're idealistic, they're really passionate about a particular cause. And.

[Ryan Grim]

But if we're serious about, you know, we want to win hearts and minds and de. Radicalize, then, hey, what do you think it means?

[Emily Jashinsky]

The other thing is it just exposes how fake and political the word, the label terrorist is. And I don't think that's ever been probably more on display domestically than it is right now when, you know, Ms. Rachel is being labeled basically like a domestic terrorist. And.

[Ryan Grim]

And the actual Al Qaeda guy is.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Right, Is shaking hands with Trump, and they still have, what, a $10 million bounty on his head?

[Ryan Grim]

Technically, they took that off.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Oh, they did take it. Okay, well, there you go. Recently had a $10 million bounty on his head.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, Syria in general is just been the best example of that period. Like, over the course of a decade, it's just been funding all sides, but then it's all terrorist. It's just a completely ridiculous situation that it was. I think it was Maz Ryan who posted. He's like, this is the perfect coda to the war on terror. Watching the former Al Qaeda head of Al Qaeda in Syria shaking the hand of the United States President.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah. What a summit.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Incredible. And of course, you know, very nice for. For Israel that this guy is ready to just, you know, hand over the Golan Heights effectively. Ben Norton had a good summation here. Let me put this up on the screen and read off his. His commentary about what unfolded here. The US Helped overthrow Syria's independent government. Now its unelected president is the former leader of Al Qaeda. Trump had a form a friendly meeting with this Al Qaeda extremist and praised him as great. Trump said he's a young, attractive guy, tough guy, strong past, Very strong past fighter. Trump vowed to remove the suffocating U.S. sanctions. That's good. That collapsed the previous Syrian state. The rebranded Al Qaeda leader promised Syria will normalize relations with the colonial Israeli regime while it is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. He also pledged to give US Corporations control over Syria's natural resources. So I think, Ryan, you said on a previous show, you know, the people who said this was all a CIA plot don't know that it was, but, you know, it's. It would add up. It would add up.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, indeed, but a little ridiculous there, though. To say that Alshara is unelected, but then to call Assad, quote, independent.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Independent, yeah. Okay.

[Ryan Grim]

What election did Assad's dictator son, another dictator, win? And how independent exactly was he? But, yes, like, the people who said that this was just a giant, you know, deep state plot are looking pretty good right now.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's, I mean, it's also the, the new Trump dichotomy. It's not new, but he crystallized it in his Riyadh speech this week where he's talking about commerce versus chaos, as though this is a dichotomy. And commerce itself will head off chaos, which, again, sounds a lot like Tom Friedman.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, the McDonald's. Like, we'll spread our, you know, this is how we'll spread democracy around the world now. It's like, how what we'll spread our ability to conquest everywhere and loot, you know, for. On behalf of Elon Musk and other oligarchs everywhere.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, and Jelani has apparently been pitching Trump and Trump's team openly on having Trump Tower Damascus. Like, it's been a part, intentional part of the strategy that he's approached these negotiations with. And it, I mean, the sanctions are gone. So something worked. And it wouldn't surprise me if that was it, because it's worked, in other words, Gulfs, it's worked in Gulf states where there's Trump construction happening all over the region. So this is, it's not new, obviously, but I think Trump is this week has just said we are mirroring now the Trump family is like, mirroring the way business is done in some of these Gulf states. And yeah, something.

[Emily Jashinsky]

It actually ties in with this story ProPublica published about the Trump administration leaned on African countries. The goal, get business for Elon Musk. This is an expansion of the reporting that Jeff Stein had already done over the Washington Post about the way the State Department is pushing countries to, you know, allow in Starlink and partner with Starlink and, you know, aggressively doing so. And they really went deep on some of the, I mean, just like mob boss tactics that are used here and the tariffs fit into it. So you've got the stripping of usaid, you know, and so the, the basic dissolution of that agency and subsuming and under the State Department means that Marco Rubio and the people who are under him can go directly to a country and say, we're going to take your funding. If you don't, if you don't partner with Starlink, the tariffs mean, like in the case of Lesotho, that you can go in and say, hey, we're going to smack you with these 50% tariffs and you're going to be economically dead if you don't take up a Starlink license. This has worked in numerous cases where countries have basically folded and said, okay, fine. And so, you know, I was thinking, Ryan, about how with the destruction of usaid, you know, there the principle was, okay, we're going to give you some health care and we're going to be able to get things that are in US Interest, whether it's securing raw earth minerals or whatever it is, putting pressure on their government, whatever it is, with the idea. This would be in, quote, U.S. imperial interests. Now, the idea is we're going to use those same levers, except to the sort of like sole and exclusive benefit of Elon and the Trump family. And we're going to operate it directly from the State Department. We're going to couple it with this tariff regime so that we can truly go and get whatever we want for our personal business interests around the world.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, that's, that's basically what's going on here. Elon has been very, very quiet lately, I've noticed.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And I'm not grok.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Not so much, but Elon. Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

Grog been quite loud. Grog rock, not so much. I mean, Starlink is a good product, but yesterday, did you.

[Emily Jashinsky]

You got it set up yet?

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, I'm doing that today.

[Emily Jashinsky]

It's not too hard. It's. And it's, it is. I admit, it's a good idea.

[Sagar Enjeti]

In the middle of the day, you'll know.

[Ryan Grim]

It shouldn't, it shouldn't, it shouldn't need the hammer of the, the US Foreign policy apparatus to, to succeed, though apparently.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Bezos is launching a competitor product and other companies are as well. And so Elon feels under pressure to.

[Ryan Grim]

Basically hurry up and lock in, create.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Lock in a sort of like global monopoly and especially interested in Africa because that's the fastest growing population in the world. In order to secure Starlink's future, it's.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Not just a residential product. It has massive commercial and defense business.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Absolutely.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So it's not just sort of like another Amazon device or even Tesla. It's such a significant defense. I mean, it's been completely part of the war and the conflict in Ukraine. It's part of the conflict in Gaza.

[Emily Jashinsky]

So it allows Elon to conduct his own foreign policy effectively.

[Sagar Enjeti]

100%.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah. And we saw that with Ukraine, like, regardless of how you feel about the decisions he made there. First, the, the providing of Starlink to Ukraine was very Critical. And then he, you know, did not allow its use. I think, in Crimea, like, there were decisions that were made that were meant to coerce Zelensky and the Ukrainians in terms of the tactics that they were allowed to deploy. So he's using. Was using Starlink as a tool to, you know, coerce the Ukrainians. And again, regardless of whether you agree with what Elon thought about those things or not, having that much power in one unelected billionaire to be able to conduct his own foreign policy and coerce nations as he sees fit is not something that I think any of us should be signing up for.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. From a national security perspective, you would think the government would want competitors out there. Like if. If one guy controls the communication apparatus for your military.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And he controls you.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's. That is exactly right. I also wanted to just mention Ukraine. Let me play for you. So these negotiations are going down in Istanbul. You know, there's originally, I think, some decent hopes that there might be some progress made here between Ukraine and Russia. But then we learned Trump is not going and Putin is also not going. I think the expectations have been significantly diminished. Here's Trump getting asked about Putin not showing in Turkey. Take a listen. Oh, hold on. It helps if I share it. Here we go. No.

[Ryan Grim]

Disappointed by that?

[I]

No, I didn't anticipate. I actually said, why would he go if I'm not going? Because I wasn't going to go. I wasn't planning to. I would go, but I wasn't planning to go. And I said, I don't think he's going to go if I don't go. And that turned out to be right. But we have people there. Marco, as you know, is doing a fantastic job. Marco's there, Secretary of State, and we have people there. But I don't. I don't. I didn't think it was possible for Putin to go if I'm not there, Jennifer.

[Emily Jashinsky]

So he's saying, he, you know, I'm not disappointed. I didn't expect them to go. As I mentioned, I think Rubio and others have been downplaying expectations for what can be accomplished there and for Zelensky, Emily. You know, he really wanted to have some sort of a ceasefire in place before these talks even unfolded. He was not able to achieve that. And now I think what I read this morning is that he was on his way there, and then when it was revealed, okay, Putin's not going, he also sent a delegation instead of himself going. So that's kind of where we are there.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. That sounds right. And it sounds like now Trump is leaving this big trip actually not much closer to an end in Gaza or in Russia, Ukraine in that conflict either. And he started the week and I think Trump world had very high expectations for kind of moving by leaps and bounds over the course of the week and is now leaving. And it's interesting because we talked about this a good bit when we were discussing Israel earlier, but Witkoff did not seem to have the magic touch this week for some reason or another, because it actually did feel like leading up to this week, the momentum in both directions was significant. They got the minerals deal with Ukraine, they had really started putting pressure on Netanyahu, and then over the course of the week, it all fizzled.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I, I also, Ryan, is this rift with Netanyahu thing, how real, how real is this? Or is this more? Biden had very strong words, said very strong things to Netanyahu, leaks to the press, I just, I can't really tell.

[Ryan Grim]

We'll find out. And you're right to, I think to point to, you know, Biden's constant leaking to the press of how frustrated he was and what mean things he said to Netanyahu on the phone. And then the, the gap between that and what was happening in the real world, you know, showed his fecklessness. And I think that the exact same formula has to apply to Trump. And so whether Trump can get the ceasefire that he says he wants and whether he can get the Iran deal that he says he wants and get the regional stability that he claims is his goal will then determine whether or not this, this split is real or not. And I think that's the only way you can figure that out.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, it was obviously a heavy lift that he would come out of this week with leaps and bounds and significant steps forward. But so I, I don't want to say like, oh, what a loss he didn't solve to like, he didn't bring peace to the world, you know, on the course of his Middle east trip. But you think expectations were higher than what happened this week?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, I, I just, I also feel it seems like he still hasn't learned the lesson that should have been learned from decades, but specifically from his first administration, that there is no moving, full moving forward and renewal in the Middle east without Palestinians have some having some sort of a just resolution. And, you know, the Abraham Accords were premised on the idea that we can just kind of like pretend Palestinians don't exist and create these relationships. And, you know, according to Jeremy's and others, discussions with leaders of Hamas and other, you know, Palestinian armed resistance factions that sense that there was an attempt to move on without addressing some sort of resolution for Palestinians is part of what sparked the, the planning and the, the execution of October 7th. So, you know, at the end of this trip, it seems to me very much like Trump still thinks that you can just go around the Middle east, get the deals that he can get for his own personal family and get his $400 million jet from Qatar and whatever. And, you know, if Israel is going to just keep genociding Palestinians, then, you know, maybe in the future he can get a real estate deal there as well, which seems to be his ultimate end goal.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Commerce over chaos.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Those two never come at the same time, as we know. That's they're never intertwined.

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[Emily Jashinsky]

Let'S talk a little bit about this. The the latest of the GOP tax bill. Emily, I wanted to to hear your your view from the right on how things are shaking down here. First of all, we got an estimate that the tax bill's on track to add more than two and a half trillion dollars to the US Deficit. For people who you know, this is from Jeff Stein Republican tax proposal emerging in the House of Reps would add more than two and a half trillion to the federal budget deficit, according to nonpartisan experts. That fiscal hit has triggered criticism from House conservatives who have at times vowed to vote against legislation that adds the national debt, which is already over 36 trillion. House Speaker Mike Johnson may have trouble reducing the bill's price tag as that would require either making fewer tax cuts or steeper spending cuts in ways unpalatable to his conference. What is your sense, Emily, of how important this number is and this, no matter how you slice it, given the things they want to accomplish, specifically the giant tax cuts for the rich, like as long as that's in this bill, it's going to be a giant budget buster and you aren't going to be able to cut really enough even from the, you know, relatively significant cuts they want to make to Medicaid in order to make up the difference. So on the other hand, conservatives like to do this math like, oh yes, but the tax cuts will magically pay for themselves. And this analysis surely doesn't take into account all of the economic glory that is going to be achieved by, you know, further cutting the taxes of the the richest people and corporations in the country. So how how's the right kind of reacting to this news?

[Sagar Enjeti]

I would expect there to be significant fights with the Congressional Budget Office in the days ahead. And the Congressional Budget Office does kind of suck in some respects. I mean, it's not like it has an easy job, but there's some funny math that gets done when you're trying to say how much stuff this will cost. So I think some of that will be cope. I think some of it will be legitimate. I think that number is extremely important and I think it's why right now you have Chip Roy basically already laying the groundwork and preparing people for his internal resistance and a lot of Freedom Caucus members are going to be with him. On the Senate side, Ron Johnson penned a Wall Street Journal op ed this week saying basically that the bill is a tight is the Titanic and that it's going to be sunk because of the spending levels. On the other hand, you have the SALT conference whining that their SALT deduction isn't quadrupled rather than merely tripled, if not more. They would of course go higher than that. So number is just going to be a red line for people like Chip Roy. Tim Burett is raising issues already now about increased Pentagon spending. So again, like you can do this if you have a 30 vote margin and you can allow people to take their little comfortable protest votes and sprinkle some pork in to get other people on the side that you need them to be. And you can do these deals, but the deals that they're going to have to get done to overcome this problem. And I would say, I mean it's obvious in the House, but it'll also be a problem in the Senate because you now have people who have stuck their necks out for Doge. You have people who have come out when it's extremely difficult. There are bureaucrats on the sidewalk with their cardboard boxes and the ferns and people have stuck their neck out and VA cuts, for example, and said no, this is important. And then you're asking them to vote on a budget bill or a budget busting bill that they then have to go home and answer for blowing up the debt and then while doing that, taxes for the rich and cuts to Medicaid. And this is maga. It's not the Republican Party. I mean, I would argue they didn't understand it quite well enough in 2009 either. But it's not the Republican Party of 1999. It is completely different. And so if you have to go home and you're Josh Hawley who's also saying no touching Medicaid. These are two MAGA Republicans, Josh Hawley and Ron Johnson. Josh Hawley saying don't touch Medicaid. Ron Johnson saying this bill is not brave enough and is not making cuts that'll make me support it. So this, this problem imperils everything for them. So on the one hand, on the one hand that makes it easier for them to pass because if it's like, listen, the president is doing these tariffs no matter what and you know your constituents are going to be screwed if the tariffs don't come with tax cuts and incentives for onshoring, then maybe you can, it's easier to muscle people on board. On the other hand, if you're spending more on the Pentagon and people have stuck their necks out on Pentagon cuts over the last, I mean it's just completely, it is Right. It is more of a mess than people realize.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Rand Paul had had this to say to your point, Emily, about the Doge piece. He says it indicates this year the deficit will be over $2 trillion, but it means they're anticipating close to 3 trillion for the next year. It's really a slap in the face at those of us who are excited about Elon Musk and Doge and all the cuts. Where are the cuts? If the cuts are real, why are we going to borrow 5 trillion? So what I proposed was this. He says he wanted to. I put forward a proposal, we voted on it, to raise the debt ceiling for three months. Why? Because I think we should vote on the debt ceiling every three or four months to see if they're doing their job. If they promise those cuts in spending, not just the administration, I'm talking about congressional leaders as well. If the promises are real, a vote to raise it every three months. So I put forward that amendment. Unfortunately, I only got a handful of votes. But, you know, I mean, he's saying some version of what you said. First of all, the Doge cuts obviously are fake. They're actually costing the government more money than they're, quote, unquote, saving in some.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Sense, because people have lost their jobs in districts.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yes, that's exactly. That's exactly correct. And causing all sorts of, you know, problems for states across the country. And then you're asking people to further explode. And this is something we've been saying from the beginning, like, you know, they're not serious about Doge and about being so worried about the debt and the deficit, because if they were, they wouldn't be also proposing this, like, $4 trillion tax cut down the road that's just several months away. You know, Ryan, early in the Trump administration, I. Trump. Trump has so much power within the Republican Party. I mean, really, that's unquestioned. However, previously, what made them, him and Elon so able to just effectuate whatever result they wanted with congressional Republicans was that one, two punch. If you have Trump with the political power, and you had Elon with the power of the purse, so to speak, where he was threatening everybody who would get crosswise with him with funding their primaries, I think both of their power is somewhat diminished now because Trump is less popular than he was at that time, and, you know, you're getting closer to midterms. Some of these Republicans have to face voters here shortly, and Elon was so embarrassed in that Supreme Court race that his political power obviously is vastly diminished. So even though I don't want to, you know, overstate the decline of Trump's influence here or whatever. He still has a tremendous, unbelievable grip on the Republican Party. I don't think he quite has as much power with them as he did going in because he's also lost that, you know, the, the punch of Elon Musk feeling like such a juggernaut as well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Ryan, that was true. But I'll just say quickly, like Chip Roy, Donald Trump has already fought with Chip Roy and Chip Roy has prevailed. He has been fine. And that's like there are people right now when you have a, when you have a big margin, it doesn't matter. You have the Thomas Masseys, you have the Chip Roy's who are going to make a big deal and say, I'm just not doing it. But there are so many of those people right now for Trump. I think Chip Roy would rather lose an election than vote for a bill that explodes the budget. And if he doesn't feel like it's a reasonable compromise, and he's in that point right now because he was already posting this week saying there's going to be an enormous pressure campaign pretty implicitly from the President because the President was meanwhile tweeting, it's a great bill. So, yeah, it's a huge, it is such a mess for the economy. It is such a mess for the Republican Party.

[Emily Jashinsky]

The NBC News Ryan's reporting that Republicans are floating this compromise of faster Medicaid cuts. So I guess, you know, effectuating the same amount of cuts, but in a quicker timeline and a larger salt deduction to try to strike some balance between what they describe as blue state Republicans and conservative hardliners on this bill.

[Ryan Grim]

And the reason they're pushing those faster Medicaid cuts is because they, you know, what politicians in Washington always do is anything that's difficult, politically difficult, they push that out into the back end of the 10 year, 10 year window. And they'll say, look, over 10 years, this cuts $800 billion out of Medicaid. And then you look at the details and it cuts zero for the first eight years and then it cuts 400 each year of the ninth and tenth. And now that's not the exact structure of this one. It's a, it's a little bit, you know, closer in. But the idea then is that you tell your base you're doing a thing and then you don't actually do it. That's, this is, you know, Democrats have their own version of this. This is how Republicans, you know, do it to their base. And but fundamentally, Republicans are in a jam between their rhetoric and reality because they have been for years, you know, been telling their base that they can save trillions of dollars. Elon Musk said 2 trillion.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

By basically cutting crazy research that funds, you know, transgender mice and finding, and finding waste, fraud and abuse.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

In the government.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

And my normie friends who were watching Doge, you know, go through the government were very hopeful that like, awesome, like we're final, we finally got somebody who's rich enough, he doesn't care, he's going to go in there, he's going to find all the absurd spending, all the waste, fraud and abuse, and we're going to get our government under control. And it's not going to hurt me, it's not going to hurt the economy. It's not going to make the government actually less effective. It'll make the government more effective. The problem is that, that the, this was always a lie. Like the government does have some inefficiencies, but it would take a serious like collective effort to go in and reform those processes. You can't just go in and with a wrecking ball and fire everybody on probation and find trillions of dollars in transgender mice. Research like that. That just doesn't exist.

[Emily Jashinsky]

There are, there are $2 trillion of woke to cut out the federal budget.

[Ryan Grim]

Exactly. And the fraud is, is weapons makers, you know, health insurance companies, it's health providers. It's like these private equity owned doctor facilities that are ripping off Medicare and Medicaid. Like those are the places that you're going to find the fraud. But guess what? They have power, they make contributions, so they're not going after those people.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The other stuff is small ball compared to that. I think that's what Elon found out that like you can, you can cut.

[Emily Jashinsky]

The Reuters subscription saying like Politico Pro subscription.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, no, no, guys, no, no, no, no, no. Punchbowl.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, they maybe say $300 reporting.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, the, yeah, the White House can cut, can make these agencies cut their Punchbowl subscriptions or cut, you know, the dumb contracts that they have with maybe Rivian or Tesla or something like that.

[Emily Jashinsky]

But well, between, between Ryan saving the government that money for that fake Tesla contract or $4 million or whatever, plus what we're saving the government for the Punchbowl subscriptions. This is the real Doge right here.

[Ryan Grim]

That's right. Grim Efficiency.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's right. The department of Grim Efficiency gotten way more done than Elon. Oh my gosh, we didn't even have to hack the Social Security database to do it. Isn't that incredible?

[Sagar Enjeti]

We didn't have to know.

[Ryan Grim]

It's almost, it's almost as if he wanted all that data for something else.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Interesting. Yeah, maybe interesting. Very interesting. So that he speed it to Grok so that Grok can tell us more about the Kill the Boars song and White genocide.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Last thought, some of these Republicans know that they have to outlast Donald Trump. So like there are people in the Senate who are up after Donald Trump's presidential term is over. And if you're. That's not a Chip Roy, but again, like to keep using Chip Roy as an example or Ron Johnson actually as an example who was just reelected. You know that you have political ambitions that are not just going to be whatever Trump says in when is Trump's 20 after 2028. And so you're going to have to answer to voters after Donald Trump is no longer president. And you don't know if Donald Trump is going to maintain his hold on the Republican Party. He probably will, but you have no idea what's going to happen. And if going to get hammered for being Mr. Doge, Mr. Balance Budget and voting for a piece of garbage bill. So the incentives are not where Mike Johnson and Trump need them to be.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I gotta get you guys to weigh in on this James Comey situation.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Seriously, what in the.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I don't know what's going on. I genuinely don't know what's going on here. So Comey posted this picture on Instagram.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What a deeply weird person.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Truly. Truly. That says 86, 47. And he, his, his caption is cool shell formation on my beach walk. And then he, you know, people were like, okay, you're calling for the President to be killed? Is that what we're doing? Is that what's going on here? And you know, they're apparently now like investigating him for this as well. But anyway, he posted this, he deleted the post and he says, I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. Never occurred to me. But I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in addition to being the head of the FBI. He is. Damn. He damn sure knows that. 86. He knows exactly what it means and he knows exactly what he's doing when he juxtaposes it with 40. Been such a bizarre person.

[Ryan Grim]

I mean, as far as I know, this the only place I know this is from restaurants where you say like, okay, we're, we're out of, we're out of something, you know, 86 chicken. We did once and I remember everybody laughed. 86 chicken. Look like kind of manager are you? How do we run out of chicken? So you just announced it to the staff. 86 chicken is off the menu. You can also impeach the president. Like that's in the way to 86 the guy also.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, so it doesn't of course, but it's a euphemism for like telling people.

[Ryan Grim]

Is it has become.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I mean, I, I honestly have a take. I like, I mean, I guess my only take is, I think Republicans are very hypocritical melting down over this given like the level of the type of rhetoric that we hear from them all the time. And they'll supposed like rejection of cancel culture, blah, blah, blah. But, but I don't know guys. Maybe I'm naive and maybe it's just because I'm like, if I saw those shells, I'm not sure that I would really put it together or think that this was like a call for an assassination. I think he may be like boomer brained enough and whatever to just be like, oh, this is kind of interesting. I don't know. He may be. I genuinely think that's a possibility.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Absolutely. Maybe I don't think he should be laying low.

[Ryan Grim]

Like.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But yeah, he's the FBI. He's a former FBI director. The idea that you're just tossing these shells up on social media, even if you just think it's like kind of.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Interesting, like, ooh, it's idiotic code to decode here. I don't know. I, that's kind of the vibe I got from it. It just seems on a character front because he's such a, like, cautious person in a lot of ways.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Remember when he was social media posting from the woods of Iowa? He's extremely weird. He's, he's, it's, it's genuinely disturbing to me that that man had as much power as he did over the course of so many years. It first with Martha Stewart, which was when we all should have known, we.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Should have drawn the line there.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And, and real ones did know. But then James Comey continued to ascend the ranks. No surprise there. And we know how his power was abused when he was overseeing trying to take shortcuts to get Trump out of office. And so it's just like, what are you doing, bro? Like, just retire. You sold a bunch of Books.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. You're on the beach.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Go back to the woods.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Put the phone away on the beach.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Colada Lord.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, I guess that's it. It's a commentary on how even when you're at the beach, you still cannot resist, you know, posting in some way that's gonna, it's gonna get you in trouble.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That is so true. And the only other thing I'm gonna add to this is the fact that he deleted it and said he didn't know. It's also just like, dude, then why are you posting? Like, if, if this is truly innocent, leave it up. Like, like, who cares? But what are you. He's just so. He's a mess.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's where the boomer mindset comes in, is he didn't realize that the cardinal rule of social media is never delete, never apologize. Be like Ms. Rachel and double down. Nothing from Donald Trump or Ms. Rachel, apparently.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes. Yes.

[Emily Jashinsky]

All right. I wanted to, I wanted to get to this abundance debate with Sam Cedar and as recline and so we'll go ahead this part we're going to transition to the premium show for, for these reactions. And we have a couple other stories I want to get to as well, the, the migration hearing as well. So if you want to get the full show, just go over and subscribe breakingpoints.com for this bonus section that we're going to get to here as well. And Ryan.

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[Emily Jashinsky]

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Yes.

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[Ryan Grim]

You're listening to an iHeart podcast.