← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
5/20/25: Trump Bailing On Ukraine, Dave Smith Vs Ben Shapiro, Epstein, MKUltra CIA Secrets & MORE!
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- [00:00]
Crystal Ball
You're listening to an I heart podcast.
- [00:05]
Sagar Enjeti
I've never felt like this before. It's like you just get me. I feel like my true self with you. Does that sound crazy? And it doesn't hurt that you're gorgeous.
- [00:19]
Dave Smith
Okay, that's it. I'm taking you home with me.
- [00:23]
Sagar Enjeti
I mean, you can't find shoes this good just anywhere. Find a shoe for every you from brands you love like Birkenstock, Nike, Adidas and more at your DSW store or dsw.com this message comes from Greenlight.
- [00:37]
Crystal Ball
Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest with your guardrails in place. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores automate allowance, and keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Get started risk free@greenlight.com iheart Every day.
- [01:08]
Dave Smith
Our world gets a little more connected, but a little further apart. But then there are moments that remind us to be more human.
- [01:19]
Crystal Ball
Thank you for calling Amica Insurance.
- [01:21]
Dave Smith
Hey, I was just in an accident. Don't worry, we'll get you taken care of at Ameca. We understand that looking out for each other isn't new or groundbreaking. It's human. Amica empathy is our best policy. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.
- [01:37]
Sagar Enjeti
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
- [01:44]
Crystal Ball
This is the only place where you.
- [01:46]
Sagar Enjeti
Can find honest perspectives from the left.
- [01:47]
Crystal Ball
And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [01:50]
Sagar Enjeti
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we.
- [02:04]
Dave Smith
Hope to see you@breakingpoints.com.
- [02:09]
Sagar Enjeti
Good morning everybody. Welcome to Breaking Points where it is a very exciting, very special day because we have special celebrity co host Dave Smith joining us. Dave, welcome.
- [02:19]
Crystal Ball
Good morning, Crystal. Thank you for having me.
- [02:22]
Sagar Enjeti
So you guys of course know Dave as host of Part of the problem and comedian. He also is going to explain to me why he's being so smeared as the woke right and also potentially Qatari funded today. So I'm looking forward to this. I wish he also deserves special Gratitude because he is subbing in here for Sager while Sager is on parental leave. And Dave firmly rejects such outrageous coddling of new parents. So we especially appreciate you violating your own principles for this.
- [02:52]
Crystal Ball
Well, listen, I am a great admirer of Breaking Points. It's an honor to be here. I am very opposed to paternity leave. Women deserve all the time off in the world. Listen.
- [03:03]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, so it's just men. So you're just anti. This is part of your war on men? That's what you're telling me?
- [03:07]
Crystal Ball
Yes. Well, Crystal, you have kids, I have kids. We both know for certainty that wherever Sager is, he is not helping right now. And he might be trying to, he might want to, but he's not. Somewhere I can hear Sager's wife going, all right, I'll do it. Just.
- [03:22]
Dave Smith
I got it.
- [03:23]
Crystal Ball
It's no problem. You know, he should be here. He should be working more, if anything.
- [03:28]
Sagar Enjeti
To get him out of her hair. Yes, well, I know he had aspirations of being as helpful as possible, so we'll get an update from him when he gets back. Let me just run through a few of the things that we're gonna go through today. There are a bunch of topics that I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on, Dave. We've got updates on Ukraine. Trump talked to both Zelenskyy and Putin yesterday. You're gonna explain to me the smoke right situation, which was very confusing to me and still very confusing to me. Tim Dillon gave an interesting interview to CNN about whether he's part of a new establishment and his interview with JD Vance. Definitely want to get your thoughts on that. Cash Patel and Dan Bongino say actually nothing to see there in terms of Trump's assassination attempt. And also Epstein definitely did kill himself, so everyone can just move on. And then I'm not sure how long Dave will be able to stay for, as I want to respect his time. But we've also got a lot of updates. Israel going full mask off on their completely genocidal plans. Updates with regard to deportations. A member of Congress is actually being charged by the Trump administration for alleged assault of an ICE agent. And I'm going to interview an author with a new book out on MK Ultra, which should be really interesting. So lots of good stuff to get to before we jump in, if you can support us. BreakingPoints.com thank you so much to everybody who's become a premium subscriber that has enabled us to expand to five days a week. With that, let's go ahead and Jump in. So, as I just mentioned, President Trump spoke yesterday both to Zelensky and to Putin separately in hopes of coming to some sort of a resolution to this horrific war. He was asked some questions about it by the press corps after the fact. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of that. Did you ask President Putin to meet with you? About what? About Ukraine? Of course I did. I talked to him about it. I said, when are we going to end this, Vladimir? I've known him for a long time now. I said, when are we going to end this bloodshed, this bloodbath? It's a bloodbath, and I do believe he wants to end it. You know, when I made the call, I told the people last night, I spoke to the heads of the different countries, Germany and Finland. We had Italy, as you know, and UK was on the line today and a couple of others, and then they were in turn calling the everyone. Ursula was there from the European Union. She was terrific. And we, you know, we spoke for a long time about it, and they got a problem. It's a big, big problem. But I said to him, we got to get going. And I did say also, if I thought that you couldn't do it, I'd step away, because what are you going to do? We don't have boots on the ground. We wouldn't have boots on the ground, but we do have a big stake, and the financial amount that was put up is just crazy. And let's just go ahead and put up a six, which is the Financial Times write up of what transpired yesterday. Their headline is, trump says Russia and Ukraine to immediately begin talks on ending the war. Donald Trump has claimed Russia and Ukraine will immediately begin those negotiations, but signaled he was leaving Moscow and Kiev to find a deal without the US As a broker. After phone calls with Putin and Zelensky, Trump posted that, quote, russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a ceasefire and more importantly, an end to the war. Putin's readout of the call was more tentative. He offered no substantive change in the Kremlin stance, while Zelensky implored the US Leader to not distance himself from efforts to secure peace. The only one who benefits from that is Putin, Zelensky said in a statement. In remarks that indicated Washington may be stepping back from a role as a mediator, Trump said the conditions for a deal could only be agreed by the warring parties because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of. And, Dave, to be honest with you, I am having trouble following the pieces of where we are with this at this point, because we had the big Oval Office blow up with Zelensky, then the minerals deal was off, then the minerals deal is back on, then there were gonna be negotiations in Istanbul. Then Putin doesn't go, Trump doesn't go. Then we have these phone calls. The Europeans are pushing for sanctions on Russia. Lots of Republicans also pushing in that direction of levying additional sanctions. I mean, it's already extraordinarily sanctioned on Russia to put pressure on them. Now you've got these phone calls. So how are you making sense of where we are with regard to this war?
- [07:40]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, well, just like you said, that's all it. Yeah. What doesn't make sense about that? Yeah, well, it.
- [07:45]
Sagar Enjeti
Perfectly clear.
- [07:45]
Crystal Ball
Right. And it's, it's very hard to get a real gauge of it, of course, because, number one, Donald Trump is, as we all know, he's such a showman, and he's always kind of saying what's politically expedient for him to say. So of course he's saying, we're close to ending this. Everybody's talking. We have to end this thing. Look, obviously he ran on ending the war on his first day, and it has proved to be more difficult than he made it sound on the campaign trail. I do think that at least, you know, there's, there's a lot of things that Donald Trump is, is getting wrong as president, but at least he does seem to want the end goal to be an end to this war. And I, I will say I just find Zelensky's comments appalling that the only one who would benefit from, from a peace deal would be Vladimir Putin. I mean, how about the, the young men that you're conscripting, or maybe not such young men that you're cons are dying by the hundreds of thousands. I mean, how about the American taxpayer? How about the European taxpayer? How about, you know, even though it's unfashionable to say, how about Vladimir Putin's conscripted army? You know, so often in these wars, we just end up thinking, you know, in these collectivist mindsets, but like the, the young Russian boys are also being forced into this conflict. And, you know, I just, I find it wild, particularly, you know, this is one of the things that infuriates me about Israel too. It's like these countries that are completely dependent on, on America, and yet they talk this big game as if, you know, Netanyahu gives these speeches we can touch anywhere in the Middle East. Well, no, you Can't. We can. And you just take it for granted that we'll do whatever you want. And so I do think, you know, Zelensky has done himself no favors. I'm, you know, with you. I thought after the Oval Office blow up that that would be the end of the mineral deal. Unfortunately, it looks like I was wrong about that, and I think that's a disaster for America to get drawn in more. But from what I've heard from people kind of on the inside, and this does match a lot of the reporting, the real obstacle here is not even that Putin doesn't want to make a deal with Donald Trump. I think he would be happy to, is that Putin doesn't trust that the permanent government is going to keep to its word. And while he is, he is the bad guy in this war, and he launched an aggressive war that's killed hundreds of thousands of people, he does have a point there that, you know, as we've seen over the last many years, I know Bernie Sanders thinks we just became an oligarchy yesterday, but actually, we've been one for quite a while.
- [10:15]
Sagar Enjeti
Bernie's been talking about it for a long time, Dave, in fairness.
- [10:18]
Crystal Ball
Well, yes, that is true, but he does still speak about it as if this is something new with Donald Trump, which is like, he's not necessarily even wrong about what he's saying with Trump, but it's like, I don't know. I think when Citigroup is picking Obama's cabinet, you could probably describe that as an oligarchy. But regardless, the point is that there's gonna be a new president in. In a few years. And there are already, you know, the forces that really control the government who are very at odds with Vladimir Putin. And I think he knows that.
- [10:45]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, the minerals deal is a real. It really does confuse the situation because both the Trump administration and Zelensky portray this as a sort of a security guarantee. And I mean, in a sense, it is, because the bet is, okay, if you have a bunch of capitalists who are very invested in the mines and the rare earths in Ukraine and whatever else they're getting a piece of here, then we're only going to allow so much Russian threat to those capitalist interests. I don't think that they're wrong about that. And so let me actually play for you. J.D. vance made some interesting comments yesterday as well with regards to this and see what you think about this piece. Guys, this is a five. Let's go ahead and play that.
- [11:28]
Crystal Ball
I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war.
- [11:33]
Sagar Enjeti
Of course, that's been going on for a few years now.
- [11:36]
Dave Smith
And I think there's also just a little bit of.
- [11:39]
Crystal Ball
Look, there is fundamental mistrust between Russia and the West. It's one of the things the President thinks is, frankly, stupid, that we should.
- [11:48]
Dave Smith
Be able to move beyond the mistakes.
- [11:50]
Crystal Ball
That have been made in the past. But that takes two to tango.
- [11:53]
Sagar Enjeti
I know the President.
- [11:54]
Crystal Ball
President's willing to do that, but if Russia is not willing to do that, then we're eventually just going to have to say, this is not our war.
- [11:59]
Sagar Enjeti
It's Joe Biden's war.
- [12:00]
Crystal Ball
It's Vladimir Putin's war. It's not our war. We're going to try to end it.
- [12:04]
Sagar Enjeti
But if we can't end it, we're.
- [12:05]
Dave Smith
Eventually going to say, you know what?
- [12:06]
Crystal Ball
That was worth a try, but we're not doing anymore.
- [12:09]
Sagar Enjeti
So that's the position that, like, you know, a lot of America firsters, Steve Bannon in particular, would want this administration to take. Basically, like, look, we tried. We're backing away. You guys figure it out. Europe, good luck. But like I said, the minerals deal really kind of complicates that because we have our hands in the country no matter what at this point. So what would that look like if this administration did just sort of withdraw from negotiations? Obviously, Russia has significant advantage in terms of the longer that this war goes. There are signs that the Ukrainian frontline is kind of collapsing right now. I think Zelensky's demands for what he would want to see in terms of an end to the war, which is a total Russian withdrawal from all areas, are just completely unreasonable, unlikely. So where does that leave us all, do you think?
- [12:58]
Crystal Ball
Well, it's, you know, you're absolutely right. And, of course, Trump himself speaks out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to the mineral deal. So he'll, you know, he'll say, no, we're not giving you a security guarantee. This is what Zelensky's big sticking point has been, although, weirdly, he's in no position to demand anything, and yet he demands a security guarantee. But then Donald Trump will kind of sell this mineral deal as if that's what it is. And of course, the major problem with that is, well, it's kind of twofold. Number one, this is the cause of the whole conflict to begin with, was the US Involvement and the threat of the US Giving Ukraine a security guarantee, essentially, and moving NATO hardware into Ukraine, which has always been Vladimir Putin's concern. But just for, for us as Americans. Just think about that. I mean, what do you mean by a security guarantee now? What are we going to get? Listen, we've already, I think I'm, I'm right about this. We've already met the threshold of what Article 5 would require us to do if Ukraine was a NATO country. It's not. Article 5 doesn't explicitly say that you have to go to war. Also, it says, kind of like that you have to aid in the defensive effort. What more are Americans prepared to do than we've, I mean, what are we talking about? Are we going to send in the 82nd Airborne to go fight the country with the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons on their border to make sure that Luhan is ruled by Kiev and not Moscow? Like, come on. So, like, what, what could we even possibly be promising here? And look, I'll take. I'm much more non interventionist than even Steve Bannon is. And I, I would say that, look, I know people. I did a debate on this on counterpoints about six months ago or so, right? And look, there's, there is this golden piece of leverage that the US has that nobody in Washington, including Trump, is even willing to consider. But US Withdrawal from Naito, we could probably get whatever we wanted. We could probably, this would be the one thing that we could probably get Vladimir Putin to stop the war today. We could probably even get him to give back much of the territory, not Crimea, but probably get a lot of the territory in the Donbass region back on Ukrainian hands. Because this would be the ultimate victory for Russia, but it would also be a victory for the United States of America. There is absolutely no need for us to be, you know, you could argue that it made sense after World War II, with Western Europe destroyed in the Soviet Union, in the east, that America had to guarantee, put Europe under its nuclear umbrella and subsidize its defense and guarantee its protection. But we're $36 trillion in debt and Europe is rich. It makes absolutely no sense. Russia's gdp, I think, is what, a third of what our government spends every year. There are no threat to take over all of Europe. And so there's no reason why Europe can't go at this alone. And I think if we did that, we'd be in a much better situation, but there's simply no political will to do it.
- [15:55]
Sagar Enjeti
I mean, that's very interesting. I mean, and also just the whole justification for NATO, the Cold War is theoretically over. You know, so there was never any reckoning with that. And any interest in reorganizing NATO to deal with a new reality. So I think all of that is really fair. I mean, I think if we truly did sort of withdraw from the talks, okay, you guys, leave it up to yourselves. Zelensky has dug in, I think for his own political reasons. He's promised we're not going to give up any territory. And I don't think he's going to move off of that. I think it would take a lot for him to move off of that, even though it's devastating to his own people, to his own country, et cetera. I mean, probably what you would end up with is Russia continuing to march to take additional territory and ultimately something approaching a kind of divided, failed state is what you would likely be looking at at the end of this. And it's woulda, coulda, shoulda. But obviously the original sin was when there were peace talks with a chance of success in the very beginning, when the Ukrainians had a stronger hand and there was more leverage that could have been applied to Russia. And the fact that the US and with Boris Johnson, that they really scuttled, you know, I mean, this is just absolutely confirmed at this point that they scuttled those potential talks. Not that there's ever any guarantees. You know, that's the really what puts us in this horrific situation where at this point I don't think there is a great end, a great solution that can, that can really be achieved.
- [17:31]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, well, look, I agree with you and I think you're right to highlight that as one of the, you know, just key blunders. But, you know, I highly recommend for anybody who has not read Scott Horton's phenomenal book Provoked, which really details the history all the way from the collapse of the Soviet Union to through this war. And I mean, the thing is just, you know, Scott Horton, I mean, the guy is just like a machine. There's like thousands of footnotes in this book. It's all right there for you. And look, I mean, it's. Look, that is a great point that you made of Boris Johnson going over and killing the peace talks, but the whole thing from, from NATO expansion to color coded revolutions that the CIA and the NED and the USAID were backing all through Eastern Europe to even just if you just think, you know, in the last eight years we framed him like we always think about how Trump was framed for being a Russian spy, but that was also framing Vladimir Putin. You had every leader of the CIA and the military. You know, I'm not just talking about like Rachel Maddow saying it. Think about this from the Russian perspective. When you've got John Brennan on television every day saying, this guy just launched an attack worse than Pearl harbor against us. Well, how are you going to view that from, you know, if you're outside of the American empire and you see the United States of America, the most war hungry country in the world, who's destroyed seven nations in the last 25 years, is now saying the aim is on you making up these ridiculous lies that they knew were lies. You know, he put bounties on our soldier's head in Afghanistan. These things that like the entire corporate media just walks away from now because they don't have a leg to stop.
- [19:14]
Sagar Enjeti
Pretend that didn't happen. Yeah, right.
- [19:16]
Crystal Ball
But so when J.D. vance is sitting there saying, you know, there is this mistrust. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, how would there not be? All you have to do is try to put the shoe on the other foot for a second and go, imagine the Soviet Union still existed and they were toppling the government in Canada and Mexico and El Salvador and propping up their own, you know, sock puppets there. How would we feel about that? And so it's very tough to unwind.
- [19:41]
Sagar Enjeti
It's a good point. You know, to be honest with you, I always assumed he just sort of enjoyed the illusion that he was this like, grand puppet master who had such power and control over, you know, all these governments around the world. But your perspective makes a lot of sense too.
- [19:54]
Crystal Ball
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- [20:27]
Dave Smith
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- [20:55]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [21:54]
Dave Smith
Needs you.
- [21:58]
Sagar Enjeti
Let'S go ahead and get to this this woke right situation. I want to set this up with some news with regard to Project Esther, it's called, which is this plan that was hatched by the Heritage foundation, which has really been implemented almost completely by the Trump administration to silence any sort of dissent from the Israel consensus. We can put this article up for the New York Times. I mean, this is again the mainstream press reporting on something that both Dropsite News and Zatteo reported on. I think, I don't know, quite a while ago, maybe a year ago. But they have some interesting details here. The headline is the group behind Project 2025 has a plan to crush the Pro Palestinian Movement. Project Esther outlined an ambitious plan to fight antisemitism by branding a broad range of critics of Israel, like you and me, Dave, as effectively a terrorist support network so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excluded from what it considered open society. Project Esther's architects envisioned outcomes that at the time might have seemed far fetched. Curriculum believed to be sympathetic to a Hamas support narrative would be taken out of schools and universities. Supporting faculty would be removed. Social media would be purged of content deemed to be anti semitic. Institutions would lose public funding. Foreign students who pushed for Palestinian rights would have their visas revoked or deported. And, they said once a sympathetic presidential administration was in place, according to the plan, we will organize rapidly, take immediate action to stop the bleeding, and achieve all objectives within two years. Now, four months after Mr. Trump took office, Heritage foundation leaders are taking an early victory. So when I look at these extraordinary efforts, which have a clear identitarian lens and are using authoritarian tactics to enforce that identitarian worldview. To me, that is the complete definition of woke. Now, woke at this point may be one of these terms that just needs to be retired because it's just sort of an all encompassing smear and people mean different things with it, and it's become sort of like content free. But to me, using authoritarian tactics to enforce an identitarian worldview is the definition of woke. And so to me, when I look at this, this is the woke, right? And not that it's all the right, but this is a Trump administration. Many right wingers are on board with this. And so when I started seeing this term woke, right, thrown around, I just assumed that was what people meant, because that's really logical to me. You know, even some of the same language about, like, safe spaces and, you know, we have a clip we could play, but we'll just reference it of a rabbi in a hearing who was like, it's not enough to be anti Semitic, you have to be anti anti Semitic. And I'm like, oh, my God, it is the very same thing that we saw on the left previously. So when I was informed that no, this term woke, right, is being used somehow against people like you who are dissenters from the Israel consensus, I've had a very hard time wrapping my head around it. So I wanted you to help me understand the contours of this fight that is going on here on the right.
- [25:05]
Crystal Ball
So, yeah, so I, I initially started using the term in exactly the same way that that you mean it. And one of the things that's amazing, and it really is just the hypocrisy is all over the place. And so, I mean, here you have the Heritage foundation demonizing the people like me who might go, hey, you know, we spent $8 trillion on the war on terrorism. Hey, Heritage foundation, do you see an issue with that when we're $36 trillion in debt? Here's the biggest part of it. You know, I mean, like, you could argue that entitlements drive it the most, but however you feel about entitlement programs, they are something that people have paid into and are now receiving. Starting catastrophic wars that you don't need to fight at all is just a pure waste of money. And it does come with this other little nasty side effect of murdering children, which, you know, we should probably not do.
- [25:57]
Sagar Enjeti
It's controversial to say apparently, but, you know, I am opposed to that personally.
- [26:02]
Crystal Ball
Well, isn't there something to this, Crystal? Because I always thought, you know, for many years, the left leaning people Would as a retort to like the pro life position, they would say, well don't you oppose the death penalty? And I always thought that was not a good argument. And conservatives would rightly come back and say, yeah, but that person's like been convicted of a crime. Like we all accept that you lose some rights when you've committed a heinous violence crime. But by the way, I oppose the death penalty for other reasons. But you know, like, but this is such a good response. Like how do you claim to be the pro life party and you, you are unaffected by the fact that there are children dying. Like I'm sorry. And then the same people who are pro life advocates will say, well what's your plan for eliminating Hamas? And it's like, wait, so that's, so now I have to have a plan. I can't just be opposed to the intentional killing of babies anyway. But look, I mean, and as I was saying the other day with, with Tucker, you have Ben Shapiro who made his career opposing identity politics as a proud Zionist. You have people like Ron DeSantis who made his name as being the anti woke guy. But then as soon as the question of Israel comes up, it's like, oh, I got these college kids and their hurt feelings. And so all of it is just. And look, the most, the most basic one to me is the shutting down of, of legitimate criticism with accusations of bigotry, which really was the calling card of the woke. That's what most people mean when they say the word. And you have examples like Thomas Massie made the argument. Now feel, however you feel about this, I agree with it. But it is certainly a legitimate argument. When he voted no for the Israel funding, he was like, look, we're $36 trillion in debt and we can't afford to fund other countries wars. That, that's it. And he's consistent on this. He votes against all these spending bills. And then John Podhoritz from a Commentary magazine in response to this called him anti Semitic filth. That's.
- [28:11]
Sagar Enjeti
I think he said something similar about me, by the way.
- [28:13]
Crystal Ball
But yeah, well, I'm sure.
- [28:15]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [28:15]
Crystal Ball
And he's said some things about me as well. I mean the guy is just, you know, by the way, his father at least wrote some interesting books. He's just totally unimpressive. But any way. But so yes, so you have in this moment when the supporters of Israel's destruction of Gaza are, look, they are supporting the war on identitarian grounds, claiming eternal victim status for one identitarian group, they are Shutting down dissent with accusations of bigotry and supporting speech laws and you know, ranging from, as the stuff that you guys have covered on the show so much. And then they're also calling the other side woke for, you know, opposing these wars. And they, you know, the ones who have come up with it, come up with the flimsiest of justifications. You know, essentially they are forced to just view our arguments through like a critical theory lens and say, oh well, you know, you're saying that you woke up to the reality that Israel has too much influence on our government. As if now waking up to anything makes you woke. Like it's just the most ridiculous, you know, like, like the, it's such a loose definition that it could be applied to anyone.
- [29:31]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [29:32]
Crystal Ball
So it's just kind of meaningless. But I do think that really. And, and you know, I'm curious to get your thoughts on this, but I've, I've been saying this for years that I think many of the popular, the most popular kind of anti woke, anti social justice warrior thinkers, they all kind of got Wokeism wrong.
- [29:52]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes. All along.
- [29:53]
Crystal Ball
And this includes, includes Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, all, all of the guys who kind of were famous for battling it out with these college students. They. And this also includes people like James Lindsay and Brett Weinstein, I think even who I like very much. But I do think kind of a lot of them, they always viewed Wokeism as a, as the left taking over the liberals.
- [30:18]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [30:18]
Crystal Ball
And I do understand, like there is a surface level plausibility to that to view things like that because certainly like the influences of critical race theory and you know, even stuff from the Frankfurt School, kind of the cultural Marxism type stuff, the long march through the institutions. These were left wing ideas. And so when you see every giant corporation and the political establishment regurgitating kind of left wing talking points, it's easy on the surface to say, oh well, look, the left took over the liberals and now they're all a bunch of leftists. But it's really missing the point. And so many of them get lost in focusing on like the intellectual history of Wokeism and how you can trace it through the universities and what thinker said what. And you know, but really that's not the interesting component to wokeism. The interesting component is what happened right around 2012 when every single giant corporate media apparatus decided they were all going to go all in on this stuff. And it was, it was from the highest levels of power. You know, you can look at those like Nexus charts where you, you track the Words like racism and, and, you know, toxic masculinity and transgenderism and they all shoot up. And so the theory that like these kids got out of colleges and then got jobs in the corporations, well, then you would expect like a slow increase, not like they didn't take over the New York Times in one year. So what's going on here? And then the more you look back at it, you realize like, okay, why are the CIA and the Federal Reserve pushing these commercials of like, I'm a Latina with anxiety disorder who's a single mom and I work for the CIA? Like, I don't think a college kid got in and took over the CIA. So what did happen? And what happened was after Barack Obama won his historic campaign in 2008 on the promise of ending the wars and closing Guantanamo Bay and repealing the George W. Bush error catastrophe, he went the other direction and expanded it. And so for his reelection campaign, he couldn't say, hey, remember how I said I was gonna close Guantanamo Bay? It's closed. Remember how I was gonna end the wars? Okay, yeah, I expanded them. But. But I'm for gay marriage, but I'm the. And so essentially what they did was in the, in the wake of the Occupy movement, they were like, hey, here's a Faustian bargain for the left.
- [32:50]
Sagar Enjeti
That's it.
- [32:51]
Crystal Ball
Well, well, listen, we're not gonna give you. Listen, the banker bailouts are gonna continue, the banker profits are gonna continue, but we will send all of our white executives to diversity training, right?
- [33:02]
Sagar Enjeti
No, that's 100%. And another. And my colleague Ryan Graham has really, like literally written the book on this. But another seminal moment is when you have Bernie Sanders who represents, especially in the 2015, 2016, this much more class focused and much less identity focused. True. Like leftist ideology. And he's rising in the polls and he represents this threat to the entrenched interest in the Democratic Party. And so what Hillary Clinton does, recognizing that this progressive movement is a Senate in the party, she tries to outlift him by saying, if you break up the big banks, that's not gonna end racism, that's not gonna end sexism. And so she substitutes in these cultural identitarian concerns for the universal class based concerns that were represented by the Bernie Sanders movement. And by the way, it's kind of effective. That's how you end up with Bernie Bros. Being how they're sexist and they're racist, and he doesn't care about civil rights and all of this stuff. And it works. And then because it's effective he and much of the left, I think almost all of the left, frankly, the elected left, at least, least feel the need to also lean into this language and this worldview, et cetera. But it comes from the neoliberals and the corporate establishment that want to virtue signal and want to block any sort of more extensive or more revolutionary type of reform. And that's where it really originates. So that has been something that has really frustrated me as well.
- [34:44]
Crystal Ball
It's such a good point.
- [34:45]
Sagar Enjeti
And one last thing on this, and then I'll get your reaction. But you can see it now with how the corporations, on a dime, they flip from their virtue signaling to like, oh, Mark Zuckerberg, I'm gonna do content moderation in Austin. I'm wearing a big chain. I'm gonna get into fighting. I'm go on with Joe Rogan. You can see the way that they wore this as a convenience to meet the moment. And then the minute, the vibe shifted. Oh, well, we're done with that. We're gonna be over here hanging out with Trump at his inauguration now.
- [35:11]
Crystal Ball
Well, right. I mean, of course. Right. Like, so these giant, you know, because we live in such a globalized world, and these are multinational corporations. So, like, you know, a lot of these corporations are in almost every country. Do you think they're. They're flying the pride flag in Saudi Arabia.
- [35:28]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, exactly.
- [35:28]
Crystal Ball
You know, like, do they really believe in this stuff? No, they don't. This is pure. And, and of course, you know, it's such a great example. You said Bernie Sanders, of course, those two Black Lives Matter girls who went up and took the microphone from him. And then every single, you know, the, the accusation from Elizabeth Warren was, oh, he was sexist. Many years ago, they would always say the Bernie Bros Are sexist. This was always so, like, essentially what it really was was a neoliberal takeover of the left using some leftist rhetoric. And so the focus, because if you just think about it, right, the focus in the first, let's say 10 years of the 21st century from the left. Like, what were they protesting, though? They were protesting the war in Iraq, they were protesting the Patriot act, and they were protesting the banker bailouts. I mean, they had their eye on the prize. And like, I'm not a leftist, I probably wouldn't agree with a lot of their solutions for. Well, I would with the war in Iraq, but I probably wouldn't agree with necessarily their solutions for the economic stuff. But at least they were focused on power. They were focused on the people who were actually screwing over The American people. And so, of course, what do you want to do? Get them distracted. They love the powerful, love a distraction, especially a distraction that pits the people against each other. It's divide and conquer. It's really like the oldest propaganda that you can find. And, you know, and I'll just say this because I think it's particularly say to you that the intellectual kind of background of the WOKE stuff, which I've just, you know, I've read some of it. It's just. It's a waste of time. Like, it's like, look, that isn't leftism. That was one sliver of leftism. It was one school of thought on the left, and it is by far the worst. And if you really want to see somebody, like, tear apart the postmodernists, listen to Noam Chomsky do it. Nobody on the right has ever torn them apart better than that guy did. He just absolutely destroyed their entire worldview. And, you know, there are great schools of thought on the left. I mean, like. Like, Noam Chomsky is required reading if you want to be, like, an educated person. You have to read his stuff. And I'm not an anarcho syndicalist. I don't agree with him on everything. But he's a brilliant mind, and he's got, like, a real, you know, solid worldview and a way of looking at things that you can benefit from even if you don't agree with him. This other stuff, the postmodernists, they're just. It's just garbage. It's nonsense. And so it's not as if like. Like it was the worst school of leftism that they took. And again, I think that there is something about. And I know this. Like, I'm, you know, obviously I'm. I'm known for being a libertarian, but I'm like, I'm a Jewish kid who grew up with a single mom in Brooklyn, New York. Like, I understand the kind of liberal left worldview. That's what I'm from. Those people are my people. And there is something where it was like, it was.
- [38:28]
Sagar Enjeti
It's.
- [38:28]
Crystal Ball
It's. They find a way to play on your weaknesses in the same way they did to right wingers after 9, 11, where it's like, what are you? Are you a wimp? Or are you a big, tough guy who wants to go fight a war to protect your country? That was just like kryptonite to right wingers. You couldn't fight that. You were like an evil person if you didn't. And the same thing with leftists, with racism, you know, and for leftists, it's like their Achilles heel. And I think they're kind of growing out of this now after the last few years. It was so abused. But understandably, given our new nation's history and the history of humanity, if you care about egalitarianism and you care about abuse of power, well, what's always the worst version of that has always been how racial minorities are treated. And not just in our society, but particularly in our society. And so to be accused of being racist was always the thing that would make liberals and leftists go like, whoa, no, no, no, no, no, not me. I'm the opposite of that. That's what they. It's their whole identity. And so once you weaponized that and you could see it even with Bernie Sanders, how weak he was, those two girls were so obnoxious and came up and stole his microphone in the middle of his rally where 10,000 people were there to see him. And he went, okay, okay, go ahead.
- [39:41]
Sagar Enjeti
And here's a guy who was genuinely involved getting arrested in the civil rights movement and has a spotless record that you could put up against anyone when it comes to racism, sexism, whatever you want to say one last thing before we move on because I want to get your reaction to these Tim Dillon clips, but. But on the woke right piece, it seems like a lot of what they're doing too is guilt by association because you do genuinely have like overt antisemites who are using the issue of Israel, Palestine to, you know, to ascend and they end up, you know, backing some of the things that we back. But it does genuinely come out of anti Semitism. I'm thinking of like the Nick Fuentes's of the world where it's like, you know, undeniably. And so it seems like part of what's going on here too is to say, well, since you support some of the same things that they support, aren't you also an anti Semite?
- [40:31]
Crystal Ball
Right. Which is like, you know, the worst argument ever. The most ridiculous non argument. Like, you know, I think I told one of them I was arguing with Wilt Chamberlain on online, which who I do like but is very bad on this issue. But he said something like you have the same position as like the college, you know, blue haired kids.
- [40:50]
Sagar Enjeti
You said you're like AOC and code Pink or something. God, I mean, we should all aspire to be like code Pink. By the way. They're very admirable and brave and courageous people. But anyway, go on, well, yes, I.
- [41:01]
Crystal Ball
Mean, and while I might disagree with some of their tactics at times, from a strategic point of view, they're right about the wars objectively and they've been right about them since the beginning. And unlike so many of the fair weather liberals, what I respect about them is they didn't shut up during Obama. They're one of the few leftist groups out there that was just as good under him as they were under George W. Bush. Bush. But what is it? First of all, AOC is not nearly as good as them or me on the issue, but correct.
- [41:28]
Sagar Enjeti
What is it?
- [41:28]
Crystal Ball
What does this mean? I said my response to him was, I was like, I know. And you're just like Stalin when it comes to the topic of Hitler. Like what does that mean? So if you, if I oppose the war in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I guess I'm on the same side as Saddam Hussein. But that doesn't mean anything. Like what point does that prove? And the question is, is the policy correct or incorrect? Not who you might agree with.
- [41:52]
Sagar Enjeti
I know.
- [41:53]
Crystal Ball
So it's all just these. And look, the thing that's kind of sad about it.
- [41:59]
Sagar Enjeti
You know what, Dave? I have to say, I think a lot of people operate that way where they look at like AOC thinks this, I have to think that. Oh, Trump thinks this, I have to think that. I mean, unfortunately that, I mean that's what negative polarization is. Unfortunately. I think that is how a lot of people operate politically.
- [42:15]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, no, no question. I mean I think there's the, in my opinion, the greatest living American hero and the greatest person ever run for President. Congressman Dr. Ron Paul, I think he is single handedly a huge, huge factor on why the right wing went so non interventionist over the last few years. And a lot of it was because he was a Republican from Texas who's a very personally conservative guy. And he got on stage and said, I oppose all of these wars, wars. And right wingers would listen to him in a way that they just weren't going to listen to Michael Moore, like you should throw out a fat communist and tell me that's who I got to be. I got to give up my entire identity in order to oppose these wars. And then here you have a country doctor telling you like, no, you can keep your identity, you just can oppose the wars. And so there is powerful social psychology to that and that's why people use these tactics. But intellectually it's completely bankrupt. It makes no sense whatsoever that we agree, left, left wingers and Right wingers agree on lots of things. That doesn't mean they're the same. And of course this tactic was this. By the way, the same tactic is what was used on Jordan Peterson and Bret Weinstein when they were challenging the WOKE orthodoxy. They'd always be referred to as alt right adjacent, like as if they had anything to do with the fact that there were white nationalists, you know, in Charlottesville or something like that because. Because they're like one degree of separation. Or some of the people who like them might also listen to their podcasts. But again, the game with the people who are calling people like me woke right is to do the exact same thing. To invoke the worst of the racialist Jew haters online and then say that also represents Tucker Carlson or Daryl Cooper or me or whoever. And it's just not true. I mean, there certainly are people who are Jew haters who oppose this war Israel and the neocons are giving them a lot to work with. They're handing them talking points every single day to basically help their recruitment efforts. But there is a huge and I believe much bigger percentage of the American people who just oppose this war because it's awful and it's not in our national interest to fund and arm the thing and don't have any animosity toward Jews. And so, so they know, look, it's like it's always the same. It was the same when I debated Douglas Murray. They know they can't win the argument cuz it's indefensible on every level. And so they always have to go to these, these tactics. But the woke right one is particularly ridiculous.
- [44:52]
Sagar Enjeti
They go to sophistry, you know, they go to like, you know, appeal to X. Oh, you're not an authority. You couldn't know. I mean, this has been a very effective tactic, I think for years on Israel, Palestine of like, it's complicated, you just don't understand. And because the images have been so horrific and so constant and so undeniable, I think it has, if you look at the polling of the American people, I think it has finally broken through of like, no, I am allowed to oppose the bombing of babies with my tax dollars and I don't need to know 100 years of history to know that that's something that's wrong and that I oppose and do not want to be any part of.
- [45:27]
Crystal Ball
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Crystal Ball
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- [47:31]
Sagar Enjeti
Let me go ahead and move to this Tim Dillon CNN interview because there are a couple parts here I want to get your reaction to that I think are interesting. So this is a long interview. I watched the whole thing yesterday. It was about an hour long. They posted the whole thing uncut. The interviewer is a woman named Elle Reeves who became kind of famous for the documentary she did on Charlottesville when she was with Vice News. And so she asked him, Dylan, this question of whether he is part of a new establishment. Let's take a listen to that. Do you feel like you're part of.
- [47:59]
Crystal Ball
A new establishment that's being created? I don't think I'm part of a new establishment. I think it would be pretty difficult to look at these podcasts. I know it's a popular thing right now, especially in certain media circles, to say that after running an incredibly unpopular candidate who is in introduced very late in the Race because an elderly man who could not be the president, who everyone told was functioning as the president for four years. I don't think I'm a new establishment. If you weigh again, a few comedians with podcasts, verse, all of the people that supported Kamala Harris, you know, Democrat donors, billionaires, big people. If the idea is that me and a few comedians have more power than multibillionaires, huge media institutions, a whole political party apparatus, I just don't think most people are going to buy that. I think it seems like a great way to excuse running an unpopular candidate on a platform that American people weren't sold on.
- [49:06]
Sagar Enjeti
What do you think about that?
- [49:09]
Crystal Ball
Well, full disclosure, I loved him and he's a friend of mine, but there's. I think Tim is right. I think there's a bit more to it than what he was saying, and I think that, you know, it's almost like, you know, when you use this term, the establishment, it's like, well, what are you really saying?
- [49:28]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, it's sort of like woke. It becomes like, you know, it can mean anything to anyone.
- [49:33]
Crystal Ball
So. Right. So in terms of political power, like, you know, okay, there are big shows that have big audiences, and so, yeah, maybe, you know, we just saw the sitting President of the United States kind of leverage that. It's kind of insane that every politician is not attempting to leverage that. But right. What Tim is saying about how you have. Look, you have the three letter agencies, you have the Congress and the Supreme Court and the presidency, and you have huge, gigantic news corporations, and you have Hollywood and academia. There are all these things. So, yes, it is ridiculous to call Theo Vaughan the establishment, but the dynamic that what has happened is that the American people have lost all trust in every institution, and so now they are flooding over to the podcast scene, and they have much more trust in those people because they're just real people. Like, however you feel about Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn, they're just real people, and they're just telling you how they feel about something. And they're. Sometimes they're spot on about that stuff. The point is that it's not that. That any of us are the new establishment. It's that the establishment lied through their freaking teeth over and over and over again to the American people, to the point that the American people just went, we don't believe a word you say anymore. And because it was, they were intentionally lying to cover up their unbelievable levels of corruption. And again, like, you could just rattle these things off. But, like, in. In the 21st century, what has the establishment handed American people? Okay, like, they. We got nine, 11, which they did not protect us from. Then they lied us into war after war after war, each one being a catastrophe, lying us through the entire thing. I mean, 19 years in Afghanistan, they were saying, the army we're building up is doing a great job, and they're going to totally keep the Taliban down as soon as we leave. Over and over, you know, like, we were just going through the stuff with Putin, lie after lie after lie. The. The stuff. The way they screwed Bernie Sanders out of the nomination, just blatantly Che against him. Then they just blatantly interfered in the election in 2020, you know, silencing people. The Hunter Biden laptops, killing that story after a year, you know, of locking the country down, which was kind of proven to be all based on pseudoscience from a virus that they freaking made themselves, and then lied through their teeth about that so they could cover it up. Then they tried to, you know, tell us that this clearly senile man was like, how much do you think you can lie? Oh, and by the way, there was a giant pedophile ring that is still redacted for national security purposes. Like what?
- [52:16]
Sagar Enjeti
We'll get to that.
- [52:17]
Crystal Ball
But what the hell? It doesn't take that much. You don't have to be a super genius to look at this and go, I know what's going on here. You're all a bunch of corrupt liars. And I trust Theo Vaughn and Joe Rogan more than I trust Anderson Cooper.
- [52:31]
Sagar Enjeti
Sorry, I think that's a big piece of it. I think because that term establishment is. Is so up for grabs at this point that it's easy for Tim Dillon in that moment to make her question look just silly. Like, oh, what, you think I'm more powerful than the CIA? Get out of here. But I also think he doesn't grapple with the way the world has changed in the way you're talking about. And also the fact, look, Republicans have the White House, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court. There's been a huge cultural shift. The podcast sphere that Tim Dillon is part of was broadly supportive of, of Donald Trump. The richest people in the world are behind the MAGA movement at this point. They're all lined up behind him at the inauguration. Elon Musk is literally the richest person in the world and probably the second most powerful person, if not the most powerful person in the country. And so if that grouping, if that ecosystem of power doesn't represent some kind of establishment, then to me, the Word is just completely meaningless at this point. And no one's saying, like Tim Dillon or you or Theo Vaughan or Rogan or whatever, the pinnacle of these now, but part of the ecosystem. If you are broadly in sort of that ecosystem, then I think it is fair to say, and I do think you're right, that in part it's because the previous quote, unquote, establishment had so clearly failed, that there's been a kind of regrouping and an interest in alternative voices, certainly in terms of the media ecosystem.
- [54:09]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, Well, I think that there's no question that there's kind of like an upstart wannabe new elite that have threw their support behind Donald Trump. They would like to be the ruling elite now, and they're kind of like, hey, the Rockefellers and the Morgans had their turn, and we'd like to be the new ruling elite. I don't know that they certainly have a lot of wealth. I don't know that they've acquired that level of power. But I guess that remains to be seen.
- [54:37]
Sagar Enjeti
Some of them are the same people, you know, I mean, Bay, you know, and then now even Elon Musk, you know, was previously besties with Obama and now he's all in with Trump. And yes, Miriam Adelson, like the, you know, the Israel Lobby is certainly bipartisan, et cetera. I mean, I guess that is part of. I was watching your coverage of. I think you were talking about the crackdown on dissent, et cetera, and you were saying, you know, the new boss feels a lot like the old boss. And, you know, I would say that the tactics deployed by the Trump administration are extraordinary and beyond what we've seen in the past, just the overwhelming leveraging of the state, students being kidnapped off the street for writing op eds, et cetera. But I mean, that also speaks to the fact that even though there was a revolutionary energy and a rhetorical challenge of the status quo that was represented by the Trump movement, some of the pieces are too, just continued upholding of the status quo. And I would say as evidence of that, another tax cut for the wealthy coming up as. As a follow on to his tax cuts for the wealthy in the first administration. Again, we have differences on economics, but the Ukraine war is still going on. We still have saber rattling with Iran, we still have crushing of dissent in an accelerated way, et cetera.
- [55:53]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, well. And Obviously, we're only 120 or 130 days into this administration. And the big question that you just touched on is what's gonna happen in the Middle East. And it seems like they are moving forward with these plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza for the ISRA Israelis, which is just, that is something that is not like the old boss. I mean this is a whole new step. I would say that as with the term the woke, right. It is every single person who they're smearing with that term are all the anti war people. It's all the people who are non interventionist. And one of the things, leaving aside kind of the billionaire class who got behind Donald Trump, or I shouldn't say not, obviously there were a lot of billionaires behind Kamala Harris as well. But those billionaires that did get behind Donald Trump. What I will say about the comedian podcast sphere, which I do find to be pretty interesting, is that all of them, every last one of them is anti war. And I'm not saying that that means that Donald Trump is anti war or that they were right to support Donald Trump or that Donald Trump's administration will end up working out that way. But one of the things that is really interesting, interesting is like dude, for, I mean you saw, I know you were talking about the other day, Theo Vaughn's recent moment where he's talking about the genocide in Gaza. It's really, I thought it was really beautiful moment. And I mean certainly like Joe Rogan has been great on this issue. Tim Dillon is probably the best out there at just mocking the whole thing. I mean his, his bit about how Sam Harris has a meditation app and then supports. But it was like one of the funniest things I've ever seen. And so I think that one of the things that I think is really positive about this is that going forward, this is kind of the new standard is that politicians are going to have to sit down for these unedited, unscripted, long form conversations. I actually thought my, my good friend Andrew Schultz did a great job with Bernie Sanders the other day and got some really interesting moments out of him that like I never, Bernie Sanders in so many interviews in the last 10 years and I like never saw anyone get some of the stuff that Andrew got out of him. I think the, the Democrats and the left, more broadly speaking are going to have to figure out how to play this game too. And I think, and I think Bernie Sanders was good for him for, for going on and like attempting to do this. The thing is that it's going to be, it's, it's the death of candidates like Kamala Harris. It's the death of candidates who require this extraordinary amount of protection. So that you can never really see who they are. I think those days are gone. And I think that ultimately that's a huge net benefit.
- [58:33]
Sagar Enjeti
I think that's a fair point. I will say I'm more skeptical of the shift, even as I am myself in this ecosystem, because there doesn't seem. First of all, I mean, I think in terms rather than of individual people, of the incentive structures. In corporate media, incentive structure is whatever the corporate boss is, bottom line is upholding that, making sure that you're maintaining your access, playing to your audience, whatever that audience is. And in new media, the incentive structure is not really different. I mean, if anything, it exacerbates some of the worst elements because you see people become even more aggressively audience captured because there's more of a connection there. There's no wall between you and the advertisers whatsoever. So there's that direct concern. And there's still. And you see this. I mean, I'm sure you have in mind people as well who just want to suck up to the powers that be and do the propaganda for their audience. And all the incentives are aligned for them to do that. So I'm a little less. I'm a little more wary of the shift while being very cognizant of the failures of legacy media media. I'm also wary of the shift. And I also feel like, I do think if you're gonna have the president on, the vice president on, et cetera, even if you are a comedian, you do have some sort of responsibility to press them on. Okay, you say you're anti war, but here's what the track record was in the first administration or, well, then why are you taking all this money from Miriam Adelson? I think there is a responsibility to do some of that pushback in those interviews. Even if you are not yourself a journalist. Journalist, if you're giving someone who has huge power or aspires to huge power, this tremendous platform.
- [60:18]
Crystal Ball
Well, I, I don't disagree. Like, I mean, as I'm sure you know, like, yeah, if I interviewed Donald Trump, it would be a different interview than like the interviews that some of my friends have done with them.
- [60:29]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [60:30]
Crystal Ball
That being said, you know, it's. Everything is compared to what it's not, you know, perfection verse what we have. It's, would you rather have this happening on a CNN town hall, or would you rather it be Theo Vaughn and Joe Rogan? And I will say that while neither Theo or Joe gave Donald Trump like a pressing, you know, like, interview, like, they weren't grilling Him.
- [60:53]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [60:54]
Crystal Ball
But I did think with Theo Vaughn, you saw a different side of Donald Trump than you've ever seen before. And I thought it was kind of fascinating in a way. Like, the stuff him getting into, like his brother killing himself with alcohol and stuff like that, I actually thought was very interesting. And, like, you know, Donald Trump is such a weird guy. Like, he's just. However you feel about Donald Trump, he is the strangest freaking human being. And, like, he doesn't speak like other people. He doesn't look like other people. He look. He's like a cartoon character. Like, it's like you're watching the news and then a cartoon, like Roger Rabbit or something. His skin color is different than everybody else's. And so it was just kind of interesting to me to see that. And I will say that on the Joe Rogan interview, I actually thought that Joe, um, Joe exposed something in Donald Trump when he asked him about the election that I think nobody else has been able to. And part of that is because it was a friendly environment and they were just having a conversation. And then when he gets to asking him about the election, you saw that Donald Trump just really had nothing. He had no argument for why 2020 was stolen. And then he almost, like, kind of resorted to just laughing about it because he didn't have a real answer. So, look, I'll. I'll grant you that. And I remember I talked to Mehdi Hassan about this once, and he was basically saying the same thing. He was like, no, this is even worse than the corporate media because they're not just giving, like, puff interviews to Donald Trump. And I was like, how many CNN interviews has Donald Trump done? It's not doing anything. Like, just ask. When CNN asks about the election, he's just going to dunk on the CNN anchor and then that's going to be. His base is going to love that. At least now, you know. Yes. Is audience capture a thing? Yeah, of course, of course. But that's a lot better than corporate capture. I mean, at least you'll be responsible to your audience and not some weapons.
- [62:37]
Sagar Enjeti
But I think it's corporate capture, too. I mean, again, like, the advertisers are all right there as well. I mean, with the Rogan interview, you know, I just. I think what people took away, what most people took away from that wasn't like, oh, he looked like a fool on the election denial stuff. It was at a time when he was being framed as extreme. And I think he is extreme. I think his actions in office this time have really proven. He's even more extreme than I expected expected. He got to go on and people are like, oh, he just seems like a normal guy. I think that's what most people took away from that. And Joe himself, when he previously didn't want to interview Trump because he said, I don't want to help him, he recognized that there was power in giving someone three hours to just look like a normal everyday guy. And so listen, I'm like, I'm not mad at any of these people for doing the interviews. I think it's a very difficult balance to strike, all of this, that. But I do think that it would be better served having more pushback and that at least in the corporate media structure there is some sense of, okay, we've got to ask the tough question, we've gotta be prepared for the follow up, et cetera. And so that's my concern about the direction we're going in. And at least let me give Trump the, the, let me be charitable to him. He does all of those mainstream interviews too. Right? So it's not like he's only. But I think for a lot of politicians, and I see this because we have a lot of politicians who won't come on this show because they know we will ask them difficult questions. And I'm talking actually more about Democrats than Republicans. When you have an ecosystem set up where, you know, you can just go and do an hour or two hours or three hours or whatever and not get asked really a single challenging question, of course, most politicians, that's what they're going to gravitate towards because that feels a lot more comfortable.
- [64:31]
Crystal Ball
Well, I mean, you know, when Joe changed his mind to have Donald Trump, the decision he made was that he was going to have both of them on. And so one politician did not want to go into that environment. And so, you know, I just, look, I get your point and you know, there's something to the whole thing. Like, it is, you know, it's, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous that all of us are in the position that we're in. I don't mean you, I mean me and the comedians, it's, it's ridiculous. But again, it's like, here we are, like, I don't know, you know, I mean, this is, look, if, well, you're.
- [65:06]
Sagar Enjeti
Absolutely right that the Democrats have to, like, this is the world that we live in now. And so you see Pete and you see Gavin, you see the ones who, you know, are able to string together if you send of a ton going out there and trying to play in the fun now.
- [65:20]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. And the ones who aren't so incredibly insecure about their own corruption that they're terrified of being exposed. And, you know, and Gavin Newsom is that, I think, because he's a sociopath. But, you know, Bernie Sanders, is that because he really believes in the stuff he's saying, or at least to some degree more than most politicians. But I think that, you know, really the kind of lesson here are for anybody who's like, you know, who doesn't like the way, say, Joe Rogan interviewed Donald Trump or something like that is that, you know, they. Joe was pushed by the establishment toward Donald Trump in the most aggressive manner. I mean, they literally tried to ruin the guy and they went after him on stuff that he was right about. I mean, like, it was like, he was. If his doctor recommended he take Ivermectin, he was right to take it. Like, I don't know, the whole thing with Ivermectin, the reason why doctors recommend it is because it can't hurt. It's like, it's a drug that really doesn't have any negative side effects.
- [66:22]
Sagar Enjeti
It's like, take a vitamin. What? You know, well, kind of if it makes. Whatever.
- [66:27]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, there were a couple studies that seem to indicate that if you take it early on, it might help with COVID And then there were a bunch of other studies that kind of were like, now it doesn't really seem to be doing it anything. But a lot of doctors were like, well, it can't hurt, so throw this in the cocktail as well. And then they try. They. They colored his face on cnn. They went this, like, vicious cancellation attempt against him. It's like, maybe don't do that to the guy with the biggest show. What were you thinking? What was the game plan here, Brian Stelter? You thought you were going to take Joe Rogan down, like, how removed from reality these people are. And so, look, I hope. I hope that shows, like, breaking points continue to grow. I hope it gets to a point where, like, yeah, like, if. If a presidential candidate had to go through Kristol and Sager in order to get to the White House, I think that would be a great world to live in.
- [67:16]
Sagar Enjeti
That's the world we all want to live in.
- [67:18]
Crystal Ball
Yes. And so we gotta keep. We gotta keep pushing forward with this, but that the corporate legacy media apparatus had to be destroyed in order for us to have any, Any chance of replacing it with something better.
- [67:31]
Sagar Enjeti
I just hope what is built in its wake is. Is better. And I'm concerned about that.
- [67:37]
Dave Smith
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- [67:55]
Crystal Ball
It out.
- [67:58]
Dave Smith
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- [68:07]
Crystal Ball
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- [68:38]
Dave Smith
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- [69:40]
Sagar Enjeti
Kash Patel and Dan Bongino got questioned by Maria Bartiromo about, hey, what's going on with this Epstein situation? And it was pretty, pretty interesting. Their responses. Let's take a listen.
- [69:51]
Crystal Ball
You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. People don't believe it. Well, I mean, listen, they have a right to their opinion. But as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor, who's been in that prison system, who's been in the Metropolitan Detention center, who's been.
- [70:08]
Sagar Enjeti
In segregated housing, you know a suicide.
- [70:11]
Crystal Ball
When you see one. And that's what that was.
- [70:14]
Sagar Enjeti
He killed himself. Again, you want me to.
- [70:17]
Crystal Ball
I've.
- [70:17]
Sagar Enjeti
I've seen the whole file. He killed himself. I know it's hard work There you go, Dave. Case closed, over. Nothing to see here.
- [70:25]
Crystal Ball
Well, I have no more questions.
- [70:26]
Sagar Enjeti
That's right.
- [70:27]
Crystal Ball
I mean, there you go.
- [70:28]
Sagar Enjeti
They answered every question you could possibly imagine.
- [70:31]
Crystal Ball
But it doesn't, it really doesn't help that by my, my co host, Rob Bernstein is a very, very funny comedian, a very bright guy. But he, he made this point the other day, but he's like, it's just their body language looks like it's like a, like a hostage tape or something like that. That doesn't really help.
- [70:46]
Sagar Enjeti
Look, in fairness, Cash Mattel always looks like, I don't know, wild eyed. It's just there's always a look there where you're like, whoa, buddy, relax. You know.
- [70:56]
Crystal Ball
Agreed. Yeah, he's stiff and wide eyed for sure. But it's just the thing that was so pathetic about this, and they do it on several different topics, is that this is just like, what is this? Trust me, I've been there. I'm a prosecutor, seen the file. It's not a thing. It's like, yeah, I'm going to need a little bit more than that. Particularly on, you know, look, with, with Jeffrey Epstein like you never. He was clearly like an intelligence asset or operative, right? And with these intelligence, you know, operations, we're probably never going to get 100% of the story and then we'll know everything. But we really do know enough with Jeffrey Epstein to know that this was clearly some high level conspiracy. I mean the guy is like, he's, he's teaching at Dalton with no background that would like lead to that. Then he's at Bear Stearns, he's made partner within like a couple years. He's like, I think a billionaire and no one can trace where he made any of his money. That doesn't exist. Like that never exists. And then he's, he's caught. And we have the prosecutor on record saying, I gave him a sweetheart deal because I was told by intelligence that he's connected to them. So then, then when he dies, he's in a secured prison and there's multiple camera failures like, all I'm saying is like, I don't even know if he did kill himself or didn't kill himself. I think perhaps he did under duress, who knows? But the idea that you're just going to be like now looked at it, nothing to see here. When you like your administration ran on the promise that you were gonna release this stuff and then made a whole spectacle about giving it to some influencers and really you release nothing. It's just Too ridiculous.
- [72:41]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [72:41]
Crystal Ball
And I would just say, like, to, to the broader point, because this is like my number one, you know, like, theme right now with the Trump administration is that, you know, as I was talking about before, like, there have been, there have been these very serious crimes committed by the government against the American people over the last few years. And whether this is with the health stuff or in terms of wars, in terms of like lockdowns and all of these things, and the people who Donald Trump has put in, many of them, Bobby Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard, Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, Pete Hagseth, they've basically made a living. And Donald Trump himself in calling out these crimes, and yet there is no move not to expose them, let alone hold people accountable. And I do think that there is gonna be like, ultimately, and I think this kind of ties into the podcast conversation. I mean, I'm actually fairly optimistic, like, see where this goes over the next few years. I don't think any of these people are just Trump sycophants who are gonna love Donald Trump no matter what. And I do think that there's.
- [73:44]
Sagar Enjeti
You're talking about the realistic podcast universe specifically.
- [73:48]
Crystal Ball
I think a lot of people are. Obviously Trump has a cult like following and there are those that will defend him no matter what, but there are a lot of people who are gonna be like, oh, no, this is, this is B.S. like, I'm sorry, dude, you can't just come up here and tell me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know we stoked these flames about this obvious conspiracy for all of these years, but, eh, got in there, looked at it, nothing to see here, trust me.
- [74:11]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, it's pathetic. Well, and I love when he's like, oh, I've seen the file. Okay, well, show us the file. Like, what was in that file? Tell us more. You know, like, if you expect to.
- [74:20]
Crystal Ball
Just take your word for it, Basic, basic, basic questions about the Jeffrey Epstein thing. Okay. Just like the very basic ones. Okay, okay. The prosecutor who's on record saying intelligence told me he was connected to us. Who told you that? Who was he connected to? Number two, where did the tapes go? Forget release the files or the plane logs. Where are the tapes? Right, okay. And it's a little bit of a weird area because, you know, you're talking about like, child pornography. So like, I'm not saying release the tapes, but like, is there one expert who goes through them or something? And like, I don't know, but like.
- [74:52]
Sagar Enjeti
I want to know.
- [74:54]
Crystal Ball
I want to know who the adults are in that, in that Equation. And. And then even if you're gonna say this stuff about his death, okay, so why did the cameras all go out, right? Like, explain those basic things to me and then we're talking. But don't tell me I've seen the files. You don't get to see them. There's nothing there.
- [75:11]
Sagar Enjeti
I mean, I think this is. I never had any expectations about the Epstein files getting released under this administration, because, for one thing, look, Trump was a friend of him for years. I mean, Epstein claims. Take it for what it's worth, worth that they were best friends for a decade. And Trump has always. On jfk, he was always like, yes, we're gonna release the files on other UFOs. Yes, we're gonna release the files. By the way, the UFO one hasn't happened either, but the JFK one, we did get something. When it came to Epstein, he was always a little cagey. He was always like, oh, well, I'm not sure. And we gotta worry about people's privacy. And when he was asked about Ghislaine Maxwell being in prison, he was like, I wish her well. So there was always a weird there with Trump with regard to Epstein, which is why it's not a surprise to me at all that we've gotten less than nothing. The binders that they gave to the influencers had documents that were more redacted than what Gawker had released in 2015. That's what we're talking about here. So that wasn't a surprise to me that we got nothing out of this administration with regard to him. Because, I mean, we know. I'm not accusing Donald Trump of anything in particular, but we know they were associates. We know he was on the plane. We know that they were friendly and swimming in some of the same circles.
- [76:23]
Crystal Ball
And there's that one very, very bizarre tape of Donald Trump where he's actually talking about how young Jeffrey Epstein likes the girls. And it's like the creepiest thing you've ever seen. So. Yeah, look, I agree with you that. And then the obvious other elephant in the room is that, you know, was Dan Bongino. I think it was on Tim Pool's show. But at one point he said that he was connected to Middle east intelligence.
- [76:49]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, I didn't know that.
- [76:50]
Crystal Ball
Crystal. Middle East Crystal. You know, that Jewish guy, short.
- [76:54]
Sagar Enjeti
He was probably Middle East.
- [76:56]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, yeah, somewhere, you know, the UAE or something like that.
- [76:59]
Sagar Enjeti
Right, Qatar, like you.
- [77:01]
Crystal Ball
Right, right, exactly. Yes, all of us. Where is that Qatari money, by the way? But so, you know, when you have this element too. And you have the most Zionist, you know, administration in American history. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath for them to release any real information about this.
- [77:20]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes, indeed. All right, Dave, well, I will let you go at that. Thank you so much. It's been fun. I've really enjoyed it and I always appreciate you. Obviously we have political ideological differences, but what I really appreciate is that you try to be honest and didn't just turn into a Trump sycophant because you were more favorable to our than Kamala Harris. And it's a fairly rare trait. So really appreciate and respect you for that.
- [77:45]
Crystal Ball
Well, thank you so much. And as I've said many times, I love breaking points. I watch the show every day and so thank you guys for everything you do. This was a lot of fun.
- [77:54]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, good to see you. Take care, Dave.
- [77:56]
Dave Smith
At Amica Insurance, we know it's more than just a car or a house. It's the four wheels that get you where you're going and the four walls that welcome you home. When you combine auto and home insurance with Amica, we'll help protect it all. And the more you cover, the more you can save. Amica empathy is our best policy.
- [78:26]
Crystal Ball
Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult.
- [78:31]
Sagar Enjeti
Life skill to teach?
- [78:33]
Crystal Ball
Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores automate allowance, and keep an eye on what your kids are spending. With real time notifications, kids learn to earn, save, and spend wisely. And parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money. With guardrails in place. Try Greenlight Risk free today@greenlight.com iheart are.
- [78:58]
Dave Smith
You shopping for a new laptop while still trying to keep up with technology and AI? Talk about feeling burnt out. But no more. Lenovo.com makes it easier than ever to find the perfect PC. In fact, we'll break it down for you. Step one, shop our lineup of AI PCs powered by Intel Core Ultra processors. Because why deal with downloading new software when you can buy a smarter PC that already comes with all of the AI features and tools? Step 2 Find the one that fits your passion. Whether you're a creative genius, a research scientist, a hardcore gamer, or a future CEO, no dream is too big. That's the power of Lenovo. With intel inside, you can keep up with your ideas as well as any challenges you may face. Add to cart and purchase. Oh, if you're a college student or a teacher, make an education account through us and get 5% off your whole order shop now at Linovation, a better future is waiting and it needs you.
- [80:01]
Sagar Enjeti
Israel is now going full mask off genocidal ethnic cleansing, just announcing the most horrific plans you can imagine in public. Let's start with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who made some just outrageously horrifying comments. Let's put this up on the screen that really exposes what their plans are here. Here we covered yesterday. They've decided to let in this piddling amount of aid. And he explains why. He gave a speech Monday defending Israel's strategy of mass devastation in Gaza, saying humanitarian aid is only being allowed in, quote, so the world does not stop us and accuse us of war crimes. The goal, he insisted, is to conquer Gaza clear and stay until that area is dismantled beyond recognition. We could put the next one up up on the screen as well. Boasting of the scale of destruction, Smotrich said we are dismantling Gaza, leaving it in ruins with unprecedented destruction, and the world still hasn't stopped us. He also indicated that Trump and him and the Netanyahu government are all simpatico with regards to what they want to happen in terms of a total ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. He said, quote, the population will reach the south of the strip and from there, God willing, to third countries as part of President Trump's plan. So this is crucial context for understanding what is happening, for understanding how Bibi, Netanyahu and Trump and, you know, the whole Bibi's terrorist extremist coalition, how they all are apparently completely aligned in their final solution end goal. And it's also important for contextualizing this piddling amount of aid that is being let into the strip. And I'll have more on that in just a moment. Let's go ahead and put Bibi Netanyahu's comments up on the screen here as well, which echo what Smotrich was saying. He says the Gaza aid scheme offers Israel symbolic cover to finish the genocide. This is reporting from Dropside, quote, dropsite. We're going to take control of all the Gaza Strip, Bibi vowed Monday in a video released by his office, announcing that Israel would begin delivering, delivering minimal humanitarian aid, food and medicine only. Netanyahu claimed that international pressure, including from pro Israel Republican senators and the White House, required the appearance of humanitarian intervention. Put the next piece up on the screen here as well, so we can see this joint statement from the leaders of the uk, France and Canada, which is pretty extraordinary in terms of the pressure that Netanyahu is now responding to. We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel's military operations in Gaza. The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable. Yesterday's announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inaccurate. They say we condemn the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli government. That's like Smotrich, what I just showed you, threatening that in their despair the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate. Permanent forced displacement is a breach of international law. And so for these nations to be. We'll see if they follow through, we'll see what happens. But for these nations to be threatening some real potential sanctions on Israel for their continued genocidal atrocities in the Gaza Strip is a significant development. And in fact, Dropsight also reported on the fact that the EU is going to review Israel's trade pact over human rights rights violations in Gaza. That trade pact grants Israel terror, free access to most of the EU market. It enables joint work in research, innovation and security. It requires respect for human rights and democratic principles as a core element. So this is some of the pressure that Netanyahu is responding to by allowing in this absolutely pathetically inadequate amount of aid, thinking that will give them cover to continue their genocidal assault and effectuate their and Trump's shared goal of completely ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip, pushing Palestinians out to third countries. We've seen there have been reports on discussions with some of those third countries to, you know, to push them to take in Palestinians. This has long been the parent goal. Now it's just being overtly stated, stated to create so much misery and suffering and death and starvation in the Gaza Strip that Palestinians would be pressured to flee the area and allow Israel to totally annex it and take it over. So let's talk a little bit more about the quote, unquote, humanitarian aid being allowed in. Put the next piece up on the screen. As of yesterday, five trucks, five trucks of aid had entered the Gaza Strip at a time when more than 2 million people. We're not sure how many Palestinians still remain in the Gaza Strip after all of this horror and death are living under siege, the majority suffering from famine and malnutrition. The entry of the trucks is purely formal and media driven, aimed at polishing the image rather than providing relief to the starving and afflicted. Put the Al Jazeera tarot sheet up on the screen next. That provides a little bit more information. First trickle of aid in three months after Israel allows limited food into Gaza. By the way, there were also Some indications that that, okay, five trucks or so have entered and some of those trucks did not even contain food is the indication. Let me read you a little bit from this article from Al Jazeera. UN Aid chief Tom Fletcher on Monday said Israeli authorities had cleared nine they say aid trucks to enter Gaza through the Karam Abu Salem crossing, known as Kerem Shalom in Israel, calling it a drop in the ocean when so many more supplies are needed to address a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis. Crisis figure is far short of the more than 500 trucks that entered Gaza daily before the start of the war in October 2023. Food security experts last week warned of famine amid accusations that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war. Quote, significantly more aid must be allowed into Gaza starting tomorrow morning. The numbers I've seen are that what really needs to enter is roughly 1,000 trucks per day to sufficiently feed the population. Obviously, five trucks, nine trucks is utterly pathetic and meaningless. And you know, truly backs up this idea that the Israeli government is just trying to provide some sort of a show so that they can continue their war crimes unimpeded. We also know over the past several days it has been one of the most horrifically bloody times hundreds of Palestinians killed. Just in the past several days as Israel has renewed their onslaught in Gaza, people are being forcibly relocated once again. And the Trump administration, after making some noises about, oh, maybe we'll garner a ceasefire and securing the release of the American Israeli IDF soldier Alexander, who had been taken by Hamas after securing that release, it seems like they're allowing BB all systems go to do whatever he wants to do. So that's where things stand today, Truly dire and horrific circumstance. And at least as of today, appears that Trump, Smotrich and Bibi Netanyahu all on the same plan with what they want to accomplish in the Gaza Strip. All right, there's another story I wanted to get to here, some updates with regard to the Trump administration's deportation policies. The Trump administration has announced that they are charging a sitting member of Congress, Lamonica McIver, after an incident involving ICE agents outside of a facility in Newark, New Jersey that they are using for immigrant detention. So let's go ahead and put this announcement up on the screen. This is from U.S. attorney Alina Haba. She says she is going to dismiss misdemeanor trespassing charges against Mayor Ross Baraka invites him to tour the ICE facility. However, she says she is going to pursue assault charges against Lamonica McIver. Leave this up on a screen for a second. I'LL just read a little bit of that. She says representative Lamonica McIver assaulted, impeded and interfered with law enforcement in Violation of Title 18, U.S. code Section 11A1. This conduct cannot be overlooked by the chief federal law enforcement official in the state of New Jersey, and it is my constitutional obligation to ensure our federal law enforcement is protected when executing their duties. We also have a statement from Representative McIver on these charges, which, by the way, as of last night had not yet been officially filed, but are expected to be filed, she said. Earlier this month, I joined my colleagues to inspect the treatment of ICE detainees at Delaney hall in my district. We were fulfilling our lawful oversight responsibilities as members of Congress have done many times before, and our visit should have been peaceful and short. Instead, ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation when they chose to arrest Mayor Baraka. The charges against me are purely political. They mischaracterize and distort. My actions are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight. This administration will never stop, stop me from working for the people in our district and standing up for what is right. I'm thankful for the outpouring of support I've received and I look forward to the truth being laid out clearly in court. This type of a charge, if they do in fact move forward with it, could result in prison time for this sitting member of Congress. So this all goes back to an incident that we covered. I actually got to interview the mayor of Newark about what unfolded. The mayor of Newark, alongside three congressional representatives representing New Jersey, arrived at this facility. That ICE is being used over the objections of the city. By the way, the city is suing ICE over the use of this facility, claiming they don't have the proper permitting. So in any case, these three members of Congress and the mayor decided to go and attempt to perform an inspection of the facility. Now, there's legislation that was passed during the first Trump administration that allows members of Congress to conduct surprise inspections without requiring any sort of prior authorization of any DHS used facility. So they were well within their legal rights to conduct that oversight. The mayor, however, is not included in that legal provision. So when he shows up, he's allowed to be on the property for some period of time. He said roughly an hour. Then the agents there said, okay, you have to go. He exits the facility onto public property and then he's there for a while and then he starts to get word that they are going to come and arrest him for alleged trespass. Passing that is when a very chaotic scene unfolded as these masked agents of the State attempted and eventually did arrest the mayor of Newark for this alleged trespassing. And now, by the way, that charge has been dropped. There was, you know, a rush of the crowd, and the agents were struggling to get a hold of the mayor. And that is when the state is claiming, when this government is claiming that Representative McIver, quote, unquote, assigned, assaulted an ICE agent. So let's go ahead and take a look at the video. This is from dhs. This is some of the body camera footage. The woman in the red blazer Here is Representative McIver. You can see she's being pushed by the crowd at one point. This is, I think, what they're really pinning it on her elbow there. Makes some contact with one of these masked agents of the state, and they are claiming this represents assault. I mean, it won't surprise you that very much, in my opinion. I think that she is right, that this is blatantly political and is attempt to frighten other members of Congress from conducting oversight and from opposing this administration's deportation policies overall. We know also that this administration has threatened those, not just members of Congress, but anyone who opposes their deportation policies as potentially providing material aid to terrorist organizations. Seb Gorka, who is this administration's counterterror czar, has floated that. So this is a dramatic escalation and as I said, could theoretically, if she was found guilty, result in Representative McIver being held in, you know, having to serve a prison sentence for some period of time. So huge escalation here from the Trump administration, something they have been threatening. You know, Tom Homan has been out there also threatening AOC and other others over their seminars that they've given, allowing immigrants to know their rights if they are faced with, you know, if a nice agent shows up, if they are faced with potential deportation. He has also threatened representatives before with pursuing legal action against them. And the Trump administration has also lifted a previous guideline that required an escalation, sort of up the chain of the DOJ in order to charge elected officials. So they have taken those protections. So this is something they've been telegraphing for a while. And in this incident, they've found their opportunity and the perfect excuse to go after Democratic members of Congress. At the same time, there's a lot unfolding in the courts that I want to update you on, going in both directions. So let's put this first piece up on the screen. The Supreme Court yesterday lifted a block on deportations of Venezuelans who'd been given protection, protected status under the Biden administration. Let me Just read you a little bit from this article. So the Supreme Court on Monday let the Trump administration, for now, remove protections from nearly 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants who had been allowed to remain in the US without risk of deportation under a programming program known as temporary protected status. The court's brief order was unsigned, gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices rule on emergency applications. No, no vote count was listed, although Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted she would have denied the administration's request. The justices announced they would allow the Trump administration to end the protections pending appeal of the case, potentially allowing the administration to move ahead with deportations. The justice also appeared to suggest that some of the Venezuelans who had been able to receive documentation of their legal status before the Trump administration terminated the program could sue to challenge their deportations in a separate case. The justices on Friday, Friday criticized the Trump administration for seeking to provide only a day's warning to a different group of Venezuelan immigrants in Texas that had been trying to deport under the expansive powers of the Alien Enemies Act. So with regards to this particular court ruling, they effectively sent it back to the lower courts, but they lifted the nationwide injunction that would have protected these 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants who'd been granted temporary protected status under the Biden administration. Administration. They've lifted that nationwide injunction, so they are now subject to deportation. Now they can go to the courts and seek recourse there. And there are already cases that are making their way through the courts. So this isn't fully resolved at this point. But a significant win for the Trump administration when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of people who now have been stripped of their legal status that had been granted by the prior administration and could be subject to deportation. Deportation. So significant win there for them. That article can put the next piece up on the screen referenced another decision that came on Friday in which the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 to further enjoin the government from summarily deporting alleged gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. The government did not give enough notice and the Fifth Circuit erred in refusing to provide relief, according to the justices. So this is a 7 to 2 decision. This has to do, as noted, with the invocation of the Alien Enemies act and what sort of process, due process is due to migrants who are the administration is attempting to deport under that act. So you'll recall that the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that they had to provide due process. And I believe the language of that original ruling was that they had to give them, quote, unquote reasonable notice. Well, the Trump administration interpreted that as 24 hours, 24 hours is reasonable notice in their opinion in order to allow you to find a lawyer and, you know, gather your, your arguments and file your habeas petition. The Supreme Court here in a 7 to 2 ruling is saying, no, no, that is not reasonable notice. That does not, is not sufficient and is not consistent with the ruling that we had issued previously. Now, I would say they should have have anticipated that this administration, given how bad faith they've been and how defiant they've been on any number of court orders, would seek to interpret their ruling in the most narrow and most bad faith way imaginable, which is exactly what they did and should have laid out from the start what exactly that due process should look like and what sort of timeframe we're talking about. They didn't do that. But now we have additional ruling from the supreme court saying, okay, 24 hours, that ain't it. It's gotta be longer than 24 hours. So a significant setback from the, from the courts on that one. And I will tell you, there were so many Republicans who were really going wild after that decision and saying, effectively, it doesn't matter, we don't care, just ignore the courts full on calling for outright defiance of what the Supreme Court had to say, say on this one because they didn't like the decision and the direction that it went in. Couple more just quick updates here. One is, let's put this up on the screen. Those thousand dollars self deportation deals that the Trump administration has been offering, the first flight of those has left. So immigrants who decided to avail themselves of this deal, they have now been on a charter flight and dozens of them took off from Houston early March. Those are some of the incentives that have been offered for people to, quote, unquote, self deport. I think that's actually an important part of the Trump administration policy because they have been unable to effectuate the actual mass deportation on the level and scale that they would want to see and that their most hardcore supporters would want to see. Instead of they've been doing these outrageous spectacle, spectacles of cruelty, like the deportation of people to this foreign gulag in El Salvador with no due process, as one example, or Gitmo, or using the military flights, potentially exploring a similar situation with Libya. So this is an important part of their program to try to actually achieve the mass deportations of their dreams. And the other part of it, put this last piece up on the screen. The Republican budget would make ICE the highest funded federal law enforcement component in the history of the US Bigger than the FBI, with a larger budget for detention than the entire Federal Bureau of Prisons. So currently they may not have the resources to do their full mass deportation, but they are working on changing that rapidly.
- [99:05]
Dave Smith
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Crystal Ball
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- [101:34]
Sagar Enjeti
Very excited to be joined this morning by John Lyle. He is a history professor at the University of Texas. But more importantly for our purposes this morning, he's the author of a brand new book on the history of MK ultra. Let's go and put that up on the screen. Book jacket, Project Mind Control. Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA and the Tragedy of MK ultra. And John joins us now. Great to have you. Welcome.
- [101:56]
Dave Smith
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk about this. It's a wild story to say the least.
- [102:00]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, of course. So give us like, let's start from the beginning. What is the context, the geopolitical context in which MK ULTRA is launching and just give people a little reminder of what this was all about.
- [102:12]
Dave Smith
Yes. So MK Ultra was the CIA's project to determine whether mind control is possible. Is it possible to give someone a drug that might be used as a truth serum and an interrogation to get them to tell the the truth? Is it possible to control someone's behaviors and beliefs? That was the kind of the goal of MK Ultra. And the reason this started in 1953 is because right at the end of World War II, especially after the development of the atomic bomb, proximity fuses, radar science was starting to be seen as integral, integral to national security. And during the Korean War, there were several American POWs who were captured and they confessed to things that they didn't do. They confessed to conducting biological warfare against Korea, dropping anthrax and typhus and cholera and bubonic plague. And the question within the CIA was why are they confessing to these false charges against them? And one concern was that perhaps the communists have developed some method of mind control, whether it be hypnosis or drugs. And so if that were possible, the CIA wanted to determine how can we defend against that, or how can we offensively use something like that. The mind control might be the next arms race and we want to stay ahead of the conflict Communists. Therefore we're going to start this program, MKUltra, to see what we can do.
- [103:24]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, and it seems like they really took this as like an existential threat. It kind of reminds me actually a little bit of the way that our government talks about AI now, where there's this sort of like AI development race in the sense that whichever country between us and China wins, the AI race is going to own the future and own the future of warfare as well. So talk a little bit about how that sort of existential mindset informed the extreme, extreme and wildly unethical nature of the experiments, the human experiments that they conducted here pretty quickly.
- [103:56]
Dave Smith
Within MK Ultra, one of the main drugs that they started using was LSD. It had been discovered in 1938, but then really realized what it was in 1943. So it was a pretty new drug and extremely potent. And the existential part especially came with LSD because it's such a powerful hallucinogen and such, so such a finite dose can have such a profound effect. The worry was that if some foreign power wanted to dose a city's water supply, let's say, with lsd, maybe they wouldn't need that much of it. And so that was the concern about the existential threat and why MK Ultra went to the lengths it did, in many cases, to determine whether that would work. Some of the things that MK ULTRA was involved in was dosing unwitting people with LSD to see how they would react Again, because if the Soviets, let's say, were to dose a city with lsd, lsd, we want to know how to defend against that and how to deal with people who have been surreptitiously dosed with this drug. So MK Ultra personnel like Sidney Gottlieb, the head of the program, he would dose unwitting people with LSD to monitor their behaviors, to determine what kind of effects this would have on them. This, in several cases, led to tragic consequences. The most famous person whom this happened to was Frank Olson, who was dosed with LSD at a retreat with Sydney Garbage Gottlieb. And he ended up kind of having a psychotic break. His wife didn't understand, like, what his mind state was after that. And a few days later he jumps out of a hotel window and dies.
- [105:19]
Sagar Enjeti
So are you of the opinion that he did jump out of that window? Because there is some dispute, including from the family who had his body exhumed, and further analysis indicated he may have had blunt force trauma before he ended up out of the window. And, you know, at the time he was wasn't just some random unwitting subject, he was one of them and knew a lot of the secrets of what they were doing, all these sensitive national security information. So I know there's long been skepticism about the events surrounding his death.
- [105:49]
Dave Smith
Yes, there has been. In fact, Frank Olson's own son, Eric Olson, is one of the main proponents of the idea that his father was murdered by the CIA, potentially because Frank Olson was involved in what was called the airborne distribution of pathogens pigeons? How is it possible to create weapons that we can use, you know, anthrax or germ bombs? And how is that going to spread in the air? That's what Frank Olson was working on. And so Eric Olson and some others who were of the opinion that he was murdered think that maybe Frank Olson started to have moral compunctions about what he was doing, and maybe he was going to expose it. And so the CIA had to get him out of the way, and so they threw him out of this hotel window. I don't think that's the case. In fact, you know, you mentioned that they had his body exhumed and analyzed to determine whether there was this blunt force trial trauma. David Stars led that process, and he did determine that he thought there might have been some blunt force trauma before Frank Olson went out the window. However, there were several people on STARS team who negated that conclusion and said that STARS was someone who kind of sought the spotlight and made things a little bit more sensational than we would have. And so we don't think that's the case. In fact, they said they thought it was consistent with his head hitting the window on the way out. So I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that Frank Olson was murdered. There are several other people who were victims of MK Ultra who had very similar symptoms to him. They've been dosed unwittingly with lsd, and they ended up in psychiatric institutions for the rest of their life. So I think it's more likely that he had that same kind of psychotic break that several other people who were victims of this did as well.
- [107:17]
Sagar Enjeti
So what was your. What was your motivation to write the book? Now, I know there were newly discovered documents, depositions that really got to the heart of some of the inner thinkings of people like Sidney Gottlieb. So talk about a little bit of what's new and what you were able to uncover here.
- [107:31]
Dave Smith
Yeah, thank you. Because that's the really exciting part of this book is the fact that the basis for it is these depositions I found as part of a lawsuit. In the 1980s, there were several victims of MK Ultra who sued the CIA. That lawsuit was eventually settled out of court. But as part of the lawsuit, the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, Joseph Rao, James Turner, famous civil rights attorneys, they took the depositions of dozens of people who were involved in this case, dozens of the perpetrators, like Sidney Gottlieb, Robert Lashbrook, Richard Helms, the head of the CIA, eventually. And they took several depositions of the victims of MK Ultra since this lawsuit was settled out of court, the depositions just kind of stayed in the papers of Joseph Rao until he passed away. And those were donated to the Library of Congress. And I was rooting around in there and I happened to find these depositions, thousands of pages of verbatim transcript of him asking the perpetrators and victims of MK ULTRA what they did, what they went through. So it's. It's so exciting for a historian because I can actually use dialogue now because I have dialogue between these attorneys and these deponents in. Usually in fiction you get to invent dialogue. In history, you don't invent dialogue. And so you can't really have that exciting part of getting into the heads of the characters as well. But now with these depositions, that's exactly what I have. So that was one of the main catalysts for wanting to write this book. I had so many great verbatim transcripts, thousands of pages. In fact, Sidney Gottlieb's transcripts of his depositions run to over 800 pages alone. So I have 800 pages of him talking about exactly what, what he did.
- [108:58]
Sagar Enjeti
What do you think is the cultural legacy of MK Ultra? And I mean, I just was thinking about. I know this is something you've thought about as well. There's a lot of wild conspiracy theories out there at this particular time. I think this happens anytime there's sort of a breakdown in institutional trust. But also when you look back at our own history and you look at the government doing things like this, it's like, oh, well, I mean, you can't put anything past them. They'll do wild mind control experiments to try to create assassin animals and try to mind control random unwitting subjects. You know, prostitutes dosing their clients, and even some of their own specialists getting unwittingly dosed, et cetera. So it's hard to put anything past them when you have such an incredibly wild and proven conspiracy that is lurking in the background.
- [109:50]
Dave Smith
Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's such a good point, because MK ULTRA really opens the door for a lot of conspiracy theorists to latch onto it for a few reasons. Reasons. And to say, oh, well, if the CIA was doing something so crazy in the past and so patently unethical, in fact, the CIA's own inspector general in 1963 said that this was illegal and unethical. So that's coming from the CIA itself. So the fact that the CIA did something like that, it leads the conspiracy theorists to say, if they did that, what else must they be doing today. And there are a few reasons why MK Ultra in particular is suited towards this kind of conspiratorial thinking. One reason, like you just mentioned, is because. Because it is just so absurd that it opens the door for any possibilities. The other is because in 1973, Sidney Gottlieb, the head of this program, he retired from the CIA, as well as Richard Helms, the Director of Central Intelligence. And they decided when they retired to destroy the MK Ultra files, at least most of them. They didn't get all of them. There were thousands of pages that still survived. But the act of that destruction, the fact that they incinerated these files, really opened a Pandora box. Because now anyone can say, well, we can't know exactly what MK ULTRA was in total because we don't have those files. Therefore, maybe they were doing this or maybe they were doing that. The fact that we don't have those files really opens the Pandora box for anyone filling in the record with their wildest imagination. And that has led a lot of conspiracy theorists to argue that, well, maybe MK ULTRA was involved in trafficking children, or maybe it was controlling celebrities like Britney Spears. Now that the Pandora's box is open because those files are destroyed, anyone can say anything about the program. However, I don't think that's a great mode of argument because it's kind of ironic. But we almost know more about MK Ultra than almost any other secret project. It seems counterintuitive because a lot of these files were destroyed. But we have so many files and sources on MK Ultra. We have thousands that actually survived. We have the memoirs and interviews of people who were involved in this. We have thousands of pages of depositions that I found. We have institutional records that have been released since. We have government reports. We had the Rockefeller Commission, Church Committee, Pike Committees, these congressional and executive committees that were set up in 1974 and 5 to investigate these past abuses. So we have so much material about MK ultra. I actually think that we can know a good deal of what it was. And even better, we can know so much about it that we can know what it wasn't. And it wasn't something that trafficked in child sex slaves or whatever the conspiracy theorists are saying.
- [112:14]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, John, tell people where they can find the book.
- [112:16]
Dave Smith
Thank you. Can find it in bookstores, wherever, you know, hopefully all the places at any good bookstore. It'll be there. You can find it online. And I appreciate you having me on.
- [112:25]
Sagar Enjeti
Thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us all right guys, that will do it for me here today. Thanks again to Dave Smith for hanging out with me today. Enjoyed that and hearing his thoughts on all the things. Emily and Ryan will be in for the non Counterpoints counterpoints tomorrow and I'll be back with Ryan Brian on Thursday. Until then, have a great day.
- [112:58]
Crystal Ball
Hey, Jenice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankowitz. We're the hosts of Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories produced by Ruby Studio and Intuit. Quickly catch up on seasons one and.
- [113:09]
Dave Smith
Two and join us for a brand.
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Crystal Ball
New season of the podcast as we talk to small business owners about how they manage and grow their businesses with the help of platforms like Intuit QuickBooks. Listen to mind the Business Small business.
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Dave Smith
Success Stories on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Sagar Enjeti
Here at the Almond Joy Factory, where.
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Dave Smith
Tropical vibes abound, we use soft, fresh.
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Sagar Enjeti
Tasting coconut, the crunchiest almonds, and delicious chocolate candy. Ah, but do you know what our.
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Crystal Ball
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Dave Smith
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
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Crystal Ball
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Dave Smith
Way better than that. Yes, Almond Joy is made with almonds and Johoy.
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Crystal Ball
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Sagar Enjeti
What do we mean by almost?
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Crystal Ball
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Dave Smith
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Crystal Ball
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