← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
5/27/25: Trump Billionaires Trash Budget, Schulz Demands Dem Socialism, Trump Says Putin Went Crazy
01:07:23
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Crystal Ball
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Crystal Ball
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
- [01:44]
Sagar Enjeti
This is the only place where you.
- [01:45]
Crystal Ball
Can find honest perspectives from the left.
- [01:47]
Sagar Enjeti
And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [01:50]
Crystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:01]
Sagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com.
- [02:11]
Crystal Ball
Happy Tuesday everybody. Welcome to Breaking Points. Hope everybody had a great long weekend. I'm super excited this morning because I have a special celebrity co host guest co host Emma Vigoland of the Majority Report. The one and only joins us this morning. Great to see you my friend.
- [02:27]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh great to see you Crystal, thanks so much for having me on.
- [02:30]
Crystal Ball
Many things to talk through. We got the all in crew trashing Trump's big beautiful bill and some, you know, detailed provisions about what's going on with that. We've got the Dems with some man outreach boondock. They're contemplating as they try to try to return from the abyss. You just can't make this stuff up. We've got Putin versus Trump. Emotional overload is what the Russians are describe or how the Russians are describing Trump, Trump's latest reactions and unfortunately peace looking further away in Ukraine than perhaps ever. We've got the world potentially turning on Israel and new just absolutely horrific atrocities unfolding there. And then I'm going to speak with Aaron Bastani. He wrote the book Fully Automated Luxury Communism several years back, which I read at the time. Then I just reread and rereading it. It's sort of like a leftist techno optimist view, but really is conditioned on, you know, us having control over the AI and the robots and the technology. So I'm curious to get his thoughts. He's also the founder of Navarro Media. Curious to get his thoughts about just how long period of time we have to completely rewrite the social contract before AI steals all the jobs and does all the things.
- [03:45]
Sagar Enjeti
I mean, that sounds great. I'm excited to talk about the Andrew Schultz clip too, because I have a bunch of mixed feelings about that and just what it represents and how the Democrats need to move forward.
- [03:58]
Crystal Ball
Okay, all right, Excellent. All right, well, let's get into this stuff. Well, actually, before we do this, before we get into the big beautiful Bill, I have a disclosure about my weekend. So put up this, this Trump tweet on the screen. I apparently needed to listen to our president's advice here. He says, I always said golf can be a dangerous sport, my friend, being bit at Bedminster. So I did not listen. And Emma, I did play golf over the weekend and much to my undying shame and humiliation, I crashed the golf cart, ran it into a tree, flipped it over and broke my nose. Oh, my God. The reason I'm disclosing this, it's because I think I did a pretty amazing job with the makeup. To be honest, I'm in shock. You can't really tell, but I know there'll be some eagle eyed person out there who will notice. Like my nose is not quite, quite the same shape and my lip is a little bit fat and I've got a little cut over my eye and maybe some weird coloring going on underneath my eyes. And I just know there would be wild speculation about what exactly happened to my face. But we can put up this is what I look like before the makeup goes on.
- [05:07]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, my God. Wow.
- [05:10]
Crystal Ball
How did you.
- [05:11]
Sagar Enjeti
Okay, so will you be able to text me some tips off air? Because I'm kind of makeup challenged and this is a miracle work, like, so.
- [05:19]
Crystal Ball
I really can't take my. One of my very good friends is, like, really good at the stuff. And so she broke out the color wheel and was like, okay, this is exactly the shade that you need to cover up this intense, like, purple and black and red. And there's some yellow going on at this point as well. And so it really, really is courtesy of her. But in any case, if my face looks a little bit fucked up today, it's because I crashed a golf cart and hit a tree and flipped it over and broke my nose. I'm totally.
- [05:46]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, if anyone ever question your toughness, I mean, you've made it on air despite looking like you just got out of the ring with Rocky Balboa or something like that.
- [05:56]
Crystal Ball
It looks. It looks rough. I mean, honestly, it looks like either somebody beat my ass or I got like a nose job is kind of what it looks like. So anyway, neither of those things are true. No one could make up as ridiculous story as me crashing the golf cart. But whatever. In any case, let's go ahead and get to the important matters here, which is Trump's big, beautiful bill. So this is passed through the House. It has not yet passed through the Senate. We'll get in a moment to like Ron Johnson and. And Paul, who are not terribly happy with it. But it's kind of interesting because it seems like with Elon kind of on the ounce with the administration and Doge being a complete failure, you're starting to see some of these tech right voices be a bit more critical. And this was emblematic. The all in podcast, which David Sachs is one of the co hosts of. He was on there defending the big beautiful bill. But the other hosts, all three of them, were quite critical. So let me go ahead and play for you two different clips. The first one is Chamath sounding off on what he sees as the problems with this bill.
- [06:54]
Sagar Enjeti
Who does it benefit?
- [06:56]
Crystal Ball
Current course in speed. Right now, this bill is about traditional Republicans and traditional Democrats circling the wagon and putting on a platter a set of things that I think will be hurtful to average Americans. You're going to see energy prices spikes. You're gutting the number of electrons that will be available for Things like AI, you're going to increase Medicare prices. And the math is wrong. So when you sensitize this thing to a four and a half or five or five and a quarter rate, so meaning not what the CBO used, but the real conditions on the ground, this thing is an albatross. And I think, unfortunately for President Trump's agenda and for a MAGA movement, this is the worst of all conditions. The financial markets will punish this. And then the last thing I'll say is now, to top it all off, I think that Jerome Powell will see the writing on the wall. Many aspects of this thing are inflationary, and if they're not handled well by the Senate, he has a lot of room to actually increase interest rates.
- [08:07]
Sagar Enjeti
So I would just say that the.
- [08:09]
Crystal Ball
Senate has an incredibly difficult job. I think the President has an even more difficult job about what to do right now. But the House did. Nobody favors. They did not do anybody a favor. So, Emma, even I listened to this whole section of this podcast, and even David Sacks wasn't like, oh, this is great. And it's amazing. He was like, well, here's the pluses. But also you have to remember, like, you're working with, you know, the Democrats aren't gonna do anything for you, and you're working with this very difficult caucus, and this is the best we can get and, you know, to try to see the upside. So none of them was like, outright selling it. And let me play you this one other one. This is, I think this is Jason Calacanis, who kind of calls out the other three co hosts and is like, you all are pretending like it's the Republicans fault or it's the Congress's fault or whatever. Like, if Trump wanted this bill to be a different bill, he could make it a different bill. So let's take a listen to that.
- [08:58]
Sagar Enjeti
This president acts unilaterally all the time, whether it's immigration, dei, he has no problem. And this is what he is doing.
- [09:07]
Crystal Ball
He's endorsing this bill.
- [09:10]
Sagar Enjeti
He's saying it's big, it's beautiful. He is saying, this is historic. I think this is bad leadership. I'll just say it straight out. He was elected to balance his budget and to have austerity. He's going to put more onto the debt. And we sat here on this very.
- [09:25]
Crystal Ball
Podcast, the four of us, and said.
- [09:26]
Sagar Enjeti
This was the most important issue on the world, and Trump is putting gasoline on the fire. I think it's bad leadership. Let's continue on the docket. I suggest you look at The Constitution because the power of the purse rests with Congress.
- [09:40]
Crystal Ball
He's endorsing this.
- [09:42]
Sagar Enjeti
He's endorsing it. He's not even putting up a fight.
- [09:45]
Crystal Ball
When it comes to immigration, these other.
- [09:47]
Sagar Enjeti
Areas, the president has far more unilateral.
- [09:49]
Crystal Ball
Power and he's used that every chance he gets.
- [09:51]
Sagar Enjeti
But when it comes to spending, you.
- [09:53]
Crystal Ball
Have to get Congress on board. This is a bill that passed with.
- [09:56]
Sagar Enjeti
A one vote margin.
- [09:57]
Crystal Ball
I don't know where you think the opportunity is to squeeze out more concessions from Congress. I don't think he could speak up.
- [10:04]
Sagar Enjeti
He could speak up and say do better.
- [10:06]
Crystal Ball
He's doing the opposite.
- [10:07]
Sagar Enjeti
He's doing the opposite.
- [10:08]
Crystal Ball
This bill passed by one vote margin. It was hanging on by a thread. And if it failed, you get basically.
- [10:15]
Sagar Enjeti
Hundreds of billions of tax increases, which.
- [10:17]
Crystal Ball
We don't need right now. And, you know, in terms of, in terms of.
- [10:20]
Sagar Enjeti
I think he's trying.
- [10:22]
Crystal Ball
I love how now David Sacks is very concerned about the Constitution, Emma.
- [10:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure he is very concerned about the Constitution. He's pretty concerned about, I think, that crypto, the value of his crypto wallet. But it's interesting because Moody's is downgrading the United States credit rating in part based on this bill. And that's not getting a ton of coverage because I think the Republicans have benefited from 30 to 40 years of positive media coverage about their effect on the economy. When we know that the Republicans, when they're in power, they explode the debt and deficit, both under Bush, under Trump last time, and it's about to happen again. And the Great Recession happened under a Republican president. The speedier parts of our recovery from COVID happened under a Democratic president. And so there's concern here in part because this is a bill that, yes, is going to completely explode the debt, raise it by over $3 trillion over 10 years. But we already have such a threadbare social safety net in this country that taking a hatchet to what we have here, which is Medicaid, is keeping so many people afloat, around 80 million people, I think, if you include CHIP, rely on Medicaid for their coverage. And that had been one of the more effective parts of the Affordable Care act, which is, it took a while, but states basically adopting the Medicaid expansion and allowing for the federal government to subsidize health care for the poorest people in their state. And one of the things that I don't think is getting talked enough about is how this bill will decimate rural areas of the country. Over 60 million Americans, I think maybe 65, 66 million are classified as having lived in rural areas. And there are, there's such a dearth of hospitals, there's such scarcity around hospitals and medical care in this country. And there was an analysis done that shows that up to a third of rural hospitals are now at risk of closure because of what the Republicans are potentially going to pass. I mean, we'll see what the Senate does with it. But that analysis said that rural hospitals in Medicaid expansion states are around 60% less likely to close than the ones that didn't expand under Medicaid. And now, and half of rural hospitals already operate on negative margins. And now if you gut the program, Medicaid that's keeping them afloat, you're going to see hospital closures all across the country and it's going to be in the areas that Republicans represent. And your co host, Ryan Grim made this point with us, I guess on Friday, saying, well, why, why, why don't the Republicans care about this was my question. I mean, these are their own constituents, they should care about this. But he said I sounded like Steve Bannon, which was, you know, I had mixed reactions to that, to that statement because that's exchange. Yeah, well, that's what he, he said, right? That's the truth. Apparently Bannon's been saying something similar because these districts are so deep red that basically Republicans, because they need to appease the demands of Donald Trump with these steep cuts to justify all of the other insane things he's proposing, including the largest military budget increase in terms of percentage that we've seen since what, World War II eras, that they're banking on the fact that these districts are so deep red that they can lose people and immiserate them and still win because of the way that our districts are drawn. And that's a deep cynicism that honestly I think needs to be talked about more.
- [14:18]
Crystal Ball
And I think what Ryan was pointing to as well is that, you know, if you close a rural hospital, that's going to depress further, depress the not. I mean, obviously it's just like a loss of services, which is important in and of itself. It's also loss of jobs. It's also loss of vitality for that area because people will want to live in an area that doesn't have a hospital that's nearby if they have a choice. You'll see a drain of, you know, people who have the ability to move. And as the Democratic Party has aligned, you know, more with college educated voters Those are the people who would tend to be more Democratic voting. And so, counterintuitively, you can end up with those red rural areas becoming even deeper red as a consequence of the pain that's being inflicted on them by Republicans, which is pretty wild when you think about it. But I've been talking to some of my friends in Kentucky. Kentucky is one of the states that would be hardest hit in terms of rural hospital closures. And, you know, it's. It's a very dire circumstance. Emma, I was also curious, you know, what was noteworthy to me with the All In Exchange, where you had, like I said, even David Sacks wasn't like, this bill's amazing. He was like, well, it's the best we can get, and blah, blah, blah, you know, and it does do some good things. Don't forget about that. And by the way, check the Constitution, the power of the purse, which of course, none of these guys cared about when it was Elon with the chainsaw coming in with Doge. But it was interesting to me that there was such, you know, pretty aggressive criticism from this podcast, which is very emblematic of, like, the tech right and the type of, you know, people who have shifted into the Trump coalition. And I do feel like for them, and you see this even a little bit with Elon moving away from this administration, even though he's still involved in ways that can sometimes be, you know, undersold, I do feel like there's a bit of a bloom is off the rose with the tech right folks in terms of what they got. And I think that probably started with the tariff policy, which they certainly business people not super excited about. And then now, as you see the market realities and their concerns are more around the debt and the deficit, which at this point, I also share those concerns, just because if the world is moving away from the dollar and the world is moving away from buying our debt, that becomes a much more real consideration for us all to have to care about. But in any case, I found it sort of noteworthy that there seemed to be a little bit more some disappointment expressed. Even Jason coming out and saying, listen, this is bad leadership. This is on Trump.
- [16:46]
Sagar Enjeti
It's a good point and I agree with you, Crystal, that I been citing Stephanie Kelton's work in the past, the Deficit Myth, which I think is an important book, really important in the Obama era. Right. To kind of undercut a lot of the Republican claims there. But I actually think that the Democrats could benefit from reclaiming the conversation around the debt and even fiscal responsibility. Yes. If there is A budget surplus that means that there's less money that's circulating in the regular economy. And when there was a budget surplus under Clinton, we did go into a recession or there was a small recession after that. So that's an important point to make. But we're at pretty extreme levels here. If this bill goes through and when you pair it with, yes, long term yields increasing and the value of the dollar going down because of Trump's completely schizophrenic economic policy and the way that he operates with tariffs, which changes on a daily basis. So that creates such economic uncertainty. If you're a company that's trying to invest in the United States and you don't know what the tariff policy is going to be week to week, you're just going to stay away because you don't know how you can budget and how you can invest if there's this kind of shift all the time based on the whims of the president here. So I think they are sensing that, that this is a bit of a problem. And the way that Democrats can perhaps, or progressives talk about the debt and the deficit, that isn't budget hawkery, that isn't this return to like sequestration and paygo and neoliberal austerity is like you're worried about the budget deficit. You know what we could do? Raise revenue, raise revenue. And what's the best way to do that? Tax the rich, raise revenue hell out.
- [18:43]
Crystal Ball
Of the rich and cut the Pentagon. Yeah, I think that's the other piece of this.
- [18:48]
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- [21:52]
Crystal Ball
I mean, if you look at the priorities of this bill, it really is perfectly reflective. You've got a giant increase in the, you know, defense industrial complex, trillion doll defense budget, giant increase in the police state with massive funding for ICE and, you know, private prison contractors. And then you pair that with giant tax cut for the rich. So you're funding the police state, you're funding the oligarchs, and you are taking food out of the mouths of children, literally and stripping health care from some 8.6 million Americans is the estimate of how many people between the Medicaid cuts, some sort of technical changes to Medicare, and then some changes to the Affordable Care Act. All told, you're talking about 8.6 million Americans who are set to lose health insurance because of this bill. There aren't guarantees that it's going to get through the Senate. You know, this is. Since it's a reconciliation bill, they only need a bare majority. So I think they can afford to lose three, but not four of their caucus. And you already have a couple people who are out saying that, you know, Rand Paul is out. We also have some comments from Ron Johnson that seem to indicate that he also is not on board with this bill. They take it from the, you know, the fiscal austerity perspective. Controlum. Can we roll these two sots back to back? A six and a seven. This is Ron Johnson and Rand Paul.
- [23:11]
Sagar Enjeti
President Trump has suggested that the debt is not really top of mind of his concerns. He wants Republicans to fall in line. He wants Republicans to pass the bill.
- [23:18]
Crystal Ball
You told cnn, quote, somebody's got to.
- [23:21]
Sagar Enjeti
Be the dad that says, I know.
- [23:23]
Crystal Ball
Y' all want to go to Disney World, but we can't afford it.
- [23:26]
Sagar Enjeti
I guess I'm gonna be that guy, Unquote.
- [23:28]
Crystal Ball
So how determined are you to be that guy if it actually means telling President Trump you are going to vote against the bill and you're gonna try.
- [23:36]
Sagar Enjeti
To get other Republican senators to join.
- [23:39]
Crystal Ball
You unless there are major, major changes?
- [23:44]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, in 2010, I sprang out of the Tea Party movement and as I did parades, my. I would shout, this is a fight for freedom. We are mortgaging our children's future. It's wrong. It's immoral.
- [23:53]
Crystal Ball
It has to stop. I haven't changed.
- [23:56]
Sagar Enjeti
My campaign promise in 2010 and every campaign after that was to stop mortgaging our children's future.
- [24:02]
Crystal Ball
It's immoral. It's wrong.
- [24:03]
Sagar Enjeti
It has to stop. And so he may not be worried about that. I am extremely worried about that. That is my primary goal, running for Congress. This is our moment. We have witnessed an unprecedented level of increased spending.
- [24:18]
Crystal Ball
58% since 2019, other than World War II.
- [24:23]
Sagar Enjeti
This is.
- [24:23]
Crystal Ball
This is our only chance to reset.
- [24:25]
Sagar Enjeti
That to a reasonable pre pandemic level of spending.
- [24:28]
Crystal Ball
And again, I think you can do it.
- [24:29]
Sagar Enjeti
And the spending that we would eliminate.
- [24:31]
Crystal Ball
People wouldn't even notice. Somebody has to stand up and yell.
- [24:35]
Sagar Enjeti
The emperor has no clothes, and everybody's falling in lockstep on this. Pass the big beautiful bill. Don't question anything.
- [24:43]
Crystal Ball
Well, conservatives do need to stand up.
- [24:45]
Sagar Enjeti
And have their voice heard. This is a problem we've been facing for decades now.
- [24:50]
Crystal Ball
And if we don't stand up on.
- [24:51]
Sagar Enjeti
It, I really fear the direction the country is going.
- [24:55]
Crystal Ball
So you've got those two, but to be honest with you, I'm not sure who the other dissenters would be. In the House, you had a few moderates who made some noise about like, oh, maybe these Medicaid cuts are too deep, but then they all ended up voting for it. And I think it's probably the same here, which is really a sign, Emma, of how extreme even the quote, unquote, moderate Republican senators are. Like, I haven't heard Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski or any of these type of people really objecting to the cuts in this that would kick 8 million Americans off of health care. You know, the massive upward, it's an insane upward transfer of wealth, like possibly the largest upward transfer of wealth in history. And I don't really hear a lot of concerns about that coming from any Republican.
- [25:36]
Sagar Enjeti
Right. And then when you compound it with the tariff policy, which regardless of how Donald Trump reverses himself, it prices are going to go up because of the uncertainty that I described earlier. But also because he's incentivizing what happened in the pandemic, which I think it's interesting that Johnson brought that up, which was that there was naturally occurring inflation because of supply chain bottlenecks because the pandemic was so disruptive and there were work stoppages and all of that. And then once that subsided and things got back to normal, prices continued to go up and there was greedflation, which was called a left wing conspiracy at the time. Not so much anymore. Companies took home record profits and they took advantage of the prices from the shock that was happening to our economic system and obviously to our health system. And I think that companies are gonna do the same exact thing with Donald Trump's tariffs. They may blame it on tariffs, but they're gonna try to extract as much money as they can from the public. And the pandemic is important because we're in this reality right now where I think people got a taste of what government could do. Right. Where they sent out stimulus checks. Yes, both under Trump and Trump signed those. And so he gets more credit, which Democrats could learn something from that. Don't be above marketing yourself. It's insane. And, but, but, and then also under Biden. But we cut child poverty in half. We cut child poverty in half in the pandemic with the child tax credit. And then that went away. We paused student loans. And now suddenly I saw a headline over the weekend that student loan payments are about to resume. And you're going to see huge dips in people's credit scores because that's going to go back onto what's being scored for them if they have high levels of debt with, with, with their student loans. And so, like, you can't understand, I think, this political moment without understanding that there was a period of time where people saw that government could literally provide them with money to help them and get them out of a very insecure situation during a scary time. And then to see that getting yanked away and prices to continue to go up because of what I described earlier. These are the conditions that allow Donald Trump to get elected. And we have to have a Democratic Party that understands that and responds like, where are the Democrats saying, hey, are the repo. If the Republicans are concerned about the deficit and debt, raise revenue, tax billionaires out of existence. You can be a 999 millionaire. Good for you. Everything above that goes back to everybody else. It provides people with healthcare, it cuts child poverty, it sustains our rural hospitals. It makes it so that people can go to college without going into this indentured servitude situation. It can be done. And that is part of the problem that we're seeing.
- [28:45]
Crystal Ball
And it makes it so democracy can have a chance to function. I mean, this is really the thing that I've realized is like, democracy can't coexist with someone with the level of wealth of Elon Musk, you know, or Jeff Bezos or whoever you want to, you know, Bill Gates. Those two things are intention. So even in terms of the, like, you know, pro democracy message from the Democrats, you have to bring the oligarch class to heel or else you do not have a democracy. They will run the show. And, you know, it has become blatantly obvious in the Trump era, undeniably obvious in the Trump 2.0 era. That that is, is simply the case. Last element I want to put up on the screen here, guys, is a five, which is this chart of the change in household income that will result because of, you know, be the result of this budget bill. That long, long green line there, that's for the top 0.1%. And then you can see, you know, the wealthier you are, the more dramatically you benefit from this bill. And if you are, you know, if you are in the first or second quintile of income earners, so, you know, lower income people, you actually are going to lose out from this bill. So that is the way this is stacked. To me, it's the easiest messaging opportunity in the world. And I think Republicans, I mean, I think they kind of know that this bill is a political albatross for them. You know, going back to the words of Chamath, that it is a political albatross that funding a bunch of tax cuts for the rich at the expense of healthcare and, you know, food stamps for the poor is not really a great political message, especially when you're trying to be the, you know, working class party, which is why they put a few of these provision. Oh, well, we took, you know, we're not doing tax on tips and tax on overtime so that they can use that as sort of COVID for this gigantic upward transfer of wealth. As I said before, perhaps the largest in history.
- [30:42]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. And I, I think they know that, but they're basically being held hostage by Trump in a way where, like, he has these kind of crazy theories about how tariffs could be a way to eliminate the income tax altogether. You hear him talk about that a little bit. And so he's pretty disconnected from the legislative process. I think you can also see his tariff policy as a way in which he wanted to circumvent the Congress's power of the purse. So he kind of wants to just like say, get it done, figure it out. And I want to.
- [31:22]
Crystal Ball
The terrible, I mean, they have to deliver this tax cut to the rich like they have to for their constituency. This was like the core promise that Trump made on the campaign trail. And every single Republican quote, unquote moderate to the most far right, they all, they all are united and wanting to give this $4 trillion tax cut to the rich. So, you know, they are going to make sure that gets done come hell or high water.
- [31:48]
Sagar Enjeti
Absolutely, absolutely. And the thing for this kind of, you know, for Republicans here is that it's much easier to break and it's much easier to slash than it is to make the case that we're talking about. And so unless the Democrats make it an anti oligarchy message and talk about how these tax increases are going to be completely directed at the folks that are immiserating you and this billionaire class. The Republicans are setting up, you know, a difficult situation for the Democrats to build back, not to, you know, take us back to Biden level framing. Let's be honest, most of us have a love hate relationship with wired bras. We love the lift, but hate the digging. We love the support, but hate feeling trapped. Well, Nyx just changed everything.
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Crystal Ball
With Free Flex, a wired bra actually.
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Sagar Enjeti
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Crystal Ball
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Sagar Enjeti
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Crystal Ball
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Sagar Enjeti
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Crystal Ball
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- [34:28]
Sagar Enjeti
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Crystal Ball
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Sagar Enjeti
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Crystal Ball
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Sagar Enjeti
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Crystal Ball
Wisely and parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money with guardrails in place. Try Greenlight Risk free today@greenlight.com iheartra so interesting comments from Andrew Schultz and Charlemagne who were, you know, talking about the state of the Democratic Party and the state of the country at large. Let's go ahead and take a listen. They're reflecting also a little bit on that Bernie Sanders conversation with flagrant, which. Did you guys. Did you watch that, Emma?
- [35:13]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, I did. I did. I thought it was really good overall. Although I would say that Bernie's had some great conversations with some of this people in this podcast Fear. And they still go. Right. Like Rogan. But we'll see.
- [35:25]
Crystal Ball
True. I mean, well, he's only one man. What can you do?
- [35:28]
Sagar Enjeti
Exactly.
- [35:29]
Crystal Ball
All right, let's go ahead and take a listen to this clip. You know what your reflection is, And Bernie said it on flagrant. Everybody's the fucking blame. This ain't a Democrat thing.
- [35:37]
Sagar Enjeti
It's not a Republican thing.
- [35:38]
Crystal Ball
Exactly. This is.
- [35:39]
Sagar Enjeti
Government has failed the people.
- [35:41]
Crystal Ball
We live in a capitalist society where.
- [35:43]
Sagar Enjeti
You got all of these motherfuckers with all the wealth. Elon Musk has more wealth than 50.
- [35:48]
Crystal Ball
More than half of the bottom of America. Yeah.
- [35:51]
Sagar Enjeti
Like, come on.
- [35:52]
Crystal Ball
Like, there's no way we live in a society that claims to be the.
- [35:54]
Sagar Enjeti
Most wealthiest society on the planet. And we can't fix homelessness. Well, in that case, we.
- [35:58]
Crystal Ball
The Democrats pivot should be to go more socialist. Yeah.
- [36:01]
Sagar Enjeti
Which I'm fine with.
- [36:02]
Crystal Ball
Yes.
- [36:02]
Sagar Enjeti
They said that's why.
- [36:03]
Crystal Ball
Yes. That's what everybody. And that's Bernie. That's what everybody's saying.
- [36:07]
Sagar Enjeti
Because the Republican solution to what you.
- [36:09]
Crystal Ball
Just described is going to be deregulated capitalism. So they say the Democrat solution should be to go more socialist. What do you think, Emma?
- [36:16]
Sagar Enjeti
I love to hear that. Obviously, I think, you know, that there's more of an appetite for this. I know you've spoken about this a lot within Democratic voters than I have seen since I've been doing this professionally or since I've been paying attention to politics, where there's this understanding, where it's like we see Donald Trump wield the executive branch in a way, sometimes in ways I think are stretching the boundaries of our law, to put it mildly. But with the desire to govern and to be aggressive with his vision, however much I may disagree with many parts of that vision, it's like it's highlighted the weakness of the Democrats, which also, I think was evident in how Netanyahu quite clearly had his finger on the pulse of how weak the Democratic Party is, how he could exploit that, that tension there. And you see it in also electoral results with the Democrats. Right. And it's encouraging to hear that, just because I think I was just having a conversation with one of my good friends from growing up who listens to Rogan and listens to Theo Vaughn and things like that, and she was just talking about how Bernie Sanders makes a lot of sense when he goes on some of these shows. And I wish every Democrat could be talking about healthcare like that. This person's also kind of interested in rfk. And you see how, like, with the right having success in certain areas, like, say, let's take RFK Jr. And Trump adopting him into his coalition, for example. There's this massive anxiety in this country that people have around the issue of healthcare. And it's not just because they're worried about getting sick. Everybody in the world has that concern. But it's because medical debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country. It's because you have anxiety that you're gonna have to pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for routine visits to check if you're okay. You're gonna have to pay a bunch of money if your kid has some sort of condition to see a specialist. There's a general anxiety that people feel when they relate to their healthcare. What RFK Jr has proposed for people is a vision that is more libertarian, right, where they're not. He's not in favor of a socialized healthcare system, but he does address people's anxiety and then sells them solutions that are a bit bespoke, or his whole ecosystem is about, if you purchase certain supplements or if you do this kind of action, you individually can take control of your healthcare and it can empower you. I think that's what he sells. That's more of a libertarian view, but it has a narrow, narrow overlap with a leftist socialist vision that I wish we could kind of absorb into what we're advocating here, which is that, yes, you are right to feel anxiety about your health care. And here's how we can fix it. By cutting out the middleman between you and your health care and making it so that you have a direct relationship and you have socialized government insurance. And that we will guarantee healthcare for all is a right. We will fund it by taxing the billionaire class and not make it harder on your wallet. And those are just some of the ways that this vision is so much more poignant when you contrast it with the right, even the right that gestures towards things like economic populism or towards empowering you over your health care. So you see how, like these traditional paradigms of left and right, these consultants in D.C. on the Democratic side are missing it and they're paid to miss it. But, like, you can have somebody coming on Andrew Schultz's podcast who may. The other week, he said that, you know, now he likes the Republicans because they get laid all the time.
- [40:19]
Crystal Ball
Deep political analysis. Yes. Right.
- [40:22]
Sagar Enjeti
And I have actually some other thoughts on that. But like, he, he can have that view, but he can also say the Democrats should become more socialist. Like, this is what the independent voter is. It's not somebody who's like, afraid of trans people.
- [40:36]
Crystal Ball
Right. It's not ideologically consistent either. I mean, Schultz, from my conversation with Bernie, I picked up. From his conversation with Bernie, rather, I picked up that he had been a Bernie bro. He really wanted Bernie to win in 2016, and now here he is, you know, on the right and favorable towards Trump, et cetera. And I'll tell you, Emma, for a long time I really resisted the whole Bernie to Trump pipeline conversation. But at this point, it's just undeniable. And, you know, part of that is certainly like the way that the corporate, the bros in the Bernie coalition were smeared. All of us were smeared, by the way, as like, toxic and sexist and racist and all these sorts of things.
- [41:13]
Sagar Enjeti
You and I, we just hate women.
- [41:15]
Crystal Ball
Just hate women. That's what we're really known for here. But, you know, the whole movement was smeared, but in particular, the bros were smeared. And so that's certainly part of it, but part of it is just this sense that, you know, Trump was critical. And again, this is surface level. I'm not talking about the reality of the fact that he serves oligarchs perhaps more than any other Republican president in history has.
- [41:35]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [41:36]
Crystal Ball
But he critiqued the party. He felt like he was a change. And, you know, not sort of in the mainline old school Republican Party. Bernie had that same, like, critique of the Democratic Party. And at a time when institution faith in institutions has been broadly broken, like, you have to be a critic from the outside. And that's how you can end up with someone who's like, favorable George Trump, but is also like, hey, Democrats should try socialism. And I have to tell you, I think the biggest challenge, Emma, that we have on the left right now is getting people to have faith in any sort of possibility of a collective project. You know, that's why the libertarian appeal of, like, well, you can work out well, you can better yourself. Well, you can take these supplements. Sure, the world is going to shit, but here's things in your life that you can have control over. That's why that has appeal right now. And, you know, it reminds me, I think it has historical echoes with like the, you know, the 1970s, the back to the land movement, where people tried the 60s, like collective change. It didn't work. Out, you know, people were getting assassinated and they're like, all right, well, forget it. We're just checking out. We're going to go live on, like, a commune in Vermont and see what we can individually do in our own lives, separate and apart from society. And I do think that there is a pretty healthy strain of that right now where it's like, I just don't, you know, where a lot of people feel that there isn't a possibility of meaningful collective action that can better everyone's lives. And especially when you talk about, you know, these big threats that are coming. Like, you know, I think people are increasingly concerned about technology and AI and what that's going to mean for all of us and what it's going to mean for our kids, et cetera. Like, I feel that instinct of, like, let me just. Let me just go live in the woods and disconnect in clothes. Yeah. And, like, try to protect me and mine or whatever. Like, I understand where that instinct comes from.
- [43:30]
Sagar Enjeti
Right. And Naomi Klein and Astro Taylor had a piece that I've been recommending to everybody in the Guardian maybe a month ago at this point about the rise of end times fascism. And just.
- [43:40]
Crystal Ball
You did a great interview with her about that, by the way.
- [43:43]
Sagar Enjeti
Wonderful. I want to hear what you guys had to say, too. But just the idea that, like, of fortressing yourself right in this time period and fortressing the nation, protectionism and even the way that the administration operates where we're just gonna get ours. Trump is maybe the most pro oligarch president in history, but it's really his. Or pro billionaire, but it's really his billionaires, too. He's very focused on the folks that have benefited him and is trying to scratch their back to a degree. But, like, I do want to be clear that I think, you know, when Andrew Schultz is common about how he used to be a Democrat, because, like, can I swear on the show?
- [44:31]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, he's around the show.
- [44:33]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes. Okay. Because they. Because they fucked or like, because, like, you know, Bill Clinton was a badass or whatever? And now he's all on board with Trump. He's got all the baby mamas. He's cool. I just want. Part of me was like, you think Obama would have been able to get elected if he was like, bragging about how many baby mamas he had? Or if Hillary Clinton was like, yeah, I get laid. Like, you know, so I. Or Kamala Harris. I mean, honestly, there was a lot. The opening attack on her was that she slept her way to. Way to the top. And when I'm, I want to bring in those, the voters that, you know, we're speaking about here, the Bernie or Trump people, the folks that are sometimes unnecessarily smeared as being like sexist or misogynist, but they just want somebody who wants to break up the system. But there is something that if we're trying to also, at least from my end, the progressive left meld with Democratic voters, we should acknowledge that like the messenger also is important to some of these voters. Like they can listen to Bernie Sanders, but they tuned out Kamala Harris who, like, if Trump had been putting forward the abundance agenda about deregulating housing and building more and more and giving X amount to first time homebuyers like Harris was doing, which was a more centrist kind of liberal, not left wing policy, I don't think any of these guys would have had a problem with it. So there is that. I want to recognize that because I think that's important for like say the base of the Democratic Party. In many ways, these are people who feel like when Republicans get into power, it's an existential threat to them if they're a marginalized group. And that's really important that we have to incorporate. But it's also true that the independent voter isn't just how it's being characterized. The MAGA people, you know, it's tough. There are the two far gones, but there are this group of folks who are open to different ideologies politically that they wouldn't have been, say, 20 or 30 years ago along this very convenient spectrum for our ruling class of left versus right. There are people that are listening to this show that may like Trump, but may also hear Bernie and go, I just want somebody that's going to change things for my life. And these Democrats, they come off like bureaucrats. They don't offer anything transformational. And the key to this, I think is also when you look at New York 14 and AOC's district, which has a lot of Latino voters, black voters, voters that the Democrats lost ground with because Trump gained an appeal with those voters and she didn't drop off in the way that the rest of the Democratic districts did or other areas that have similar demographics, there were a lot of Trump and AOC voters on the same ticket. Yeah.
- [47:27]
Crystal Ball
And so we actually interviewed some of those folks. We did like focus group with some of those folks to figure out. And it was crazy because, you know, you and I, coming from an ideological lens would say AOC and Trump could not be further apart. They didn't see it that way. One lady even thought that they were in the same party. Like they, they saw a commonality in, I guess, of like a critique of these parties that they, you know, don't have particular faith in. And so I think it's, it's important to understand the way people are, the lens through which they're viewing our political system. Even if to us we'd look at that and be like, that's crazy. Speaking of AOC guys, put jump ahead to B5 because I'm sure you saw this poll. They did an aoc, Chuck Schumer, head to head.
- [48:10]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh yes.
- [48:10]
Crystal Ball
And so overall, she was kicking his butt by 21 points, 54 to 33 in New York. But specifically among Jewish voters, she was beating him by seven points here, 45 to 38. Which again goes against every stereotype that you could possibly have of like, you know, Jewish equals, pro Israel equals. You know, you're going to be supporting the most Zionist candidate you can possibly imagine.
- [48:37]
Sagar Enjeti
Exactly. And I mean honestly, support for Israel, at least within the Democratic Party. It's becoming very clear who the supporters of Israel actually represent. And I'm not just saying it's aipac, it's also billionaires and who the critics of Israel also support. It's no coincidence that AIPAC was going after the most progressive candidates and that it was Republican money also that was going into kind of pro Israel groups, dark money groups, to fund challenges against them. In part because it's not. If you're a critic of Israel, you're also, you're more likely to stand up to big money. That's what the litmus test is. So you don't just have to be somebody who's a rabid Zionist to basically be a supporter of aipac going after these people. You have to be somebody that maybe isn't interested in healthcare for all or taxes on billionaires or raising the minimum wage. It's this. The, the most pro crypto Democrats are also the most pro Israel. And I just think that's something to note. It means that you're, you have demonstrated that you can be for sale. You're for sale. You put a for sale sign. Hey, I will support the, the worst, one of the worst crimes in the history of humanity that we're witnessing right now, this genocide. I'll do it. I'll eat shit for you, pay me money. All industries just come and pour money into my coffers. And that, that is a huge line of demarcation. I think right now is, is real Democrats versus not.
- [50:16]
Crystal Ball
I mean, that's the other thing that's crazy is oftentimes not even like they're like personally financially benefiting. It's like, you fund my campaign, I will support a genocide. And I will also support massive, like worldwide financial scams if you just funnel enough money into my pack or into my, you know, campaign or fund some ads for me. It is wild. And that's, that's such a great point. Let me just go through a couple more things here with you, Emily. Emma. Sorry, having Emily as my co host on here. Your ideology is a little bit different from hers, though, but apparently similar to Steve Bannon's, according to Ryan.
- [50:50]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, well, I'd love to have a conversation. Yeah.
- [50:54]
Crystal Ball
In any case, put a B2. New York Times did this Triple trending counties, meaning counties that shifted right over the course of the last three presidential cycles. A lot of red there. And then we can see the Dem triple trending counties, the ones that shifted blue consistently. We got like Georgia actually doing pretty good there. I don't, I'm not sure what that's about. It could be the demographics of like the in migration there. I'm not sure. You've got some Virginia counties. You got a little bit sporadically, but the picture is pretty dire. And then let's go to before, guys, this is this article from the New York Times about how six months later, Democrats are still searching for the path forward. And one thing that people noticed from this article is that they are apparently planning a new $20 million effort aiming to reduce the erosion of Democratic support among young men, especially online. It's codenamed Sam, short for Speaking with American Men, and promises investment to study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces. It recommends buying advertisements in video games, among other things.
- [52:06]
Sagar Enjeti
Or, you know, what might be a little more cost effective would be developing the technology to create a time machine. So we could go back to 2016 and tell all of these people so concerned about young men maybe to shut the hell up about this whole group of, of people getting excited about Bernie Sanders and not smearing them as sexists and misogynists, if they were so worried about young men, perhaps that might have been a good idea.
- [52:37]
Crystal Ball
Well, and when you think about, you know, Bernie's strongest demographics, young people in general, but young men in particular and Latinos in both of those demographic groups were really smeared and dismissed as, like, not important by the Democratic Party. If we think about the way that the 2020 primary played out, Bernie wins In my opinion, in Iowa, wins in New Hampshire, wins in Nevada with this very diverse electorate, heavily Latino electorate. And we were told that doesn't count, doesn't matter, not important. And then you're shocked to see that these groups move away. Now, I don't think that's the only reason, but I think that is worth noting that, you know, these are demographic groups, groups. The two demographic groups perhaps, that have moved the furthest and the fastest away from the Democratic Party are precisely the groups that were most smeared, undermined, and dismissed, you know, when they were part of the Bernie Sanders coalition.
- [53:35]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, that's definitely it. And I think the root of the disaffection is the same as the support previously, which is a lack of economic opportunity. And I mean, there's a lot of that's over said about the young man and how we have to empathize with what young men are going through. There's not many think pieces as much about what young women were going through. So I have some frustrations from a feminist angle on that front. But there is a point to be made, and I think that's why we're in this MeToo reactionary backlash period. And you see the rise of these manosphere influencers like Andrew Tate, among others, or the other guy, Aiden Ross, that Trump went on his stream and stuff, and why Trump was successful with this campaign of I want to, you know, Kamala should get in the ring with Mike Tyson and whatever the case may be, those arguments that are, like, secondary to people's economic precarity become more salient when people are experiencing that economic precarity. Right, but. But it does, I think, show that there's this ecosystem of people that are searching for meaning and control because they feel like they don't have it in their lives. And because what young men have been told their whole life is, you gotta be a provider, you have to be a family man. And that's become increasingly impossible in America. Rent prices have never been higher. We just hit a record of credit card debt earlier this year. People are feeling like perhaps it's not even worth it to save or I'll take riskier bets, like with cryptocurrency or gambling. And you see how for young men in states that have legalized sports gambling, bankruptcies and debt for them has gone through the roof because people are taking riskier personal bets on their own finances in future because nothing is being offered to them from either party at the end of the day. And this is not for me to say that the Democrats are equal to the Republicans in any way. No, but they are a party of institutional maintenance. And we are in a period that necessitates some sort of revolutionary thinking. And Trump embodies that. I think it's gonna make things worse. I think we're gonna be in a recession likely by the end of the year. But that is the lesson. And I think that Schultz and Charlemagne hit on that in that clip.
- [56:04]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, I think also worth noting that the demographic that appears to have moved the most rapidly away from Trump is also young men. You know, if you look at the polling and the places where Trump's approval rating has fallen off, the age breakdown is quite significant. Where the young, younger you are, the more likely you are to have moved away from Donald Trump. Huge decline in support there in terms of approval rating. And young women we know were already not too enthused about Trump. So if you think about where that decline likely came from. It likely did come from. I mean, I think that this is a group that is very much continues to be up for grabs. I think Latinos continue to be up for grabs. I think there's a big question for Republicans. You know, we showed those triple trending counties, those were for presidential cycles. So when Trump is not on the ballot, you know, just J.D. vance.
- [56:54]
Sagar Enjeti
Exactly.
- [56:54]
Crystal Ball
That's still sort of like cool. Oh, he gets pussy vibe. Does you know, Don Jr. Like, is there anyone else who can replicate the unique pull of Trump and Trumpism? I don't think so. But that's not also not an argument for Democrats to rest on their laurels. Because when you look at, I mean, Democratic approval rating is just like an absolute disaster. The brand is absolutely trash. They haven't figured out what they want to stand for, how they want to stand for it, their own voters. I mean, this is where a huge amount of the decline the Democratic Party approval rating comes from is from their own voters who are like, disgusted and dismayed with the way leadership has failed them in Trump 2.0. So, you know, I think there, even as I do think the midterms are going to be bad for Republicans, I think it will be difficult to replicate the particular charismatic poll of Trump. I still think there are huge concerns and, you know, warning signs, really quite dire warning signs for the Democrats if they don't pitch something that ultimately, you know, makes sense to people and that people feel like explains the world in a way that is going to move them forward. I mean, this is something I know you've talked about, we've talked about as well. Trump has his story, if you're a young man and things aren't going well for you, it's immigrants, it's trans people. And then I would say the other part of that story is it's, it's women, you know, who are out there getting the jobs and getting the, you know, getting all the favorable treatment and keeping you down and pressing you or nagging at you or not, not dating you or whatever your issue is. Right. And so, you know, that narrative is bullshit, but at least there's like a story in a theory of the case that as women economic position has improved, that it's been at the expense of men. And so that's where the Andrew Tate and the religious right part of the coalition, even though you would think they would be like dramatically at odds and see, Andrew Tate is like this incredible degenerate, but both of them are invested in putting women back, let's say, in their traditional roles. And that's where there's a profound overlap there in terms of what results they want to see.
- [59:02]
Sagar Enjeti
I think that's like, it's a bit of a more Marxist analysis of misogyny and racism, which is that oftentimes those instances flare up when the worker or the man in the home doesn't necessarily feel like they can exert control in their economic situation. So that exacerbates those kinds of attitudes amongst regular people or men or whatever. And the liberal inclination is to blame that. And sure, we should be shaming that kind of behavior, but from a political perspective, it's about getting to the heart of the matter and back to the framing of how Democrats should appeal to young men. Let's pour tens of more millions of dollars into the answer that we already know, which is a economic populist, socialist vision for the country. But the same consultant class is trying to get another payday to basically try to manipulate people as opposed to being honest with them. And that is also the thing that people miss about Trump, which is that the part of why he has more of a popularity than the rest of the Republican Party is because, because people feel he talks directly to them. And he might be the weirdest guy ever. And his, his, his tweets are truths or laugh out loud. But it's the same dynamic with aoc, who uses social media to communicate with people directly. That is also what cuts above things. And there's no amount of like manufacturing some sort of left wing media personality that's going to replace that kind of feeling I think, that people have when they hear a Democrat speaking authentically. About making people's lives better. And so they're in a really bad position. And I do think overall, we bring it back to Joe Biden. The blame lies at his feet. He created a leadership vacuum within the party that is making things absolutely so much worse. He couldn't use the bully pulpit because he was so diminished for specifically the last two years of his presidency. The Democrats had no message because it was all about propping up this fossil so that he could continue funding a genocide or whatever. And that has had ripple effects that I think we're still going to be feeling the consequences of for years to come. Let's be honest, most of us have a love hate relationship with wired bras. We love the lift, but hate the digging. We love the support, but hate feeling trapped. Well, Nick's just changed everything with Free Flex, a wired bra actually designed to work with your body, not against it. Freeflex features a revolutionary flexible wire that moves when you move, bends when you bend, and keeps everything exactly where you want it. No poking, no stabbing, no constant readjusting.
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- [63:34]
Sagar Enjeti
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Crystal Ball
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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 all right, let's turn to what's going on in Ukraine. We've got more sort of like Vladimir stop behavior coming from Trump. There's a horrific, you know, large scale drone and missile attack from Russia. I'll get to the details of that in a moment, but first let's take a listen to a little bit of what Trump's been saying. Yeah, I'll give you an update. I'm not happy with what Putin's doing.
- [64:21]
Sagar Enjeti
He's killing a lot of people and.
- [64:23]
Crystal Ball
I don't know what the hell happened to Putin.
- [64:25]
Sagar Enjeti
I've known him a long time, always.
- [64:27]
Crystal Ball
Gotten along with him. But he's sending rockets into cities and killing people and I don't like it at all.
- [64:34]
Sagar Enjeti
Okay, we're in the middle of talking.
- [64:36]
Crystal Ball
And he's shooting rockets into Kiev and other cities. I don't like it at all. What do you want to do about that?
- [64:43]
Sagar Enjeti
I'm surprised.
- [64:43]
Crystal Ball
I'm very surprised. We'll see what we're going to do. What am I going to tell you?
- [64:47]
Sagar Enjeti
You're the fake news, aren't you? You're totally fake news.
- [64:51]
Crystal Ball
Any other questions? I don't like what Putin is doing.
- [64:53]
Sagar Enjeti
Not even a little bit. He's killing people and something happened to.
- [64:57]
Crystal Ball
This guy and I don't like it. Something happened to this guy and I don't like it. Let's put his true social up on the screen. Sort of similar dynamic here, but he also says some things about Zelensky. He says, I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia. Something has happened to him. He's gone absolutely crazy. He's needlessly killing a lot of people. I'm not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into cities in Ukraine for no reason whatsoever. I've always said that he wants all of Ukraine, not just a piece of it. I'm not sure if he has always said that. I Know, people in his administration have definitely not been saying that, and maybe that's proving to be right. But if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia. Likewise, President Zelensky is doing his country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems. I don't like it, and it better stop. This is a war that would never have started if I were president. This is Zelensky's, Putin's, and Biden's war, not Trump's. I am only helping to put out the big and ugly fires that have been started through gross incompetent incompetence and hatred. We can also put up a little bit of the Russians response to this outburst from Trump. Apparently, Dmitry Peskov said, we are really grateful to the Americans and to President Trump personally for their assistance in organizing and launching this negotiation process. Process. Of course, at the same time, this is a very crucial moment which is associated, of course, with the emotional overload of everyone. Absolutely. And with emotional reactions so that their response. Emma. And, you know, obviously, Trump said he'd solve this in 24 hours. That was always preposterous. You know, this will be. This is a horrific situation and very difficult one ultimately to untangle, which, of course, he is realizing in real time. But the other language he's always used is that, you know, if it wasn't that Putin didn't respect Biden and, you know, that's why Biden wasn't able to negotiate with him, and that's why he started this war under Biden. Well, apparently, Putin doesn't respect Trump. Trump either, given the, you know, escalation in attacks that we've witnessed, even as these negotiations are supposedly ongoing.
- [67:00]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, there's. There's a lot there. This is perhaps the one part of the Trump administration I have some hope for. Right. I mean, I. There is something to be said about the fact that he doesn't necessarily view foreign policy in ideological terms. He views it more as something that's going to flatter his ego, which is about making deals. So that's why he can be both, like, completely just disgustingly humiliating towards Zelensky. But he can have some sort of comment like that because he feels it's time to scold, because it's a reflection on him if he's unable to get this done. So what's something I think we could work with with the Trump administration on this front is the fact that he is not somebody who, like Biden, is ideologically committed to a certain kind of foreign Policy. Right. It's more about how he's gonna get rich. But Biden had this old kind of Cold War or even Post World War II view of the world building up NATO, building up Aukus, building up alliances and not, not having. Basically shutting out enemies and trying to isolate them and not speaking and being more diplomatic. And I think that it was a really unfortunate departure from the way that Obama conducted his foreign policy, which had a lot of problems, his escalation of drone strikes. But in the end, he did, in his second term, kind of put the thumb in the eye of the Israel lobby, and he got that Iran deal over the finish line. And the Biden administration didn't even attempt really to re. Enter into it and instead pursued the Abraham Accords. So what Trump represents, I think, is perhaps an opportunity, if he's not kind of thwarted by, maybe not thwarted, but if he's not influenced by the neocons that he's putting into his administration, to be somebody who approaches some of this with a bit of a more even hand. And that's not to say that Putin and Russia are not the aggressors in this instance, they illegally invaded Ukraine. But you hear certain talk, I think, on the Democratic side, I heard this on MSNBC over the weekend about how, God, he's talking about giving up Crimea in these negotiations that could happen under Trump when he gives this giveaway to Putin. And it's like. Like there's actually no situation in which Crimea isn't likely going to be taken by the Russians officially in a negotiated peace. They've held the territory since 2014. And I go back to this comment that we heard from Hillary Clinton right after Russia invaded, and she's not in power, but she's emblematic of some of the way that those people make decisions where she said, this is an opportunity to weaken Russia and Putin by basically creating this kind of as a proxy war. And that's something where I just don't think. I don't think that Trump views it in those terms. So I think it's actually, it was almost one of the more encouraging things for me to hear him kind of call out Putin this way because it means that perhaps he's being more disciplinary on both sides and he sees this as his way to get some Nobel Peace Prize. And that's better in terms of motivation than like, how many more arms can we sell to Ukraine?
- [70:33]
Crystal Ball
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. And, and I'm confused, to be honest with you, with where. And I think this is intentional on his part with like where he is in terms of what he wants to do vis a vis Ukraine. You know, you had the Oval Office blow up situation with Zelensky. The mineral deal was supposedly off and then the mineral deal was back on. And, you know, that's been signed and that's some sort of US Commitment. It's being framed as a, you know, as some sort of defense protection. With the idea being that if you've got a bunch of rich American capitalists who are invested in minerals in Ukraine, then we're only going to let Russia do so much and take so much. So you've got that and then you have, you know, some, some frustration with Zelensky expressed here in terms of, you know, the things. And I think it's, I think it is appropriate to be frustrated with Zelensky because I think Zelensky has staked down a position that is fundamentally unrealistic. And, you know, and Trump was like, you don't have the cards. I mean, he's right about that. Right. Zelensky is not in a strong position here and there has to be some acknowledgment of reality. But I think because he has staked out such a maximalist political position inside of Ukraine itself, domestically, like it's, he's sort of committed himself to a perpetually unreasonable posture. You know, you have at times with Trump, Trump, you've seen him and his administration signal and agree with the Europeans that they're going to put even more sanctions on Russia, which I don't think accomplishes ultimately anything at all. The sanctions that we did put on, which were quite overwhelming, didn't seem to accomplish anything at all. So I don't think that that's a particular productive direction to go in. And, you know, taking Trump's bluster and rhetoric about, oh, he's going to solve the thing in 24 hours. Putting that aside, I'm sympathetic to the fact that at this point point, it's not an easy situation to unwind. Putin has very little incentive to stop what he's doing. He's sort of got the upper hand. He's got more manpower, he's got more industrial base. He's got broadly the support of his people, as far as we can tell. And so there isn't a lot of motivation for him to really take his foot off the gas. And for Zelensky, he's in, like I said, this sort of locked in domestic political position. And then at times you also see J.D. vance and Trump and Trump sort of signals at this in these comments as well, acting like, yeah, maybe we'll just walk away and good luck to you. And that will end in effectively, you know, a Ukrainian failed state and Russia taking more territory, et cetera. So, you know, I don't know that there is a great solution here at this point. However this conflict ends, it's going to end in a place that is, you know, ugly and horrible for a lot of people. But to your point, like, the war needs to end because it's horrific. We can put this, the details of this drone attack and missile attack C4, up on the screen. Russia defies Trump with largest ever drone and missile attack on Ukraine. Kyiv says more than 350 explosive drones targeted its cities overnight. You know, this is, was a follow on from another drone and missile strike that Trump was referring to there as well. So the horrors here are grave. Not to mention all of the Ukrainian men and Russian men too, who've been fed into this, this meat grinder. And thus far, even though the rhetoric has been different, Emma, from the Trump administration, the policy has been pretty, it's been pretty much a continuation of the Biden policy as far as what we've seen so far, you know, backing the Ukrainians, shipping weapons, allowing these longer range drone strikes that are incredibly provocative vis a vis Russia. So we haven't actually seen a policy shift, even though we do see a rhetorical shift, and then the effort to actually bring some sort of negotiations, which is appreciated. But if you can't get one of these two parties to move off their current position, then you're not going to end up with the peace and the Nobel Peace Prize that he may be seeking.
- [74:36]
Sagar Enjeti
Right. And I think that that's a good point. And maybe I'm not going to produce the show for you, but it's a good way to talk about Israel policy too. Right. Where some of these breaks that we're talking about are really welcome. But, but does Donald Trump have the fortitude or vision to actually implement something that would represent a real foreign policy shift? Or is like, are a lot of these kind of gestures more aesthetic? Because it's about flattering his ego about, I can put an end to this. I can be the one to do X, Y and Z. Or in the case of Middle east policy. Yeah, he's going and meeting with the Qataris and he, he went to the Middle east and didn't stop in Jerusalem. But are these breaks from what is traditionally done being matched with substantive changes to policy? And it doesn't seem to be the case. We're still sending as you say weapons to both Ukraine and Israel. And of course, in terms of like abject immorality, Israel sending it to the aggressor in Israel committing a genocide just continues to be something that I think every American should be thinking about every morning, what our tax dollars are going to. But we like to see a shake up to the system in this sense. Right? But if it's not paired with some sort of like carrot and stick approach to the Israelis, to cutting off weapons, to making sure that they're not able to conduct these military operations anymore. And it's just about Donald Trump getting goodies and creating business deals and crypto data centers for his son and, you know, weapons deals for Boeing with the, with the Saudis or with the UAE or whatever the case may be, then there's no substance there. And then we're kind of just back where we started, especially if a new administration could comes into place. Hey, Janice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz.
- [76:59]
Crystal Ball
We're the hosts of Mind the Business.
- [77:00]
Sagar Enjeti
Small Business Success Stories produced by Ruby Studio and Intuit QuickBooks.
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Crystal Ball
Catch up on seasons one and two.
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Sagar Enjeti
And join us for a brand new season of the podcast as we talk to small business owners about how they.
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Crystal Ball
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Sagar Enjeti
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Crystal Ball
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Sagar Enjeti
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Crystal Ball
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