← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
5/28/26: U.S. & Iran Exchange Fire, Trump Says He Doesn't Care About Midterms, CDC Scrambles Amid Ebola Outbreak
00:50:55
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- [00:00]
Bethenny Frankel
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Public Podcast Advertiser
Guaranteed Human support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.com
- [01:06]
Bethenny Frankel
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- [01:36]
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- [02:09]
Krystal Ball
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
- [02:16]
Saagar Enjeti
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [02:22]
Krystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:33]
Saagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. I'm an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
- [02:45]
Krystal Ball
Indeed we do. We have new US Airstrikes in Iran and some new pretty stunning comments and threats from Trump towards Oman. So we'll break all of that down for you. Also, we're going to take a look at that Ebola outbreak. The Trump administration is looking for volunteers to go to the airport to screen incoming passengers for illness. So the response there not looking too great. We're also going to take a look with John Mearsheimer about what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz, the way that Israel is trying to undermine any potential peace process. And we also wanted to dig in with him to the latest out of Ukraine. It's a subject we haven't covered nearly enough recently. But there are some significant developments and some concerns that Russia could in fact be looking outside of Ukraine to escalate this conflict. So I want to talk to him and get his view of what exactly is happening there. Also, as you probably know, the Pope issued an AI focused incentive, cyclical. So we have a Catholic who is also an AI expert on to talk to us about that and break down the import. We also have a number of Trump administration actions to continue to push AI forward at breakneck pace and the labeling of anti data center extremists as a new focus of federal government crackdowns.
- [03:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, everybody, stick with us. For our premium subscribers, we deeply apologize about the show being late yesterday. We'll get to that in a second. Now, first and foremost, when most important things to make sure everybody who's paying for our service gets their email and is signed up. So supportupercast.com if you've not yet received an email or you still have some questions about the process, again, supportupercast.com Griffin Mac, the entire team, we are all working behind the scenes to make this faster every single day. Now for yesterday though, it was a three hour show. So sometimes that's just gonna be late. That's part of it. And Krystal, you can explain some of the process here for behind the scenes. And I apologize for taking everybody behind the curtain. A lot of people still have questions and this is the reason.
- [04:39]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. So One of the issues we're having as the emails going out, but the Spotify upload has not fully happened because Spotify just takes a little bit longer and that's causing a lot of problems because a lot of people watch it on Spotify. So they get the email and they go to Spotify. It's not there.
- [04:51]
Saagar Enjeti
Exactly.
- [04:51]
Krystal Ball
So what we've decided to do is hold the email until it's uploaded everywhere so that no matter how you access it, it will be available once you get the email. That means the email is going to be a little bit later. If you are anxious to see the show, as soon as it is humanly available and possible for you, go to Supercast and check there. See if it has been uploaded and is available there. So that was the decision that was made so that there's not confusion. Exactly. That'll mean the email is a little bit delayed, but no big deal.
- [05:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And the thing is, guys, I get it. You know, the people who watch on YouTube are like, oh, it's ready, you know, why should we wait? 50% of the people watch on Spotify. All right, so like, we gotta make sure that everybody's happy. So I know there's a lot of diehards out there and people set their clock and all of that, et cetera. We're doing our absolute best to please everybody. So there you go.
- [05:35]
Krystal Ball
I have to say, given everything, it's gone very smoothly. Oh, yeah. Thank you guys for bearing with us. I know people are excited about the shift and we are too. And so working on some kinks this week, but if you're having any issues whatsoever, support upercast. That is the big message to you.
- [05:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. In a few weeks, you won't even think about it and everything will just be a lot better. Okay, let's go ahead and start with Iran. As Crystal said in deja vu from our Tuesday show, in the middle of cease fire negotiations, talks and all of that, what happened? Let's go and put it up here on the screen. Late last night the news broke the US military struck a military site in Iran near the Strait of Hormuz and intercepted four Iranians drones that carried out new strikes targeting a military site that a US Official said posed a threat to American forces and a commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. US military also intercepted drones launched from Iran on Wednesday. Now, allegedly these drones. Let's put in a 0B please, up on the screen. This is from Trita Parsi. Allegedly these drones were launched from Iran towards a US commercial vessel Obviously we don't know the exact details, but here's some immediate analysis from Dr. Parsi. Two new U.S. strikes on Iran. U.S. says it was in response to drones. Unclear whether there were casualties on the Iranian side. It is unlikely that Tehran will accept this as a new normal. A low grade conflict gives the United States a major advantage. It can inflict comparability more damage on Iran while slowly eroding Iran's new one deterrence. A strong Iranian response, on the other hand, would escalate matters beyond Tehran's preference and play right into Israel's hands, jeopardizing any progress made in the negotiations. Instead, Iran may opt to respond elsewhere. Either way, this is putting dangerous pressure on in the already fragile situation. Trump appeared frustrated today and might have requested limited kinetic action. Washington may calculate this will help push the negotiations forward, but it might as well easily kill the talks. And just as you can almost set your watch by a zero C please. So here from Centcom, 10:00pm Eastern Time. Last night Iran launched a ballistic missile towards Kuwait. It was successfully intercepted by Kuwaiti forces. Again, according to them, the egregious ceasefire violation was by the Iranian regime occurred hours after Iranian forces launched five one way attack drones that posed a clear threat in and near the Strait of Hormuz. All drones were successfully intercepted by US forces which prevented a sixth drone launch from an Iranian ground control site in Bandar Abbas. US Central Command and regional partners remain vigilant and measured. So if Iran strikes back, that's a ceasefire violation. If the US strikes them, it's not a ceasefire violation. Still trying to wrap my head around what the ceasefire means if the fire is not ceasing. Seems to be a common thread here with a lot of the these US and Israeli actions in modern times. But look, I mean the bottom line is it demonstrates that the ceasefire is falling apart. The extension of the ceasefire still hasn't happened. There was a lot of optimism on Sunday. They're blaming the Iranians, they're saying they move slow and all that is certainly true. But really what it is apparently on the Iranian side is they need buy in from all factions of the government. They need Supreme Leader to sign off, they need Golubov to sign off. There's internal disarray. Some of the hardliners are mad at Golubov from even negotiating in the first place. Basically everybody in that system has to sign off on the New Deal. Oh, except all the new people in that system are the new generation. The old ones are all dead. The people who are more likely to maybe Strike a deal. And who respected US Power. And the new ones are like, no, we have to establish credible deterrence. And all the meanwhile, ballistic missiles are going off drones and all of that are happening. The second US strike in the matter of days, literally our Tuesday show led off the exact same way.
- [09:12]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. And Tricha's point is exactly the right one. Are the Iranians just gonna sit there and take. Then why should they? Right? If they permit this to go forward where the US can just randomly blow up this, randomly blow up that, and that's not considered a ceasefire violation and there are no consequences for that, then they are ceding so much of the power and control that they were able to win. Previously on the Battlefield. Meanwhile, Trump is saying all kinds of wild things. We covered before, how now he's like, and every country has to for some reason get into the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel as part of this deal. And those countries literally, literally went silent on the phone and were like, I don't think that we're really down with that. I don't know why that's being included here. So when you add things like that, it makes it even more difficult to come to a deal. And then yesterday he comes out and threatens to blow up the country of Oman if they don't get on board with the things he wants them to do. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
- [10:11]
Donald Trump
No, the strait's gonna be open to everybody.
- [10:14]
Saagar Enjeti
And who would control it?
- [10:15]
Donald Trump
It's international waters. Nobody's going to control it. We're going to watch over it. We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it. That's part of the negotiation that we have. They would like to control it. Nobody's going to control it. It's international waters. And Oman will behave just like everybody else and we'll have to blow them up. They understand that. They'll be fine.
- [10:35]
Krystal Ball
Oman will behave like everybody else or we will have to blow them up. And this again comes down. Do you remember we're getting all those tweets from regime aligned media. They're, oh, we're 95% of the way there. We just have these, these teensy tiny details to work out. Like the entire nuclear program and the control of the Strait of Hormuz. Well, everything we've seen from the Iranian side and even leaks from the US side about the way that would work is like, okay, well, you're gonna have Iran and Oman in control. There won't be a toll, but there might be some Sort of environmental payment fee or something of that nature. And now Trump is coming and said, no, there's not gonna be any Omani control, there's not gonna be any Iranian control. It's going to go back fully to the way that it was. There is no way that Iran is.
- [11:19]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, this Oman thing is so insane because Oman was literally the only good regional partner who was trying to mediate and stop some sort of kinetic action. Now of course, look, Israel was the number one, I would say, foreign force that wanted this war. But what also came out, and some of this is a little hard to trust, but some of the Saudi Arabia reports said actually MBS behind the scenes, he was like, yeah, go ahead, let's do it. And then the uae, even that was a little bit behind the scenes. But what we do know is that after the war kicked off that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were definitely in Trump's ear saying, let's go, go, go. Now they're getting chastised a little bit whenever it comes to the Abraham Accords, but threatening to blow up the country of Oman for doing what? For having the temerity to ask for no war in the first place. Remember the Omani Foreign Minister the day before the war went on? I think it was Face the Nation. Cuz we played the clip here on the show and he was like, none of this has to happen. There's still a way out of this. He met with the Vice President. Now we know from behind the scenes they had decided to attack Iran like a week or so beforehand, even while they're pursuing this sham. So Oman, I mean Oman, by the way, it's not exactly a country that you would wanna push away in a situation like this. It actually is a pretty decent US ally, has good negotiations and relations with Iran, and also happens to be the only other country with control over the Straits of Hormuz or the ability to exert control. So not trying to go out and threaten, oh, we're gonna blow you up. How do you think that's gonna go over in Muscat? I don't think very well, you know, so this is a country, this, where they have long prided themselves on their ability to facilitate these negotiations or relations with Iran. And this is to openly just say, oh, we're gonna blow you up when you're an ostensible US ally. I mean, shocking, right to everybody who is over there. And yeah, it also just demonstrates that if you are Israel or anything, you can help blow up the ceasefire. I mean, I was showing you a picture this morning, Beirut. Oh, my God, you know, look at what is going on over there. They're lighting this place on fire, bombing and sending troops, new Lebanese villages. Nothing from the president of the United States, Oman. They didn't even do anything this time. He said they might be working with Iran for some sort of environmental feeding. He's like, oh, we're gonna blow him up.
- [13:36]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. When's that sort of language gonna be levied at Israel? Can you imagine? Oh, if Israel doesn't get in line and abide by the ceasefire in Lebanon, we're gonna blow him. I mean, he would never. He would never. But, yeah, with Oman, it's just. Let's just, you know, throw him to the wolves. And then. I'm skeptical, actually, of that. Reporting from early on that Saudi was pushing for this war. And, I mean, we know, but the reason I'm skeptical is because it's been bad for them, number one. And number two, we had that moment where they denied us use of their bases and even overflight rights, which was an indication that they were not happy with the continuation of the war and that they were very uncomfortable with the direction. So, to me, that was an important indicator. But, you know, Trump has some pretty strong words for them and for Qatar and other nations as well, saying that if they don't agree to get into the Abraham Accord and normalize relations with Israel, even though they have always said that they will not do that until there is a pathway and a clear pathway to establishment of a Palestinian state and resolution of the Palestinian issue. So he's saying that they owe it to us to get into the Abraham Accords, even though, you know, this disastrous war with Iran has gravely. I mean, there's been a big problem for them is gonna hurt their economy. So, you know, incredibly harshly. Let's go and take a listen to Trump talk, talking about how Saudi and Qatar owe us.
- [15:04]
Donald Trump
And we'd like to have the countries we were talking about with Saudi Arabia, uae, Qatar and the others, we'd like to have them immediately join the. And Steve Woodkoff is working on that with Jared and some others, but would like to have them join the Abraham Accords. It'll be historic if they do it. And we would. I think they. I think they owe that to us, to be honest, I think. Because that really would be a tremendous sign. And I think those countries owe it to us.
- [15:30]
Krystal Ball
Their countries are getting blown up, Sagr, because of us, but they owe it to us to do what we want them to do.
- [15:36]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. And, you know, for them, I keep Looking at this, the uae, it's obviously already a part of the Abraham Accords. I don't really get what's going on in their population. They're. I mean, again, these are monarchies, but remember, like modern monarchies, they have to have some level of political support. And for the Emirati people, you know, there's a social contract. It's like, yeah, we accept the rulers and in exchange we're all filthy rich. But, you know, that only goes so far. Like with Saudi Arabia, they have a much bigger population, I guess. So that's part of the reason why it's a bit different. But they do have to manage internal politics. That's where a lot of the religious Wahhabism and all that other stuff comes from. So for them, it is not like a politically tenable solution to just say, yeah, we're gonna recognize Israel in its current form without any recognition of a Palestinian state. Now, again, the government itself, itself doesn't care, but that doesn't mean that the people don't care. Especially, oh, my God, in Qatar and some of these other places when I lived there, I mean, this was almost 20 years ago, but I remember there would be donation boxes in public for the Palestinian, like, for either PA or something. And I mean, that just. And I would often see Qatari people, Qatari families, and Thobes and others, they would put money into them. So this is something that's been going on for, you know, decades. And so for their government to have to sit there and be like, okay, we're gonna fully recognize Israel, normalize relations entirely, and then In a post October 7th environment, it seems inconceivable they wouldn't face some level of internal pushback. They don't have that level of fiat. I just don't think it exists. Maybe with the uae, again, there are people, they all seem to be fine with it, I guess. They literally have IDF soldiers and Iron Dome on their soil, which I still think is probably not gonna go over that well with some of the people in Abu Dhabi or any of the Emiratis. But, yeah, just seeing this demand, I just wanna bring it back for the audience. It's about Trump not wanting to admit that he failed. Like, that's what it's about. It's about a Grand Bargain style thing that he's adding on at the very last minute. Because to sign the deal in its current form is an admission the entire war was a failure to reopen the Straits of Hormuz, which were already open to stop nuclear weapons from being built that weren't being built, it could go down the list after we obliterated, we obliterated their nuclear program, so we had to bomb it to re. Obliterate it. And now it hasn't been obliterated, which means that they need to turn it over. It's like none of it makes sense for even five seconds. Even when gas is at some five, you know, what is it, 4:35 or something like that, a gallon nationally, it's absurd. That's why he wants the Abraham Accord, so he can sell it as some sort of big new thing.
- [18:04]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, I was listening to the Monk debate with John Mearsheimer and we'll play a clip for him and get his reaction to how this went. And he was up against, with his partner in writing the Israel lobby book. He was up against Victoria Nuland and Mike Pompeii. Nuland doesn't even support the Iran war. And then Pompeo, I mean, it was impossible for him to defend how things are. He could only take the neocon line of we need to go further, we need to do more. Real war against Iran has never been tried. Right. That was his line because even he couldn't defend, if the war ends now, what an incredible disaster it was. That's how bad it is. Is even the staunchest neocons, all they can do is not say, yeah, this is going great, they have to say, no, it's been a dis. But if we just do more war, that'll solve the problem. And unfortunately, as the days tick by here and as Trump makes comments like this, that completely undermine any potential peace deal as we bomb inside of Iran, which is certainly going to complicate any sort of diplomatic negotiations. As the days go by, it seems more and more that those neocon arguments of, you can't stop now, the only way out is through, are holding some sway with Trump. And then of course, the Israelis are gonna be pushing that as well and doing everything they. We've got a clip we'll play for Mearsheimer later where Ben GVIR is out there saying Israel will not let the US Go forward with a deal with Iran. That's the way that they are seeing things. So it's hard to imagine how this all comes together. Maybe it will, right? Maybe the Iranians will just ignore these little bombings. And they are so desperate, I know their economy is struggling, that they'll be so desperate to get their assets unfrozen and some sort of sanction relief and go back to some sort of level of normalcy that they would will choose to turn a blind eye and move forward with negotiations. But you know it's a lot of question marks.
- [20:00]
Public Podcast Advertiser
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures think
- [21:02]
Bethenny Frankel
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- [22:01]
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- [22:34]
Krystal Ball
at the same time, Trump under incredible domestic political pressure here. The midterms are looking like a full blown disaster. Obviously you've got Ken Paxton who won the Republican primary with Trump's backing in Texas. He is incredibly corrupt. There's all sorts of personal issues there. So kind of an ideal candidate from the Democrats perspective in terms of even having a shot of taking the Texas Senate. So Trump was asked about the political ramifications here and obviously gas prices really high, something that people feel every day. And he says, I don't really care about that. Let's go ahead and take a listen.
- [23:11]
Donald Trump
Economic system is broken down. They thought they were going to outweigh me. You know, we'll outweigh him. He's got the midterms. I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to the midterms.
- [23:22]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't care about the midterms.
- [23:23]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, look, maybe it's bluster, cuz that is kind of their calculus is to make him pay in the midterms. So if he's like, yeah, I don't even care about that, maybe that's bluster. But he certainly is acting like he genuinely doesn't care about the midterm.
- [23:35]
Saagar Enjeti
Gas is 3.92 a gallon in Texas. That's unfathomable. Did you see Ted Cruz bragging about how gas was only 399?
- [23:43]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [23:43]
Saagar Enjeti
He was like, hey Gavin, gas is only 3.99 here in Texas. I'm like, oh my God, dude, you're the senator from Texas. You're bringing a $4 gas in Texas. Where the gas is literally from and where the refineries are, it's like, it's insanity. That is just. Oh man, I can't even continue to talk about it. But yes, on the political level it's very obvious. Like this has been extraordinarily damaging. I do, I still am not sure it's at a full blown crisis level for the average American. I think what's happening is that they are looping it into all of the other cost of living factors and especially look, I mean we've talked about this. The vast majority of Iran attention that is paid by most people is to gas. Gas has remained now high for almost three months. So it's been 80 something days. I think that this has gone okay, so the elevated gas price, let's call it two months. Months. This entire time, it's not going down anytime soon. And I really said, like Memorial Day weekend. I thought a lot of people would really wake up because that's the first probably long drive and you fill up a couple of times or something like that. And then now, especially as we move into summer travel season and the general inflation, what we're really watching is also what it does is when life feels extraordinarily unaffordable. And then you also, I think, have this kind of absolute obscene level of wealth spending that is being flashed by a lot of the cultural elite. At the same time. It really makes people very angry. Like, have you seen all this Knicks tickets stuff?
- [25:14]
Krystal Ball
Oh, yeah.
- [25:14]
Saagar Enjeti
Like, yeah. What is the courtside seat for these? I think NBA Finals are going for like $100,000. I asked the guys in the control room, I was like, what do you guys think? And they're like, oh, I don't know, 10, 15. I was like, try times 10, you know, to get on there. And US Open. I know you love the US Open. I think the new tickets have gotten gone up to like $2,600. Like, that was. Again, I'm not going. But I saw people.
- [25:39]
Krystal Ball
Kyle and I usually go, but I haven't looked at the ticket prices yet. But yeah, the. I was looking at the prices for the Knicks because Kyle's a big Knicks fan. So I was like, oh, maybe we should go to a game.
- [25:48]
Saagar Enjeti
Right.
- [25:48]
Krystal Ball
Just to walk into the door. Like the nosebleeds. And if you've been in msg, those nosebleeds.
- [25:53]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, they are actual nosebleeds.
- [25:55]
Krystal Ball
Okay. Thousands of dollars. Yeah.
- [25:58]
Saagar Enjeti
It's crazy.
- [25:58]
Krystal Ball
It's going to be the most expensive, like NBA final in history.
- [26:02]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. And I think I'm only bringing it up because it gets flaunte for a lot of people. There are a lot of casual Knicks fans, last time I checked, a lot of casual US Open fans. Tennis, it's not just a rich man's game. Yeah, yeah. The front of the final is. But a lot of people like to go. And so you see people out there like, what is going on? Like, I can barely keep my head above water. And then there's other people. You know, Jason Calacanis is tweeting about, you know, going to these Knicks finals games. That's fine. They're billionaires. Like, they can go. I'm just saying, I Think it rubs it in a lot of people's face at a time like this.
- [26:32]
Krystal Ball
Well, and I think for, I mean, for a lot of people, many, many, many, maybe not a majority, but Pretty close to 50% are really living hand to mouth. And so if gas prices are up for a sustained period of time as they have been, they're already really feeling that pain. And that's starting to trickle through to grocery store prices as well. If you look at the costs of your classic Memorial Day barbecue items, everything was up really significantly. But don't worry because Treasury Secretary Scott Besant tells us this is just transitory. Just hang in there, guys. It's going to go away quickly. Of course, we've been hearing that for three months now at this point. In fact, somebody had put together a compilation of like all these Trump officials being like, oh, it'll come right back down. Don't worry about it. This was again months ago. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant.
- [27:20]
Scott Bessant
Sir, on the economy, two words, resilience and prosperity. The continued resilience of the economy speaks for itself even during the era around the conflict, and it speaks to the strength of your leadership. Pro growth policies are creating conditions for American families and businesses to prosper. We're entering the second half of our 250th anniversary year with renewed optimism and momentum. It has never been a better time to be an American. And as you said earlier, we have a record number of Americans working. The economy that you are building is not only strong, strong, but secure and resilient and better positioned to compete globally. Real GDP has risen 2.7% over the past four quarters, something that many economists said couldn't be done. In the first quarter of 2026, despite Iran conflict, GDP grew at a 2% annual rate. The Atlanta Fed GDP now is predicting 4.3% for this quarter. In terms of prices, I believe the prices are transitory. Oil will be lower than pre conflict levels when this ends. Natural gas is already down, as you mentioned. Drug and pharmaceutical prices, they are plummeting. And rent is down.
- [28:41]
Krystal Ball
That word transitory gives me ptsd stalker.
- [28:44]
Saagar Enjeti
I know. Well, it should. I mean, you know, this is not to get too deep into the woods leads around all of this, but they have the same logic as the Biden administration did and they're actually doing the exact same thing. So if people recall the insane transitory debates of the time, many of the transitory team, transitory and all of that was the idea that the supply side would be Resolved, ultimately that's not what happened. And the reason why it didn't happen is they didn't have aggressive government action. There was also the, there was the invasion of Ukraine. So really those two things together, high gas Covid shock, basically nothing ever went down. And then housing in particular, just because of supply and even some market dynamics, I think that's another huge part of it as well. Just because, you know, assets have gone so wildly up over the last five or six years and then there's a limited amount of housing stock. So that's why housing prices have skyrocketed, especially in very high cost of living areas. But here they're making the same piece where, oh, it'll just go back down. Because the supply side thing will resolve itself. It cannot resolve itself. You have had 80 something days of the Strait of Hormuz. That's closed period. That just. We've had too many oil and energy experts on to discuss what that level of shock to the system will look like. Per Rory, our resident energy expert, he was like, look, oil was trading at $60 a barrel before the war. We would probably be in the 50s right now if the war hadn't happened. Oil's at 100. So you really think things are gonna go back down to 50? Like, no, I don't think so. It will remain elevated. So. And I think even the White House at one point honestly said, yes, gas will not be below $3 a gallon for like a year. Yes, I think that's correct. Fundamentally, even 350 and all that national average of that seems pretty much baked in, you know, for, for a long while.
- [30:35]
Krystal Ball
I guess it all depends on your definition of transitory.
- [30:38]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, that's true.
- [30:38]
Krystal Ball
Because over a long enough time frame, it is transitory. Right. I mean, even the last one, eventually the supply issues worked themselves out and things got back more or less to normal and inflation had come down, down quite a bit. Back to sort of normal levels. That doesn't mean the prices went back to what they were. Oh, no, no. It just means that the rate of increase had slowed. So, yeah. Over the long term, will this be, quote, unquote, transitory? Yes. But for Americans who are struggling right now with no end really in sight and us continuing to bomb and run and Trump threatening to blow up Oman just for funsies, it's not looking too great here. Let's go and put this next one up on the screen just in terms of, you know, where we are with the deal. So Iranian state TV is saying that the draft deal with the US would reopen Hormuz shipping and the naval blockade. But again, there's so much dispute and disagreement. This runs sort of, you know, the Iranian conception here runs counter to the Trump conception that Oman would have no involvement whatsoever. Iran continues to expect that while they will not charge a quote unquote toll, there will be some sort of fee for service. So in their minds, we are not going back to a previous Hormuz status quo. And yet that seems to be now where Trump is really pushing things towards. We can also put a 6 up on the screen, this White House account saying that the report from Iranian controlled media is not true. The memo of understanding they release is a complete fabrication. No one should believe what Iranian state media is putting out in all caps. Facts matter. So the draft proposal that had come out in the press, that had been discussed, they're saying, no, no, no, this is not it whatsoever. Again, not a good sign that we've sort of seen this before. When Trump had originally come out and said, okay, we've agreed to use their 10 point framework as the basis for negotiations. And then when there was pushback from the neocons, then the White House quickly came out, oh, no, no, no, the ten point plan, you guys saw, that's not it at all. Like, that's not remotely what we're talking about here. And so this seems again the same playbook of denying the reality of what the Iranian position actually is because Trump cannot accept and be seen to have taken such a loss in this conflict. And that again is the central barrier to being able to conclude this thing.
- [32:59]
Saagar Enjeti
Yep. That's the problem, is that if the details become public to what they would actually agree to, it would be an unambiguous failure for the White House. This is again explains the Abraham Accords. And so in a weird way, the longer that this continues, I think it benefits Trump because gases is where it is. He says he doesn't care, I'll just believe him. I think one of the reasons why they don't care is because where the S and P is, I mean, literally every single day. Let me look at the futures.
- [33:28]
Krystal Ball
It's down a bit this morning.
- [33:29]
Saagar Enjeti
It's down a little bit. Not too bad. I mean, overall, we're still talking about like crazy all time highs. So. Well, if the market's gonna be at. That's what he and most of the people in his administration care about. There's no real market signal. Even oil at $100 a barrel or national gas price of $4.30 a gallon, look, it's a crisis for a lot people, but it's not for them. It's not $6, which they think that people would be panicking. So they have the Runway. They think that they can just continue this on again, off again, because as long as that happens, kind of like Afghanistan, then nobody has to just put their hands up and be like, yeah, it's a horrific failure, a historic disaster, even though anyone could have recognized it in Afghanistan starting in 2007, probably, maybe earlier on 2005. But it took till 2021 for everybody's eyes to become fully open. That seems to be their strategy right now. Now will Iran accept that? That's the big question too.
- [34:22]
Public Podcast Advertiser
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- [35:25]
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- [36:24]
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- [36:58]
Krystal Ball
so wanted to bring everybody up to date on this rapid spread of Ebola centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We can put this up on the screen in terms of our own country's response. So the CDC is seeking volunteers from their staff to go do Ebola screenings at airports. As that outline outbreak response expands, there's a lot to get to in terms of the US Response that I'll save for a moment. First, let's go ahead and take a look at where the Ebola outbreak is centered and just how dire the concerns are here. We've had obviously a number of Ebola outbreaks, unfortunately not unusual. This already, though, is the third worst outbreak that we have seen. You can see here on the map where the worst, worst spread is. You've had already Hundreds of deaths, 223 deaths that have been linked to this outbreak. You've had 900 suspected cases. Remember, this is an area where it is very difficult to get actual real information. There is a lot of skepticism of the local population in terms of aid workers coming in. So it is hard to know exactly what the case number is, but we can see the way that it has expanded. The other problem is that it appears it was detected quite late where there had already been significant spread before. The World Health Organization and other global health organizations or you know, the US Health organizations detected that this Ebola strain was there and was spreading. There's a few reasons for that. Number one, it is more of a rare strain of Ebola. It's not the most common one, so it wasn't the one that they were routinely testing for. That's number one. Number two, you know, you have a situation where we completely defunded usaid. So a lot of our aid workers who had been there, who may have been in an ability to do like an early warning of, oh, I hear that there's some weird thing that is spreading here, they weren't there. So that may also have hindered the response. And then you also have, you know, this is obviously a war torn area. This part of the DRC is kind of like a rebel stronghold. It's far from the capital. So the fact of the remote location of where this began to develop is also part of the problem. But health experts are saying that this is actually the most rapid spread that they've seen. So even though it's not yet the worst outbreak, it has a lot of momentum, which is why this is so disturbing and why people are paying so much attention to it. Let's go ahead and put B3 up on the screen here. You can see that Uganda has also closed its border with Congo, where suspected cases of this rare Ebola type are surging. They ordered that closure. This is actually in defiance of what the World Health Organization had recommended. And I'll tell you why. Their view is that this border is extremely porous. There's paths that go back and forth, walking paths that go back and forth across this border, across the entire length of it. And so their view, the World Health Organization's view is if you close down the official border crossings, you're just gonna push people to those informal crossings, and it's actually going to make it more difficult to detect the spread and be able to, to stop this virus from spreading. So that's kind of what we know about the extent of the cases here. But there's all kinds of problems. In terms of the response before up on the screen, you've had a number of instances where family members, in this instance, they stormed an Ebola hospital demanding the return of the dead. One of the things that's been instituted in the Congo is that you have to use. Use official authorities to conduct burials because that is one of the ways that Ebola is primarily spread. It has to be direct contact with bodily fluids. And so the burial rites are one of the places that they're really trying to get a hold on. And I was doing, I was telling you, Sagar, I was doing kind of like a deep dive into, okay, well, why are people so skeptical? Because you also have aid workers that are getting attacked who are coming in, trying to spread information and trying to help out. You had Doctors Without Borders tents that were set on fire where you had a number of suspected infected Patients who escaped. And it kind of has a lot of parallels, but in a more extreme form of, like, the vaccine and other medical skepticism here in the US which tends to be among populations that have been directly abused and have reason to be skeptical of the medical establishment in Congo. You can imagine that is taken to an extreme because you've had all kinds of outsiders come in to basically. Basically, like, steal their natural resources and wealth. So when you have people coming in from the outside that you haven't seen before, telling you you've got to do all these things that you don't want to do, there's a natural resistance. Another reason is because this is a part of the Congo that is, like, a rebel stronghold. And so if the official government is telling you, like, oh, no, you've got this outbreak, and you've got to do all these special things, there's a natural skepticism there. And then again, because we defunded usaid, so we don't have these health workers who have been on the ground who have built that sort of trust. Now they see all of these health workers coming in, and they're like, oh, you lost your payday. So now this is your chance to get back on the gravy train. There's all kinds of rumors that they get paid, the health workers get paid per case that's identified, et cetera. So there's significant skepticism.
- [42:24]
Saagar Enjeti
This is very Covid.
- [42:26]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, there's significant skepticism that Ebola even is a thing and not just some, like, invented concoction to further subjugate the population. And again, given their history, you can understand where they're coming from, even though it's incorrect.
- [42:38]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't know. The more you're talking, I'm like, maybe I'm on the Congolese side here.
- [42:42]
Krystal Ball
You can see why they think that way. It's not just like, oh, they're ignorant and they don't get it. It's like, no, this is people who have been incredibly abused, traumatized, exploited, et cetera. So when you suddenly have all these people coming in, oh, I'm gonna save you. They're like, who are you? And what are you really doing here?
- [42:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Totally.
- [42:58]
Krystal Ball
Obviously inhibits.
- [42:59]
Saagar Enjeti
I mean, also, you know. So first of all, like you said, I didn't realize all of that, but I did know about the rebel issue when I was reading about it and how far and how difficult that that also makes it. So you have government authorities coming into a rebel area. And look, I mean, I do think what this highlights is this. First of all, Ebola, I'm not worried about this becoming a global pandemic in the way Covid was. One of the things that we learned a lot during COVID was that why it became so deadly is airborne and the proximity for how or sorry, why Covid spread so easily. Not deadly was because it was airborne and it spreads very, very easily, whereas Ebola literally only spreads through direction contact with bodily fluids. And I also isn't it the whole like it actually kills you so fast? It's not that easy to spread because it's so deadly to the body.
- [43:43]
Krystal Ball
Your ideal for a virus from the virus's perspective is that it is deadly, but not in a large proportion of the cases because if you kill the host then you're unlikely to be able to propagate. So yes, unfortunately, the fact that it is so brutal and so deadly is one of the things that it has going for it in terms of it not spreading too far. But still, for people in this region and for concerns with global air travel, et cetera, it's obviously something that can be taken very seriously. Yeah.
- [44:10]
Saagar Enjeti
And that's another thing we learned about the interconnectedness, how easy it is and how often we'll see somebody who you're like, how could somebody from the Congo end up here? It's like, well, it's not that hard. You can get there in less than 16 hours. That's all it took. I remember the last Ebola outbreak. We had multiple doctors and others that were present here in the US and remember there were cameras on all the hospital hospitals and all those things. I think this was an important story for the reason why you let off with which is cdc. And I do think it actually bears out like the genuine dual crisis that we have right now in public health, which is first and foremost a significant part of the population. My hand up the last people I would want in charge are the Biden era people who bungled the last public health disaster. A significant reason why they cheap and Marty Macri and RFK Jr. I mean literally, I think the number one reason why RFK Jr. Is the current HHS secretary is because of the COVID response. Now I'm not also gonna sit here and say they've done a whole bang up job. Right? Because that hasn't happened either. And so what we've seen is a significant, significant, verified and in my opinion appropriate skepticism of the broad public health establishment. I mean Dr. Tedros from WHA is the same Covid guy, Right. I remember all of the novel nonsense that they were spewing around over Covid. Many of the lies. But then also we have to deal with, well, oh, but we also have now these MAHA guys who are in charge. They've defunded. It doesn't seem like they're all that competent either. So we have a crisis of competence, I think, on literally all levels here in the United States when we're facing now a genuine disaster potentially here with Ebola and people are going to freak out. That's one of the reasons we're covering it early. I remember. I mean, do you remember 2014 with Obama? The holy. It was a national story. It was. Yeah, the wall. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah. So it was wall tracking wall coverage.
- [46:00]
Krystal Ball
Guy coming in and everyone's, you know, cameras tracking him.
- [46:04]
Saagar Enjeti
I remember I freaked out. I went to the same bowling alley as one of the guys who had. Was a doctor at Ebola, and they had to shut the whole bowling alley down.
- [46:12]
Krystal Ball
Oh, my God.
- [46:12]
Saagar Enjeti
And we were all like, oh, my God, we're gonna get E ball. But this is a big thing. I remember. So anyway, we're covering it now for that reason. But this is going to highlight, I think, the same problem is that warring expert opinion. We don't have a real public health infrastructure here in the United States. RFK Jr. And others are not trusted by a vast swath of the country. Many of these other docs, I don't trust them either. So you're like, okay, what do we do? And then when there's hyper politicization, especially with Trump now in charge, I mean, there's a crisis in, I think of competence and of trust right now in public health, which is, look, RFK and others were supposed to restore it. They haven't done so. And honestly, I think that's part of the tragedy.
- [46:52]
Krystal Ball
It's part of the reason why people were so upset and concerned about the hantavirus spread as well. Because I think everyone with three brain cells looks in this and is like, if there's another pandemic, we're so fucked. Like, in every way. There's no trust. The agencies here have been dismantled. They've been doged to death. You've got wildly incompetent people who are in charge. And you can see here, too, some of the fallout of, okay, completely dismantling usaid. There are some consequences to that. And one of them is that we didn't have people there to be able to identify this spread. Now, like you said, I don't think that this is a grave threat to the US because of the nature of Ebola. It's horrific. For the people who are impacted in the region, but as a direct threat to the us I'm not deeply concerned about it, but it's a warning sign. Okay, well, what if it wasn't Ebola? What if it was something that spread more easily? What if it was a virus that was not so deadly that it killed the host, but deadly enough that it's going to kill millions of people like Covid did? We are not at all prepared to detect that. We're not prepared to be part of the global response. Our own domestic facilities are in shambles. The level of population trust is complete and utter chaos and disaster.
- [48:05]
Public Podcast Advertiser
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.com disclosure disclosures
- [49:06]
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- [50:15]
Krystal Ball
you know, I thought there was a quote here from a former CDC director who said that it was it's too simplistic to tie the Trump administration action. This is the Axios report. The that it's too simplistic to tie the Trump administration actions to late detection of the virus. But he said dismantlement of USAID withdrawal from the World Health Organization and deep cuts to the CDC staff delivered what he described as a one, two, three punch to global health architecture. Sort of like climate change where it's very hard to say okay this climate event is because of these, you know, this level of temperature rise or whatever. But you can look at the over overall framework and say yeah, this probably did not help.
- [50:55]
Saagar Enjeti
So this is, I don't disagree with genuinely a word you're saying. I just am not going to sit here and live in a world where USAID was some great functioning organization. Right. Or it was like, oh, it was like it was a money laundering organization for the CIA and occasionally also did some good work.
- [51:09]
Krystal Ball
It did both.
- [51:10]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, right.
- [51:11]
Krystal Ball
But there's consequences to, you know, just completely defunding all of that public health architecture.
- [51:16]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't disagree, I don't disagree. Same with cdc. But it's like we shouldn't also live in a world where every CDC bureaucrat was some like incredible public servant. Like no, they massively fucked up the last pandemic when the cd. I will tell you this for me the way you probably feel about Trump and RFK Jr. I feel that way about both. If I have some masked up freak telling me about what to do with this pandemic. I'm doing a hell of a lot of research this time around. Same people, Dr. Fauci and all these. No, no, no, no. For me to put a mask back on or put some vaccine again in my arm. The amount of skepticism that's going into that is gonna be 200 times fold from Dr. Tedros, from CD, from anybody. I never thought I would be the person who's sitting here trying to read preprints of pharmaceutical studies, but I am now have to be after what I just lived through. Now I'm not saying you should sit here and say, oh yeah, rfk, you tell me what to do and I'm gonna do it. No, that's also not the case. But that's the issue, I think, that we have. I mean, Trump and the hh, the revolution of Trump in particular, which a lot of us forget now, this time around, it's been. I get it. In the beginning, a large part of it was the Biden skepticism of the way cdc, who and everybody handled the last pandemic.
- [52:23]
Krystal Ball
That is kind of crazy because Trump was the one who was president during the last pandemic.
- [52:27]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, sure, sure. Well, I'm not defending him either.
- [52:30]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. I'm just saying, like, the rewriting of that is kind of wild since he was the one who was actually president during that initial outbreak that implemented the initial measures. Biden did a lot to roll all of that back. But, I mean, I would just say that I share some of your critique, certainly of the COVID response, especially, I mean, things like, you know, once we figured out the school closures is to be the most cut and dry. Where once we figured out that, okay, this is not particularly, you know, it's very unlikely to be deadly to a child, and now we can see the learning loss that, I mean, we're still disaster recovering, especially lower income. There's no doubt about that. I would just say, look, as flawed as it was, I would take them every day over what we've got now, which is like, completely different funded. RFK Jr is a maniac crank. And it's. To me, it's the difference between, okay, if you think about the pharmaceutical industry, which I have a lot of critiques of, and the fact that money is so central to it, and the way all of that works and the revolving door. I've got a lot of concerns and problems with all of that. I would trust them a million times over. The, like, snake oil supplement salesman, which is what RFK Jr will like, you know, pump up all kinds of, like, bizarre supplements. Those have no testing, those have no efficacy. They can, like, lie to you directly and there's effectively no regulation.
- [53:51]
Saagar Enjeti
Pharma can lie to you.
- [53:52]
Krystal Ball
No, but there are at least you have to, like, go through clinical trials and there is a process and the thing usually works, you know, the way that it's supposed to. I would trust that million times over. The supplement industry and the snake oil salesman, which is. I do think it is. And which is effectively what we put in charge.
- [54:10]
Saagar Enjeti
No, I think that public health apparatus. No, see, the current, the previous cc. I mean, think about all the lies from Masking to the vaccine, to the booster shots, the mandates that were put in place. I mean, the vaccine didn't work. Like, period, end of story. It was both. Okay, not in the way that they said it was.
- [54:25]
Krystal Ball
Hospitalization.
- [54:25]
Saagar Enjeti
That's not what they said in the first place.
- [54:27]
Krystal Ball
Out there saying that if you get your child circumcised, it's going to give them autism. Okay, that's what we're dealing with now, Sagar.
- [54:34]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. Am I saying.
- [54:35]
Krystal Ball
And all the infectious disease specialists have been, you know, all of that has been dismantled.
- [54:39]
Saagar Enjeti
I didn't mean for this to turn into this, but like, don't forget we had the same public health authority. Said it's because racism is a virus. It's okay for people to go outside and to protest, but if you have a mass protest or whatever that you're actually violating public health. I remember a lot of this stuff. I remember the CDC sex freak who was literally out there having vaccine mandates while engage in gay bondage porn while posting it on zombies. Let's not forget who some of the freakazoids who were in the previous administration.
- [55:04]
Krystal Ball
So you would take this over that?
- [55:05]
Saagar Enjeti
No, I'm saying both aren't bad.
- [55:07]
Krystal Ball
Okay, but this is worse.
- [55:08]
Saagar Enjeti
No, I wouldn't say it's worse.
- [55:09]
Krystal Ball
It is absolutely worse. It is a mess. They've accomplished nothing. All they've done is dismantle. You're ignoring the disasters of the last five years. The public health apparatus that exists. I am not ignoring those disasters. I was here with you covering them. And I share your skepticism. But to replace them with just a bunch of like influencer cranks who just make sure. But why is the previous.
- [55:36]
Saagar Enjeti
Why was the guy who I just laid out here literally who's posting, posting and celebrating his gay kink porn while working at the cdc? Who is in charge of my child's vaccine?
- [55:45]
Krystal Ball
You don't even know who you're talking about.
- [55:46]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, I'll send you. I'll send you exactly what it is.
- [55:48]
Krystal Ball
But Sander.
- [55:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Again, but.
- [55:49]
Krystal Ball
No, but you want RFK junior Over that?
- [55:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [55:52]
Krystal Ball
You think things are better now than the way they were when you had actual people who were at least professional and trying to follow some sort of scientific guidance.
- [56:01]
Saagar Enjeti
You say that that's professional. It's not professional. The same people were talking about. Racism is so horrib. So you're not.
- [56:05]
Krystal Ball
Racism is horrible.
- [56:06]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, sure, yeah, go out and protest. But if somebody else wants to protest, that's. That's not okay.
- [56:10]
Krystal Ball
I mean, everybody should have been allowed to protest. And there were Plenty of protests against the mandates as well.
- [56:15]
Saagar Enjeti
They said one thing was fine and one thing wasn't. You have to lock down for this. You shouldn't lock down for that. Like that was a serious problem, if I recall.
- [56:22]
Krystal Ball
I'm not denying that, Sagar, but I'm saying you had some professionals who had some experts, but that's not professionals. Now you have. That wasn't exactly all you have to say, people. Between Doge and the RFK Jr approach, all you've had is a complete dismantling of the entire public health approach and a replacement with a bunch of cranks who just make shit up.
- [56:44]
Saagar Enjeti
That's what I'm saying. Based on other people weren't cranks either. That is crank behavior. Saying that mandating vaccines for a one year old is crank behavior. Mandating vaccines or lockdowns and school closures
- [56:55]
Krystal Ball
and recommending all that vaccines literally save millions of lives.
- [56:58]
Saagar Enjeti
Hey, well, in terms of reducing livestock,
- [57:00]
Krystal Ball
I would much rather rather have of those vaccines going out to the public and millions of lives saved and going a little too far than saying let her rip and millions of people can just die. And it is what it is.
- [57:11]
Saagar Enjeti
Sins committed in the ERA or in the direction of what you agree with are fine. What I'm trying to point out is that I think that what a lot have happened with RFK Jr and others for dismantling, let's say, of some organizations and what they have done has not been necessarily good. But I will never sit here and defend like the previous public health regime and system. That's all I'm trying to say is you can recognize the disaster and dramatic failures and then also see, yes, we were supposed to have a revolution in a different direction. Ultimately I don't think it's gone in the correct competence way that it has. But we cannot, I just, I cannot sit here and ignore the absolute failures.
- [57:45]
Krystal Ball
No one is ignoring that.
- [57:46]
Saagar Enjeti
But you're saying you prefer it.
- [57:47]
Krystal Ball
And I don't prefer that at all. I took something, I took something that was bad and they made it vastly worse. And there is no doubt in my mind if we had a pandemic now, it would be way worse. And I just don't think that, that there's any doubt about that. The response would be worse. These people are incompetent. They're out here like we're looking for some volunteers to go to the airport to screen for Ebola. Good luck with that. We've got measles, outbreaks, diseases from the past coming back and complete obliteration. I Mean, yes, there was damage to public trust that was done under the previous approach, but is anyone gonna believe what RFK just junior has to say about anything when he just makes up insane?
- [58:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Some people will.
- [58:29]
Krystal Ball
Completely ideological.
- [58:30]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, I'm not. I will treat it with the same skepticism that I did under Dr. Anthony Fauci. That's what I'm trying to say. And I can see very clearly how we will be in that position. I will also blame them because they're the people who are in charge if that's where we end up. And this is. Look, this is why we had to cover this, because this is the reality. We're gonna have Annie Jacobson on soon to talk about her biological war book. And like this. This is probably the number one thing I'm, like, most worried about now after seeing. Because, look, like I said, Ebola is not the big threat, but I'm like, okay, well, these people are in charge now, as you said. Fair, fair. It's all fair. We can debate Doge, cdc, and all that other cuts. Many people like me will remember many of the failures of the previous administration, too. And basically, anything the government tells me from now on, I'm like, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. That's basically kind of where I'm at. And I think a lot of liberals now, like yourself, are in that position because of the.
- [59:21]
Krystal Ball
I'm not a liberal, but anyway, you
- [59:22]
Saagar Enjeti
know what I mean?
- [59:23]
Krystal Ball
How dare offend me that way?
- [59:25]
Saagar Enjeti
I apologize. A lot of people. A lot of people who are against the Trump administration. The catch. All right. Are now also in a similar position to where some of us were under the Biden administration. And I think that is genuinely, like, a crisis point for, again, public health
- [59:39]
Krystal Ball
administration, where Covid was. Most of the COVID response was, okay, sure.
- [59:43]
Saagar Enjeti
What, so to say that what Biden didn't preside over.
- [59:46]
Krystal Ball
No, I'm just saying there's such an erasure of, you know what, the early decision making and the way that went down, and there's a such. Such a. Like, there's just such a fabrication of reality around the fact that the COVID response was all under Biden when.
- [59:59]
Saagar Enjeti
Thousand percent.
- [59:59]
Krystal Ball
Not true.
- [60:00]
Saagar Enjeti
I mean, yeah, we got together. The masking, school lockdowns, all that all happened under Trump. It was warp speed was under Trump, too, which a lot of people also forget.
- [60:09]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, well, in my opinion, warp speed was one of the best things that Trump did.
- [60:13]
Saagar Enjeti
All right, well, there you go. All right, let's get to Hormuz.
- [60:16]
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Saagar Enjeti
What?
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Saagar Enjeti
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Saagar Enjeti
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Krystal Ball
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Saagar Enjeti
Welcome to the history books.
- [61:46]
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Saagar Enjeti
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- [61:53]
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