5/30/25: Trump Tariffs Back On & Israel Sabotages Ceasefire

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar: Trump Tariffs Back On & Israel Sabotages Ceasefire (05/30/25)

Release Date: May 30, 2025

In this critical episode of "Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar," hosts Krystal Ball and Sagar Enjeti delve into the resurgence of Trump-era tariffs, the turbulent ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, and the evolving dynamics within the conservative movement. The discussion is enriched with expert insights, recent polling data, and analyses of international economic shifts.

---

1. Reinstatement of Trump Tariffs and Legal Battles

[04:00] Krystal Ball opens the discussion by addressing the Trump administration's efforts to reinstate tariffs previously struck down by the Court of International Trade. She explains that a federal appeals court has temporarily paused the lower court's ruling, allowing the tariffs to be reinstated while the case progresses to the Supreme Court.

Notable Quote:

Krystal Ball [04:00]: "It is preposterous to imagine that you can as executive claim this much unilateral power for yourself when the power is clearly vested in Congress."

The administration's stance remains defiant, with Trump criticizing the Federalist Society and its influence on judicial appointments, particularly targeting Leonard Leo. This move signals a potential rift within conservative circles, as Trump accuses the society of fostering judges who act as "sycophants" to the administration.

[07:00] Sagar Enjeti adds, highlighting the internal conflicts within the conservative movement:

Sagar Enjeti [07:00]: "Trump is really going for complete domination over all factions of conservatism, not necessarily an ideological break, but complete control."

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2. Pollster Insights: Abundance vs. Populism

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to discussing new polling data presented by Dan, a pollster, which contrasts the effectiveness of "abundance" versus "populist" political messaging.

[05:22] Dan explains the methodology and surprising results:

Dan [05:22]: "The populist framing is overwhelmingly more resonant, with 55.6% more likely to vote for candidates using that rhetoric compared to 43.1% for abundance arguments."

Krystal and Sagar explore the implications of these findings for the Democratic Party, debating whether the party should pivot towards a more populist approach to regain voter trust and win elections.

[10:49] Krystal emphasizes the constitutional concerns surrounding unilateral executive actions:

Krystal Ball [10:49]: "Putting tariffs back into policy making without Congress is a direct challenge to the constitutional balance of power."

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3. Conservative Movement's Internal Struggles

[09:00] Dan discusses Trump's criticisms of Leonard Leo and the broader conservative judicial influence:

Dan [09:00]: "Trump's administration is expressing frustration with the Federalist Society's influence, which has traditionally provided a steady stream of conservative judges."

The hosts debate whether this tension marks a significant shift within the conservative base, potentially weakening its unified stance and complicating future policy implementations.

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4. International Economic Shifts: De-dollarization and New Alliances

Krystal highlights a critical summit in Kuala Lumpur where China, Southeast Asian nations, and Arab states are forging what could become the world's largest economic bloc. This group aims to bypass the US dollar, signaling a significant shift in global economic power structures.

[21:06] Sagar interprets the long-term consequences:

Sagar Enjeti [21:06]: "The de-dollarization efforts and formation of new economic alliances undermine the US's position as the lone superpower, potentially paving the way for a more egalitarian global economy."

This development is juxtaposed with the US's internal policies, suggesting a growing disconnect between American actions and global economic trends.

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5. Visa Restrictions and Impact on US AI Industry

Marco Rubio's announcement to revoke visas of Chinese students with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or those studying in critical fields has sparked debate about its implications for the US AI sector.

[25:28] Krystal points out the irony:

Krystal Ball [25:28]: "A recent study shows that 38% of top-tier AI talent in the US are Chinese, more than American counterparts. This policy could severely hamper the US's AI advancements."

Sagar adds a critical perspective on the sustainability of such measures:

Sagar Enjeti [26:19]: "This could be a strategic move to control the narrative around AI development, but it risks isolating the US from global talent and innovation."

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6. Escalation of Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Negotiations

The hosts provide an in-depth analysis of the fragile ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, highlighting recent developments and the strategic maneuvers of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

[28:34] Sagar outlines the tenuous framework:

Sagar Enjeti [28:34]: "The original 60-day ceasefire agreement has been destabilized, with Netanyahu indicating intentions to restart hostilities, putting both parties in a precarious position."

Krystal emphasizes the geopolitical ramifications:

Krystal Ball [38:56]: "Israel's aggressive settlement expansions in the West Bank and the ongoing conflict with Hamas are straining international relations, with significant economic and demographic challenges looming."

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7. Student Protests and Authoritarian Responses in the US

The episode touches on increasing student protests against government policies, particularly focusing on anti-Israel sentiments and the administration's heavy-handed responses.

[44:53] Krystal highlights the societal impact:

Krystal Ball [44:53]: "Despite stringent crackdowns, student protests continue, indicating deep-seated resistance against authoritarian measures and a commitment to free speech and democratic values."

Sagar comments on the long-term implications:

Sagar Enjeti [45:06]: "These protests are a front line in the battle for the future of American democracy, showcasing the resilience and determination of the younger generation."

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8. Looking Ahead: Democratic Party Messaging and Voter Trust

Concluding the episode, the hosts revisit the pollster's findings on political messaging, discussing how the Democratic Party can adapt to the growing preference for populist rhetoric among voters.

[56:51] Trey Farrow advises on strategic messaging:

Trey Farrow [56:51]: "Democrats need to uplift leaders who authentically embrace populist ideals and demonstrate a commitment to reducing corporate power to build voter confidence."

Krystal reinforces the necessity for credible and consistent messaging:

Krystal Ball [63:39]: "For a populist-based Democratic Party to succeed, there must be an alignment between message and action, ensuring that candidates genuinely pursue policies that resonate with voter anxieties."

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Conclusion

This episode of "Breaking Points" offers a comprehensive exploration of pivotal political and economic developments shaping the current landscape. From the reinstatement of Trump tariffs and internal conservative conflicts to international economic realignments and the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East, Krystal and Sagar provide insightful analyses supported by recent polling data and expert opinions. The discussion underscores the evolving challenges within American politics and the imperative for strategic messaging to restore voter trust and navigate the complexities of global economic shifts.

Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

[Krystal Ball]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is the only place where you.

[Ryan Grim]

Can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Krystal Ball]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad, free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail]. oh, hi, Ryan Grim. How's it going?

[Sagar Enjeti]

It goes. Got my earbuds figured out.

[Krystal Ball]

Nice.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The phone kept insisting that it was going to take the earbuds, so I told phone, guess what? No Bluetooth for you.

[Krystal Ball]

So yeah, that's it. Cut off.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Now the earbuds have no choice.

[Krystal Ball]

When you learn your lesson, I can get Bluetooth back. Yeah, that's right. Well, I was just recounting the travails of my face. That's all you missed so far.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I know that story.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. So anyway, there's a lot to get to this morning. I think what we're probably going to do, we're going to go through the latest with the terrorists, which are like on and off again and who knows what's going to happen there. Ryan, have you just like Ryan's earbuds. Exactly, exactly. We'll have Ryan give us big updates on Israel and cease fire negotiations and what's going on there. We've got some new Zoran Mandani polling out of New York that is looking interesting. I'm starting to, I'm starting to believe he could pull it off. Off. What do you guys think?

[Dan]

It's.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'll never believe it until it happens.

[Krystal Ball]

You'll never believe it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No. And then. And Cuomo will run like Buffalo style in the general election against him. So he's going to have to beat him twice if.

[Krystal Ball]

What's the name of the woman? What's the name of the woman? I'm forgetting her name.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it's a Buffalo mayor. That's right.

[Krystal Ball]

God, we're all totally blanking.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Such boomers.

[Krystal Ball]

I covered that so closely too. But in any case, she beats the like corrupt incumbent, major underdog victory, grassroots like people powered victory, and then they just turn around and run. This dude in the general election, did he run as a Republican or an independent? I don't remember.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think even a Republican, I think.

[Krystal Ball]

He did and he's able to win in the general. So I, I could see Cuomo pulling the same and I think there's a good possibility it would work. There's no laws in New York City that would prevent that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, he already has a ballot line because New York has like hundred different parties, the Constitution Party and this party, so he actually, he doesn't even have to do anything. He's. And he's already on the ballot for the general if he wants it.

[Krystal Ball]

Damn, that's crazy.

[Dan]

By the way, a star is born with Zoran like that's he's been launched.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We covered his first campaign when he ran for.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, did you really? He was not on my radar.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He was part of this wave of DSA candidates who won in the cycle after like AOC and the squad won in 2018. And then this whole wave of DSA candidates won state Senate and State House.

[Krystal Ball]

I remember that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Council seats in 2020.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I remember that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And he was one of them.

[Krystal Ball]

GSA and also I'm sure Working Families Party back. They had, yeah, they had a great, a great track record. A great like election season right in that, in that era. So we'll do all that. I think probably then for premiums we're going to do. You've got the pollster who did the like abundance versus Populism poll that we're going to talk to, which I'm excited about. I need to take a look. Have you guys seen the Abundance World criticisms of this poll? Because I do want to ask him about some of those. So I've got to take a look.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. So basically the criticisms are hilarious. One is that, well, this is not electoral. It's not supposed to poll well.

[Krystal Ball]

But they explicitly say political project. I mean we've all. I've asked Eric about that. I mean they're, you know, say that quite explicitly. So that's funny.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And then they say whenever a somebody with an agenda designs a poll, you can't trust it. And so what they have the people who organized the poll said, okay, you like look at the wording like it's your wording. Tell us precisely how you'd like to do it and we'll redo it. So we can talk to in the pollster about that because they said give us your words. You write another poll that is the most lopsided pro abundance poll that you can think of and we'll test it. Let's see.

[Krystal Ball]

They feel that confident in the results. I mean, I think fairly so. And then this. I've been, I've been excited to have this conversation with the two of you guys. Ben Shapiro taking shots at the Ovan. I mean, listen, obviously it's because he's not happy with the Ovan being like, this is a genocide in Gaza and I have a problem with it. But I do think some of the content, like putting that aside, some of the content of what Shapiro said about the number of grown adults who aren't acting their age, I thought that was kind of interesting and I wanted to get your thoughts on if there's any there there putting Aside the like, you know, the Israel bias, like that piece of it. So wanted to get to that as well. But let's go ahead and start with what's going on with the tariffs. So last we left off, the tariffs were off because the court ruled this, this, what is it? Court of International Trade ruled that the tariffs exceeded the powers of ipa, the authority they were using to do the across the board Liberation Day tariffs. Now we have another court that has weighed in that has said, listen, there's an appeal process that is going to play out and in the meantime, we are going to reinstate those tariffs for now. So they say a federal appeals court on Thursday granted the Trump administration's request to temporarily pause a lower court ruling that that struck down most of President Trump's terrorist. Trump administration had early told the U.S. court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit it would seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court as soon as Friday if the tariff ruling was not quickly put on pause. So they are headed to the Supreme Court. There's one other piece of this I want to put up before I get to start with Emily's reaction, because I'm very interested in what you have to say about this. So Trump, in response to this, starts tearing into the Federalist Society, which is involved in vetting all of these judges, and, and specifically tears into Leonard Leo, the head of the Federal Society who is so influential in conservative circles. And Emily, I know you'll be able to speak to that better than anyone. Here's Tonania's like commentary on this, which I also think is sort of astute. He says Trump now denouncing the Federalist Society, saying he doesn't want their judges anymore. Pretty much the last tie to conservatism as an ideology. We're getting judges from now on who act like sycophants in the administration. But anyway, I won't read this whole thing, but this is just him like really going after Leonard Leo and calling them backroom hustlers and all these sorts of things. So, Emily, tell us, you know, how is this being received in conservative world? And what is your view of the, the import here?

[Dan]

This is how a lot of conservatives actually feel about Leonard Leo now. And I oh, really? MAGA conservatives. There's a difference between the sort of old conservative movement that is still really loyal to the the Reagan movement crew and the Reagan years and the Reagan legacy. And then there's MAGA World, which has been frustrated particularly by Amy Coney Barrett, sometimes by Brett Kavanaugh, and then also by some of these lower Judges, these lower court judges. And so it's not really surprising that Donald Trump has had that planted in his ear and that he would even like kind of organically feel frustrated by that. It's just a matter of time before that, you know, even boils over further. But it was interesting in that true social post because he also says he doesn't even really think it's Leonard Leo's faul fault. So like he spends the first half of the truth social post unloading on Leonard Leo and then being like, but actually like these judges, it's these, these judges are just a complete and total disaster. So it was weird because Stephen Miller.

[Krystal Ball]

Says they're communist judges.

[Dan]

Communist judges, right. Which certainly would have nothing to do with Leonard Leo. So anyway, all that is to say it's pretty like, I wonder where this goes from here in conservative world because the Supreme Court, all day, the White House yesterday was saying, we're going to take this up to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court we are utterly confident will decide in our favor. Well, the Supreme Court, Donald Trump, when he says Leonard Leo helped him pick judges, he's talking about dozens and dozens of people in lower courts, but also the Supreme Court.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Dan]

Every single person on the Supreme Court that is a Trump appointee or Trump nominee was picked from the list that Leonard Leo gave him in 2016 in order to get conservative votes. That's the lore. We go back to 2016. Trump needs to get the support of the conservative movement before the election. And so Leonard Leo gives him a list of judges that he will pick and Trump picks every single judge and justice from that list. And so now most of the conservative majority is Leonard Leo Trump picked. And the White House is saying they have every bit of confidence in them. So it's contradict. It's a self contradiction.

[Krystal Ball]

Of course, it's wild to think too. So first of all, I mean, I certainly would not surprise me if the Supreme Court upholds the decision that the tariffs exceed the statutory authority because part of the Federalist Society was cultural issues and part of it is being very pro business and business is not excited about this tariff regime. Would not surprise me at all if that was the finding. I don't know. And also, I just, I mean, I think on its face, it is a preposterous, it is preposterous to imagine that you can as executive claim this much unilateral power for yourself when the power of the person so clearly vested in the Constitution with the, with the Congress. So putting that aside, it's also ironic that, you know, back in 2016, right after the grabber by the pussy fallout is happening and he's at risk of losing the evangelical right and there's like a real, you know, potential split in the foundation of his coalition. The way he shores that up is by putting out this list of, like, Federalist Society. Like, here are the Supreme Court justices I will consider. Like, I'm locking it in now. These are the people, and they're your people. And that's an important part of how he's able to keep his coalition together and secure victory. So it's wild to now fast forward to now and see him going after them because they're not just doing everything he wants them to do. You know, to Hanania's commentary there, I agree, and I disagree because obviously Trump is his own animal and it's just like the cult of Trump. But when you look at the primary accomplishments that he has, you know, effectuated in office, it's like destroying the administrative state. That is a big, you know, traditional Reagan type conservative goal.

[Dan]

It was a big Leonard Leo goal, actually.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, absolutely. You know, Russ Vote is deeply steeped in the conservative movement. Like, this is not some rando who hasn't been in Washington before. Right. And then the tax cut from the first administration, which is the number one priority right now of the second administration, it was literally written by like, Paul Ryan and the Heritage Foundation. So it's always with him. It's like, well, there is, there are differences. But also, I don't want to overstate the amount of break that Trump is, that Trump's administration in practice has represented from Republican administrations of the past. Ryan, what do you think about that sort of thing?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, this, like, Trump is really going for a, basically a clean break. Not a clean break from, but complete domination over, you know, all factions of conservatism.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, that's the way to put it. So it's not before him necessarily an ideological break, but he wants complete domination over. I think that's the way, the way to put it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right. It's like, okay, you evangelicals have this, these politics. You Fed sock people have these politics. You Chamber of Commerce people have these politics. You America first or Jenny Vance types have this going on. So you all serve me and this is. And Trumpism is what I say it is. And that's, that's how it's going to be. And so, yeah, this, if, if he gets his tariffs shot down by the Supreme Court, that's a pretty radical rebuke to, to him, his policy and his domination over the, over the entire coalition. So he seems to be, you know, really going for it here.

[Krystal Ball]

Emily.

[Dan]

Oh, sorry. I was going to say, I forget who posted this this week, but someone posted like, this is outer borough mob shit. And it's a really good way to put it because I think a lot of people try to shoehorn what Trump is doing into an ideology, but it's actually Trump is trying to sort of shoehorn. Trump is trying to force the ideology of the right to be deference to Trump. And there are times where it overlaps with the goal of Russ Boat or the goal of Leonard Lee or whatever, but particularly Russ and, you know, creating the unitary executive and restoring executive power and all of that. But there are times when it's also just like Donald Trump isn't overlapping with the ideological goal. Donald Trump is just Roy Cohn as president of the United States.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, that's right. Emily. You had pool duty yesterday. And so you were there for, all of, you know, everything there was to get out of this administration. In terms of the response to this court decision, let me go ahead and play a little bit here of Peter Navarro saying, listen, this pause in tariffs doesn't really change anything at all, will.

[Trey Farrow]

Not affect the negotiations in any way. If people out there in the world simply look at the court decision, the court was clear, as I said, that president has brought authority post tariffs. They took issue with the particular statute they used.

[Krystal Ball]

So there have been other indications, too, that they're going to try to move forward in some way. You know, what did you make of those comments from Navarro and from other administration officials as well?

[Dan]

Well, in that last part there about the particulars of the statute from Peter Navarro is why the administration is projecting utter confidence going into the Supreme Court. They feel like they can, they feel like their constitutional argument will be, like, met with agreement from conservative Supreme Court justices because it's not quite as simple as just, oh, you know, president doesn't have the ability to do this. But the question that I kept trying to get both at the briefing and to Navarro and it's just some kind of luck thing. Some people are very skilled at getting their questions asked like raise their hand super loud or they, if you talk to White House reporters about their tricks comes down to, like how they smile.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And make eye contact.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's a real craft. Yeah. It's like trying to get a drink at a bar.

[Dan]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Ryan Grimm knows what's up.

[Krystal Ball]

Low cut blouse. Does that help?

[Dan]

So anyway, it was the question is just if part of the problem from this kicking through the court system is that it creates complete uncertainty. Again, you can kill two birds with one stone here and go through Congress. Why would the administration not pass the slate of tariffs, or even like a slightly reduced slate of tariffs through Congress? Because then that brings certainty to investors and it removes the problem of the courts. But of course, they know that they can't pass these through Congress. They have no confidence that they would be able to get, you know, Ron Johnson and the Susan Collins, the sort of hardcore fiscal conservatives, but also moderate conservatives even. This is a perfect continuation of what we were just talking about. Even in the kind of cult of Trump era of the Republican Party, tariffs are aligned too far for a lot of traditional Republicans and moderate Republicans. So they're stuck with having to, as you have pointed out many times, Crystal, rely on Trump kind of waving his magic wand, which he definitely enjoys. But that's because it's actually, this is why Congress, why the founders delegated this power to Congress, because it's not supported by the representatives of the public. It's just supported by the president. And so it's a huge problem.

[Krystal Ball]

And the other reason why this is delegated to Congress is the exact reason why Trump doesn't want to have to go through Congress, which is he wants people to have to go and petition the king. And so if you have some stable regime that has to be subject to legislative branch scrutiny, then you take all the fun out of it in terms of what he actually wants to achieve here. Not to mention, you know, all the like, oh, potential development deals that can be thrown his way, or if he wants to do a favor for Elon and make sure they get Starlink or they're partnering with Palantir or whatever it is that's in his basket, you know, of Goody's wish list, then that becomes more, much more difficult to effectuate. If you're actually going through the legislative branch and just.

[Dan]

Ryan, you can respond to this because I think you might have thoughts. It's one of the questions people were asking throughout the day is, doesn't this destroy your leverage? I mean, doesn't going through the courts destroy your leverage when you're going to other countries? I mean, just yesterday, Kevin Hassett was saying they expect many, many deals to be coming in the next few weeks, but who's going to make a deal with you when they don't even know whether the courts are going to block your tariffs from being implemented?

[Krystal Ball]

Absol.

[Dan]

Ryan, I feel like what leverage they're talking to India.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I Don't, I don't actually think that that's that significant, that plays that significant of a role because I think the US has leverage because it's, it's an economic superpower. At the same time, countries are, we're already reluctant to strike deals with us because we just. Trump just renegotiated USMCA with Canada and Mexico just a couple years ago.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. And then he just already tearing it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Up and he completely abrogates it. The United States cuts an Iran deal, they abrogate it down. They're talking about going back into it.

[Krystal Ball]

Like, so the idea ties into Israel and Hamas as well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

So make some, you know, claims with Hamas and then totally turns around, does something different when they talk to Israel.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So the, the courts are like the 70th wild card thrown into a deal with the United States, which is just becoming like a completely arbitrary and capricious country and, and other countries are trying to move, move away from it. You know, just real quickly on the. Yeah. My take on the founders is like they never really even thought of the President as making policy at all. Like that was supposed to come from Congress. And tariffs for the first hundred plus years of the US were a, were major policy. It's like where huge portions of our federal revenue came from. Once we, once we kicked in an income tax and we had a Federal Reserve, the economy and the treasury were run with tariffs as a real kind of sideshow. And so that's why Congress then delegated the kind of moving of the dial to the executive because the policy was already set in place. What Trump's doing is a brand new policy. It's like bringing tariffs back to a central place in our economic policy making like they were in the 19th century. And that you can't do unless Congress allows you to do it would be the argument. It's just all power though, so.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, no, that's right. I wanted to highlight this just to kind of put it on all of our radar. Arno Bertrand was highlighting these deals that are being struck outside of the U.S. to your point, Ryan, about how we're just like this rogue nation at this point. Every other country is just figuring out how to adapt. And he says this has bizarrely received almost zero coverage in Western media, but it's actually massive deal. China, the countries of Southeast Asia, ASEAN and the Arab states. GCC just held a summit in Kuala Lumpur to forge what could become the world's largest economic block, covering everything from free trade agreements and de dollarization to belt and road connectivity. Together these countries have over 2 billion people, 30% of the world's GDP and crucially about 55% of world GDP growth in PPP terms. Here's their joint statement. They agree to massively develop free trade, bypass the dollar. That's an important one. Belt and road expansion. Develop cross regional digital economy framework including an AI and energy markets coordination. So one more sign that the rest of the world is trying to adapt to, you know, the US rogue actions.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And like I was saying, maybe this is a good thing for everybody. It in a, a world where the US is still the lone superpower and, and also sees the rapid development of AI, like we know how that world ends, like with a, like just a plutocracy of like a few trillionaires controlling everything. That's that like I, I'd love to say that DSA and, and the remnants of Bernie are gonna like put the brakes on that. I don't, I don't see it happening. And so if it has to be the us like committing suicide and handing over power to these other countries, who, who at least they might have a better shot at making a slightly more egalitarian world out of this, out of, on the other side of this, whatever this AI development is.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, we need to have Janis Varoufakis back on because he also is tracking both, you know, the de dollarization that ties into this, the deals that are being struck here that Arnault is highlighting along with the US's embrace of quote, unquote stablecoins. And so he sees a world in which you have two competing monetary systems, one that is sort of more, you know, traditionally backed by governmental central banks, like public, you know, currencies that would be emblematic of like the BRICS arrangements and what's happening with ASEAN and China and the Arab nations. And then one that is this private digital currency, you know, and with the quote unquote genius act and these stable coins, which are not stable actually. And the trick there, dollar as the alternative.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The trick there, if people aren't connecting the dots, is it buys you say another 10 or 20 years of being able to kind of float endless amounts of Treasuries into circulation because the Bitcoin people, the crypto people, will have to buy the Treasuries as the collateral for their stable coin. So it's basically a way to, it's kind of a pump and dump for the entire United States.

[Krystal Ball]

That's cool. Yeah, that sounds like it's going to work out really great.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It'll be good for 10 or 20 years. And that's longer term thinking than our economic planners are usually getting into. So let's give them at least credit for that.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I mean, Trump and the other Gerontocracy people will be dead, I guess, by the time it collapses, so what do they care?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Dan]

This was a good piece from. From Giannis that people should check out that he wrote on this recently, which should definitely have. I just closed it, sorry. It was called Trump Wants Big Tech to Own the Dollar. Yeah, it was really provocative.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, that sounds right.

[Krystal Ball]

One more. One more piece on this again highlighted by Arnaud. So Marco Rubio announced they're going to start revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields, any place as RIP American AI industry. According to a recent study by the Paulson Institute, 38% of the top tier AI talent work in the US are Chinese, more than Americans themselves. So again, I guess, right, that's a win for those of us who are very concerned by AI development. We should be like, yeah, I guess. Good work, great job.

[Dan]

This is. This is Trump's real plan. We didn't even see it coming. This is the 5D chess. We didn't even see it coming. This is all a plan to topple the empire's ability to thrust us into AI, into the dystopia of AI. So well done, Mr. President.

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[Krystal Ball]

It is, it is wild. It is wild to see the very obvious consequences of these actions in any case. Anything else there, guys? Are you ready to move on to Israel?

[Dan]

Good.

[Krystal Ball]

So Ryan, you guys have been doing the best reporting on what is going on with these ceasefire deal negotiations. So I'll pull up here the, the framework, the text that you guys published of the term sheet delivered to Hamas by Steve Witkoff and you can talk us through some of the details here and also the larger context.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, so the, the original deal understanding as, as Hamas kind of described it that Jeremy reported on last week into early this week was that there would be a 60 day ceasefire. The Israeli forces would withdraw to their March 2nd positions. There would be five captives released on day one and then five hostages released on day 60. And the idea there was that breaking them in half and spreading them out forces Israel to abide by the ceasefire for that entire 60 days. And during that 60 days. The US would guarantee the stability of the ceasefire and would pressure Israel to negotiate towards a long term truce that the war would not start up again on day 61, the new agreement. Oh, and how that unfolded, Jeremy was able to get the details of this and publish that there was an understanding between Hamas and Wyckoff that Israel immediately comes out and they don't want to do this. They say they don't want to do this. Witkoff then calls Axios Barak Ravid and says, I'm really disappointed in Hamas's reaction to this and so blaming Hamas even though Hamas had accepted the terms. So then Wyckoff goes back and he's like, okay, what can I tweak in this to get Israel on board? Which again tells you that Jeremy's reporting was correct because the deal would not have gotten more favorable to Israel if the original one was okay with Israel, but not okay with Hamas. So now they have a new deal which instead of the five, the second half of the captives, and there are, they're believed to be 20 living captives remaining in, in Gaza. So the five, instead of being released on day 60, would be released on day seven. And the language around Israel kind of withdrawing back to March 2nd is much vaguer. And the Lang, the language about the, a long term truce is ZVEG giving Israel the ability to restart the war. Netanyahu met yesterday with hostage families and audio of it immediately leaked which people in Israel, reporters in Israel were speculating or just guessing that this was a deliberate Netanyahu leak. And so in his conversation with the hostage families, he was telling them, we're going to restart the war. Like it's happening. Like, I'm sorry, like, and we hope we get the rest of the living captives out, but we'll see. And just letting you know, we're going to break this deal.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And the thinking of Amir Tabon, our ETS columnist who's been on our show, his analysis is that Netanyahu is pushed, is put that out to pressure Hamas to reject the deal. Like, his preference is that Hamas reject the deal rather than accept it. And then Netanyahu has to break it because even though he's willing to break, comes with a political cost. Like the world has completely lost its patience with Netanyahu and his genocide. It's like Europe is, you know, it's 20% of its trade. Even Germany is, is telling Israel that, that this is, that this has gone too far. So on the one hand, you could imagine why Hamas is still debating this internally. You can imagine why they would reject this deal because it may be seven days of a ceasefire.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And then right back to where they were.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

On the other hand, you can imagine why they would accept it, because if Netanyahu wants them to reject it, you could think, okay, whatever Netanyahu wants us to do, we should do the opposite. And it would further isolate Israel internationally if they once again broke another ceasefire. And so the question for Hamas is What is a seven day or a 60 day ceasefire worth to them? And if they're, because, as they say, their remaining leverage is the 20 hostages that they hold, if that's down to 10, and increasingly maybe shrinking as Israel's relentless bombing campaign, you know, puts their lives at risk on a, on a minute by minute basis. So there was a lot of hope in Gaza. You saw people, you know, almost like pre, celebrating the possibility. And this was just such a, just a poignant and painful thing to see because the expressions of joy are a reflection of the depth of the pain.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But there's what we don't know yet how, how this will go. And it's, to me, it's pretty hard to, hard to predict.

[Krystal Ball]

Ryan, what do you make of, like, what can we read into Witkoff and the Trump administration's role here and their preferences? Because, I mean, you know, as we sort through all these details, which are really important at the end of the day, the, you know, probably the critical factor is what the Trump administration is willing to do to compel BB2 and the war.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And it doesn't seem like they're willing to do much because if they had just, if they had just kept the arrangement something similar to, all right, five on day one and five on day 60, and Netanyahu is publicly saying, screw you, I'm going to restart the war as soon as I can. At least, at least you're then forcing Hamas to ask the question of, is a 60 day ceasefire and a flood of aid worth it to this population that is being pushed into total anarchy, like at this point. Whereas when you say, is seven days worth it? It's like, well, you know, they might not even let much. They'll barely let any aid in for seven days and then start bombing again. So, okay, they agreed to 60, but like they're being very public in their, in their, you know, confidence that they don't have to abide by it. So, yeah, without, you know, without, without Witkoff pushing it for slightly longer, it does suggest that they're not willing to do that much.

[Dan]

It's interesting that from. Let's just say from Netanyahu's perspective, he probably feels like he is on the precipice of a generational opportunity for like Mara Gaza.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He has said that repeatedly. Yeah, totally.

[Dan]

But then also the flip side of that is a, the alternative is the reconstitution of Hamas with any type of, again from his perspective, any type of ceasefire. So he thinks that he's on, he's walking this like very, very fine line between getting exactly the like fantasy scenario from the Israeli far right's perspective or losing it and having Trump and the United States go into a future that is much more skeptical of Israel and has a much more skeptical alliance with Israel. And I guess it's sort of like they, they feel like they're on a tightrope. And I don't, I mean, I don't think they realize that the more skepticism of the alliance future is kind of already here.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot to that and I think this ties into it as well. They're, you know, rapidly moving to enable the additional expansion, major expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank. You know, they're worried that there will be international, real, international pressure for some sort of a, you know, Palestinian state to be recognized in some sort of a two state solution to be forced upon them. And so, and, and look like Bibi grew up in the United States. I mean, these are people who deeply understand American politics. They probably understand it better than almost anyone, to be honest with you, and where the pressure points are and how to get their way and when the clock ticking and when it's not. And so look, they can read a poll as well as anyone else and see the way that first of all, the, the privilege that they enjoyed of having lockstep, unified, bipartisan support, it is going to come to an end. Like you cannot sustain a situation where the base of one party, the Democratic Party, is so dramatically at odds with the elected leadership of that party. And that's going to come to a, I think it's going to come to a head quickly in 2028. I think this will be a litmus test and that you will not get through a Democratic primary without having a very different position on Israel than, you know, Joe Biden and every other Democratic president has had in modern American history. So they know that that bipartisan consensus is going away. And even within the Republican Party, you know, older Republicans still have very positive views of, of, of Israel. Younger Republicans do not. So you know, Ryan, how much of, of the actions that are being taken now. You know, the attempt to actually consolidate some sort of like wild Greater Israel project, the dramatic expansion and the dramatic like escalation and oppression and violence in the west bank, obviously the attempt to do the final solution in Gaza. How much of this is a realization of like this is our moment and if we don't go for everything right now, the landscape is going to be different for us in the future.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And I think there's almost a break from reality among the political class and a lot of the population in that. There's a real impulse now of Israelis saying we don't need the world, the world has abandoned us. And it's a break with reality in the sense that for 20 months the entire world, western world has financed and armed their war against this small militia in Gaza endlessly, like in unlimited capacity in a way that no other small country has gotten yet. They feel like the world has abandoned them and that the world has turned against them. And so their response to that is we don't need the world. We have this startup nation, we've got all these high tech firms. We make a lot of, they do make like a non trivial amount of their own weapons. Like they have their own weapons manufacturing capacity. So they're like, we don't need the, we don't need the world. We're going to go it alone. There are some who are like, we're like just a couple million people here and we don't want to never leave. And also like we're dependent on international trade. We're dependent on all the favorable terms that we get from the, from the U.S. we don't have just the demography to keep up endless wars on the north and the northeast and the south. Like there were numbers coming out, something like 17,000 wounded and then they're talking about tens of thousands more with debilitating ptsd. They're recruiting people suffering from PTSD back into Gaza, like back into service.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, and they have major long term demographic issues because Palestinians made up a.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Lot of their labor force.

[Krystal Ball]

That's true too. Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And you know, thing like the economy is, is struggling and so people, you know, people can't, who can leave or leave. Like a lot of them have American passports, European passports and so can, can leave.

[Krystal Ball]

And the ultra orthodox don't want, don't work in the military.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, they don't want to work either.

[Krystal Ball]

They have a lot of kids but they don't want to do anything.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So yeah, it's going to be just them and the Palestinians that stay behind it's like. Or who survive. So the idea of where they're going to take this, to this greater Israel accomplished through endless war, and the reality of their demography and their economic base are very far apart right now, and I think kept alive by war fever.

[Dan]

Think of how that's influencing the donor class that influences the Trump administration, actually politicians on both sides of the aisle. But since they have the keys to the car right now, the Trump administration, that, I don't want to say paranoia, because that would imply that it's irrational or unfounded, but that almost desperation, you can sort of sense it, I think being pushed to the politicians as they're, they're hearing from people who they've taken a lot of money from and have seen as great allies for a long time. It's sort of been like on the Republicans, it's just sort of been natural and a very unquestioned alliance and like a marriage, really.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And meanwhile, the nanyahu government announced 22 new settlements in the west bank yesterday, which the government explicitly said, the purpose of which was to prevent and make impossible the formation of a Palestinian state in the, in the West Bank. Like, they're just saying this out loud.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You know, so that one, the path they're choosing, they want to, they're, they, they are desperately hoping to go down is this, and this one of endless war when, you know, the world really, despite their paranoia, does not have any sympathy for Palestinians. And if Israel today said, we accept this term and we accept Hamas's long term truce in Gaza and we accept a technocratic government to run Gaza with the support of the, you know, Gulf countries, and then let Ireland and Spain and some others, like, recognize that little rump as a Palestinian state and they just stopped bombing and starving the Palestinians, the world would be like, that's fine, that's good enough. From a perspective of global justice, it would not remotely be good enough, but the world would be fine with that. The world would just like Israel to stop humiliating the west when it comes to its hypocritic values, but doesn't really have much concern for the actual Palestinian people.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I think that's very apparent. And to Emily's point about the increasing desperation here in the U.S. u.S. Include in particular, we have this new announcement from Marco Rubio saying the US Is implementing a vigorous new visa policy to prevent foreign nationals with anti Israel views from traveling to the U.S. this is the job that Laura Loomer is auditioning for. And at the same time, you know, even given the costs of pro Palestinian protests at this point. You had a large. You've continued to have large protests at graduation ceremonies in particular. This was. You had one at Hunter College. I can pull this up. Drop site. Again, shared this rely on you guys so much. Students protesting the administration. You know, if you listen to this, Jane is great.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What's her. Talia. Otg people should follow that one.

[Krystal Ball]

She's great. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, so they, you know, this was a quite significant protest. If you watch this video and the, you know, percentage of students who were involved here. So even knowing the incredible consequences that students have faced.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. The MIT speaker, like when you've lost MIT and Israel has to be watching this and shuddering. These are the future elites of this country.

[Krystal Ball]

That's right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Who believe that this is their primary.

[Krystal Ball]

That's why, I mean, that's part of why there's such a panicked authoritarian reaction is because it's they canary mission. They don't see it as just, you know, oh, these like college kids. And they don't really mean. It doesn't really matter. And this is so impotent. And you know, sometimes it does feel impotent because it's not like it has changed the policy. But it is, again, an indication that the writing is on the wall and that even in spite of your incredibly authoritarian, anti free speech, illegal, unconstitutional crackdown, that they're still willing to protest and speak out and, you know, stand for what they see and what I see and what irl.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's the most IRL vers of the beatings will continue until morale improves that I've really ever seen. And the more the beatings have continued, the worse morale has gotten that they're willing to continue to push these protests in the face of indefinite detention of protesters. People, the NYU guy losing his diploma. We have a little petition going at drop site for the NYU speaker who. They're withholding his diploma. It's degree.

[Krystal Ball]

That's insane. Something very basic, right?

[Trey Farrow]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

30 seconds of like, don't do terrible things to civilians.

[Krystal Ball]

How dare you?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Outrageous.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And in the face of that, to see all of these kids still doing that, it's like the beatings are gonna have to really increase.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I also, it meant a lot to hear from Abu Bakr that, you know, he and other Palestinians in Gaza have been tracking those protests and found it very heartening as well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's go ahead and talk a little bit. Oh, we've got. Actually, we've got Dan here. Should we go ahead and talk to Dan about the polling, then we can. We can push Zoran off until. Until after we talk to Dan.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, let's do that.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay.

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Hey, Dan, welcome.

[Trey Farrow]

Hey, thanks for having me.

[Krystal Ball]

Thanks for doing it. Appreciate it. Ryan, you want to set this up?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, let's do this. Let me find this, let me find this Axios poll. So, yeah, Dan, while I'm looking for this poll. So you were the pollster basically, who ran this viral poll that was published first in Axios that has caused all sorts of discourse back and forth about polling, about abundance, about populism. So just frame up for people kind of what the question was that you wanted to get from, from voters. Like, what were you trying, what were you trying to figure out? And then I'll, I'll pull up some of the, the discourse. Yeah.

[Trey Farrow]

So when I was approached by Demand Progress about this, the, the idea was.

[Sagar Enjeti]

To, and they're, they're a kind of populist, like left, left, right, like more on the left, but like they work in coalition with the right a lot. Yep. Yeah.

[Trey Farrow]

So the idea was to just test kind of the resonance of all of this, you know, the arguments around abundance relative to what we look at as more traditional populist ideas. And look at, you know, in terms of people's understanding of why there are economic struggles that, you know, that working class and middle class people are dealing with, you know, what do people think is the cause of that? Is the cause more within the abundance framework or the populist framework? What do people want to hear candidates for office, for president, for Congress talk about, you know, the same kind of split. And then what do people think is the best way to solve those things and address the concerns of middle and working class people? And we put it together to just make sense of it. The purpose was not to go public, to try to prove anything. I was skeptical from the beginning because it's not, you know, they're not mutually exclusive concepts. And I, you know, it's much easier.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The ultimate goal of populism would be to have abundance for all, Right?

[Trey Farrow]

Absolutely.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right.

[Trey Farrow]

So I was skeptical going in, but the idea, we just wanted to get a benchmark since people were arguing about it and there didn't seem to be some good data, just kind of placing where things fall. The interesting thing that happened when we got the Results back was overwhelmingly like across the board, the traditional populist ideas resonate far more. People's sensibilities about the cause of their economic anxiety and challenges for working class people completely fall into a thing where a lot of us, you know, have been talking about a lot. Now that doesn't mean to the exclusion of some of the abundance ideas. And I think it's important that there are places where people do understand that there can be regulation that has unintended consequences to hinder, you know, to artificially shift the supply curve and cause problems there. So again, they're not mu. Exclusive. But if we're thinking about how to realign where Democrats credibly talk to the electorate to win elections and implement stuff, there is no question that that populist framing is the stronger way to, to go about it. And that can include abundance.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Give us the top lines on that and then we'll get into some of the criticisms of it.

[Trey Farrow]

Yeah. So the most straightforward thing that we did was we tested, we laid out the, the whole framing of what the abundance argument is, you know, based on, you know, the book and the literature, what people are saying. We tried to be, you know, really good faith, capture what it is that they're talking about. And we asked the question.

[Krystal Ball]

I pulled it up here. The. That leads the first sentence of the abundance framing versus the populace framing.

[Trey Farrow]

Yeah, great. So overall, we asked if a candidate for Congress or president made that abundance argument, would that make you more or less likely to vote for them? Overall, 12.6% said much more likely, 30.9 said somewhat more likely. So it's a total of 43.1% said more likely. Almost 30% said less likely overall. So that's, you know, not super strong. The populist argument, which focused on, you know, corporate power primarily, the much more likely to vote for a candidate using that rhetoric was 26.3. The somewhat more likely 29.3%. So a total of 55.6% more likely and only 24.2%. Now that, again, like that was primarily among Democrats, but independents very much. To the extent that there was an appetite for a lot of the abundance arguments there, it felt not exclusively, but disproportionately toward the Republican side. And independents acted more like Democrats in these frameworks.

[Krystal Ball]

Interesting.

[Trey Farrow]

And then one of the important things. Right. So then we just asked the question, well, now that you heard both of these perspectives, which one do you agree with most? Even if neither is exactly right, the abundance got 29.2%, the populace got 42.8% unsure. Got 28%. And that goes back to one of the amusing things about how all of this went viral. And there was all this debate on social media for the past couple days where it's like, this is not the end of the story or the end of inquiry into these issues. This is one poll. And there, you know, and a lot of the stuff that came up, a lot of the critiques, people were like, well, did you try pulling this language? Like, oh, like, like we will in the future. We'll continue to look at this and other people will in the future as well. But the striking thing is how people are telling us in this, they think the cause of their economic anxiety is corporations having too much power, there being too much corruption on the levels of government. And then even when we ask, like later, and this is stuff that hasn't got, like, public yet, we ask, like, to the extent that there's excessive regulation, is that the fault of big corporations using their influence for their own profit, or is that the fault of activist groups? Overwhelmingly more people said it's the fault of the big corporations.

[Krystal Ball]

Even interesting into the apportioning the blame for these bottlenecks. They're like, corporate power. Yeah. Great.

[Trey Farrow]

Absolutely. And so that's why we ended up going public with this stuff, because we're like, actually, these results are really striking. Of course, it's not going to be the final word on any subject, but it's. It's a pretty important thing to get out there.

[Krystal Ball]

Ryan, can you put back up. Yeah, put back up the Eric Levitz tweet here and let's just get you to respond to this critique thread here. Yeah, yeah, to this critique. He says this poll is shamelessly hackish.

[Trey Farrow]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

And populist rhetoric is definitely more resonant. The technocratic critiques of zoning in NEPA 3. The political case for abundance is that voters will punish you if shit gets expensive, not that fight bottlenecks. Next is a popular message. And this is, I think, consistent with a number of the critiques that I saw you. You sort of referenced. So there were critiques about the language could have been different or, you know, another one we saw is basically like, well, this wasn't really meant to be. And Eric is kind of getting at this. Like, abundance messaging isn't meant to be the most politically potent messaging. It's about delivering for people. What did you make of some. Some of the points that are raised here, though?

[Trey Farrow]

Well, my favorite is his first point that the poll is, was it hackish? Hackish yeah, absolutely. And I, and every single person part of this debate on any side is absolutely hackish. This is not being discussed in corporate break rooms. You know, this is completely in the realm of hacks. His second point, like, okay, so then we're in agreement. The populist framings are far more resonant than these rather technical framings.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Trey Farrow]

So like no disagreement there. That's what we're saying.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. So then, I mean that to me raises the question then, is the goal to run as a populist challenging corporate power, but then do a bait and switch where the actual program is like zoning reform form? Because that seems like a recipe for also political disaster of people being like, you ran on something and you didn't deliver on what you promised. And the way you positioned yourself when.

[Trey Farrow]

When this poll came out, I had numerous friends text me and go, so the solution is to run on populism and then do abundance. And I was just like, I, I think the reality is, and, and this is an important thing when we talk about what the message should be. There's been all this discussion there was during the previous presidential race and going to midterms. What should the Democrats message be? Message requires that you have credibility. And if people don't believe that you're actually going to stand up to corporations and fight corporate power and do all that, then it doesn't matter if you're, you know, it might be marginally better to say you are, but it doesn't ultimately help. You have to be, be doing it. And I don't know anyone who doesn't believe there are some regulatory changes that would help in certain industries of certain places to reduce the price of things and to create more goods, which is in the abundance wheelhouse. I don't know anyone who disagrees that there's not places to do that. But that has nothing to do with where are you insisting taxes come from relative to the working class to the very rich. How are you dealing with those other policy things? So I think the solution is build the confidence of the voters by running on populist ideas, doing concrete populist things. And also when you find that someone who's in the abundance camp goes, hey, here's a regulation that's actually like not doing what it intended to and is like mucking up some economic system, of course, then take care of that.

[Dan]

Yeah, yeah. Here I'm, I'm sharing this post from Chris Murphy, Senator Chris Murphy, who has dabbled in trying to, I guess, make the Democratic Party's message respond to the populist moment. He says it's a weird juxtaposition because why not craft a message where we aggressively reduce concentrated corporate power and we fix bottlenecks and build more stuff? And Dan, this brings us to, I think, a interesting question as to whether sort of mainstream establishment Democrats, and I think everyone has to include Chris Murphy in that group, are capable of adopting the messaging of, of populism. And, you know, we could talk about in substance, as you just said, marrying it with genuine populism and abundance downstream after being elected because voters say we trust you and that message is appealing to us, but can they actually pull it off, given the way Democrats tend to approach these questions? Do you have a take on that? Like, what would this look like in practice for a mainstream establishment Democratic politician who's not Bernie Sanders to Kamala Harris tried to do this a little bit to, to actually embrace that type of messaging? It seems pretty hard.

[Trey Farrow]

Yeah. I mean, look, ultimately when elections are happening, they are run by candidates and not parties. So it's really case by case who would have credibility kind of carrying that populist water. And I think that people who have been viewed as part of the larger Democratic establishment to date are going to have a hard time doing that because the voters clearly, and we tested some of that in the beginning of this just to get some benchmarks that people don't have great confidence in either party to really carry that water. I think if there's an immediate lesson, you need new faces talking about some really traditional, classic ideas, but highlight the successes where that's, that's working. And I mean, that would be my advice. Like, generally, like if, if you're starting from a point where voters have so little confidence in you, but you feel like you've got a winning message and a winning agenda, you have to first of all mean it. And I'm sure everyone could debate for hours whether most of the top level Democrats really give a shit about this.

[Dan]

Stuff or Senator from Connecticut.

[Trey Farrow]

Yeah, yeah, but it's like if you really want to build a populist based Democratic Party, then you need to, to uplift leaders who are credibly carrying that water to some degree already and keep kind of amplifying that.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I think that's, it's such an important point. It's why the Bernie AOC oligarchy tour has been so effective, is not only because the message resonates, you know, and is consistent with the populist messaging that you're testing here, but they're both people that have you know, some credibility in the space, Bernie Sanders in particular. And so, you know, I think people sometimes miss. That is an important part. You can't just, you can't just. We appreciate, pollsters, appreciate the work that you do, but there has to be some, some credibility to back it up. The thing that, you know, was the, the funniest dodge to me was the, the claim by some, that abundance in, like I said, Eric Levitz and his critique, their kind of gestures at it, that abundance isn't really meant to be a political platform because that's.

[Sagar Enjeti]

While you're speaking, I'll put up a.

[Krystal Ball]

Couple examples of this. Yeah, because the, I mean, I had Derek on Breaking Points. I got to engage with him on a bunch of these points. You know, I explicitly asked him the question, okay, well, is this out of policy reforms, because that's one thing, or is this like a central message and political platform and movement? I've read the book, by the way. You know, I read the whole book. I've engaged with the critiques, I've engaged with the defenses, all of those sorts of things. And they're consistent in saying, no, this is, yes, it's some specific policy ideas, but this is really about how we think the national Democratic Party should be oriented. And this is, you know, in evidence by the fact that Ezra Klein is, like, meeting with the Senate Democratic Caucus. If you were most interested in, like, the, you know, local level zoning reform, you wouldn't be going to the national political party. You'd be going, like, you know, to the San Francisco board or mayor or, you know, other localities where you think that this program really needs to be effectuated. So that was, to me, you know, an interesting almost admission that they recognize that, well, actually, as a messaging device to organize a political project around, there are some weaknesses here.

[Trey Farrow]

I think that people were arguing that point from different sides, at least in the little firestorm online. Yeah, because there was a lot of focus on, oh, if you had used this slightly different language, maybe it would have polled better. Which was also an amusing criticism because we use the exact language that the leading proponents of abundance have been putting out there. So if the argument is that that language actually sucks, like, maybe you should talk to the.

[Krystal Ball]

Can you, can you just elaborate on that, Dan? Where did the language come from?

[Trey Farrow]

So a lot of the frameworks in the book, like, for instance, the concern about using bottlenecks and the suggestion of using red tape, like a couple things on that. First off, like, sure, in future polling, we'll test red tape, like cutting red Tape, no problem with that. The language itself came from largely the book which mentions bottlenecks at least a dozen times and to my understanding, does not mention cutting red tape once. And we do talk about reducing regulations. But the other point is, like, in understanding polling, like, we're not testing words, we're testing a political program that uses those words. So if someone reads a full paragraph explaining a policy, a set of policy ideas, and one word is different from what you think, the ideal word, that's not going to substantially change the results because people understand what they. What the concept is. So a lot of the focus on that, like, one word in one term, like, sure, we can test things differently, but that's really not gonna be like, you know, the magic bullet that suddenly makes abundance the thing everyone's clamoring for.

[Krystal Ball]

Because especially when it wasn't close, you know, if this was like a 52:48 kind of a proposition, maybe, but it was pretty clear, especially when you're talking about a Democratic base, which is. This is an intra Democratic Party fight at this point.

[Trey Farrow]

Yeah. I mean, but what's so important. And I don't think this is like a new addition to the discussion about how the Democratic Party should rebuild itself. It's an interdemocratic fight right now that requires for ultimate success, that. That's credibly resonant with independence along the way.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Trey Farrow]

And that's the thing that really stands out, like, the fact that the Democrats are falling on, like, what does, Like, a more traditional yet populist liberal. I mean, that's not surprising. But the number among independents are just really clearly falling along the populist line as well.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. Got any other questions, guys? You want to throw it, Dan?

[Sagar Enjeti]

My last one would be, would you commit to. If Jonathan Chait or somebody comes to you with a better question, can you. Yeah, I mean, I put it out in a poll.

[Trey Farrow]

I, I would be more than happy to. I mean, I just can't emphasize enough, like, my skepticism about this initial project from the get go. You know, some people were like, mocking, like, oh, this is obviously not disinterested. I was both disinterested and uninterested. I didn't even want to do this whole.

[Dan]

The perfect combo.

[Trey Farrow]

So, like, for sure, if there's any, any subsequent, you know, research we do on this, like, a lot of the stuff people have brought up, you know, as, as suggestions and criticism, like, yeah, we'll throw.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Can you also. Can you also poll How Many people know the actual difference between disinterested and uninterested. Throw that question in.

[Trey Farrow]

I. I would. I think people will get confused answering that, though.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And for everybody watching, let's do a public service here. Disinterested mean you're. You're, like unbiased. You like you don't have an interest. And by interest doesn't mean you're not excited about the thing. It means you don't have a financial or personal vested interest in the thing. You are disinterested. You're outside as an observer.

[Krystal Ball]

Class time with Ryan Graham different than.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Uninterested, which means you're bored by it. So just everybody get that.

[Krystal Ball]

We're going to do a special show, Jesper Ryan, where he just spends an hour defining relevant terms.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Dan]

You've heard of the Peterson Academy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'll do it if you do that poll question.

[Trey Farrow]

Okay, it's a deal.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And we'll. We'll report on that.

[Trey Farrow]

I'd love to come back and be part of that lesson.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Excellent.

[Krystal Ball]

All right. Great chatting with you. All right.

[Dan]

He was great.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, he was great. Did you know him, Ryan? You've talked to him before?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I talked to him about some polling in the past. He's done a lot of work with David Siegel and the band Progress, but he's. He's really good.

[Krystal Ball]

Gotcha. Nice. Yeah. Fun talking to him. We'll have to find other excuses to have him back. Should we circle back to Zorin? Because I actually feel like. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching the free portion of the Friday show. We're going to move into some premium bonus content, so if you want to watch that as well, make sure to go and subscribe@breaking points.com. and for all of you guys who are already premium subscribers, that portion is going to start right now. Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech. Upgrade today to the ThinkPad X1 carbon ultralight.

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