Emily Jashinsky (2:04)

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com hello everybody.

Krystal Ball (2:10)

Happy Friday. How's everybody feeling?

Mac Callahan (2:12)

Good morning.

Krystal Ball (2:13)

Excellent. We've got Jeremy Scahill here, of course, of Dropsite News joining us at the top of the show to break down some fast moving developments with regard to our war with Iran. I'm still not entirely sure what happened yesterday, Jeremy. Maybe you have more clarity, but it looks like perhaps the Iranians fired on some US Ships. US Retaliated with strikes on Carg island, among other locations. Trump is insisting, though, that all of this bombing does not amount to a violation of the ceasefire somehow. Mac, if you could pull that up, we can take a listen to that and then get Jeremy's reaction on the other side after these strikes. Is the ceasefire with Iran still on?

Donald Trump (2:50)

Yeah, it is. They trifled with us today. We blew them away. They trifled. I call that a trifle. I'll let you know when there's no cease. You won't have to know if there's no ceasefire. You're not going to have to know. You just going to have to look at one big blow coming out of Iran and they better sign their agreement fast.

Krystal Ball (3:10)

Could you give us an update on what is the latest in those talks?

Donald Trump (3:13)

No, it's going. The talks are going very well, but they have to understand if it doesn't get signed, they're going to have a lot of pain.

Krystal Ball (3:20)

So not only do you have him adopting a rather Israeli definition of ceasefire that apparently it doesn't mean an end to war at all, but then he makes another genocidal nuclear, seemingly threat against Iran in those comments. Jeremy, what is your understanding of what happened and what is happening now?

Jeremy Scahill (3:37)

You know, Crystal, one of the things that I've been hearing from Iranian officials prior to this incident in the, you know, actually the night that Trump announced that he was ending Project Freedom, the label that he gave this operation in the Strait of Hormuz, that basically was a total failure. I mean, a couple of ships got through, but the stated mission was to ensure free passage of civilian merchant vessels, and that clearly didn't happen. But what I was told by Iranian officials is that there had been many more clashes between US And Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz than had been reported in the media. And that basically Trump had a couple of problems. One is that the Saudis and the Kuwaitis told the United States that they didn't want to give overflight rights to the United States if they were expanding their operations in the Strait of Hormuz. I don't think that that was, you know, the sort of definitive thing as it was portrayed in the media. It was one factor here as to why Trump didn't go ahead with sort of keeping that in place. But the other part of it was that as US Warships started to move further past the Red lines that the Iranians had said were kind of clearly Iranian territory. Iran considered, first of all, they consider the military blockade itself an act of war. And secondly, when US Ships come in to clearly defined Iranian territory, they view any counteractions that they take against them as defensive. It's unclear who fired first or what, you know, what the actual facts are. Right now both Iran and the United States are claiming the other side fired first. But what is clear is that there was an exchange of fire. The Iranians claim they actually hit some US ships. The United States and CENTCOM are denying that. But what happened then is that, you know, Trump authorized fairly heavy but very short term bombing of an island off of Iran's coastal territory. They also struck in the city of Manab, which, as you'll recall, was the place where in the opening hours of the February 28th bombing that started this war, the US with cruise missiles, hit a girls school, killing 165 people, most of them young girls. And the, you know, the backdrop of all of this is that there has been this exchange of amendments to a 14 point proposal for what is being called the Memorandum of Understanding. It's true that this exists. I mean, there's a lot of propaganda coming from the Barack Ravid Axios, you know, sphere, because what they often do is they, they say that this is the framework, but actually what they're doing is they're reporting on the U.S. demands. And then that puts the Iranians in a position where it looks like they're either backtracking or it's meant to sort of pressure them. So this was going on. And I guess the news of this is that last night I was told that Iran had finalized its decision prior to Trump initiating this bombing against Iran and was on the verge of actually sending it to the United States. And then once these strikes happened that Iran publicly said was a violation of the ceasefire, they said, we're pausing or suspending the submission of this proposal. Then I started to hear from Iranians that the Pakistanis were like going nuts. They were taken by surprise that the United States had done this. Pakistan is the mediating, the primary mediating country. And they were basically frantically trying to get the United States to stop. And Iran, I was told, was prepared to start striking at what they called U.S. interests in the broader Persian Gulf. And it's clear that there were some back channel discussions aimed at sort of calming this down. Marco Rubio says they expect the Iranians to submit their sort of version or their amendments to what the US Sent them. The other day. But I think this could have gone into a very, very intense escalation. And the final thing I'll say on this regarding Trump, I mean, think about what he keeps saying. The Iranians are desperate to make a deal. They just want to make a deal. But the fact is that the Iranians are not doing that. And I think that what the American public, because there was such propaganda about the extent of the destruction that was done to Iran. You had this report in the Washington Post yesterday that actually the Iranians retain a huge percentage, they said 70%, 75% of both ballistic missiles and drones. The American public was led to believe that Iran was basically finished and that it was collapsing. And in fact, the Iranian foreign minister, in a post on X this morning, Abbas Arachi, said that the CIA assessments as published in the Washington Post are actually incorrect. Our capacity is more like 120% of, of our ballistic missiles because they're saying they've been rebuilding them. I think they're telling the truth. You know, I think the Iranians have a far more sophisticated manufacturing operation for their ballistic missiles and drones. They also recently got dual use technology imported from China. The United States is aware that those shipments happened. And I think that at the end of the day, one of the scandals of this is that the US has consistently misled if not outright lied about the extent of damage. And that's why Trump keeps saying, oh, they want to make a deal. The Iranians still feel that they have leverage and they think that Trump backed off in the Strait of Hormuz because he was stuck and because he has a visit coming up with Xi Jinping in China. He wants some kind of a flimsy memorandum of understanding. And Trump wants the Iranians to preemptively say things about their nuclear program that as of this moment when I'm talking to you, the Iranians are saying they are not going to negotiate on the front end of a memorandum of understanding about issues that took three years to negotiate under Barack Obama when the 2015 deal was done.

Emily Jashinsky (9:02)

So that's basically if they're, if they're supposed to be talking about in the front end, 15, 20 year moratorium on enrichment. Jeremy, your sources are indicating that is no matter what debt on arrival, they will not be agreeing to enrichment moratoriums.

Jeremy Scahill (9:16)

You know, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a good question, Emily. And what I've been told up to this moment is that it's possible that the Iranians are going to make some broader general statement about nuclear, that that could be contained in this MoU. There may be some compromise language to that sort of indicates that eventually the Iranians are going to talk about this. Maybe they'll put some statement in there that has to do with, like a nuclear weapon. You know, Trump keeps saying they have to say that they're never going to build a nuclear weapon. Well, that's been Iran's position for a few decades now. And there was a fatwa issued by the late Supreme Leader saying that it would be a sin to possess a weapon of mass destruction. But Trump is really obsessing on that. And maybe that opens some wiggle room where the Iranians essentially restate an existing position. Although, Emily, I will say there is a ferocious debate that's been intensified within Iran's ruling circles right now about whether it was a mistake not to have pursued a nuclear weapon because the North Korean government remains intact and isn't being, you know, bombed by the United States for the sole reason that it has a nuclear weapon. So I think that the Iranians have called it a red line. The idea that they're going to put up terms in any sort of detail or make front end commitments would be a massive concession from the Iranians. And they are saying that they are absolutely not going to do that.

Mac Callahan (10:36)

Jeremy, last night we had, in the middle of all of this, Rachel Scott tweeted out here that Trump apparently called this back and forth, this attack on Iran, a love tap. And again, when asked if this meant that the ceasefire was over, he said, no, it's still in full effect. What do you think from the Iranians pov, how they're interpreting this? Are they interpreting this as a, a simple love tap and the ceasefire is still on, or is this going to, you know, throw a grenade in the middle of everything? How do you, how do you think they're interpreting all of this?

Jeremy Scahill (11:05)

I think that the Iranians are approaching this with what sometimes has been called by both Hezbollah or Iran strategic patience. I think Iran could have reacted in a way where they just sort of lit up the Persian Gulf countries again. I mean, there are reports of explosions that happen in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. And certainly the Iranians have carved out the United Arab Emirates. And as a particular adversary in this, they view them as essentially an Arab satellite of Israel, as doing the bidding of the United States and Israel. So, you know, if there were some strikes, it seems like it's possible that the Iranians did hit the United Arab Emirates, but it wasn't a massive attack. And again, it's still not confirmed but no, I think, I think that they were waiting to see how far this was going to go. If the United States started to assassinate or try to do targeted strikes along with Israel against leadership figures, then I think we would have saw a dramatic escalation. So, you know, I get the sense based on the official position Iran is taking, which is that the spokesperson for their joint armed forces, the conventional military, clearly said this is a violation of the ceasefire, but did not say the ceasefire is over. When Abbas Arachi, the top diplomat for Iran, finally addressed this situation, he zeroed in on sort of how the United States pattern is that they claim to be wanting a deal or on the verge of a deal, and, and then they continue to attack us. So what we have not heard is the Iranians saying that all of this is over. And my understanding is that they had reached a conclusion on their position that they were going to send via Pakistan back to the United States. That may well happen today, but I wouldn't count on it. Just from Marco Rubio's word. I think there's a lot of diplomacy going on right now. And not just Pakistan, but China is becoming increasingly involved. Basarachi was just in Beijing meeting with senior Chinese officials. The Chinese are becoming increasingly outspoken on Trump's military blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. China has the most to lose in terms of the oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz. It's an incredibly powerful country. Trump very much brags about his close relationship with the Chinese leader. And so I think China is also looking at this and saying, Donald Trump's going to be here in a matter of days. He doesn't want to cruise into Beijing on a sort of failure tour. And so I think Trump is the one who's desperate right now, and the Iranians are aware of that. Trump wants some piece of paper he can point to where he can claim that he's now again ending a war, by the way, which he started, and then rolling into China so that he can feel like he's sort of the good guy in all of this. The cards are in the Iranians hands right now to an extent. And so I wouldn't, I wouldn't look for them to be doing any radical concessions. Trump is the one who's kind of backed himself into a corner here, just in the short term.

Krystal Ball (13:51)

Yeah, well, and I also, you know, found it very noteworthy and interesting, the reporting from you guys and from other outlets, that the Saudis and the Kuwaitis said, no, we're not going to help you with your operation. Freedom, or whatever it was called, which had just been announced with great fanfare. You had multiple press conferences from the Secretary of state, from Pete Hegseth and General Kane coming out and talking about this, touting this thing and all. Hegseth use them. Oh, we're putting a red, white and blue dome over the straight or something like that. And then just as quickly as it begun, it's completely reversed. And we find out behind the scenes, the Saudis and Kuwaitis said, no, we're, we're not going to help you with this, and you need us. So I found that very interesting because that added a limiting factor in that I hadn't considered before. On top of the political limitations for Trump, on top of the economic limitations, on top of, you know, all of the constraints that he has, just in terms of supplies and munitions and capacity, you also add in that your allies, a few of them are going, I'm not sure about everything that you're up to here. And we could pull the plug. Now, the reporting now is that they've said, okay, well, you can use our air bases again, you can have flyover rights again. We're all good. But that seemed to be a very significant development in my view, Jeremy.

Jeremy Scahill (15:08)

Yeah, I mean, as I said at the onset, you know, I think it was a factor. And you have to remember also that right now there's a competition between and a jockeying for prime position in the Gulf between the Saudis and the Emiratis. And, you know, the tensions and the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also goes back to the civil war in Sudan. You know, the United Arab Emirates is widely seen around the world as facilitating massive war crimes. In Sudan, the Saudis were back channeling and trying to get Trump involved with that in a deeper way. The Emiratis, by exiting opec, recently won Trump's praise. They are increasingly, overtly and openly intense in their praise of Israel and their claims that they're going to start deeper military cooperation. And I think that the Kuwaitis and the Saudis, I mean, Kuwait in particular, took a massive beating in this war. And it's the place where the single largest number of American soldiers were hit. I mean, Kuwait was just absolutely pummeled alongside the United Arab Emirates. But the Kuwaitis, I think, felt like they are going to be left to fend for themselves when the United States escalates this, and then they're right on the front lines. Anyone just pull out a map, look how close Kuwait is to Iran. And so I think from Kuwait's Perspective. They're saying the last time you escalated and started bombing them, we had to endure six weeks of massive strikes raining down on our territory. And by the way, it was just announced this week that Kuwait had to put it in order for billions of dollars worth of new Patriot missiles and interceptors that are not going to be ready for many, many years. I mean, that's another story here. So I don't think the Saudis and the Kuwaitis were saying, oh, we don't, you know, we love Iran now and we're going to sort of heroically block you. I think the perception is you didn't defend us. You put all your effort into Israel and all your effort into waging this war of choice and you left us as sitting ducks. So at least it was like a 24 hour protest that they engaged in. But I think the deeper story here is it was just a strategic failure. And that blockade is harming many, many other countries more than it is Iran right now. The Iranians can last for months. I think based on their current supply, they're used to having a resistance economy. The foundation for Defensive Democracies pumped all this stuff into the Trump administration's head, that the oil wells were going to explode within three days in Iran, that the country was going to go into sort of like a deep, deep financial crisis. Yes, they're having trouble with liquidity right now. There's no question about that. Inflation is skyrocketing in Iran. No one is going to say that Iran's economy is doing great, but Iran has many months of supplies and you're not seeing core shortages of food. Malls are still open, stores are still stocked, green markets are still functioning. Gas is still available. You know, this is not the strangulation that Trump thought. And I think that it was just becoming an epic failure. And the clock was ticking toward this China visit. And Trump was under a lot of pressure from China in particular to make a deal and stop this.

Mac Callahan (18:12)

Jeremy, I'm curious. What do you think was the actual purpose behind Project Freedom? Because it seems like a rational person looking at the current landscape would understand that commercial shipping vessels are probably not going to go along with a plan to have the US Military guide them through, you know, forcing their way through this Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Like, was this a genuine attempt that they thought was, was actually going to work? Or was this sort of an attempt to get a provocation from Iran? Or like, what do you make of this?

Emily Jashinsky (18:45)

Or to get around the War Powers

Mac Callahan (18:47)

Resolution or to get around the War Powers Resolution as well, or is it just like a complet. Complete desperation move?

Jeremy Scahill (18:54)

I mean, I think what Emily just said is a primary part of this. I mean, I do think that there was a thought that if the Iranians truly did refuse to make any sort of a deal with the United States and the US Wanted to justify relaunching a war, it seemed like the quote, unquote, legal case that they were going to try to make was that they were engaged in a defensive operation that was humanitarian in nature, and if there was any violation of that, it would have been because the Iranians were acting as the aggressors. I certainly think that was a factor. I also think that it's possible that there were some ships that the United States in particular wanted to get out of there because they may not have been what they seemed. You know, there may have been cargo on some ships that the United States was interested in getting out of the Strait. And they, you know, I think there may have been aspects to this that could have been clandestine operation because something was stuck there that the United States wanted out. I also think that in general, you know, what were. What. What Trump was. Was trying to do was prepare for potentially seizing some territory or bombing the coastal areas. The Iranians, when I was talking to them just a few days ago, said they thought it was highly likely that there were going to be intense strikes along the coastal areas, some of the islands off of Iran's coast, combined with leadership strikes. So I think Emily is probably right in terms of the bulk of the rationale behind it. But I think there was probably some intelligence operation that went on that we don't fully understand because some ships did get out of there. And, you know, I mean, this is a whole other show. But where's that pilot that got shot down and survived, you know, or the weapons officer? And, you know, I'm not, I'm not saying, oh, this thing was all cooked up, but it's possible it was. You know, this. If this administration isn't parading like, those kinds of American heroes in front of it, you have to say, like, why aren't they now? It's possible that we're going to meet that pilot and the weapons officer and, you know, we're going to hear their harrowing story and we're going to have a, you know, a new Hollywood film made about it, but it's really odd. And so all of which is just to say, I think that the US has done a number of operations here that are meant to appear one way to the public and may have been about something else. And that could also be a factor here.

Emily Jashinsky (21:02)

And Matt, could you play this clip of President Trump last night? He was touring the reflecting pool outside the Lincoln Memorial being painted, the ground being painted, no water in it right now. And he's getting questions. We've played at least one of them. But he makes a nuclear threat again just in the middle of the reflecting pool and. Or while he was in the middle of touring the reflecting pool. And Jeremy, I want to get your reaction on the back end as to how this plays in that broader debate that we were talking about, your sources indicate is happening behind the scenes in Iran, where now the question of whether they should sprint towards nuclear weapons is actually real and there are different factions. So let's listen to the president here.

Donald Trump (21:47)

They trifled. I call that a trifle. I'll let you know when there's no cease, you won't have to know. If there's no ceasefire, you're not going to have to know. You just didn't have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran and they better sign their agreement fast.

Emily Jashinsky (22:01)

One big glow coming out of Iran. How does that change the political question of nuclear weapons in Iran, Jeremy?

Jeremy Scahill (22:11)

I mean, I think it's, I think it's really, you know, despite the fact that it's Trump and he's bombastic for an American president to speak in that way and to even raise the prospect, and it's pretty clear that that's what he was doing of using a nuclear weapon on Iran. You know, in 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And there's a reason why that hasn't happened since. I mean, it's even, even at the most insane points of the Reagan administration, you didn't hear this level of recklessness from the President of the United States.

Emily Jashinsky (22:45)

And Reagan behind the scenes was terrified and back channeling with, yeah, Gorbachev.

Jeremy Scahill (22:50)

I mean, but people think of it as like Reagan took us to, you know, to a couple of minutes before nuclear midnight. And then we've got like Trump just talking about it, kind of off the cuff in this way. And, and I do think, I think that there is a very real discussion in Iran. It has gone on the whole time since the early 2000s about, actually since the late 90s, about whether Iran should be pursuing weaponizing nuclear material to make a bomb as a massive deterrent against anyone trying to do precisely what we've been watching. That debate has gotten much more, more serious. And I think it's why. It's part of why this issue of what's going to happen with their 60% enriched uranium has become so important to the Iranians. You had the Foreign Ministry spokesperson of the Iranian government say it's as sacred to us as our soil. That's not just a sort of rhetorical thing that Esmail Bagai was just sort of dropping off the cuff. What it's a reflection of is the fact that the Iranians now view this as very different than the 2015 JCPOA because they've been faced with an actual existential war that was waged by the United States. And so, you know, that's why I think you have real contentious debate about what this memorandum of understanding is going to look like. Iran does not want to be perceived by its domestic population to have ceded a millimeter when it comes to the issue of the enriched uranium because of this debate, because there is a view that it was maybe a mistake not to have actually created a nuclear bomb. So it's not just a matter of Iran is setting these red lines and they're doing it from a place of negotiating and later they're going to capitulate. I think that it's viewed as a very, very serious issue that if they were to give up on the front end of any negotiation, it would be widely perceived as having kind of bent the knee.

Krystal Ball (24:42)

On the other hand, if you think about, okay, well, what's the purpose of developing a nuclear weapon? The idea is to serve as a deterrent. You use the example of North Korea, which I think is quite apt, and you could use the counter examples of, say, Libya or even you could think of Ukraine in this circumstance, you know, after the dissolving of the Soviet Union. But in any case, I mean, they have established that they have another deterrent weapon, which is their control over the Strait of Hormuz. And actually, Kyle and I were talking to Ryan about this yesterday. Ryan made the point, you know, in some ways is actually more effective because you can actually use it. There isn't the same taboo around it. Whereas with nuclear weapons, at least thank God for now, there continues to be a taboo around the actual use. So is that a view within Iran that in effect, maybe we don't need the nuclear weapons as much because we have this other very significant, consequential and clearly effective deterrent at our disposal?

Jeremy Scahill (25:35)

Yes, but I still think that, that the nuclear weapon debate is, is a serious one. But certainly the Iranians recognize that they have an incredibly potent weapon that they can deploy using Very low risk, asymmetric tactics. I mean, Trump is fond of saying that their navy is just sitting at the bottom of the sea. That's true in terms of the big vessels that they had, et cetera. But that's not how they were able to create the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. They did it with very, very small firepower and tiny fast boats and political will. And that's why you see right now a scramble among Gulf countries and others to try to find alternate routes. But a lot of those alternate routes also would either go across massive land areas or they would necessitate the Red Sea. And in the Red Sea, you have Ansar Allah in Yemen, which also has engaged in its own sorts of blockades. I mean, the other day an Iranian analyst said to Ryan and I, you know, you'll know Iran is really escalating when the Red Sea also gets closed. And that hasn't happened at this point. But at the same time, Crystal, I think that will happen. I think other countries are going to realize that there's so much power over the global energy economy concentrated in this small strip of territory controlled by Iran, that they have to find alternatives. I think that's going to happen. Iran also is building up its own alternative infrastructure, and it in recent weeks has signed a number of deals for third country transit routes over land. You know, Iran has borders, either maritime or land, with, you know, roughly a dozen other countries, and seven of those are land borders. And so, you know, the Iranians are looking at, for instance, at Pakistan. Iran views part of its economic future as becoming a central trade hub, you know, in Asia that also services Europe. So, yes, I think, I think that Iran has a very powerful weapon that for some time to come will remain in their hands in a very clear and definitive way. The other thing is, remember Trump used to talk about all the ballistic missiles. The ballistic missiles, they don't talk about that anymore. And I think Iran is going to develop much more sophisticated ballistic missiles, probably with a longer range.

Mac Callahan (27:48)

Jeremy, how do you think Israel plays into these ongoing negotiations? I mean, I think it's pretty clear that throughout the entirety of the ceasefire, they probably would have preferred the US to go back to a full blown kinetic war with Iran. They failed to achieve pretty much all of their core objectives going into this war. Like, do they have real influence over whether or not a deal is even possible? What, what degree do you think they could potentially impact this going forward?

Jeremy Scahill (28:13)

You know, I think, I think the Israelis were very happy at what happened. I think they were a Huge part of it. I think they presented cooked intelligence to the White House, among other things. There's political pressure, et cetera. But I also think that they intentionally contaminated the intelligence pipeline to Trump. And, you know, that's not on the Israelis. That's in their interest to do it. That's on U.S. intelligence professionals. It's also what happens when you bring in Fox News hosts instead of actual intelligence professionals to be running the show. I mean, look, I mean, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, has been kept outside of the loop on Iran in part because she's expressed skepticism about some of these core issues in the past. There's no question that Israel has had an enormous influence over all of this. But I don't think that Israel necessarily thinks it's such a bad thing if this ends under Trump in this way, because I think what the Israelis realize is that Iran has stability and it's to its advantage when it's in a military confrontation with the United States. And I think that the next phase of this is that the Israelis are going to look at how to really ratchet up the economic desperation inside of Iran. I think they do want to bring down the government. I think that they believe that the best way to do that is to just utterly destroy the fabric of the Iranian state economically. So while, you know, while there may be some short term deals or agreements that the Israelis may not like, I still think they feel like what they're going to get out of this is in the long run, an attempt to further weaken and bring down Iran. I think they're going to fail at that, but that's what I think they're in part calculating. And also they want to continue their war in Lebanon. They're threatening to resume the genocidal operations in the 33% of Gaza that is not under occupation right now. They're weaponizing the Board of Peace to basically say that there isn't really going to be a ceasefire anymore in Gaza until the Palestinians surrender and say we have no right to armed resistance against occupation anymore. So I don't think that this is entirely bad at all for the Israelis, even if a deal is signed. In fact, I think Israel would be in trouble if this war resumed in a very serious way, because I think the Iranians would massively attack them with a replenished supply of ballistic missiles.

Emily Jashinsky (30:26)

Yeah, I was just going to say the Mark Levin crew immediately on what late Tuesday into early Wednesday was saying absolutely no to that framework that had emerged about potentially unfreezing Iranian assets and then lifting sanctions. But I guess, Jeremy, that could, I mean, that's just Mark Levin. I guess at the end of the day, that's not Netanyahu.

Krystal Ball (30:52)

Mark Hewitt was upset, too.

Jeremy Scahill (30:54)

Yeah, yeah, I get that and I understand why. What I'm saying, though, is that we're dealing with Donald Trump. We're not dealing with like with Barack Obama, constitutional law scholar. And I don't mean to, you know, I've spent many years criticizing Barack Obama. I guess what I'm saying, though, is that no one can trust an agreement that Trump claims he's making. And you know, the Iranians were supposed to have certain funds unfrozen and Joe Biden was the one during his presidency after October 7th that blocked that. It's very easy for them to, you know, reverse almost any concessions they would make to the Iranians. And Iran is well aware of that. So while I understand why those guys have all taken out that position, because they want the total maximalist, pummeling, destroy, murder Iran position, I think the Israelis are far more sophisticated than those yahoos. And the Israelis recognize that whatever Trump says, and that's evidenced by the Gaza deal, it doesn't really mean anything as long as the winks and nods are happening behind the scenes. And I would bet there's some very heavy winking and nodding going on between Trump and Israel on this matter.

Krystal Ball (31:59)

The last thing I wanted to dig in a little more with you, Jeremy. You mentioned this previously, but we just had this reporting about this CIA analysis delivered to policymakers that says Iran can survive the US Naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship. Finding that contradicts those hailing an imminent collapse predominantly as you were talking about the, you know, the Israeli think tank, the Zionist think tank that has been pushing these sorts of analyses. US intel also indicates Iran retains about 75% of its pre war inventories of mobile launchers and about 70% of its pre war stockpiles of missiles per US official regime has also been able to recover underground storage facilities and repair damaged missiles. This week, Trump painted a more dire picture of Iran's situation, saying their economy is crashing, their currency is worthless, and their missiles are mostly decimated. So, you know, this is again, our own intelligence agencies which are probably still too optimistic about how imminent Iran's collapse was. But we were being pushed. These narratives are their oil laws are going to explode in 14 days. You know, 14 days to stop Iran. They're just going to completely collapse here imminently. And that is does not appear to be remotely the case. You know, it's three to four months of the Strait of Hormuz being closed. There are going to be economies collapsing. Certainly ours will be one of them. But, you know, the whole global economic order is going to not be able to make it through that period of time. And the level of supply shock that would entail.

Jeremy Scahill (33:31)

Remember, Crystal, that when the 1979 Islamic Revolution happened, soon after the Ayatollah came to power, the US Supported Iraq in launching a war against Iran that went on for eight years. And so Iranians, especially the generation of leaders in Iran right now who grew up fighting that war and living through that war throughout the 1980s, understood what hardship meant, understood what supply shortages meant, understood what an economy that was in a state of deterioration looked like. I mean, that's why they talk about a resistance economy. And so we're talking about a period here of weeks, and then using these terms like they're strangling the Iranian economy, I think maybe even three to four months, is conservative. You know, Iran is a massive country of 93 million people. It's an agricultural society. It exports goods. You know, the ways in which the Iranian economy is suffering right now has a lot to do with just cash flow and liquidity, and that can certainly have an impact. And then when you have inflation off the charts. The reason that the protests started in early January was on economic matters. You know, in American terms, we would say it was small business owners that started saying, like, we can't survive, you know, in this economy where we have the punishing American sanctions and we have financial mismanagement on the part of our authorities. And that's what people were saying openly. And Ayatollah Ali Khamenei actually said that the people need to be listened to on this. When Moshe Abba Khomeini was named as the Supreme Leader, he told a story where he had talked about riding sort of in disguise in taxis and listening to ordinary Iranians and the way that they spoke about the country and saying that he considers their voices worth more than opinion polls. These are interesting statements that are made by the supreme leadership of Iran, who are also revered in the Shia Islamic community around the world. And so I guess the point that I'm making here is that if you look at the past 47 years of history, which Trump and Rubio are frequently invoking, there's a part of it that actually Americans should understand, which is that if there's any country in the world that knows how to survive under sort of the threat of American or Israeli attack under really punishing sanctions and has to deal with how do you feed the people and maintain power, your grip on power in these kinds of intense circumstances? It's Iran. It's the Islamic Republic of Iran. So, you know, our reporting consistently has shown that the Iranians are not in a state of panic. And they were saying even before this, you know, very important Washington Post piece came out, everything that was in that Post piece, we can survive for months. They're exaggerating the extent of the damage to our ballistic missiles and they're going to continue to find out if they keep attacking us because every time they say we're decimated, we turn around and strike again. And sometimes we do it even harder.

Krystal Ball (36:28)

Jeremy Scahill, Dropsite News. Always great to have your insights, just truly invaluable. Thank you so much.

Jeremy Scahill (36:33)

First time on a Friday. Really nice to be with you guys.

Mac Callahan (36:36)

Oh really?

Krystal Ball (36:36)

I hope not the last. Yeah, yeah.

Emily Jashinsky (36:38)

Friday cruise. Fun.

Jeremy Scahill (36:39)

Have a good weekend everybody.

Krystal Ball (36:40)

Thanks. You too.

Mac Callahan (36:41)

Jeremy.

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Krystal Ball (38:50)

all right, so we have a few interesting developments in what is now the Platner vs. Susan Collins crucial main Senate race. Mac, if you want to pull up Graham out with his first ad directly attacking Susan Collins and I mean, I think it's pretty devastating in my opinion.

Mac Callahan (39:07)

Yeah, let's go ahead and take a listen.

Donald Trump (39:09)

Susan Collins charade is over. We don't that you pretend to be remorseful at the start of a new forever war that you chose to let happen. We don't care that you are concerned while we go back broke as you sell us out to the president and to the Epstein class who are engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ruling class in this nation's history. Symbolic opposition doesn't reopen hospital. Weak condemnations don't bring back Roe v. Wade in selling out the same workingclass voters who've delivered mandate for for change after mandate for change is not forgivable. A performative politics that enables the destruction of our way of life is disqualified as a United States Senator. I am running because it is time for change. I'm Graham Platner and I approve this message.

Mac Callahan (40:08)

Absolutely brutal. Somebody made the point on Twitter and I think it's true that the way that he pronounces Susan Collins in that voice might give him a five point bump just by itself.

Krystal Ball (40:18)

I mean the voice is pretty incredible.

Emily Jashinsky (40:21)

It's. Yeah, I mean he's booming announcer voice.

Mac Callahan (40:23)

Yeah, yeah.

Krystal Ball (40:26)

Ending there from your perspective because obviously I'm, you know, going to be biased here. To me, I'm like inject that right into my veins. But I mean, do you think that that will be effective in Maine, a state where, you know, Susan Collins has defied the odds before and she clearly is a small state where she has like a direct connection to voters which has allowed them, even as the state has become more blue, to continue returning her to office.

Emily Jashinsky (40:49)

It's a really good question because it's going to be like retail politics versus retail politics in this case. And I think Platner has to be careful. This is a mistake. I don't know if you guys would agree with this, but I think this is a mistake. We saw in the Gideon campaign where it looked really flashy and like it was backed by a lot of National Dem money. And certainly that's the case in literally any big race when you have the Senate in question. But you don't want to necessarily lean into that when your opponent's strength is being a great retail politician who is familiar, who is absolutely not flashy. And that's where I think Platner is an interesting foil for Susan Collins. Because if you're looking at those ads, I mean, he's going around in his Dropkick Murphy sweatshirt and his last line there was it's time for change. That is also very interesting because we've seen politicians make this argument before with, with great success. It's a matter of whether or not voters believe that you represent that change and if they believe that the change is worth the risk of getting rid of the status quo. And so that means you have to be pretty tired of the status quo. And he's leaning into like, this is the other thing, like in that ad, he leans into abortion and he leans into war. He leans into these issues that establishment Democrats feel like are left, really left coded. But it's like, I actually think that's smart because it's the way that you motivate the base to turn out, which has, we've seen in some of these special elections been very, very motivated and primaries, Democratic voters are very, very motivated this cycle. That's how Platner, in a state that has some purple tendencies like Maine, is able to get people if he's, if he's, if the ad is a proxy for what we're going to see rhetorically on his campaign. And leaning into some of those issues is actually pretty smart, I think. And also because he's bundling into this whole thing about the status quo. And that I do think is a

Mac Callahan (42:51)

pretty powerful argument, I think, to your point, on him hitting that change note at the end of the ad, I think what he's trying to do is tap into, because, and I saw this with this other video that he recently released where he sat down with, I think it was a three time Trump voter. And I think he's trying to tap into the frustration that a lot of Trump voters who are sort of turning away from him right now feel that Trump was going to be the guy

Emily Jashinsky (43:14)

who puts Epstein in it.

Mac Callahan (43:16)

Yeah, the Epstein class thing is a note on that as well. But this feeling that the system is completely broken, the status quo isn't working for anybody. You know, my life is getting progressively worse, my kids are going to do worse than I did, et cetera. And people felt like Trump might be that change candidate. And so they gave him a couple of chances and things still aren't feeling better for them. And so he's trying to sort of hit that note of I'm going to be the guy to genuinely provide real, material, tangible changes for working class people.

Krystal Ball (43:45)

Well, and also, you know, directly in conjunction with, with Susan Collins, Graham really just needs Democrats to not ticket split and vote for Democrats on other, you know, in other races. And then Susan Collins, because they like the bipartisanship, blah, blah, blah. And so what he's also saying is like, all right, we're sick of this game of pretending like she's de different when she's just the same old, same old helping Trump. I don't know if you hear my dog is like dreaming right now in the background making those little dream barks.

Emily Jashinsky (44:14)

Anyway, your dog's really pro Susan Collins.

Krystal Ball (44:17)

Yeah, she's trying to weigh in here. But in any case, you know, the, the idea that Susan Collins is there supporting Trump, supporting the Epstein class, that she's really just like the other Republicans, that's going to be central for him. And I think it's a message that, based on what I'm seeing from the shift in Democratic voters, I think it's a message that lands this cycle better than it ever would have landed in the past. And my evidence for that is not only the races in Virginia where you had even the guy, you know, who was running for Attorney general, who would like, threatened to murder his opponent or whatever, even he wins, but you also have the redistricting that passes in the state, this very hardball. Listen, we're just going to erase these districts that Republicans were able to win in the past. And very much a shift away from the previous Democratic Party era, where they said, oh, let's have a redistricting commission. Let's make it all fair now. It's no, we are going to play the same game. We're going to go in and we're going to be hardball. We're going to be hardcore partisan, just like the Republicans are. And so that makes the landscape much more difficult for Susan Collins. I mean, frankly, I don't think she really has a prayer. I think this race is going to be impossible for her to win given the national climate, given where the Democratic base is and given what an effective candidate Graham Platner truly has proven to be. I don't, did you guys see that? The Bulwark guys. Jonathan V. Last JBL was making the case that Graham Platner may be our next president. I mean, that's quite stunning because first of all, he's not even ever been elected to anything. He's still in this competitive Senate race. Second of all, obviously there's all the Reddit convo and the tattoo and all of that sort of stuff, you know, 30 just be coming into office, et cetera. But I think that's a testament to how compelling of a, how compelling he is in his ideological positioning, how clear throated he is in what he believes and his willingness to fight for it, what the Democratic base is looking for right now. And also, you know, frankly, a lack of a lot, a lot of other talent on the Democratic bench. So, you know, I think the fact that you have the Bulwark guys who are former Republicans being like standard. Yes, that's right. Maybe Jonathan, maybe this is the guy. Now they will say quickly, say like we're not arguing for him, we're just saying we're doing the analysis. But I thought it was pretty wild and very noteworthy to see them making the case because he is such a sort of compelling figure specifically for the Democratic base that I also think does have significant crossover support. If you, if you look at the polling that we've seen so far, well,

Emily Jashinsky (46:55)

he's just a perfect candidate for the moment. And I do want to say, and we've talked about this a couple of times, Susan Collins was able to handle Sarah Gideon despite a lot of people seeing glimmers of hope in Sarah Gideon when we were at the same stage of that race. And it's because Collins has, for whatever reason, a really smart political operation where you're already seeing this. She's been saying she's not taking things for granted and she's been very judicious in what she said and what she hasn't said, how she's talked about things, she hasn't talked about things. She hasn't gone all in on the Nazi attacks like Republicans elsewhere are already doing. You saw like literally the first press release from the RNC invoked Nazi stuff against Graham Platner after Janet Mills dropped out of the race. And so Collins hasn't jumped on that bandwagon yet. And I think it reflects her judiciousness. Her, her approach to these is These, I guess these culture war questions can be reserved and smart in a different way than we see Republicans in the rest of the country. And she was able to pull ahead pretty significantly at the end of that race in 2020. But he's a really great candidate for this moment. And I said this on. On Megan's show this week. Did you guys see him with Sirota? Sirota sat down with Platner in this just, like, super casual conversation. And I thought this was a huge, like, interesting moment where he asks Platner about whether he would go on. Tucker and Graham, they're just sitting there. They're like two guys just sitting, having a normal conversation. He was like, you know, to be honest, I'm kind of torn on that. It's like this is a new era because politicians used to come into those conversations wearing makeup and ready to trot out a talking point line about, well, you know, we're having internal conversations that's, like, perfectly scripted, meant to seem natural. He's literally just bringing people in on his stream of consciousness thought process, and that's what people want to see right now. It's not an act. He literally was talking through why he's going back and forth on that question. And. And that is what I think a lot of people don't get about the new media atmosphere. It's not just about filming your videos on your iPhone. Even though it's still scripted, you have to actually have the kind of unscripted substance to go with it. And he is a very, very strong candidate for that. So I feel like this is old politics versus new politics in as much as it's old ideology versus new ideology, too.

Krystal Ball (49:21)

The other problem for Susan Collins and Matt Mac, you can pull up the. The I'm Running video that caught a lot of attention of many people, but Ken Klippenstein, as one of them, is, look, she. She actually is on the younger side for the Senate. She is the only. The 28th oldest senator, which is crazy.

Emily Jashinsky (49:42)

She's 13 years younger than Nancy Pelosi.

Mac Callahan (49:44)

She's 20 years younger than Chuck Grassley.

Jana Kramer (49:46)

What is she?

Krystal Ball (49:47)

She's like 73 or something. Spring chicken for, you know, in Senate terms. But she's not, you know, she shows visible signs of age. One of those is a quite significant tremor that she's had for some time. And so people watched this launch video of hers were like, this is not a great look. Let's go ahead and take a look at this. This is perfect for 2026, because I'm running. So you can see for those just listening, she, like pulls out sneakers from a box and her hand is visibly shaking and her head is visibly shaking. And you know, it's not to attack people who have medical conditions, etc. She had never revealed why she had these very noteworth. The tremors, which she's had for a long time, have gotten worse over time. And I also think people are more sensitive to now because we had Biden whose brain melted before all of our eyes and was like decaying in office. And we're watching the same thing play out now with Trump where a majority of Americans are going, this guy is not mentally or physically fit to be our president. He is an old man and seems like he's completely out of it, fallen asleep in press conferences, et cetera. So I think there's a heightened sensitivity to, you know, candidates. And I think there's a problem for Janet Mills too, by the way, as part of why she was so defeated in the race, she had to drop out before election day. There is more sensitivity among the public to re electing people who are old.

Emily Jashinsky (51:21)

Yeah. And especially people who don't want to talk about. Right. Like with Biden, it was always, we're fine, we're fine. And so I think that's probably why Collins, very early after Kenny Clips orchestrated a social media tornado, a mob, he

Krystal Ball (51:38)

very effectively bullied her into releasing what it actually was.

Emily Jashinsky (51:43)

Everybody's been wondering it for years. I mean, I don't know, like, I can't say whether it seems like it's gotten worse or not, but I think everybody's always, at least in like, right. Circles, everybody's always been like, what is that? And she just pretty quickly into this race, came out and had an explanation. Whether that explains it or not, whether people are satisfied with it or not, I don't know. But I do think, Crystal, it underlines the point that you were making, which is it's, it's not even just, I think people are sensitive to age, but they're doubly sensitive if it feels like you're covering something up because of what happened with, with Biden.

Krystal Ball (52:16)

Yeah. All right, guys. Well, I've got to jump. I don't know if you guys want to do a couple more topics, but I've got to run. I've got an appointment I got to get to. So thank you. I enjoyed it as always.

Emily Jashinsky (52:25)

See ya.

Mac Callahan (52:26)

See ya.

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Mac Callahan (54:24)

Welcome everybody to our fabulous AMA portion for our lovely and beautiful premium subscribers out there. It's just going to be me and Emily for today. Crystal had to run, but we're gonna do our best to answer some of these questions out there. Should I throw the first one up here on the screen?

Emily Jashinsky (54:40)

Let's do it. I offered to answer them on Crystal's behalf, but.

Mac Callahan (54:44)

Well, yeah, we can throw something in there if we want, if we know what she has to say. Okay, so this first one here is from David say, who says, I am not a fan of nuclear proliferation, but if Iran had some nuclear bombs, wouldn't we all be better off Right now, we would be spared all this death and destruction. What do you think about that, Emily?

Emily Jashinsky (55:07)

I mean, it's like the central question about nuclear proliferation. And I guess I just, I don't know. And that's part of what is so we've become so numb to with nuclear proliferation is the uncertainty in a nuclear world. Right. It's, it's one thing if you have uncertainty in a world where nuclear weapons aren't on the table. I think there's a really good case to be made for that premium subscribers point, but I just, I genuinely don't know. I mean, we could have seen like, we make our judgments based off of what feels like a very confident 80 years of nuclear proliferation where we've made it through without a crisis. But this technology is literally older, is literally younger than some people on this earth. Like, this is something that has developed over the span of one human life, one generation, basically. And so I'm not, I'm not confident that just is. We've seen limited nuclear conflict in the first 80 years of its existence between,

Mac Callahan (56:11)

well, only one, only one nuclear conflict. It was, yeah, it was us, but,

Emily Jashinsky (56:15)

yeah, right, but that's what people say. Well, it limited it limited it going forward and that I just think we're very confident in what's happened over a short period of time. North Korea could act at literally any moment in a way that's real good Act. Yes, and in a way that disproves all of what we think has been proved by the recent decades of nuclear history. So I don't know. What do you think about that, Mac?

Mac Callahan (56:38)

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I think generally I'm against nuclear proliferation. I think that we should be trying to drastically scale down the amount of nuclear weapons that we have around the world, like as a global community kind of thing. I mean, there's, I can see kind of the argument for, you know, maybe the US would be less likely or less aggressive in trying to do, let's say, like a future war, China knowing that they have nuclear weapons, that's, you know, a conventional war maybe that would lead to millions and millions of people dying. I don't know if that's going to stop us from, you know, trying to, to do that at all. But yeah, I mean, in a general sense, I'm against nuclear proliferation, but if the specific question is about Iran, I don't think as many in the US Government and the Israeli government would claim that the Iranians are suicidal and that if they got their hands on a nuke, they would instantly Try to blow up Israel or blow up the region. And you know, obviously that would result in the destruction of their country as well. I think they're relatively rational actors and they would want it for, you know, self preservation purposes and for a deterrent purpose. I think, you know, if maybe we can cut a deal. Let's do this. Let's say Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon and Israel has to give up their nuclear weapons as well. I think that's a fair, that's a fair trade off that we can, we can meet in the middle on.

Emily Jashinsky (57:55)

There you go. I'm a total hippie on this. I, I totally believe in nuclear disarmament across the.

Mac Callahan (58:01)

I'm with you on that.

Emily Jashinsky (58:02)

It's so unpredictable. It's so. We're so confident about how this has gone, but I mean, we're fighting a proxy war. We're basically fighting for Ukraine. Yeah. I mean, yeah, so that's.

Mac Callahan (58:13)

Well, it's also like, it's not as if, like threats aren't lobbed out all the time. I mean, you know, we've had Trump sort of like in some, some ways vaguely and in other ways not so vaguely hint that he would deploy a nuclear weapon. You know, we've had sort of indications roughly from like the Russ, you know, Israelis I've seen in the past sort of like float things out as like a, A wink and a nod. So, yeah, it's not as if like the threats aren't there. So terrifying stuff. But. Next question that we have here, this one is specifically for you, Emily. Comments on Ryan and Emily appearing in one of the Iranian Lego videos. I know that that was a, a great honor for both of you. I think if you look at the, the actual clip at least that I saw, they didn't really get you accurately portrayed. Right. They had you with like dark brown hair and I don't know if the outfit was on, on par, but how did you feel being. Being in one of those Iranian masterpieces?

Emily Jashinsky (59:09)

That was a bit surreal. It's not clear how close the relationship is with the government. Ryan did a great interview with them over at Dropsite asking some of those questions. And yeah, I was really in it. I was kind of like on the side. It was. Ryan was the star. Let's be clear.

Mac Callahan (59:25)

It was symbolically. It was symbol though.

Emily Jashinsky (59:28)

Yes. Right. Now I, if, if Ryan were here, I would probably disagree with him on his, his proliferation of the Lego video. But it was pretty wild to see Ryan's like, it was so specifically Ryan that, you know what I Mean, like,

Mac Callahan (59:47)

they did a really good job.

Emily Jashinsky (59:48)

They did a good job with Ryan and to see that be picked up on. It's, it's like it, it's such a weird new media moment where they're very, very online and they kind of understand where the like American left is better than like Hakeem Jeffries. Probably.

Mac Callahan (60:07)

Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, probably for sure. I, you know, I think the videos are interesting. Some of them are kind of cringe a little bit where it's, you know, some of the rap videos where it's like, I get the notes that you guys are hitting here and I agree with, with a lot of them, but it's also, you know, whatever. It's a little bit cringe sometimes. But I'm curious, what do you think about. Because from my perspective, the US Is just getting completely. And maybe this is just the social media ecosystem that I'm in that feeds me this kind of stuff, but it just seems like we're getting clobbered over the head in the narrative war or in, you know, the, the meme war, if you will. Like everything that I see from Pete Hegseth or what the White House account is tweeting, it's all just so like cringe and sort of like over the top nationalism and you know, whatever else. And the Iranians are sort of like gesture maxing, to use a term there and sort of like dancing around us.

Emily Jashinsky (61:05)

They have a huge advantage in the meme war, which is basically that they're the underdog. And so it's. If you're taking yourself really seriously as the United States, like we're just talking purely in the meme war and in this conversation about like who is out mocking the other. And if you're the United States and you're kind of peacocking on social media, it's super easy then for the lesser power to poke at you again, just like in terms of propaganda. So they have a built in advantage that they've definitely maximized in some of those videos. The, the Epstein stuff I think has been pretty smart from, from them. And the. What was it? It was Rogan. Who was it? Rogan or Schultz? Both of them have said a version of this, I think where they've been like the right wing social media stuff is so lame. Like, they're so lame. And it's, it's because I think the, it was kind of the opposite of Biden and Kamala, where Trump was seen as a bit of an underdog in 2024, like that he was making his comeback he had all the lawfare tried to lock him up. And that gave right wing memers an advantage because they were the ones that was like, that were poking at the current power. And so they came in with so much momentum culturally in January 2025 that they still haven't realized they lost a lot of that momentum. So it comes across as, like, very, very cringy.

Mac Callahan (62:34)

Yeah, I think it's also, you know, it's hard to win sort of the meme war, the propaganda battle, when you're failing and kind of humiliating yourself in the actual literal war. Relative to, like, you know, Trump seemingly completely delusional on the current state of the war. You know, we just covered earlier today. He's like, 50% off on the estimations of Iran's missile capacity that they have right now. They're still in control of the Strait of Hormuz. Like, even though we are the dominant power, we're sort of getting bullied around in some ways. And so it's hard to. To win that propaganda battle when the Iranians are still in, you know, a position of control and strength and can sort of us in the middle of that.

Emily Jashinsky (63:14)

Especially when Trump is kind of the taco stuff. Right. Like, the taco stuff is very. It. It gives them an advantage in the meme war because he's blustering intentionally, literally. He writes about this in the art of the deal, doing business transactions and negotiations. He's. He's intentionally blustering, and then it gives them an ability to do, okay, before and after. Here's what he said. Expectations versus reality. And that's, of course, going to be powerful when you're just like, scrappy memers.

Mac Callahan (63:47)

All right, we got this next one here. Breaking points. What is your favorite way to decompress from the news or a bad day? Hot tea? Yoga? Toke. What is that? Oh, toke. Yeah, take it. Okay.

Emily Jashinsky (64:01)

Yeah, yeah, that's.

Mac Callahan (64:01)

Saga's your answer. Saga token. Not me. Not me. That's a Saga exclusive thing.

Emily Jashinsky (64:07)

Yeah, you're right. Someone asked this yesterday. I do an episode of my show every Friday where it's. It's kind of like ama the whole time. And someone asked the same question. And I was thinking about it because I don't usually. I haven't. I haven't thought about this. And my answer is that, like, you don't. Like, it's just you kind of can't

Mac Callahan (64:25)

because it's so 24 hours.

Emily Jashinsky (64:28)

It is. And, like, there's almost no point. Right. Like, we have to learn to live with this. Level of. I think it's just totally a post nuclear thing to bring it back to nuclear conflict because there's constant stress there. Basically, when you have nuclear powers, there are no borders and you just can't become numb to that level of constant threat. Like, obviously you have to have. You have to be mentally healthy and. And the like, you know, you don't want to be ill. But at the same time, I don't really try to decompress, to be honest. I feel like you kind of have to always be on Mac. I don't know what you think about that, but if you're not, not. I mean, it's important to always be on and then to kind of learn to live with that. And rather than decompressing, I was thinking about this because I was like, I used to watch a bunch of reality tv. I do that less now, not intentionally, just because I'd rather be like, honestly watching a documentary or reading something, because that sounds like kind of annoying. But at the same time, it's like there's so much going on right now that if you.

Mac Callahan (65:35)

It's easy to fall behind.

Emily Jashinsky (65:37)

Yeah. And if you aren't leaning in. Yeah, it's easy to fall behind.

Mac Callahan (65:41)

Well, I'm slightly less disciplined than you, I think. I think my decompression is going to the gym. I hit the gym every day. That helps just to like, center your mind or keep your body moving or whatever else. And then watching anime, that's my. That, that's a decompression thing for me. But to your point, I think that it almost like you. You kind of have to have. I don't know if it's like an understanding or acceptance of it, but maybe it's just like something a little bit wrong in people's brains who are obsessed with politics. Because I know so many people in my life that if you talk for even like 20 minutes about what's currently going on in the world, they're going to be overwhelmed and they're going to be depressed or they're not going to want to talk about it. And, you know, even people who watch this show, like, you're already in like the top 10% or, you know, even smaller of people who consume the news like you're. You're an outlier relative to the general population. A lot of people just. It's too much. And that's, you know, to some extent acceptable. But it's also like, we do have to live in the reality that we're facing right now. And if we're not paying attention. If we're not staying informed, then it's only going to get worse. It's. It's not going to get better magically by itself.

Emily Jashinsky (66:48)

Well, and Mac, you've seen this just like in your own family, but there's no beat reporters now. And so that, for me, is partially what's very overwhelming. And it's why, like, like, yeah, I'm still. I'm not gonna listen. I'm not gonna miss an episode of the Salt Lake City Housewives. But at the same time, if you are doing a show like Breaking Points, you are a generalist. And that means you should be really deep on Israel. It means you should be really deep on Mexico. It means you should be really deep on Canada. It means you should be really deep on trade policy, healthcare policy. And so from my perspective, it's like, if you're not spending your time doing that, then you're not as good as you could be. And so one of the things I like doing, I like taking, like, really long bike rides. And I'll just pop on, like, a Deep dive audiobook or podcast while I do that. But to your point, it's like there is something about having a. Like what you were saying with the gym, about having your. Like the physical resistance training or that. That pressure coupled with thinking about some of those things that can be actually, like, weirdly peaceful.

Mac Callahan (67:54)

Yeah, there you go. One more thing here that we got. This is specifically for you again, Emily. Although I could maybe chime in on this. Emily, Ryan, what was your favorite part of the Scott Jennings debate? Anything surprise either of you about Scott's points or the way that the crowd was on Ryan's side about Israel?

Emily Jashinsky (68:15)

Real, Mac, I'm actually really curious for your take on this. I'll just quickly say I was surprised to hear Scott refer to America as a nation of ideas. That's like a real, like, that's seen on. On the right as like, a very cringe centrist thing to say and a red flag anytime you hear a politician talk like that. And not that Scott's a politician, although he has been rumored to potentially be looking at political office.

Mac Callahan (68:39)

All that is got to get through Adam Mockler first. That's right.

Emily Jashinsky (68:43)

What did he say? What did he say? Put your.

Mac Callahan (68:45)

Get your finger out of my face.

Emily Jashinsky (68:47)

No, he dropped an F bomb.

Mac Callahan (68:48)

Did he say? Oh, he said, get your fucking hand out my face.

Emily Jashinsky (68:51)

Wow. Yeah, he said something like that. And it was shortly after the debate, so who knows if Ryan was under his skin?

Mac Callahan (68:57)

I was thinking about it, yeah.

Emily Jashinsky (68:58)

Yeah, he still had that, but I was surprised to hear him say that. And I still, it's true that that event was organized under the auspices of a conservative group. I don't know that the argument was all conservatives because there were a lot of grimheads that came, as you can imagine, on a college campus. There are a lot of grim heads. And we mentioned.

Mac Callahan (69:21)

So funny, because I've like gone out to bars before and literally had people ask me about Ryan, like just random people that I've met.

Emily Jashinsky (69:29)

Ryan and I went to the bar after the debate and he was getting like, you know, walking on a college campus with Ryan. It was like walking through the DNC with Ryan, which you also experienced. It was hilarious. But it. So I don't know if the people who cheered were all the conservative kids on the. When Ryan said he thinks Israel should be sanctioned, I definitely think some of them were, and I wasn't totally surprised by that. But I do think it should be a wake up call to people on the right who are still resisting the reality about where opinion is on this. They would, they would look those kids and say, well, you've been brainwashed. You've been totally taken in by the, what is it like the Islamists?

Mac Callahan (70:13)

And that's, that's what Laura Loomer would say.

Emily Jashinsky (70:15)

Yeah, but, and, but you, you actually hear that still in the power structure of the right, which sounds crazy, but that's what they would say to those kids. And I don't think they would necessarily be able to make that argument to their faces because the students would just say, no, we, we really don't like what happened in Gaza. And then they would have to reckon with that.

Mac Callahan (70:33)

Yeah, I mean, and I don't even know as much of the extent, obviously. I don't run in young right wing circles, but I, I don't, I don't know the extent to which, like, the humanitarian concern about Gaza plays into that as much as, at least, like from an outside perspective. For me, it feels more like it's a, you know, we don't want our money being sent to Israel. Like, why are we giving them handouts? Or why are we, you know, giving them billions of dollars every year and fighting wars on their behalf? And it feels like they control our government and they have this massive influe over, you know, our political leaders, which I think all of those are true. But it feels more like that than the humanitarian thing. So I'm curious, what, what do you make of that?

Emily Jashinsky (71:13)

So I, I kind of actually disagree with that because I would say, I think a lot of them, it's almost more transgressive in the sense that I'm writing a piece about this right now, which I've been thinking about it. The, there's this like, real reconsideration happening. And if, like you've watched Tucker on this, he's genuinely pretty thoughtful about why he thinks, thinks there were war crimes committed in Gaza and why he thinks it was just from a, he says this from a Christian perspective, immoral. And a lot of these young conservatives are New Catholics. They're converts or they're people who are taking faith like way more seriously. So they're leaning into, they're pope maxing. They're leaning into those arguments and in a way that like, even if you don't want to take them at their word, it's, it's actually kind of more transgressive because it's not just saying Israel controls the American government, although some of them are saying that. But some of it is also like, no, no, no, this is about the entire American project. This is about the proxy wars. This is about America being the bad guy overall on the world stage, which something you hear like Dave Smith will talk about. And that's, I think there's something like kind of deeper happening and it's actually like more titillating and transgressive for a young right winger than saying Israel controls the American government to say, no, no, no. Like we're, we're Howard Zinn maxing and Pope maxing and we're going in a totally different direction. So anyway, some of it's America first, but I think some of it is that too.

Mac Callahan (72:38)

Yeah, I have seen, you know, clips of that from both Candace and Tucker, although that's much more of a recent development, like things that leftists were saying at the very start of the genocide in Gaza. Like two years later, they've sort of come around to, and they're waking up to the fact that war crimes were committed every single day. But so, you know, whatever. I'm not mad that they, they've come around to that position. That's interesting though, that you, you frame it as sort of like America the bad guys is because it's like I feel like a year ago if I was having a conversation with one of these right wing people, they would call me like, you know, a radical communist America hater or whatever. If I pointed out that we were the bad guys, not just over the last, you know, couple of years, but take it back to Vietnam, take it back to the Korean War, I would make the case for that. Like, like we've been the bad guys for most of American history around the world. Like look at the history of the CIA and overthrowing democratically elected leaders and backing death squads in Latin America. Like we've always been the bad guy. So I'm, do you think that that sort of element is, is going to come through, like almost like a, not even just an anti war America first element, but like a full on anti imperialist element?

Emily Jashinsky (73:52)

Yes, and I don't think with everybody, but I think what's happening right now is the wall of Cold War propaganda has holes being poked in it. And when that falls, that falls. And you and I could do a whole episode on who's the bad guy in Contras vs Sandinistas. My argument would just be that both sides were the bad guys. And what's so dangerous about right now is that, that the, when, when people wake up and realize, you know, what really happened with the Contras, and they realize the US Government or the right itself. So if we're talking about young conservatives, that the right itself was wrong, morally wrong, and lying or using propaganda, then that is like, like a pillar. That's one of the pillars in like the big building of propaganda. And when those start going, you lose so much trust across the board. Like it, it just all starts to shatter and crumble. And I don't think the institutional right is prepared for that at all, but they have to be because it's, that foundation is now being chipped away at and it will be a reckoning. And it should be a reckoning. I think, honestly it should be a reckoning because I'm one of those people that has like, like really, really deep moral concerns about the way our, and especially the way the right during the Cold War period built up a philosophy of proxy wars and like imperialism by proxy wars and then used a lot of propaganda to kind of mask the truth about that. And we're still trying to do it. I mean it's, it's been happening in Ukraine. You could read into some of what's happening in Iran as that. So it's, it's really, really dangerous for the right. And instead of reckoning with it, honestly they're just calling all of these kids commies and it sucks. Like it's, it's gonna be a really, really, really big problem.

Mac Callahan (75:51)

Yeah, no, I mean, it'll be interesting too, to your point, like, because it does feel like those pillars have, I mean they're, they've been collapsed on the left or the, you know, I think even amongst liberals, they're collapsing now. But if they fully collapse, like, how is the U.S. going to try to sell a war with China? Like, like, we're going to try to do another red scare. Do you think that young people are going to fall for that? That we need to, you know, do another massive war? Like, No, I don't. I think that's done for us And Iran probably put the nail in the coffin on that. You know, on top. On top of everything. Like, you could make maybe the case that, well, people wouldn't have fallen for it post the disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and all those failures, but this Iran war has just been a total humiliation and has blown up any sort of propaganda efforts from the American government. I think everybody sees through it, the political spectrum at this point. So it's going to be hard for them to, to try to sell anything in the future.

Emily Jashinsky (76:44)

Well, and just to go back to, I mean, we could do this with Nicaragua or we could do this with, like, Cuba. We could do it with Chile and Allende. But, like, when you are told that the Americans were the good guys, even if you come around to my perspective, which was two bad sides, you know, you had two bad sides as proxies for the Soviet Union and the United States, which were this reasonably hysterical race to prevent nuclear annihilation among their civil, the civilians, their civilization, which is why you saw desperate times and desperate measures and some really evil stuff go down. Even if you come to my perspective that those are two bad sides acting badly, if you are told that one is the good guy incontrovertibly and that

Mac Callahan (77:29)

it is unpatriotic to question freedom and democracy and.

Emily Jashinsky (77:32)

Yes. And if you were told that for your whole life and the kind of illusion starts to crumble, that is going to poison people against the United States. It's going to poison Americans and young people.

Mac Callahan (77:47)

You're describing my life's journey. That's how you become a. That's how you become a leftist.

Emily Jashinsky (77:51)

Yes. Or it's how you become a reactionary.

Mac Callahan (77:54)

Yeah. Or a fascist or something, so.

Emily Jashinsky (77:56)

Yeah, exactly. No, but really, that's. And so that's what's on the table right now. If the institutional left and the institutional right don't humble themselves and come up with better answers for people who are waking up to the propaganda. So we're in a dangerous place.

Mac Callahan (78:13)

Yep. I think we can, we can end it off there if you want. Unless you got anything else.

Emily Jashinsky (78:18)

No. Tell me what you thought of the debate. I'M curious what you thought of the debate.

Mac Callahan (78:21)

Oh, yeah, I, I mean, I thought it was. I only saw like, a couple longer form clips. I didn't watch through the entirety of it, but I thought the Israel thing was pretty funny. I, I don't, I, I can't comprehend in my mind some of the arguments that Scott makes and how and whether or not he genuinely believes it. I mean, I guess I'll take him at face value that he believes it, but like, to say with a straight face to Ryan Grimm, I'm assuming he knew who Ryan was going into that. But to say with a straight face, like, you seem to think that it's a bad thing that Israel plays a large role in American politics. I'm like, yeah, yes, that's a, that's a bad thing. I mean, it would be a bad thing for any other country to play a large role in American politics. I mean, if, you know, if, whatever, if Pakistan had a massive influence, if, you know, the Pakistan lobby was funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into the coffers of, like, 80% of Congress, I would think that's a problem. Like, yeah, that's, that's bad and it's not good for our country. And so I just thought it was pretty funny to watch that backup. I was like, stepping into a rake kind of moment.

Emily Jashinsky (79:30)

But, yeah, no, I would have been curious to pair Ryan with someone who is like, kind of maga. But I also thought it was going to be interesting to pair him with somebody who's sort of centrist maga, like kind of establishment Republican maga, who came around reluctantly to maga. It would have been interesting to do Ryan against, like, a real Stephen Miller head, but to see him, I think, against somebody who was like Scott Jennings, pretty much a, like, mainstream D.C. conservative. Some interesting stuff came out in that contrast, too. Like what you were just saying, like, yeah, that, that's not, that's very obvious if you're talking to Ryan Graham, but it's not obvious to. I think, still a lot of people in D.C. that the left and many on the right think that way, too.

Mac Callahan (80:10)

That's interesting that there's still that, that mainstream bubble. I think it was. Crystal was making the point yesterday, too, on Jonathan Greenblatt that because he was on with, with Jake Tapper, it seems like he's getting the cold shoulder now from, from Morning Joe because they seem like they don't really take him that seriously anymore after that last, like, disastrous interview. But it's just interesting to see, like, the, the conversation was Basically about how if the mission of the ADL on paper is to stop anti Semitism, which I don't think that's actually Jonathan Greenblatt's job, but if that was his job to stop the rise of anti Semitism, well, he's failing on that right now. If his, if his other job is to defend Israel and to make sure that the American people stand with Israel, which I think is closer to his real job, he's also failing on that. But then if his third job, which may actually be what he's attempting to do right now is just to try to intimidate sort of the remaining pillars that do stand with Israel institutionally in the media or institutionally in the government, and to make them afraid of touching certain wires and using certain talking points or saying anything that, you know, goes against IDF printed statements. If that's his job, he's still succeeding in some ways because you still see the mainstream media is, you know, will run Israeli talking points, will have on, you know, IDF commanders and not challenge them in any meaningful capacity. You know, Congress overwhelmingly still with Israel. Like, like there's this massive, massive disconnect that's going on here between the establishment and the people. And that as an issue I think has exposed it more than almost anything else in recent, recent years.

Emily Jashinsky (81:52)

Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, it's. But this is like the, the report that they put out on anti Semitism said that it had declined over the course of the last year, but was still like at a higher rate than it had been, I think probably pre October 7th. So I don't, I mean, it's, I don't know what they're trying to say because those numbers are so cooked anyway.

Mac Callahan (82:15)

Yeah, it's, it's all.

Emily Jashinsky (82:16)

Yeah, right, right.

Mac Callahan (82:18)

It's a bit interesting.

Emily Jashinsky (82:20)

Yeah, I, I have to go watch that clip of Crystal making that point because I didn't, I actually didn't even see the tapper clip.

Mac Callahan (82:26)

Yeah, it was a tapper. I think he did challenge him a, a little bit or just ask some basic follow up questions like do you count criticizing Israel as anti Semitism? And he sort of danced around the.

Emily Jashinsky (82:37)

It's in their report.

Krystal Ball (82:38)

Literally.

Emily Jashinsky (82:38)

Yes, there are incidents listed as anti Semitic harassment.

Mac Callahan (82:41)

A huge, sizable portion of them. It's just criticizing Israel or some phrase that, you know, he gets offended by or whatever.

Emily Jashinsky (82:48)

We were all going through it in the group chat and like there were tons of examples where it was like this person said something about Israel.

Mac Callahan (82:55)

This person said like, oh, like from the river to the sea or end Zionism or whatever and that was considered anti Semitic harassment, so. Yep.

Emily Jashinsky (83:04)

Oh boy. Well this was fun, Mac, I like to say.

Mac Callahan (83:07)

Yeah. Yep. That's all we got for you guys today. We'll have more for you guys Monday. Unless anything crazy happens over the weekend, we return to a full blown war or somebody sends a nuke somewhere.

Emily Jashinsky (83:18)

Or. Or do you think soccer does a

Mac Callahan (83:19)

UFO disclosure or a UFO disclosure. That's possible. Although I think Sagar may be going out of town this weekend, so we'll have to see. Maybe we can get Ryan to do

Emily Jashinsky (83:27)

a UFO segment or Saga does one from the road. Crystal and Kyle style.

Mac Callahan (83:31)

Yeah, exactly. All right, well that's all we got for you guys. Signing off and we will see you later.

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