6/10/26: US Strikes Iran, Inflation Rises As Tech Stocks Fall, Platner Wins In Maine

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode: 6/10/26 – US Strikes Iran, Inflation Rises As Tech Stocks Fall, Platner Wins In Maine
Release Date: June 10, 2026

---

Overview

In this high-stakes episode, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti break down a turbulent news cycle dominated by U.S. military strikes against Iran, rising inflation, major tech market volatility, and a dramatic electoral upset in Maine. The hosts dissect misinformation and political theatrics, provide sharp economic commentary, and dig into the populist wave shaking up the American political landscape. Notable guests and strong moments of debate offer an unflinching look at how power is wielded – and challenged – from Washington to rural Maine.

---

Main Segments & Timestamps

• US Strikes Iran: Helicopter Incident & Retaliation — 02:21–21:41
• Inflation & Market Turbulence — 21:47–47:43
• Electoral Earthquake: Platner in Maine & Other Races — 49:36–75:47

---

US Strikes Iran: Helicopter Incident & Retaliation

02:21–21:41

Breaking News & Trump’s Media Blitz

• Saagar teases the day’s wild headlines: "You're not going to believe about half of what we're going to tell you, and that's because you're sensible and you probably shouldn't. But we're going to tell you what people are claiming is going on between Iran, Israel and the United States anyway." (02:21)
• President Trump delivers new, dramatic details live on Fox News about the Iranian drone incident:
  • Claim: An Iranian drone lodged itself between two Apache helicopter pilots.
  • Pilots, unharmed but with the cockpit on fire, allegedly land the aircraft in water and are rescued by a US unmanned sea drone—a first in US military history. (06:14–07:35)
  • Trump boasts about the effectiveness of US strikes and hints at escalations against Iranian infrastructure.

Notable Quotes

• Trey Yingst (reporting Trump's statement):

  "At any moment it could have exploded. The president told me... ultimately, these two pilots were able to take it down into the sea where ultimately they were rescued for the first time in US Military history by an unmanned sea drone." (06:14)

• Saagar:

  "Can we call it information?" (09:07)

• Krystal:

  "It's a collection of words coming from the President, United States." (09:12)

Dissecting the Narrative

• The hosts interrogate the plausibility of Trump’s story, noting the improbable drone size, cockpit scenario, and lack of corroborating evidence.

• Critique Trump’s leadership style: wild "madman" persona, erratic social media posting ("praise be to Allah" boomer-posting), and performative unpredictability (13:18–13:39).

• Krystal:

  "Unusual for the President of the United States to speak with such strong language historically and us be at an impasse for what actually is happening right now." (12:01)

Iranian Response & US Blockade Claims

• Iranian Foreign Minister issues a stern but diplomatically open statement, suggesting US forces should leave to avoid "accidents."
• Saagar relays Trump’s self-congratulatory posts claiming the US blockade has rendered Iran a "failed nation. Lots of oil is getting out. Praise be to Allah." (15:43)

Strike Details & Regional Escalation

• CENTCOM issues a statement using unusually political language, calling the response "proportional to unjustified Iranian aggression." (17:00)
• The US launches several waves of strikes across Iran, targeting not just military infrastructure but also civilian water infrastructure – highlighting the humanitarian risks:
  • “It is a war crime of the highest order to hit water infrastructure for obvious reasons.” (18:03)
• Iran retaliates by hitting US military bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, and the region, warning of further escalation.

Notable Quotes

• Trump (via media):

  "Somebody's going to have to build all that infrastructure... that's why we'll probably get involved in rebuilding. But we'll get half their oil." (21:41)

• Krystal:

  "First we're going to destroy it." (21:48)

• The hosts note the American public's grim mood, with Trump’s approval at record lows amid growing fear of increased gas prices and economic fallout.

---

Inflation & Market Turbulence

21:47–47:43 | 34:34–47:43: Economic Deep Dive

Inflation Surges

• Inflation numbers surge above 4%, highest since April 2023.
• CPI in May: 0.5% rise for the month, annual inflation now at 4.2%.
• Comparison: Inflation when Trump took office was lower (2.4% in early 2026). (38:53–40:10)

Notable Quotes

• Saagar:

  "I just can't put into words the depth of my hatred for Trump at this point. He did this 150% on his own. Like he inherited an economy that was improving." (36:54)

• Krystal:

  "22% of Americans approve how Trump is managing the cost of living for US households compared to 70% disapproval. So again, Biden was at 29% and 63% disapproval. We're not even in margin of error territory." (23:18)

The Role of War & Tech on Prices

• War with Iran spikes oil and energy prices, putting upward pressure on overall inflation and the stock market.
• Trump’s slashing of clean energy funding and pouring money into AI chips further distorts tech sector prices and job market outlook.
• Energy policy shift: Despite cuts to solar subsidies, 91% of new US electricity capacity in Q1 was solar, proving solar is still more cost-effective even without support. (45:35–47:43)

Market Fallout

• Tech stocks hit – Apple’s new AI/Siri announcement flops, deepening market unease.
• AI bubble? Discussion with Senator Rick Scott, who expresses skepticism over market logic and fears around job automation and speculative tech investing (42:34–43:41).

Notable Quotes

• Sen. Rick Scott (summarized by Krystal):

  "Your stock is tied to what people think it's worth, not necessarily what it's worth... I'm not buying something at 50 times earnings. How many things really keep growing at 50 times earnings? Not many." (43:41)

• Saagar:

  "Even the little treats they give you to try to compensate for the collapse of everything else, those are going up yet." (41:27)

---

Electoral Earthquake: Platner in Maine & Other Races

49:36–75:47

Graham Platner’s Stunning Primary Win in Maine

• Platner, rural oysterman and combat veteran, trounces Governor Janet Mills in Dem primary (72%–20%).

  • Rousing, confessional victory speech channels working-class roots and anti-corporate populism:

  "I will be a senator for the people who cannot afford to buy a senator. I will stand up for you and against billionaires and greedy corporations."
  — Graham Platner, 50:20–51:06

• Platner’s background: 4 combat tours, struggles with PTSD, now an antiwar voice with a "regular guy" persona.

• Hosts analyze why Platner’s brand of populism, redemption, and economic justice is resonating, and how his messaging ("it's not about me, it's about all of us") mirrors—and subverts—Trumpian rhetoric. (52:27–53:16)

• National Republicans shift attack lines: from culture-war themes ("Nazi") to "he’s too far left" (Green New Deal, Medicare for All, UBI). Krystal notes, “They’re pretty scared of Grant Platner at this point.” (54:48)

• Discussion on left-wing discomfort with combat veteran candidates and why veterans-turned-antiwar politicians are historically powerful agents of change. (65:01–71:00)

Notable Quotes

• Krystal:

  "You see me as a vehicle to advance your interests, not corporate interests." (53:27)

• Saagar:

  "To witness that, to take part in it, to come to terms with what you did and that it all being for nothing...that is the thing that produces so much depression, anxiety and terror in combat veterans." (69:09)

Democratic Coalition Tensions

• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is tepid in her support for Platner post-primary, physically recoiling in a CNN interview but noting the stark choice against incumbent Collins (59:25–60:09).

• Ro Khanna gives a full-throated endorsement, highlighting the need for transformation and redemptive politics:

  "If you believe in transformational politics, you need to believe in the ability for people to transform."
  — Ro Khanna, 64:47

• Hosts dig into the challenge of building a broad Democratic coalition given lingering suspicions toward white male veterans and the strategic necessity of appealing beyond stereotypical urban liberal bases.

Other Key Results

• California: Randy Villegas (Berniecrat, community college prof, garage owner) prevails in a key House primary despite heavy opposition from party leadership and DMFI.
• California: Mei Vang narrowly overtakes entrenched incumbent Doris Matsui in another primary, shaking up Sacramento politics.
• South Carolina: Lindsey Graham easily wins the GOP Senate primary; Nancy Mace suffers a humiliating 5th-place finish in gubernatorial race, possibly due to her antagonism toward the Trump wing and push for Epstein disclosures. (74:30–75:47)

---

Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On Trump’s Iran Policy:
  • Saagar, channeling the exasperation many feel, declares:

    "Trump is like, starting to actually bore me." (11:51)

• On Killing of Palestinian Baby by Israeli Forces:
  • Saagar acidly observes the absence of outrage:

    "These Israeli forces kill a baby and there are a handful of people that you'll see protest... But where's the outcry? Like your country does this and you're okay with it. Your country does this and doesn't arrest the people involved and you're okay with that?" (31:37)

• On The Solar Paradox:
  • Saagar (on clean energy investment):

    "You stripped away all of the subsidies, they succeeded in harming the industry... Yet we're still not doing anything but solar because solar is cheaper. And I don't know what part of this Trump doesn't understand." (45:35)

---

Tone

The show maintains its signature blend of unfiltered skepticism ("I don't know what we call this. It's a collection of words coming from the President of the United States." – Krystal, 09:09), beltway gossip, and pointed, sometimes dark humor. The hosts refuse to pull punches—whether denouncing presidential posturing, exposing economic frailty, or challenging left-liberal groupthink about class and culture.

---

For Your Queue

Mandatory Listening

• [06:14] Trey Yingst’s recounting of Trump’s helicopter/drone story
• [50:20] Platner’s powerful victory speech
• [64:47] Ro Khanna’s argument for politics of transformation

---

(Ads, product placements, and introductory banter have been omitted for clarity and focus.)

---

For more details, visit breakingpoints.com or check out the full episode on your podcast platform of choice.

Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Guaranteed Human.

[Trey Yingst]

I turned off news altogether.

[Krystal Ball]

I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's the rage bait.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.

[Ryan Seacrest]

What's up, y'?

[Krystal Ball]

All?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Summer's got a different tempo. Everything's a little looser, brighter. One plan turns into another. You hear something, you stay a little longer. Next thing you know, you're somewhere you didn't plan to be. It's those in between moments. That's where the ideas hit. Conversations stretch out. Little memories sneak up on you. Sometimes it's just about what's in your hand. That color, that chill. The new Tropical Butterfly refresher from Starbucks. Guava and passion fruit flavors with mango pineapple flavored pearls. Yeah, that feels like summer before you even taste it. Funny how one small stop becomes the best part of the day. Start your summer rhythm with Starbucks. Try the new Tropical Butterfly refresher from Starbucks. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway now through June 23rd. Shop for you. Save days and get great savings on all your favorite personal care Essentials and earn 4 times points. Shop in store or online and save on items like Head and Shoulders shoulder shampoo, Pantene shampoo, Tresemme Conditioner, l' Oreal hair dye, Tresemme Hairspray, and Aussie Miracle Curls and earn four times points to use for future savings on groceries or gas. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Krystal Ball]

Hey, guys, Sager and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show. This is the only place where you

[Saagar Enjeti]

can find honest perspectives from the left

[Krystal Ball]

and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important

[Saagar Enjeti]

to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com Become

[Krystal Ball]

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.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We need your help to build the

[Krystal Ball]

future of independent news media and we

[Saagar Enjeti]

hope to see [e-mail] all right, good morning and welcome to Breaking Points. Emily, we have an incredible show today in the sense that you're not going to believe about half of what we're going to tell you, and that's because you're sensible and you probably shouldn't. But we're going to tell you what people are claiming is going on between Iran, Israel and the United States anyway.

[Krystal Ball]

And when you say people, you mean the president.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I do mean that.

[Krystal Ball]

Just called FOX News. We're juggling some breaking news here right now this morning. He just called in a FOX News as we are recording this. So we're going to bring you the audio of what FOX News the video of what FOX News says the president conveyed about the downed Apache helicopter on Monday night. He's also been posting all morning on Truth Social about ir. So we have tons of updates to get to in the Middle East. We are we're going to have CPI numbers so inflation numbers coming out this morning. There's a lot to talk about, especially as the stock market took a real hit yesterday. Ryan, it was pretty interesting to watch that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I don't think it's going to be much better today.

[Krystal Ball]

Likely not.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I think reality may be finally catching up. We've got election results. South Carolina Governor Nancy Mace will tell you how she did Graham Platner. We'll tell you how he did Janet Mills and Nancy Mace, who did better out of the two of them, I think Mills was at like 19%. What did Mace come in at?

[Krystal Ball]

It's a good question, but it's also sort of where's the bar? Right. Like Janet Mills is the sitting governor of this. Nancy Mace is Nancy Mace.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We're going to look at a really crazy story that has not gotten the attention that it deserved and that is the Ukrainian effort to assassinate Vladimir Putin at the end of last year. And we're going to go through the evidence that has been presented as to whether or not that happened and which includes apparently Zelenskyy just kind of admitting it recently and talk about what the potential implications for that could be when it comes to nuclear war.

[Krystal Ball]

And as this war is the war in Ukraine not getting as much attention since Epic Fury started. But that war is in an incredibly intense period right now as well. So super important story to get to.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And we'll also be joined toward the back end of the show by Jane Kim. This is an attempt to rectify our east coast chauvinism. Big important things happen all the time on the West Coast.

[Krystal Ball]

We got Randy Villegas.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yes, we're going to talk about Randy Viegas. He won. We're going to talk about Mae Vang. She won. But Jane Kim on a insurance for all platform won the California insurance race with the backing of Bernie Sanders. It is not often that a statewide candidate wins on a populist message without corporate support in California. And so we're going to ask her how the heck she did that and what she's going to do with this very important but overlooked position that she'll have in California state government. And then friend of the show, Wanda VEED Rojas is going to be on to talk about a president that actually does seem to be doing stuff for the people that have elected her. That's Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico.

[Krystal Ball]

You're such a Sheinbaum fanboy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We are, we are here, right?

[Krystal Ball]

We've generally been pro Sheinbaum here.

[Saagar Enjeti]

She's Mexico first. I mean, what can you not love truly?

[Krystal Ball]

Mexico first World cup, obviously, beginning with games in Mexico on Thursday. And Pete Hegseth is in Guantanamo today. So want to feed. Rojas is very he covers all of that very closely. So we have a lot of questions to get to with him. Speaking of questions, Ryan, so many questions raised by President Donald Trump's interview with Fox News this morning. He apparently called Trey Yingst. And Trey Yingst reported live on FOX what he heard from the president about that downed Apache helicopter on Monday. Let's take a listen.

[Trey Yingst]

I want to start with a story. The president told me new details about the downing of this US Army Apache helicopter. President Trump tells Fox News that the Iranian drone lodged in between the two pilots in this helicopter. They were flying very low and at that point, the drone didn't explode as it had intended to. And so these pilots were trying to take down the helicopter with the drone lodged into this, into this gunship without it exploding. And at any moment it could have exploded. The president told me, and he said it was on fire. There was a lot of heat inside the cockpit of this helicopter. And ultimately these two pilots were able to take it down into the sea where ultimately they were rescued for the first time in US Military history by an unmanned sea drone. Now, President Trump also talked about the US Strikes last night against Iranian radar systems and air defense sites. He said the Iranians had tried to rebuild during the cease fire their defensive capabilities, but they were unable to stop these US Strikes overnight and they were hammered by US Fighter jets. Now, interestingly, President Trump told me that he is getting close to ordering new strikes against Iranian power plants and bridges.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And so another friend of the show aside, Mohamed Morandi, posted on Twitter in response to this, Trump has just announced on Fox News the death sentence of the Saudi, Qatari, Bahraini, UAE and Kuwaiti regimes, as well as the global economy. So to back up, when this Apache helicopter first went down, it was reported as. We don't know why it just went down. Then it was reported that it was hit by a shahed drone. And people were like, that's very odd because these things, like, you'd have to be drunk or asleep to get hit by one. Like, how does this happen? Like, these are not designed to hit Apache helicopters.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Now maybe there's just so many Apache helicopters and so many shahed drones flying over the Strait of Hormuz that one of them accidentally collided. Then other people said, well, maybe it was one of these loitering missiles that Iran has that operate similar to drones that are intended to hit aircraft like that. Or it just went down. Or none of this ever happened. Like, there are all of these different ideas. And then Trump started to say, well, maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. Like, maybe it was an accident. And it looked like he was trying to find a way out. Instead, we went all the way with this claim from Trump.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, we didn't have a lot that

[Saagar Enjeti]

the drone is lodged in between the two guys.

[Krystal Ball]

We didn't have a lot of information for the last couple of days until this bit of information on Fox News.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Can we call it information?

[Krystal Ball]

We. I don't know what we have to call this. I don't know what we call this.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's a collection of words coming from the President, United States.

[Krystal Ball]

So we did know. Part of the information we did have is that the pilots were apparently safe. And we don't know how that happened. But now we're told they were rescued for the first time in American history, I believe Ying said, by a sea

[Saagar Enjeti]

drone to the President. So this is like some rescue boat that's drone powered that went out. And so according to this, they safely landed the helicopter.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. Because you can't eject from this Apache, so you have to land.

[Saagar Enjeti]

There are blades, as far as I understand.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes. Yes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That would complicate the ejection of that.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, that would be a tough one. So you have to land it either on the land or in the water. And they were able to land in the water, and you got the autonomous sea drones coming for you.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So they land it in the water. The drone has not blown up yet, but it's on fire. Okay. Then they. They both get out of the Apache, assuming, I guess, different doors, because there's a drone in between them. According to Trump, the drone smashed through the window and it's sitting between them. Also, these shahed drones are massive. Like, these are not the Hezbollah FPV drones. These are not the ones that you got for Christmas and took to the park and used one time.

[Krystal Ball]

Don't get Ryan a drone for Christmas. That's what I just told my son.

[Saagar Enjeti]

These things are huge. So how a shahed drone. A huge shahed drone landed in between the pilots. Has Trump ever seen one?

[Krystal Ball]

I know it's our job.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I don't know if he would tell this story if he had seen one.

[Krystal Ball]

I know it's our job, but at this point, I don't think it even makes sense for us to try and piece the logic together of maybe.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Maybe in post we can show up a picture, like a scaled picture of

[Krystal Ball]

a shah drone, how big a shahat

[Saagar Enjeti]

drone is compared to an Apache. Actually, like, they're huge. Anyway.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, there's a lot.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay, so we can put. Let's. So let's put up a zero. Zero. Trump has launched a wave after wave of strikes on Iran. Iran has responded and now we're supposed to be getting more, but. So here's what Trump had said after he launched several waves of these attacks. Iran's military, Iran's military is a complete and total mess. How's your Trump much of it? Like, their navy and air force doesn't even exist anymore. They have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action. The bully of the Middle east is dead. They've taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them. Now they will have to pay the price.

[Krystal Ball]

Your commitment waned about midway through reading

[Saagar Enjeti]

the truth, but Trump is like, starting to actually bore me.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, it's.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, even with all this speculation

[Krystal Ball]

because under normal circumstances, him saying what he said this morning and even to say that they will have to pay the price, obviously it's huge news. It is still what we're leading the show with because it's huge news. But he's done this so many times that what it actually means remains in question. Unusual for the President of the United States to speak with such strong language historically and us be at an impasse for what actually is. Is happening right now.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And he even went back to a new. Like his all praise be to Allah he posted this morning. Where is the all praise be to Allah? I'm not finding it, but he did another one of he's on a complete and total rampage on Truth Social about Joe Scarborough. And he said. And he did it. He again, he did his praise be to Allah, which is he's boomer posting sorry. Which is to try to. Try to put some rationality to it. I think when he does his praise be to Allah nonsense, he's trying to say I'm crazy. He's trying to do the Nixon like, I'm so crazy that you better make a deal with me because I'm so crazy. I'm just throwing out random praise be to Allahs.

[Krystal Ball]

But do you think it's a concerted effort or do you think it is just crazy?

[Saagar Enjeti]

I think it's concerted. I think it's him trying to.

[Krystal Ball]

But not to be meta. That's kind of crazy in and of itself.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. I don't think it'll work. It's silly.

[Krystal Ball]

Trying to be that crazy and sounding that crazy because you were trying to be that crazy, I think reflects a genuine crazy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yes. So that, in that sense, yes, it's a put on, but it's not. So Iranian Foreign Minister Aragchi posted and we can put up this next element. This was his response to the Apache going down. He said, foreign forces in proximity to our territory are at constant risk on account of their own human errors, plane accidents or potentially being caught in crossfire. To reduce risk, best solution is for them to leave. We prefer language of diplomacy, but speak other languages too. And so here he was, he's being a tough guy, but also leaving kind of an opening for Trump at this point to say, okay, this was an accident, like. And what he's saying is, like, if you don't like these accidents, if you don't want your Apache helicopters crashing into drones and landing in the Strait of Hormuz and then getting picked up by an autonomous sea drone, then don't have your Apache helicopters flying over the Sea of Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz, like, leave, go somewhere else. Which there's actually no flaws in that logic. Like, if you don't have your helicopters in Iran, they won't be crashing. They won't be crashing in Iran.

[Krystal Ball]

So the question for Trump is obviously what it has been. How much longer is it worth the Strait of Hormuz being closed? Do you escalate or do you de escalate and look like you're taking an L? Something worse than the JCPOA risk, everybody covering it as being worse than the JCPOA risk. Mark Levin, breaking off your beautiful budding friendship. That's where he finds himself to the point that you're making about, well, if there are no Apache helicopters in the Strait of Hormuz, then you won't have any problems in The Strait of Hormuz. So part of what Trump has been trying to avoid is exactly escalatory potential like this. If those pilots had died, what would have come from this week? The week ahead would be very different. Of course it'd be very different. It sounds like according to the president's story, that was a rather close call. According to the president's story, we should

[Saagar Enjeti]

say, although as Morandi is pointing out, Trump, and as Professor Pape always points out, Trump is not actually totally in control of this. Like, he keeps wanting to toggle up and down and back and forth the level of hostility here, but he also doesn't have the ability to control what's going on. And so as Morandi is saying, Iran is planning a massive regional retaliation for what happened overnight. Now, on the point of the naval blockade, and I found this, I can send this to Mac. Trump says the fake news media refuses to report how effective the US Naval blockade is. The most successful blockade in the history of naval warfare. Nothing gets through unless we want it to. It is a steel wall. Iran is doing zero business, not paying their military or any of their bills and quickly becoming a failed nation. Lots of oil is getting out. Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump. And so that's him again celebrating his successes and then adding in a little twist of. Adding in a little twist of crazy. So the attacks themselves. Actually, you want to talk about a one while I send this to.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, yeah, so actually we're starting with breaking news this morning on the President's comments. But of course what we'd plan to start with is the strikes. Mm yesterday. So we can put a one up on the screen. This is from Centcom, posted at 5pm last night. US Central Command forces began launching self defense strikes against Iran at 5pm Eastern today at the Commander in Chief's direction. Note, quote, self defense strikes, the language there. In response, CENTCOM went on to say to yesterday's downing of a US Army Apache helicopter, the mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression. And Ryan, that language in the last sentence, you've covered this much closer than I have over the years. That's unusual language from centcom, is it not? To say this is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression. It's very, it sort of reeks of desperation. You're in announcing strikes, you are as centcom, not the president, not a political group, but centcom telling you that it is proportional to. In response to unjustified attacks.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right. It's flowing directly from Trump where Trump is Trying to say I'm going to hit you. A shah had lodged in between my pilots and so I'm going to hit you back. But you shouldn't retaliate significantly. You can do a little bit, go hit Kuwait a little bit, but don't, but let's all move on and get back to the deal. Get back to the deal making. In fact, we have reports that the Qatari negotiators are like on their way right now to Islamabad and maybe we'll get a deal today. Like, who knows. But Trump is trying, he's trying desperately to be the madman but also remain in control. But he didn't stop with that first wave of attacks. We can put up a one on they launched overnight a second and third wave of attacks on the Jask port Kui Mubarak drop site reported fresh explosion sounds also reported in Syriac. And we can talk about the water tanks that were hit there. Iraqi news sources reported large numbers of U.S. fighter jets flying over Iraq near the Iranian border. Then a third wave of strikes went through near Bandar Abbas island, so hitting all across the kind of western, southern and even central Iran and appear to hit Tehran as well. We put up a two in Sirik. It was reported that two residential water reservoirs were struck. You also had in another region of Iran water tanks hit, as we just mentioned. So minimum tens of thousands of people affected by this. It is a war crime of the highest order to hit water infrastructure for obvious reasons. Anybody who is smart enough to have been able to click play on this understands why that is. And so if you put up a three, Iran began retaliating by hitting. So this is so strange. Like what are they doing? They're hitting military targets. I thought you're supposed to hit like you know, the water reservoirs. But strangely, Iran decides to attack the U.S. 5th Fleet base in Bahrain and on other bases across the region. You had attacks reported in Kuwait as as well the Iranian armed forces released in their, in their statement, multiple US Bases in the region were struck by Iranian army and IRG's forces. Quote, if the US criminal army repeats its aggression against the Islamic Republic, massive and wider strikes will be carried out against designated targets across the region. That's, that's kind of, that's kind of where we are with Trump threatening further attacks. We can put up a 5B actually Trump threatening further attacks. And then the Iranians saying if they continue, we're prepared to expand this war. Trump says he tells abc, quote, somebody's going to have to build all that infrastructure, new bridges, new this new. That new power plants. They're talking about a trillion dollars. This is Iran. Probably more than. That's why we'll probably get involved in rebuilding. But we'll get half their oil.

[Krystal Ball]

Yep.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay, so we're going to get half their oil and then we're going to rebuild their country.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

First we're going to destroy it.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, Trump's friends are going to rebuild their.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Trump's friends, presumably. Yeah. Somehow the American people just can't see the wisdom of this. Put up a six.

[Krystal Ball]

What's wrong with you guys?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Come on. What's wrong with you? Yes. Trump approval stays near record low as Americans expect higher gas prices. And gas prices have been ticking down a little bit the last few days, maybe weeks, slightly under what I think people are bracing for much worse to come. We have been flooding the market with the strategic reserves and drawing down inventories in order to keep prices as low as possible. We can put up a 6B just to try to stave off the very worst of this. This is from dropsight as well. US Crude inventories fell sharply last week for a combined draw of about 17 million barrels, according to American Petroleum Institute data. Commercial crude drew down 9.1 barrels, while the Trump administration released another 7.9 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum reserve. This is way ahead of the estimates that the oil analysts have been expecting the drawdown to go much slower the last couple weeks. And we're drawing down much faster than they expected. You guys can kind of be the judge of whether or not you think that's a good thing or not.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, and one thing I wanted to highlight from this Reuters poll, the Reuters write up of a poll. This is a sentence that Trump dreads. Americans are now more dissatisfied with Trump's performance on the issue of cost of living than they were of his Democratic predecessor in office, Joe Biden, who closed out his term with 29% approval on the cost of living. And 63% disappears under that. Trump is at 35% of respondents saying they approve of Trump's performance in the White House overall. Now let's go back to cost of living in particular. See where it is here. 22% of Americans approve how Trump is managing the cost of living for US households compared to 70% disapproval. So again, Biden was at 29% and 63% disapproval. We're not even in margin of error territory. That's a, that's a resounding the victory for Biden.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The people yearn for Biden nomics. Yeah, they given a dose back, given A dose of Trump's.

[Krystal Ball]

I think we're getting a little bit nomics here, to be honest.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But what are the. What is it? Which part of the Biden nomics are we getting?

[Krystal Ball]

I think we still have some inflation from overheated Covid spending and I think probably some greedflation, too. And I think actually what we're probably seeing now, Trumponomics, is even more greedflation when prices went up after epic fury.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right. I think. I don't know if that's Biden. Well, none of that is Biden nomics. Well, well, because the spending was both split between Trump and Biden.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, but the Biden. The two bills that Biden passed were heavy spenders.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's true. But Trump completely slashed the second one, so Inflation Reduction Act. All of that spending was completely withdrawn.

[Krystal Ball]

The green energy spending, which was most

[Saagar Enjeti]

of it, that was the bulk of it.

[Krystal Ball]

There was a lot of spending.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Still, though, I'm going with the war.

[Krystal Ball]

It's clearly the war. To be fair, it's clearly the war. But all I was saying is that there's still some. I think there's still some inflation from Biden spending. Although actually we'll have inflation data to talk about in the next block. When Biden left office, inflation was lower than it is now. So Trump gets elected again. We're going to talk about this in a second, but just to round this all out, Trump gets elected on a promise to bring down inflation. Well, it had been going down at a rate until the war that was now lower than what it is post war. So there's no question that it is primarily the war. But Ryan and I just debated a stupid little quip that I made. So you get a little extra in this block.

[Saagar Enjeti]

All right, let's move on to prices.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's do it.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. This summer. Stock up on your favorite brands for both you and your home. Now through June 23rd, get big deals on everyday essentials from Procter and Gamble. Shop in store or online for savings on items like Swiffer Power Mop, Febreze Plug Warmer, Herbal Essence Shampoo, Old Spice Chew In, Crest Scope Toothpaste Secret Deodorant Spray, and Head and Shoulder Shampoo. Get these deals before they're gone. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Trey Yingst]

I turned off news altogether.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I hate to say it, but I

[Krystal Ball]

don't trust much of anything.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's the rage bait.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3

[Krystal Ball]

month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail]

[Saagar Enjeti]

so we did want to get to this extraordinarily disturbing story emerging out of out of Israel in the occupied territories. You may recall that recently a seven month old baby was killed by IDF soldiers. And actually let's start with. So that people have the IDF's context. Let's start with their statement. That would be a 8 because then we're getting, we, we now have video of what actually happened. So here's what the IDF had said on June 5. Earlier today, during operational activity in the area of Hebron, IDF soldiers perceived a vehicle accelerating toward them. Got that? An IDF soldier responded with single shots. We're inventing new phrases here. Single shots toward the vehicle. As a result, three Palestinians were injured and evacuated for medical treatment. Strongly suggests that the, the Israeli soldiers had something to do with this evacuation. By the way, an initial inquiry. Inquiry is an interesting word. Found that those injured were uninvolved civilians. The incident is under review and the findings will be submitted for review by the relevant authorities. The last line is how you know when you're reading these statements that something very dark happened. The IDF expresses deep sorrow for any harm caused to uninvolved individuals. Immediately the reports were that they had shot and killed a seven month old baby. Betselem, the Israeli human rights organization has since obtained two videos of this attack. And so let's take a look at the footage that Betselem has obtained. And so what you. So there you see the car that was quote unquote perceived to be accelerating toward them. It's nowhere near them. When you see the soldier open fire on it. And there you can see the father holding his murdered son in the street. And then in the hospital. And here is Sam. This is young Sammy before He was killed. The IDF has since told Israeli media that these were young Israeli soldiers. Another thing, as if that somehow exonerates what's going on. Another thing you notice in that video is the complete lack of assistance. What you immediately notice, of course, is a soldier opening fire into a car with a family, a mom, a dad and a baby, and killing the baby, which has to reflect an extraordinary amount of dehumanization going on between the people on either side of that wall. The fact that there was no attempt to help them immediately. Like you don't. Did you see any Israeli paramedics, Israeli soldiers anywhere near the baby as his life bled out of him? No. You did not. They just kind of kept it moving. There have been no arrests made here for up to me everyone in the chain of command would be under arrest and held without bond top to bottom. Involved with this. This is five days ago. They knew this happened. I made the point also that American police forces, I don't know that they've killed a seven month old baby in forever. But when they kill, when American police officers or ICE officials or cbp, if they kill an American citizen, there are enormous protests in the streets. 2020 saw riots across the country

[Krystal Ball]

or

[Saagar Enjeti]

the killing of a grown man. These Israeli forces kill a baby and there are a handful of people that you'll see protest. Perhaps one or two maybe was standing together. But where's the outcry? Like your country does this and you're okay with it. Your country does this and doesn't arrest the people involved and you're okay with that?

[Krystal Ball]

Well, yeah, I think that's actually the critical point because you can make the argument that tragic mistakes happen. They could be making that argument.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Let them make it in court.

[Krystal Ball]

Right, exactly right. And again, like you can make the argument that we took all the precautions, we followed all of the relevant, salient, relevant statutes and just this tragic, tragic error happened. And what did they say after Shreen Abu Akla was killed? Eventually. After. It took a long, long time. Eventually. I think they said something like they were conciliatory in one way or another, but nobody's actually being. And actually somewhat similar in that case. But here it looks like no disciplinary proceedings so far.

[Saagar Enjeti]

No, no nothing. And Hebron is that is this is the famous town where Americans go there all the time and come back deeply radicalized by what they've seen. It's one of. Because there are checkpoints everywhere and Jewish Israelis are allowed to move around to different areas that Palestinians are not allowed to move around to. There are homes where you're only allowed to enter from one direction. You know, the doors are barred on the other side. There are homes where there are entire streets where the Jewish Israeli homes are on top. And the Palestinians have had to put netting up along all of their alleys to catch the trash that they're just constantly throwing trash. It's this deeply militarized occupied area. And so these soldiers are not remotely at risk at any way because the place is so thoroughly locked down in such a dystopian way that like I was saying, people go there and going there is the thing. That's where Ta Nehisi Coates went and described like having the veil lifted before him, saying this is completely insane. So that's where this was. They're not at risk from anybody there, let alone from a seven month old baby and his parents driving slowly in the street. These soldiers clearly felt they could do this and get away with it.

[Krystal Ball]

And we'll see. So far, looking like that's possible.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And more bad news. We should take a look here at the economy because CPI number just dropped.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Ryan.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway. Now through June 23rd. Shop for you. Save days and get great savings on all your favorite personal care Essentials and earn 4 times points. Shop in store or online and save on items like head and shoulder shampoo, Pantene shampoo, Tresemme conditioner, l' Oreal hair dye, Tresemme Hairspray and Aussie Miracle Curls and earn four times points to use for future savings on groceries or gas. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Trey Yingst]

I turned off news altogether.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I hate to say it, but I

[Krystal Ball]

don't trust much of anything.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's the rage bait.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.

[Krystal Ball]

Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now? Really? I can get super specific with dealer listings and see cars based on my budget. You can really have it delivered or pick it up. Mommy. I think kid is walking up the slide. Really?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Autotrader, buy your car online?

[Krystal Ball]

Really? The much awaited CPI inflation number just dropped. We have it for you here. We can put the new element up on the screen. Inflation, according to cnbc, accelerated in May as rising energy costs contributed to pain for consumers. Though underlying Pressures were less intense. The Consumer Price Index, which, as CNBC is describing here, is a broad gauge of goods and services costs across the US economy rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.5% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 4.2%, according to the BLS report that was released this morning. Both numbers were in line with the Dow Jones consensus. CNBC adds inflation climbed above 4% for the first time in three years. Where does that put us? Right back in the pandemic era. Ryan and CNBC says the increase met expectations amid concerns over how much the surge in energy prices would impact the economy. The level was the highest since April 2023 and above the 3.8% level from April.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I just can't put into words the depth of my hatred for Trump at this point. He did this 150% on his own. Like he inherited an economy that was improving.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He inherited inflation that was coming down, Interest rates were coming down, mortgage rates were coming down. Stock market doing well. Stock market's still doing well. It won't be great today, probably. And he just did this for no reason or for Netanyahu, whatever.

[Krystal Ball]

Future's sliding as we speak.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And so the times write up of this has some other like it's bad at the top line is bad. You go even you go second, third line, fourth line. They're all bad. They finished their kind of blog post update. The main factor, keeping a lid on prices. So it would be much worse consumers who have by now spent their tax refunds and have lately seen smaller increases in their paychecks. So just to explain what they mean by that, the main thing keeping prices down from where they would otherwise be is that you don't have any money. And because you don't have any money, you can't pay these high prices. So businesses can't charge the prices that they need or want to keep up with the pressures that they're under. So a bunch of them are just going to go under. Some of them won't be able to do their greedflation as much as they would like to otherwise. But this is what's known in economics as, quote, demand destruction by saying one way to keep inflation down is to make sure that there are more poor people. And because if there's more poor people, there's fewer people in line at the shop. Fewer people in line, the shop shopkeeper can't raise their prices as much as they want.

[Krystal Ball]

So when Trump took office, CPI was at 3%. So January 2025 and heading down, heading down. So it goes down. It jumped a little bit after Liberation Day, but really only back up to 2.7 and 2.9%. January 2026, CPI is at 2.4%, 2.4%.

[Saagar Enjeti]

What happened in February? What did Trump do in February? Yeah, oh, yeah, that's right, he bombed Iran.

[Krystal Ball]

Yep, 2.4% in February 2026, January 2026. By March, it's climbing to 3.3. Right now, 4.2. As a reminder, 3% is where it was when President Trump took office in January of 2025. This is, as CNBC noted, the highest since April of 2023, which is right as we were coming down from the pandemic high In June of 2022, CPI was at 9.1%. So climbing back up. But actually, if you go historically without the pandemic, the CPI hasn't been at 4.2% again, excluding the pandemic, for a very, very long time. I'm going back here to post recession, it's looking like, yeah, middle of the recession, we got up to 5% June 2008.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The other thing that the report makes clear is that Trump's other policy, which is to just flood money to AI, is also driving up prices all over the place in the obvious way, driving up your utility bills, your electric bills. But also for decades, what we've experienced as consumers is the cost of technology going down. TVs come out like, wow, that's cool. I can't afford it. I'll wait a year or two until the price of that comes way down. That's been what's going on. But because the AI buildout is putting such pressure on chips, the price of the chips that underline all of these consumer products is going way up. And so now, according to this report, you're seeing that one thing we'd kind of come to say, all right, everything sucks. And this is what you hear from like the mat iglesiases of the world, that, yes, okay, a lot of things are bad, but you've got like a 55 inch TV and you didn't pay much for it. Isn't that cool? Even that is going away because the price of the chips inside that 55 inch TV are driving up the price of that, that TV. So even the little treats they give you to try to compensate for the collapse of everything else, those are going up yet.

[Krystal Ball]

And let's put up on the screen the Apple dip yesterday. This is going to be B2. So Apple reveals actually an anthropic revealed fable yesterday. Apple reveals its new Siri also much awaited. And Apple shares were sliding according to CNBC yesterday. Sort of a dud, people felt like. But it was around Reminder, Ryan, that some 30% of the S&P 500 is based on Mag 7 stocks. And we've had Raheem Chopra on to talk about this, former head of the cfpb. This is a really, really, really shaky economy. And to this question of the Trump administration's accelerationism on AI. I was at a pen and pad with Senator Rick Scott earlier this week and he was expressing people were asking him about AI. He was wearing a pin on his lapel that said Jobs. So he was getting asked questions by the other journalists in the room about if he's worried that AI will cause a huge wipeout of Jobs. He said he thinks that's all kind of alarmist and that technology always creates jobs. It all comes out in the wash, that sort of thing. And so I then asked him, aren't we in a trap then? So if this is such a huge part of the market that's predicated on Dario Amadei's basically promised to take out 50% of white collar jobs in the next several years, are we either in for mass layoffs or a stock market crash? And he said, quote, unquote, there's no logic to the explosion in AI stocks. So I said, is Trump putting us further into the bubble? He said, quote, I think the difference is probably, I wouldn't be talking about it in my life. I can talk about jobs, right? I can talk about schools and talk about something. I can measure the fact that the market's trading at all time highs. I'm going to say, man, I'm not doing that. This did not make me feel any better whatsoever about the state of the economy. He goes, I ran a public company. Your stock is tied to what people think it's worth, not necessarily what it's worth. Now as an investor, I can put a value on it until comfortable. Over a period of time, I can make money. I'm not buying something at 50 times earnings. How many things really keep growing at 50 times earnings? Not many. So SpaceX is going to be worth 1.8 trillion, right? I think the revenues are like 4 or 5 billion dollars in revenues and we could get into that. But.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And who is this again?

[Krystal Ball]

Rick Scott.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Rick Scott.

[Krystal Ball]

Senator Rick Scott, who's been bringing in some of these tech giants to talk to Republican senators and get them to ask questions back and forth of one another. So has been studying the issue we'll say.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And so while, while energy prices are surging, I wanted to highlight one thing put up before here. This is a new report out this morning from the Solar Energy Industries association, which is the trade group that represents the solar industry. As you know, Biden put tons of money into the clean energy market, kickstarted that thing. Trump ripped it all out saying, no, like, he doesn't like clean energy, he likes the dirty stuff. America's future is in oil and gas. And that is going to be our critical advantage against these other countries like China that are run by dummies who have been fooled by this clean energy thing. So ripped away all of the subsidies. So it's a straight up just market question of how much, you know, what is, what is utility, what is a resident was, what is a residential home? What is, what does a company want to do when it comes to building out energy? So let's, let's see if the dummies were right or wrong. Well, we do see indeed a 27% decline year over year in installation of Solar and a 42% decline compared with Q4 of 2025. Okay, so solar installation is going down, but what do we see? 91% of all new electricity generating capacity added in the first quarter was solar.

[Krystal Ball]

That's crazy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So people are getting what I'm saying here, right? So they stripped away all the subsidies, they succeeded in harming the industry, such that we are installing much less solar than we would be otherwise and that we were when there were credits and other incentives to do it. Yet we're still not doing anything but solar because solar is cheaper. And I don't know what part of this Trump doesn't understand. This is the first quarter, by the way, which you just, you read the numbers off. Inflation was low. We were not at war with Iran. We entered war with Iran in the final month of the first quarter. But for most of it, we were not at war with Iran. We had not destroyed the fossil fuel. So even then, 91% of new electricity was solar. And that's solar and battery storage. So it's not just solar, but the battery storage is related either to wind or solar effectively. And so I would imagine that the second quarter is going to see 98%. Like, who out there is like, you know what we need to do? We need to invest deeply in building out our fossil fuel infrastructure at this point. So great job, Trump crazy, bang up job, crazy.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, that's, nobody's talking about that. Super interesting.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I ran into this solar person at

[Krystal Ball]

the event I was going to ask. It sounds like something that someone was like, hey, you should look into this. And indeed, Ryan looked into it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Emily and I were supposed to meet up at a right wing substack event last night.

[Krystal Ball]

It was not right wing. No, it wasn't. We determined this. We were.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I assumed it was right wing because they didn't invite me. I just crashed.

[Krystal Ball]

And I was like, you can have Thomas Paine. Yeah, but your job site crew was there. And I know. I assumed it was right wing, too, but it was not. Anyway, anywhere you see a Founding Father impersonator, you usually say, oh, this has got to be right wing. But it was actually. It was kind of like a Georgetown set. Unusual scene for us nonetheless.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Met Jacob from tmz. That was very cool.

[Krystal Ball]

Love that. I'm so jealous. I'm so jealous.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But also met the solar person who I'd known before, but she's like, hey, we have this report coming out tonight, if you want to see it.

[Krystal Ball]

There you go.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Like, just wild.

[Krystal Ball]

This is why we go to these things.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's right.

[Krystal Ball]

We do it for you.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We do it for you.

[Krystal Ball]

We drink the free beer for you. All right, let's move on to the election results.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this summer. Stock up on your favorite brands for both you and your home. Now through June 23rd, get big deals on everyday essentials from proctor and Gambler. Shop in store or online for savings on items like Swiffer Power Mop, Febreze Plug Warmer, Herbal Essence shampoo, Old Spice 2 in one, Crest Scope toothpaste, Secret Deodorant spray, and Head and Shoulder shampoo. Get these deals before they're gone. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Trey Yingst]

I turned off news altogether.

[Krystal Ball]

I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's the rage bait.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.

[Krystal Ball]

Are you really buying a car online on autotrader right now? Really? At a playground? Yeah. Really? Look at these listings from dealers. Wow, your search can really get that specific. Really? And you just put in your info and boom, car's in your budget. Mom needs a second. Honey, you can really have it delivered. Really? Or I can pick it up at the dealership. One sec, sweetie. Mommy's buying a car. Mommy, look. I think your kid is walking up the slide, Kyle. Again. Really? Auto trader.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Buy your car online.

[Krystal Ball]

Really?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Oystermen and combat veteran Graham Platner trounced sitting Governor Janet Mills in the main election last night, winning the Democratic primary with most of the votes counted. At this point, platner is sitting at 72% of the vote against Mills with 20% who had suspended her campaign. An also ran candidate picked up 8% as well. Graham Platner with a rather energetic speech last night, I think you could call

[Krystal Ball]

it, it's a banger.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It was filled with bars, went hard at Susan Collins, who will be his Republican opponent, and also addressed some of his controversies. Let's listen to a little bit of Platner here last night.

[Graham Platner]

I am a son of rural Maine. I was a kid who picked blueberries under the July sun. And then one day I was a kid who signed up and left to fight for his country. And when I returned, I carried with me the weight of forever wars and the struggle and the alienation that came with it. But I'm also a lucky one who found his way back, who found a living on the sea and a home and a community that offered love and redemption. Redemption is not just some simple or easy destination. It's a journey. I've made mistakes in my life, mistakes that I regret, that I live with and I continue to learn from. And I'm still far from perfect, but every day I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was the day before. And if you give me the chance, I will be a senator for the people who cannot afford to buy a senator. I will stand up for you and against billionaires and greedy corporations. I will serve you, the people of Maine, not some lobbyist or party boss. I will be the champion for your dreams as if it were my own. No matter the challenge or the expense, I will fight for you. I have been willing to die for my country. There is nothing that I will not do for the state of Maine.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And another point, Emily, but first of all, has nobody used that line before? That is a bar.

[Krystal Ball]

Which one?

[Saagar Enjeti]

I will be a senator for people who cannot afford to buy one.

[Krystal Ball]

I thought that was the best line, too.

[Saagar Enjeti]

What a line.

[Krystal Ball]

It's fantastic.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He also talked a lot about Susan Collins, how her husband, who was a lobbyist and she have gotten extraordinarily wealthy. And then he had this refrain where he said it rhymed with what Trump has said on the campaign trail, which is that the mainstream media keeps looking for that one story, that one headline that is going to take him out. But he said they've spent so much time trying to figure me out. What they don't understand is it's not about me.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's about all of us, which is

[Krystal Ball]

Trumpian, by the way.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The Trumpian line version is they're not coming after me, they're coming after you, but I'm standing in the way.

[Krystal Ball]

Exactly.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's a similar, but it's a little more us. Interestingly, it's like Trump is a little more right coded, the me and the you, and he's a little more left coded with the us but otherwise it's the same concept.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes. The point is you see me as a vehicle to advance your interests, not corporate interests.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So do they. And that's why they're coming after me.

[Krystal Ball]

Exactly that. I'm essentially a pawn in the effort to take you down, to undermine you. And so the nrc, the National Republican Senatorial Committee put out a memo that looks like they gave it to Politico this morning saying that Maine is now the linchpin. That is the quote they use. Maine is the linchpin. They say Democrats cannot win the majority without it. That's not necessarily true. They could potentially do Ohio. They could potentially do Texas. Where? They could do Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, which is not out of the question at all, and Nebraska, but that would be unusual. So, yeah, they probably do need Maine. Not impossible without it. But again, NRC this morning saying that this race is the linchpin. Quote, Grant Platner is the most left wing Senate nominee Maine has ever seen. That might be true. His platform aligns directly with national progressives, featuring Medicare for All Green, New Deal, universal basic income, government funded universal childcare, free college, and a wide open pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. You can see what in this race they're now pivoting to, which is not Nazi stuff. Now they are talking about the kind of nuts and bolts which they were not before. I think it signals that they're pretty scared of Grant Platner at this point.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I was always the most concerned when it came to his chances of exactly that, that he actually is like, like super populist and progressive.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. He is far left, it's fair to say.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And so that would have been to me the smart line of attack.

[Krystal Ball]

From Mills.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, from Mills, from Collins, from Republicans. Instead they've spent the last several months calling him an abuser, a Nazi, A like fake working class guy, like going after and A lot of the arguments, particularly calling him a Nazi, cut against that. He's a left winger. So Maine voters are like, wait a minute, you spent the last several months telling us he's a Nazi. A bunch of your online people are still calling him a Nazi and are gonna call him a Nazi for months to come.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But he's also too far left wing. You say he hates women, but he's too far left wing.

[Graham Platner]

Right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So their attacks, their inconsistent, contradictory attacks cut against them being able to marshal a straightforward message. Plus, yes, he's backing that kind of list of Bernie Sanders things. And Bernie Sanders backs him when he talks. He talks in economic populism.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, yes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He doesn't talk in cultural, like, whatever you want to call it.

[Krystal Ball]

He pivots cultural issues, which will be, I think, I do think will be difficult for him because the trans participation in sports has been a big issue in Maine. I think there's currently a bill in Maine on that. So he's going to have to run on that. Right. Because she took on Trump over the issue as she saw it, and so it's going to come up. I don't know that Susan Collins necessarily wants to lean into it either. Susan Collins shies away from those issues for the most part, but he'll be asked about it. And he always pivots. He actually has good lines that I disagree with, but I think they're good lines pivoting it back to the economy every time culture comes up. He says, literally, billionaires are the reason you're asking me this question. When reporters ask him the question, which is a very good line of deflection. Disagree with it, but it is very good. Let's take a look at aoc, and

[Saagar Enjeti]

before we get to that. Yeah, yeah, before we get to that, let's get to the Mills Mafia.

[Krystal Ball]

The Mills Mafia.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The Mills Mafia was out in force

[Krystal Ball]

at the jumping on tables.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Nathan Bernard, job site correspondent, went to two different polling locations, one in Augusta, one in Waterville. He actually talked to 121 voters.

[Krystal Ball]

Impressive.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And just for fun, we did a exit poll and he nailed it. It's kind of wild. We didn't call it scientific because it's only two different polling locations. And you got to do the whole state. You got to do so bigger sample. But his numbers were within, like, the margin of error of what they. What of what the actual voters across the state did. Here's one of his interviews with a. He talked to a decent number of Janet Mills voters. But here's. Here's one of Them. And I think we forget that this is how a decent number of Americans kind of approach voting. Let's roll. C5 Senate.

[Trey Yingst]

That was Platner and Mills.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, okay. Thank you. I need that. Mills and Flattener flat.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So you ranked Mills first?

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay.

[Trey Yingst]

And then for governor, do you remember?

[Krystal Ball]

Tell me the list again.

[Trey Yingst]

That was Nirav Shaw.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You had Troy Jackson. You had Shelly Pingree. I mean, Hannah Pingree, Shanna Bellows, Hannah

[Krystal Ball]

Shah and Troy last.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So when people look at the 20% that Mills took home, some, you know, people who hate Platner are gonna look at that and be like, see, she dropped out and she still got 20%.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

She's the sitting governor. And like, just through inertia, you're gonna get some set of people voting. And the reason he named them both is that Maine has ranked choice voting. So he ranked Mills first and then Platner second. The Platner doesn't vote. Doesn't count because he more than. Well, actually, I guess in the ranked choice voting, that will count because she finished under 50%.

[Krystal Ball]

It sucks. Sorry. We should have that debate sometime. I stand with him.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Interesting. Yeah. Anyway, so you were saying AOC.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Let's take a look here at AOC. This is C3. Here's how she reacted amidst all of the controversy of the last several days. C3. When it comes to the substance of this reporting, obviously there's a lot in that behavior that's really challenging. It's hard to stomach, you know, in some of it. But. But at the end of the day, I think that this is a choice. If the choice on the ballot is between that and a senator who's voted to take health care away from millions of Americans, that's the situation that we have to weigh. What say you, Ryan?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, the body language there is interesting. She's sort of like, physically recoiling at the thought of Platner. It seems like.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, that was an interview with CNN Manarajo outside the Capitol.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And so she has not endorsed in this race. And so I guess she can't endorse in the primary. Clearly, what she's saying there is. She didn't even come out and say she would support Platner against Collins. She would.

[Krystal Ball]

She implied.

[Saagar Enjeti]

She implied that she would. And she's like, I guess this is what we have to do. It's a little reminiscent of the fascinating interview that Crystal did with Chris Raab, the DSA Justice Democrats back Democrat who's going to represent Philadelphia. If people haven't watched that, they should Go watch it. We don't like our candidate interviews. If you go to YouTube, in particular, interviews with candidates will get like 70% less.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Because it feels localized than typical. So the algorithm probably didn't show that one to you. So go find. It's really interesting. And a lot of people were dunking all over Chris Rab for it. But I actually think it. I think this is an important and needed conversation to have. That's one reason that I'm glad that Platner's in the race, because he's forcing this conversation. And you can't. I don't think you can kind of force people, can't force it back in. But what you can do is have that conversation and talk to people like, why are people so passionately supportive of Platner? Tease it out and then get from people like, why do you hate him so much? Like, what is it like? Because for Rab and for, I think, a lot of others, it's just aesthetics. It's like that he looks like somebody they don't like.

[Krystal Ball]

I think that's correct.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, that's why I want that conversation, because I feel like we can maybe break through.

[Krystal Ball]

It's a great conversation for you in particular to have because we've been talking about this for a long time.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's a flip side of back in the early 2010s and 2000s when the gay rights movement was gaining steam.

[Krystal Ball]

The Barney Frank argument.

[Saagar Enjeti]

What people discovered. Yeah. Is that you've got a gay uncle. You actually. Once people started coming out of the closet.

[Krystal Ball]

The Andrew Sullivan argument.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Once people started coming out of the closet, like, oh, that guy's gay. I love that guy. He's great. And my life is fine around him. This is the reverse for liberals. It's like, this is a white guy and he's actually pretty nice.

[Krystal Ball]

A big, burly combat vet.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Big burly combat vet.

[Krystal Ball]

Someone you could see with Joe Rogan.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And he's fine. Don't be afraid, don't be scared. Like, the current cultural divorce between kind of progressives and white men is so, like, stark that it's just culturally, morally, ethically wrong, but also just pragmatically, from a political perspective, you can't build a national party.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

If you assume every white guy or every white guy with a deep voice is a combat vet or whatever is, like, out to get you, or if

[Krystal Ball]

you talk about him in a way that implies he does have sort of

[Saagar Enjeti]

built in problems, just inherent toxicity or something.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Whether you're talking about racism or Sexism, Yes.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And if you believe that, you can point to a lot of things he said in the past. Be like, oh, yikes, I can't deal with that. Rokhanna, though.

[Krystal Ball]

That's what I was going to say because it's interesting to do the contrast with AOC and Rokhanna, actually, because there's also a theory here that maybe there's rumblings in DNC type circles that more is coming out on Platner or that he's going to be used as an albatross and other races, which I honestly doubt. I think that might be true with Talarico. I don't think it's true with Platner. But saying, you know, just be careful because you don't want to have to answer for him everywhere you go. Oh, you endorse Platner. Oh, you like Platner. Okay, so tell me why you like sexual assault constantly following you around the

[Saagar Enjeti]

campaign, even though he hasn't been accused of that.

[Krystal Ball]

Right, right. But you know, that's how people are taking it. Of course. And so that's the question that'll follow if you endorse. Here's Ro Khanna leaning all the way in C4.

[Graham Platner]

If the Democratic Party is going to exist, it needs to become the anti war party. I fucking love this place.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I don't know why you want to

[Graham Platner]

go to the Senate. I think a lot of people in this country would like to see more regular people in politics. And most people in this country have gone through some form of transformation throughout their lives. They've not been living perfect lives.

[Krystal Ball]

What do you say to someone that says, oh, Ro, I agree with Graham's policies.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm glad you're going there.

[Krystal Ball]

But, you know, after the stuff coming out, I just. My granddaughter. What do you say?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Say to someone like that, if you

[Graham Platner]

believe in transformational politics, you need to believe in the ability for people to transform. And I came out of the infantry at a time where like, you sucked it up.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Were you getting help or no?

[Graham Platner]

No, God no. Which is why I was self medicating.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Graham Platner]

This was a point in my life where I didn't believe that PTSD was real.

[Krystal Ball]

Do you ever have flashbacks?

[Graham Platner]

It really just manifested as like deep depression and anxiety. Intense combat sort of changes your brain.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Do you now, seeing where you are, say, hey, I could have been a

[Krystal Ball]

better person in terms of how I was.

[Graham Platner]

I had frankly witnessed the most awful things a person could witness and see. And it was all done in the service of seemingly nothing.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh my gosh, just hearing the boats bump up against the dock and the wall. It's just. That was a very well done video. Took you right to Sorrento, Maine, where it was filmed.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It did. And so, and I said earlier, like, that there's a particular problem that Democratic liberals kind of have with white guys. And it is particular to white guys. It's also all guys.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, yes. Black and Hispanic men went for Trump, and he made real inroads with black and Hispanic men for a reason.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And I also think people don't fully internalize. They hear him say that he did four combat tours. They hear him say that. I don't think they internalize what that means and in particular, what it means to have been a Marine in Ramadi in Fallujah. You could just go Google, like, Ramadi Marines 2005, 2006. There's movies about it, but there's also lots of, like, real time footage that has been captured of. And it. Ramadi in particular at the time, the time that he was there and the unit that he was with is understood to be. It was the most violent place on earth. And his unit saw extraordinary numbers of casualties and on a daily basis. His job was a machine gunner. Like, his job was to put out this suppressing fire as the unit is moving through, moving house to house and block to block. And now I also understand people on the left who are like, you know what? Anybody who did that, you're out. I don't want to hear from you. I think that's idealistic and kept doing it in the Marxist sense. It misunderstands the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. You're going to get that without disaffected soldiers. You'll be like, hey, did you bayonet somebody? I don't want you out in the streets. It was soldiers, peasants and workers that led the revolution. Disaffected soldiers are. Are critical to any kind of workers movement.

[Krystal Ball]

You're really arguing now in Leninist terms. Well, because you're arguing with. You're making a point with people with

[Saagar Enjeti]

the far left here. But whatever. There's not a lot of them in Maine that are against him. That's more of a national conversation.

[Krystal Ball]

Is that a real conversation in, like, DSA world?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Oh, absolutely. And I get it.

[Krystal Ball]

I've seen some of it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I get it. Like, I think it's very hard for people to put themselves in his frame of mind where he wanted to go

[Krystal Ball]

to war, and he's basically rebuked most of what he did. And that's a really critical difference.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right. But so As a machine gunner, you are going house to house every single day. If you mess up, your comrades die. If you don't mess up, you kill a bunch of people. Now it's combat. But to then later come to terms with the fact that you were fighting for nothing means that you killed those people for nothing. You killed those people to save your own men's lives and women's lives, but they shouldn't have been there in the first place, you realize, and he has realized. So to witness that, to take part in it, to come to terms with what you did and that it all being for nothing, that is the thing that produces so much depression, anxiety and terror in combat veterans.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This understanding that what, what you did was for nothing, what your friends died

[Krystal Ball]

for, and reckoning with it on these scattershot Reddit posts for years, it's actually kind of an interesting window into the mindset.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And I think just that's why I say people hear him say he did two combat tours, but I think it's impo. Well, two combat tours in Iraq and then four total. But it's very hard to internalize what that does to your soul. And to have somebody who's processing that and then to come back and have an opportunity to go to the United States Senate to fight against sending more people to do that, it's just extraordinarily powerful. He said in one of our first interviews that his hero is Smedley Butler, who committed far more atrocities than maybe anybody. Good Lord. Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, China, Philippines, on and on across the world, and then wrote War as a racket in the 1930s, which really birthed a real piece, an anti war movement. But he was a general. To have a grunt come to the Senate and talk about that, I think would be extremely powerful. Also would love to see him interrogating, like, the top brass in the military, fascinating like they are. They do not want to hear that from a grunt. No, that's gonna. But that, that would be a. That would be amazing to see. So I just think it's such an important voice to have, whether it's Republican, Democrat, Independent, whatever. Like, to have that experience and to bring it to bear at the national level is something that this country really needs, I think, to reckon with what we've done and what we continue to do.

[Krystal Ball]

70% of voters agree with Ryan in the main Democratic primary. So now it comes down to Susan Collins. Honestly, I could talk about this for the whole show because it's such an interesting race and I know we're going to Keep talking about it. We should probably tick through some of the other wins.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Randy Villegas, Ryan yes, we can put up C6. Democrats in the House are absolutely livid at the DCCC for spending a bunch of money and teaming up with dmfi Democratic majority for Israel in trying to elect Jasmeet Baines, trying to get her into the top two instead. This is a Jewish insider. Their headline is Anti Israel Democrat Villegas declares victory in California House Primary. This is Randy Villegas, who you may remember from his interview he did here a couple weeks ago. So he'll go on to take on the Republican incumbent, which makes this a very important race for kind of the left's idea that you can have populist policies. This is a. He's a community college professor and owns a or like runs a garage in Bakersfield. To have somebody like him running on a Bernie platform up against a Republican. The left's argument has been that you can win with that and if you win with that, you will then deliver for people and then people will reward you. Democrats have really not gotten to try that basically since the New Deal. So the other attempt to do that, well, it's slightly different attempt to take out an incumbent seems to be going quite well. Justice Democrats and WFP backed Mei Vang, who was also, remember she was on the program a week or two ago, put up C7. Doris Matsui, longtime incumbent. She and her husband have held this seat for 40 plus years. She spent a fortune trying to boost that guy down at the bottom, Zach Woods, Republican college kid. And I kept saying, she better be careful. It's not guaranteed. She's going to be the number one seed here in this tournament. And Mei Vang has now overtaken her. And so Doris Matsui is. She will make the top two, but she almost kind of rat f'd her way out into the number three position, which would be brutal. That would have been the funniest thing. You spend all this money and you boost this guy woods, it would have been pretty funny. Past yourself.

[Krystal Ball]

It would have been pretty funny.

[Saagar Enjeti]

She's cooked though, because Sacramento news media's turned against her. I don't see how the Republicans who voted for woods are gonna then shift to Matsui because if you're a Republican there, Matsui's been your representative for decades. I think you probably just, even if the person's further to the left, you'd probably like to get rid of her. We'll see. That'll be an interesting one. So tell us about, tell us about and Steyer has conceded he's not going to make the top two.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, just a reminder, Tom Steyer spent about $200 million. He didn't even make the top two. $200 million after about $300 million trying to run for president. His net worth is estimated at about 2.4 billion. So fabulously wealthy man. He's not Jeff Bezos rich and he's spent now half a billion of a 2.4 billion estimated net worth trying to be an elected official. Never trust anybody who wants to be an elected official to the tune of half a billion dollars. That's insane behavior. That's like joker style behavior.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So he could have, he could have run for house somewhere or something.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, exactly.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He's conceding by a House seat.

[Krystal Ball]

C9. Yeah, that would have been, that would have been fine. But yes, he did concede. It looks like Steve Hilton is going to make the runoff. Now the other thing that happened last night is Lindsey Graham took about 58% of the vote. It's looking like right now he's always, he always has a primary challenger one time including from Southern Charm. You may remember that season but it did not work out well for, for Lindsey Graham's primary opponents. This time around he ended up over 50% easily charmed guy. Nancy Mace goes down in the gubernatorial primary five fifth, fifth. She finished lower than Ralph Norman. Trump candidates were the favorites in that race but Nancy Mace couldn't even get top three, let alone top two, let alone a win. Finishes at five 12% of the vote. Yeah, 12% of the vote. So really brutal result there for Nancy Mace who definitely felt like she had momentum and wind at her back for a while and you know, maybe the momentum stalled. Listen, I, I don't think Nancy Mace was going to win this election. I do think probably she lost some momentum when Trump got upset over push People pushing further further for more and more Epstein disclosure and Mace was certainly a part of that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. So the number of casualties from Epstein, certainly very few men who are actually implicated in the Epstein ring. But so far, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, Nancy Mace, casualties of it. Interesting how that works out.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Summer is here and the sun is out. Make sure you take care of your skin this summer. Now through June 23rd, shop for you save days and get, get great savings on all your favorite skincare Essentials and earn 4 times points. Shop in store or online and save on sunblock from Neutrogena Sun Bum Hawaiian Tropic Banana boat and Coppertone and earn four times points to use for future savings on groceries or gas. Offer ends June 23rd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Here's the truth. You could literally be adored by everyone and then come home and still get completely ignored by your own cat. It's classic cat behavior, but new Shiba Premium Puree is a lickable treat that changes all that. They're protein rich, made with bone broth, and have the smooth, creamy texture cats go crazy for, especially when it's hand fed. Yeah, it's more than a treat. It's a fast pass to favorite human status. So feed your cat Sheba and go from totally ignored to truly adored in just 12 days, guaranteed or your money back. Learn more at shiba.com you're listening to

[Saagar Enjeti]

a podcast, so you're doing something else too.

[Krystal Ball]

Like maybe scrolling home listings on Redfin,

[Saagar Enjeti]

saving places you like without thinking you'll get them, because that's what house hunting has become. But Redfin isn't built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents, which means when you find a place you love, you've got a real shot at getting it. Redfin helps turn saved listings into real addresses.

[Krystal Ball]

Get [e-mail] own the dream this is an iheart podcast.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Guaranteed human.