← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
6/25/26: Dems Panic After Zohran Sweeps NYC, DSA Chairs Slam Stephen Miller Smears
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- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [00:04]
Tony Ayo
This is Tony Ayo from the Real Report with Tony Ayo and Uncle Murder. You ever notice how everything keeps going up? Rent, streaming, even extra Sosa at your favorite burrito spot. But with Boost Mobile, you don't have to play the Willis Go up soon game. Boost Mobile offers an unlimited talk, text and data plan at a price that'll never go up. It's the same price you'll pay for Life. Switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that'll never go up. Only at boost mobile. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan.
- [00:35]
Krystal Ball
I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.
- [00:42]
Saagar Enjeti
It's the rage bait.
- [00:45]
Krystal Ball
It feels like it's trying to divide people.
- [00:49]
Saagar Enjeti
We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little.
- [00:55]
NBC News Announcer
NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.
- [01:05]
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- [01:05]
Zoran Mamdani
All?
- [01:06]
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- [01:53]
Host or Guest Greeting
Hey, guys.
- [01:54]
Saagar Enjeti
Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:55]
Krystal Ball
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future.
- [02:02]
Saagar Enjeti
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [02:08]
Krystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:19]
Saagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the
- [02:20]
Gustavo Gordillo
future of independent news media, and we
- [02:22]
Saagar Enjeti
hope to see you@breakingpoints.com
- [02:28]
Krystal Ball
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Breaking Points Comedy Takeover Edition. Ryan Graham. Great to see you, sir.
- [02:33]
Saagar Enjeti
Good to see you Again, how you doing?
- [02:35]
Krystal Ball
Doing good. Lot to get into this morning. We've got the establishment full meltdown over the election results in New York City. So you all, you and I will watch that with a lot of interest and some delight. A lot of react to react to there. We also have the NYC DSA co chairs who are going to join us to talk about these wins, what they mean, what their plans are going forward. We've got a very bizarre situation unfolding with Trump who is refusing to sign this bipartisan housing affordability bill in unless Republicans pass his like election rigging bill called the Save America Act. So he is literally holding affordable housing hostage to his like election rigging plots. So that's an interesting one. There was also a really messy, weird situation, a shouting match between Trump and Senator Bill Cassidy who just lost his primary over a war powers resolution with regard to Iran that actually did pass the Senate with Bill Cassidy and Rand Paul's help. Things have progressed since there. I will not spoil the ending of how this is all unfolding but very weird situation. We also wanted to dig into these truly outrageous sentences that have been held handed down in a case of ICE protesters down in Texas. Our friend Pisco is going to join and give us the full legal analysis of what each of these individuals did, the sentences that have been handed down so far and why this is so extraordinarily different from the way these types of cases have been handled previously. And we've got Cory Doctorow joining us. He's the author of Inshidification. He has a lot of thoughts about how we should think about AI whether it's a bubble, how you should approach the use of AI in your own life. And he has a new book out called Reverse Centaur, or that's part of the title anyway. That was the part that stuck in my mind about how to live in this new age of AI.
- [04:21]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, and I think that's going to be interesting, people. I think our audience is going to completely side with him, although I think you and I have a lot of of questions about his take here.
- [04:31]
Krystal Ball
Well, don't tell our audience who to side with yet. We can make our case, Ryan.
- [04:35]
Saagar Enjeti
I think they're not gonna be with us, but that's okay. That's okay.
- [04:39]
Krystal Ball
All right. Before we get into the main blocks in the show, we did want to acknowledge the horrific situation that is unfolding down in Venezuela after a pair of dueling very severe earthquakes, 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude, terrifying images coming out of Caracas and of other cities. The epicenter was to the west of the Venezuel capital of Caracas. Go ahead and put these images up on the screen please, Eric. So the first video here is the airport in Caracas. This is, it's wild to me, the number of people who got their phones out and recorded this because there are just unbelievable images coming out. I would just be running in terror personally, as this is all unfolding. There are a lot of buildings down. This is in another Venezuelan city of La Guayra. You can see buildings that have collapsed there, smoke filling the streets, you know, just scenes of really apocalyptic horror reminiscent of some of the war ravaged scenes that we've seen recently. Here's another image. I believe this is also from that city of La Guayra, which is to the west of Caracas, closer to the epicenter. But a lot of significant damage in the capital as well. And Ryan, as of right now, the death count stands at over 160 people. Unfortunately, that is certainly going to rise. And you have, you know, thousands who have been injured because you've had multiple of these high rise buildings in a number of Venezuelan cities that have just completely collapsed. So rescuers are searching through the rubble, trying to figure out, you know, if they can find survivors from those building collapses.
- [06:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, and a lot, a lot of these are old buildings that are not in, not in great shape, particularly in Caracas. And you're looking at the damage to some of these and you're going to be, it's going to be a combination of either kind of a mass displacement event or people just being forced to, and choosing to live in the kind of buildings that would not pass, let's say, you know, a typical building code. And so fortunately, La Guaira is not a very big city, but it looks like it was just completely devastated. We'll be following this to see, you know, not just the kind of, you know, how big of a mass casualty event it was on this day, but what the effect is going to be in people's ability to remain where they are over the next weeks, months and years.
- [07:03]
Krystal Ball
Yeah. And it's obviously a country that has struggled significantly in recent years with our sanctions and high levels of poverty and inflation. And we just kidnapped their leader. So a lot of tumult resulting from that as well. So we will keep our eye on it. All right, with that being said, let's go ahead and transition to talking about some of the establishment fallout and what people are saying both on camera and off camera from the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party leadership about these incredible victories for Zoran Mamdani and the DSA wing of the Democratic Party. Ryan, I wanted to start with an oldie but a goodie here. James Carville, always colorful, you know, never, never a shrinking violet here, I would say, has some thoughts on what should come next for the Democratic Party. This is a 10. Let's take a listen.
- [07:51]
James Carville
The New York Times reported, and I have the quote right here. I'll get to it. She is against. Passed off all their views. She has attacked interracial relationships in the American flag. Lady, I ain't in the same party as you. I'm sorry, I just not. And I actually do think it's time for Democrats to talk the S word schism. I really do. Everybody's always said, no, no, we're coalition. We're a big tent, and there's just some shit that I can't be in the same tent with.
- [08:33]
Krystal Ball
He's ready for a divorce. He's ready to break up with some elements of the Democratic Party. You know what's funny, Ryan, is I don't know if you follow this, but Carville just. What was that a week ago, two weeks ago, was out vociferously defending Graham Platner, who has very similar ideological views. I don't know if he said all the things that Darieliza has said, for example, but Claire Valdez, Zora Momdadi, I mean, they're very much in line on the vast majority of their ideological positions. Carville's got no problem with him. So I do think there may be a little bit of bias that comes with some of this commentary, but it does kind of echo some of the views that were expressed in, I guess, a little bit more of a soft way from Jaime Harrison. We could put a 8 up on the screen. Former DNC chair. This got a lot of attention. He says, I say this with no ill will or animosity. If you hate the Democratic Party, then please don't run for our nomination. Don't use our resources. Don't rely on our volunteers. Don't use our infrastructure. Don't ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign focus on building the party you actually support. Political parties are not perfect, but they're built by millions of people who knock doors, make calls, organize meetings, and fight for the values they believe in. If you don't believe in the party, then don't ask its members to carry you across the finish line. Obviously, the most obvious response to this is, I think the voters in the Democratic Party get to decide whether who gets to be in the party and who they want their nominee to be. That is democracy, which is something that the Democratic Party leadership has frankly struggled with. But the other thing, Ryan, that was amusing to me is this would be the same camp of people who, when people actually do run as third party candidates, like a Jill Stein or something, lose their minds over that and act like they're complete traitors and fascists and spoilers and how dare you. The reality is they just don't want real anti corporate views to be expressed anywhere on the political spectrum. They want them to be pushed out of the Democratic Party. They don't want them to run as third parties. They just want them to go away and not exist.
- [10:29]
Saagar Enjeti
Right. The phrase our volunteers and the phrase our time, energy and money is. Is wild coming from Jamie Harrison. It's like a volunteer's time is not yours. You know, he was the DNC chair. You don't own that volume. You don't own that. That you don't control that person. If you pay them, like they're a lobbyist and then you make them a DNC member, then, yes, then you own that in the sense that you have built that relationship. But a volunteer, if a volunteer decides to canvas for a candidate, the DNC doesn't own that. Like, that's, that's their free. That's their free will. You, you need to go out and present something more appealing to them. Now, on the Carville point, it's interesting for I, I actually think there should be kind of a complete and total amnesty for, you know, anybody that said anything during WOKE one. Like, if you, if you said something about the American flag or the interracial relationships or she had this weird tweet about colonizers dating people or whatever. It's like, look, we're going to declare bankruptcy on 1.0. We're all moving on. And I did an interview on Carville's podcast several years ago. People could probably go find it where I said to him, look, you're complaining about this woke stuff. It was you and your 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign that really supercharged this stuff because you didn't want to fight Bernie Sanders on economics on class. You wanted to fight him on the questions of racism and sexism and homophobia. And you declared Bernie Sanders and his entire movement to be these awful things. And that actually ending racism doesn't actually break up the big banks. So why are you talking about. Or breaking up the big banks doesn't end racism. So why are you talking about breaking up the big banks? You created this maze of insanity that became this albatross around the Democratic Party's neck. So if people followed you into that maze, you can't then pick up their tweets from 2019 and say they can't be in the party anymore. Now, if it's 2026 and you're still talking like that, okay, well, then you really haven't filed for bankruptcy on Woke 1.0, and we can talk about that. But there has to be a way to kind of turn the page. And if the left is willing to overlook war bankrupting the entire country through the subprime crisis and the financial crisis, the immense amounts of corruption that have drained the possibility of achieving the American dream from people, Philip's willing to overlook that and still work with the kind of Carville winning of the party. I think they can overlook some weird tweets that were actually really galvanized by the kind of Clinton wing of the party itself.
- [13:25]
Krystal Ball
True. And we're gonna talk with the DSA co chairs about Tish James's Letitia James comments in the wake of these victories. I mean, she's someone who's seen. She's certainly a progressive. You know, she's seen. She's not dsa, but she's AOC endorsed her, didn't endorse others, but did endorse her. And she came out and said that there's hurt feelings tonight, particularly in communities of color. So it's again, this weaponization of identity. Whereas if you look. Look at Claire Valdez's coalition, look at Daria Lisa's coalition. You know, look at Brad Lander's coalition. Darieliza looks like one black voters in her district. So this very tribal, you know, plea to identity is once again being used by the, you know, the more moderate portion of the party. So that hasn't. That hasn't ended. And of course, we see it deployed in accusations of anti Semitism. All the. And that's been. We'll get to some of that. Which, of course, there's been a complete meltdown from a lot of corners, both of the Democratic Party, but also of the media. Go ahead, Ryan.
- [14:30]
Saagar Enjeti
Just real quick on Tish James. Yeah, she was the first Working Families Party candidate ever to win without fusing on the Democratic line.
- [14:38]
Krystal Ball
Wow.
- [14:38]
Saagar Enjeti
Like, she literally came in as a non Democrat and shook up the system.
- [14:43]
Tony Ayo
This is Tony Ayo from the Real Report with Tony Yayo and Uncle Murder. You ever notice how everything keeps going up? Rent's going up, streaming services are going up, Even your favorite burritos spot suddenly Thinks salsa should cost extra. But with Boost Mobile, you and your phone bill don't have to play the will this go up soon? Game. Because Boost Mobile has an unlimited talk, text and data plan at a price that'll never go up. It's the same price you'll pay for life, meaning you're set to never worry about your bill increasing again for as long as you're on the plan. While the world keeps finding new ways to nickel and dime you, Boost Mobile gives you unlimited wireless at one set price for life. Imagine something in your budget actually staying the same. You'll pay the same for unlimited wireless when you're posting mirror selfies in your 20s. And when you're posting mirror selfies in retirement, some things never change. Switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that'll never go up. Only at boost mobile. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan.
- [15:45]
Krystal Ball
I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.
- [15:52]
Saagar Enjeti
It's the rage bait.
- [15:54]
Krystal Ball
It feels like it's trying to divide people.
- [15:58]
Saagar Enjeti
We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little.
- [16:04]
NBC News Announcer
NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.
- [16:21]
Tony Ayo
Yeah.
- [16:21]
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- [16:43]
We out.
- [16:43]
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- [17:05]
Krystal Ball
Right. Well, and here's the thing, is the problem for Carvel is if we actually took seriously this proposal of like, okay, bet you know what? The people who oppose genocide are gonna go in this party, and the people who support it are gonna stay in the good old Democratic Party. You're gonna be pretty lonely over there. You're gonna have a lot of electeds with you. But that is the problem for these characters now is the Democratic Party in terms of the base. There is no real schism. News media loves to write. Oh, the schism and the divide and the Democratic Party over Israel. No, the only divide is between the elected leadership, which is completely out of touch and immoral. And the base, the base is over one. We're talking 90%, basically have a very similar view on this issue at this point. So I don't think you're gonna like the way that that cookie crumbles. And that speaks to also the willingness to overlook things that Darieliza has said that are certainly, you know, would not poll well with the American public or even probably with Democratic primary voters. But when you're considering a moral landscape that includes people who have run cover for or actively supported the mass murder of babies and children, you look at like an uncouth tweet about the American flag and you're like, so what you want to preach to me about morality, given what you people have supported? And then of course, it's also against the backdrop of Trump and his entire party being completely insane and the authoritarian crackdowns and the ICE invasions and of course the war with Iran, bombing little girls school, continuing to push forward this genocide. You know, this Gaza peace deal is a complete sham. Palestinians continue to be murdered every single day, which you guys have done incredible reporting on. You look at that moral landscape and you're like, you want me to be upset about this tweet that she sent out? I don't think so. Right. I think that she has a much more moral position that is closer to my values than these people over here.
- [19:05]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
- [19:08]
Krystal Ball
Let's go ahead and take a listen to the ladies of the View talking a little bit about this exact topic and specifically tackling Darieliza and her views. This is a nine. Let's listen. Pro Palestinian and no, there were pro Hamas on October rally, October 8th. The only thing that had happened is that Israel had been attacked and people had been brutally murdered and raped. And so on October 8, I don't think there needed to be rallies cheering on Hamas calling her an anti Semite. Oh, I'm going to full blown her an anti semi. She would proudly call herself that, trust me. And I'm going to wait. So a lot of people talking about Mandani and what a terrible mayor he was going to be and what an anti Semite he was, and he has proven to be quite the opposite. He's proven to be a kingmaker, a leader, great for this, great for this city. So Ryan, she says that Darieliza would probably proudly call herself an anti Semite. That is absolutely insane and frankly defamatory. And the freak out not just over her, but over Brad Lander who is himself a Jewish man. But happens to have a much more moral and principled view with regard to Israel and all these tweets from Meghan McCain. Oh, my God, Jews aren't saved. To my beautiful Jewish friends, I stand with you. You're not alone. Well, guess what? Lots and lots of New York Jews just voted for Brad Lander. Just voted for. These other candidates who won have been leaders in the movement against the genocide. Our top leaders in Zoran Mamdani's campaign and in his, you know, in his governing apparatus. So, you know, talk about Woke 1.0. Like I think Woke 2.0 here has gone further than anything we've seen ever in the past.
- [20:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Yes, yes. I think New York 10, where Brad Lander won as the second biggest Jewish population of any congressional district in the city. And those voters went overwhelmingly for Brad Lander. So, like, I'm sorry for Dan Goldman, but you, you don't like that. That does not. That does not mean that, like all Jews in New York City are at risk here. To say that she is ipso facto anti Semitic. Just for showing up at the October 8th rally just forgets the basic fact that we know now because we know Dariel Lisa's history, that she had been an activist on this issue for a very long time and she feared and expected that Israel's response, which already had begun on the evening of October 7,
- [21:43]
Krystal Ball
hundreds had already been killed by the time that rally occurred.
- [21:47]
Saagar Enjeti
But even if that wasn't the case, history had told her, and history being like 20, 21, two years earlier, 2014, 2009, like, we're not talking about, like ancient history here, history had told her and the knowledge that it was the most right wing government that Israel had ever had in place, that was in office at the moment and still is in office, that they were going to respond with a genocidal furor that was going to shock the world. I had that expectation on October 7th. That was my first thought, was the state in general. But this government in particular is going to unleash hell as a result of this. And if the argument is that she was correct, but too early, I don't think there's anybody out there who's a normal person who's going to say, okay, well, you make a very good point. Yes, she was right, but she was right too early.
- [22:44]
Krystal Ball
She was right too quickly. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I remember covering October 7th. I remember the pit in my stomach. I remember all of us internally talking about what sort of hell was going to be unleashed. And, you know, it was impossible to Wrap your mind around truly how just inhumane and disgusting and the siege and all of the entirety of Gaza turned to rubble. And so yeah, that she was there on October 8, understanding the history, understanding the political dynamics, understanding what likely was to come. I think that's a point in her favor personally. Let me just hit on this note. There were some somewhat surprising defenders against the mass blanket charges of anti Semitism here. In particular, Joe Scarborough showed up to say, hey, if you want to point to rising anti Semitism, I've got an idea of who is to blame and it's not Zoran Mamdani. This is a one. Let's take a listen.
- [23:42]
Joe Scarborough
I just, I just, you know, hearing a lot of people say, talking about the anti Semitism in New York City and last night proved the anti Semitism in New York City and this is mom Donnie's fault. This is so and so's fault. It's this, is this left. No, no, no, it's not. It's, it's really not. If you want to blame anybody for what happened last night, my opinion, if you want to blame anybody, Jonathan, I think you have to blame Benjamin Netanyahu. Four years of maximalist aims, four years of a historic goals in the Middle east that anybody, anybody from Dr. Brzezinski to even me could have told anybody over the past 20 years, it's not going to work. And I've said it all along, there's always blowback in the Middle East. The idea that you're going to be able to brutalize children and women in Gaza with bombing that looks indiscriminate on TV day in and day out for years, that you're going to be able to level half of Lebanon, that you're going to be able to continue to allow thugs to run wild in the west bank and brutalizing Palestinians, brutalizing Christians in Bethlehem, brutalizing Christians across that area along with Palestinian Muslims, especially Palestinian Muslims, blowing up Catholic churches in Gaza. I can, of course, I'm saying things that would relate to some of these people who were so shocked that Israel is in such low standing in America right now. Forgive me for a quick digression, but I was always instinctively pro Israeli and anti Palestinian growing up. You know why? Because when I was a young child, one of my first memories was the 72 Munich Olympics when, when, when Palestinian terrorists killed Israelis. And it was shocking. And we saw time and time again terror attacks throughout the 70s that shaped an entire generation's views on that conflict. Well, what's shaping the views now? Images out of Gaza, images out of the west bank, images out of Lebanon, famine out of Gaza and an American president who tells Netanyahu, go you're unrestrained until his war in Iran goes horribly wrong.
- [26:09]
Krystal Ball
What do you think of that, Ryan?
- [26:12]
Saagar Enjeti
You know, I grade on a more generous curve, I think, than you do. And so I see that paper from Scarborough, I'm like, incredible progress. This is excellent. Like, you know, and he, I think also from a regular person, you know, the kind of person who's watching Morning Joe, that's great for them to hear. Yeah, I think. But go ahead. I think you got some criticisms of it which I don't necessarily disagree with.
- [26:40]
Krystal Ball
I mean it's obvious, like, okay, Netanyahu. Yes, but what about our own political leadership? Like, what do you have to say about Joe Biden who you, you know, he caped for longer than anyone. Oh, it's the best version of Joe Biden we ever saw, blah, blah, blah. It's just very noteworthy to me and I get very, to me it's such a red flag when anyone tries to pawn all of the destruction and carnage and anti Semitism too off on this. One individual who is democratically elected and has been many, multiple times is not some fringe outlying character in Israeli society. Just go take a listen to his quote unquote moderate opponents to see how much daylight there is between him and them on issues of human rights. There's zero daylight effectively. And then our own political leadership class being incredibly not just complicit but I mean directly involved. So that's my, that would be my note on the paper.
- [27:29]
Saagar Enjeti
I guess I'd put that note at the bottom. I'd put that note at the bottom too. But still give him high marks to encourage him to continue doing good work.
- [27:35]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, we've got our guest standing by. But just really quickly, I do want to mention put a 11 up on the screen here because this is relatively extraordinary. We've got House Democrat anxiety rising after wins by Mamdani back candidates. Are we going to let them take over the party? One battleground Democrat told me they are so concerned about the rise of DSA they are having serious convos with donors about leaving the party altogether next term. I would encourage them to go, go ahead, Josh.
- [28:07]
Saagar Enjeti
Gottheimer.
- [28:08]
Grace Mauser
Okay.
- [28:08]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, goodbye Josh. Gottheimer. Go be a Republican. And this is the problem again, going back to the Carville piece of like you can make that choice but you've already really lost. The base of the party is gone. You know, the Jennifer Welch's of the world are in a very different place today. Your average normie liberal voter is voting for Graham Platner, not Janet Mills is voting for Abdul Al Said, not Haley Stevens. It's a very different dynamic. It's not just New York City, it really is a national reckoning. And Israel is the sort of most potent dividing line because it does take in the DC political context, it shouldn't, but it does take some political courage to stand up and say it's a genocide. I'm not taking the AIPAC dollars. We need totally different approach to all of this. We actually do need to put human rights first. But it's a stand in for are you willing to make those hard choices? Are you willing to reflect the will of the people versus the will of the donor class? And obviously that has applicability in all sorts of issues across the board where the Democratic base and the majority of the American people, by the way, really want to see a different approach, a checking of the oligarch class, true accountability for the crimes that were committed by the Trump regime and their acolytes. And so Gaza and calling it a genocide and standing up against it are a touchstone that indicates to voters you are the type of politician that is going to be different than the class that's in Washington today.
- [29:36]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And we'll be talking to Cory Doctorow at the end of the program about AI and what its effect is gonna be on the economy and how we should think about that. And I think people would be a lot more scared of the ide of socialism if they weren't completely frightened about where capitalism is planning to take us and is. And where capitalism is telling us we're going to go, which is like the complete eradication of jobs. Like that's what they're. Whether it's true or not, like that's what they're telling people is going to happen.
- [30:05]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [30:06]
Saagar Enjeti
So when you have a group, people who are like, well we have an alternative vision for society, people are going to be like, okay, let's hear it.
- [30:11]
Krystal Ball
Right? Yeah. I mean they're the ones that are out there like, we need a totally social, new social contract. It's like, okay, well let's get started on that then. Let's start talking about that. And that's how you end up with a situation where. And this will be a good transition to our guest where socialism is more popular than capitalism in the Democratic Party. DSA is more popular than Democrats in Congress. And there is just a real reckoning that is unfolding right now in the Democratic party. It is not going to look the same after these midterm elections as it looked before.
- [30:42]
Tony Ayo
Indeed, this is Tony Ayo from the Real Report with Tony Ayo and Uncle Murder. You ever notice how everything keeps going up? Rents going up? Streaming services are going up? Even your favorite burrito spot suddenly thinks salsa should cost extra. But with Boost Mobile, you and your phone bill don't have to play the Willis Go up soon game. Because Boost Mobile has an unlimited talk, text and data plan at a price that'll never go up. It's the same price you'll pay for life, meaning you're set to never worry about your bill increasing again for as long as you're on the plan. While the world keeps finding new ways to nickel and D, Boost Mobile gives you unlimited wireless at one set price for life. Imagine something in your budget actually staying the same. You'll pay the same for unlimited wireless when you're posting mirror selfies in your 20s, and when you're posting mirror selfies in retirement, some things never change. Switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that'll never go up. Only at boost mobile. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan.
- [31:45]
Krystal Ball
I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.
- [31:52]
Saagar Enjeti
It's the rage bait.
- [31:54]
Krystal Ball
It feels like it's trying to divide people.
- [31:59]
Saagar Enjeti
We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little.
- [32:04]
NBC News Announcer
NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America, bro.
- [32:14]
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- [33:03]
Saagar Enjeti
So President Trump was asked about the sweeping DSA Zoram Hamdani victories in New York City. In the Oval Office, it's always fun to hear President Trump talking about the mayor of New York. Let's listen to his reaction here. B one Great night for Democratic Socialist candidates. Last night in the New York primaries, they swept and knocked out two incumbents. You're from New York. Why do you think it is that now the endorsement of Zoran Mamdani means more than the endorsement of Hakeem Jeffries.
- [33:37]
Nissan Rogue Advertiser
Well, they're going radical left. They're going really, you know, you talk about the Democrat socialists. You took really, it's really communist. That's these people. I watched that woman last night. That's not a socialist. I know socialists. That's a, that woman is a communist. And you know, what they don't say is that I was 16 and 0 last night, but mine were a little more boring, a little more mainstream. There were Republican conservatives, but we were 16 0. And if you look over the last two and a half years, we're about 347 and just about 0. That's pretty good. But nobody writes that. But he picked three. They won. They beat a guy named Dan Goldman who's, you know, loser. He was one of my prosecutors, one of my many prosecutors that they used on me. Dan Goldman, not a good prosecutor, fortunately, but he's now looking for a job. I would, I was very surprised to see, you know, because he's a pretty liberal guy. When they go more liberal than Dan Goldman, they're really into never never land.
- [34:44]
Saagar Enjeti
We can put up B2 here because it really was a historic sweep across, across the board. Of course, you had the three, you had three races at the, at the federal level. If you throw in Brad Lander, which we will talk about that in a sec, in a second, as well as significant number down at the state legislative level and elsewhere. So joining us to kind of break all of this down are the two co chairs of New York City Democratic Socialists of America, Gustavo Gordillo and Grace Mauser. Grace, Gustavo, thank you so much for being here. Yeah. And I was fortunate enough to get to run into both of you guys on Tuesday night. Grace, you were up at the Dariel Issa election night event. Gustavo, you were down at the Claire Valdez won. Later. Grace wanted to start with you. Donald Trump also later in his comments, continued his bromance with Mamdani. So even though he's talking about all of the communists that are taking over the New York City, still seems to personally have a lot of affection for, for mom. Donnie, what is your response to somebody like Trump though, who says somebody like Dan Goldman, that's about as left as New York City ever ought to be. And what is he missing about the city that he grew up in?
- [36:13]
Grace Mauser
And I think he's missing how unhappy people are with the state of American politics. You saw over, we counted over 170,000 people voted for socialists in New York City on Tuesday night. That is indeed because of our organizing, because we knock doors, because we mobilize people. But it's also because people are deeply dissatisfied with what's happening in our state and also throughout our country. If people were happy with the war that Trump started in Iran, if they were thrilled that we were busy invading other countries, I think he would be seeing a lot more success. His numbers would be up, his favorability would be up. Everyone would be absolutely clamoring for his endorsement. But that's not happening at all because what he's doing is immensely unpopular and socialism is on the rise. It's getting more and more popular than ever. And that's because we're actually talking about what matters. And more importantly, we're delivering what matters. We're delivering material improvements for working people.
- [37:27]
Krystal Ball
So Mayor Mamdani had a bit of a different view of this week and the victories that you all were able to secure. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say.
- [37:35]
Zoran Mamdani
What you all have shown this evening, whether for state assembly, state Senate or Congress, is that a year ago, it was not the end of a political movement. It was the beginning. And let's hear it for a politics for a politics that will never forget working people, for a politics that is ready to write a new chapter in our party's history, and for a politics that realizes the old politics that got us to this crisis is not the politics that's going to get us out of this crisis. It's time for world working people to be back at the heart of our politics. These are the champions who will do it. Thank you all so much.
- [38:26]
Krystal Ball
Gustavo, I'm curious, how much momentum have you all gained from Zoron's victories and then from these victories Tuesday night, how many new members have been added to New York City's DSA chapter?
- [38:37]
Gustavo Gordillo
Yeah, you know, these have been transformative wins. And when we have these huge victories, they become moments of political awakening for ordinary people. So when we endorsed the mayoral campaign Back in 2024, we were at 5,900 members. Just a couple of weeks ago, we were at 14,000 members. And in the nights since these victories, we've added, I think, almost 400 members or maybe more. So we're probably pretty close to 15,000 at this point. And, you know, we're going to keep welcoming new members, having absorption events, because that's what keeps us going, that's what allows us to grow.
- [39:18]
Krystal Ball
And Gustavo, I actually saw a right wing commentator talking about how he thought part of the success of dsa. And obviously it's the values and people agreeing with the messaging that you all are putting out, but also this sense of community, like we're doing something together. We're not just isolated on our phones like doom scrolling. There's a positive vision that we can enact into the world. I feel like that has been a really central part of Zoron's, both his campaign but now his governing style, which has made him really broadly appealing across the city. How much do you think that that plays into the appeal of dsa, an organization like yours, in a moment like now?
- [39:53]
Gustavo Gordillo
Yeah, it's a huge part of our organizing. You know, where we always joke DSA is the answer to the male loneliness epidemic. We focus, of course, on electoral campaigns, running candidates, we contest in the legislature, we try to pass legislation, we work in the labor movement. But when we're doing our new member orientations, we always say that a core arm of what we do is building community. So we've really invested quite a lot of capacity into building social spaces. We have a run club, we have a soccer league. Our canvases themselves always have a social afterwards. People make friends that way. You know, for young people, it's a pretty. DSA is a pretty good way to meet new people in the city.
- [40:48]
Saagar Enjeti
And can you elaborate on that a little bit for people who maybe are outside of the city too, like, because I think it's. You joke about it being a cure to male loneliness. Female loneliness is a thing too. Loneliness is a thing. And you actually do seem to be doing very serious work pushing against that, even if that isn't the kind of purpose of it, but the purpose kind of creates that. If you're somewhere else outside of New York City, if you're in New York City, I could search up New York City dsa. It's probably easy to plug into at this point. But if you're outside of New York, you don't have a chapter. How hard is it to start a chapter? How hard is it? How hard is it to join one?
- [41:32]
Gustavo Gordillo
Sure, at this point we have so many chapters all across the country that there aren't that many parts of the US that are are not served by a DSA chapter. Although it is possible to start a new one if you go to dsausa.org but for one of the things that we started to implement a few years ago was standardizing a DSA101 format. This is a welcoming kind of orientation for people who are thinking about joining or have already joined and want to know what to do in their chapters. It's something that basically every DSA chapter does now. And we started pioneering it here in New York. And actually one of the very first major events that Zoran Mamdani did when he launched his campaign was join us for at the time, to us it was, it seemed like a mega DSA 101 where we had I think 400 people back in the fall of 2024. And he, he gave his own story of how he joined dsa. And the reason that he did, he did so was because we were the only organization who thought it was possible to run anti Zionist candidates at the local level and actually win. So, you know, there are different, different ways to plug in all across the country. And we take membership very seriously. We think the members lead the party, not we don't lead from the top down.
- [43:04]
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- [44:06]
Krystal Ball
I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.
- [44:13]
Saagar Enjeti
It's the rage bait.
- [44:15]
Krystal Ball
It feels like it's trying to divide people.
- [44:20]
Saagar Enjeti
We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little.
- [44:25]
NBC News Announcer
NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.
- [44:35]
Tony Ayo
Why is it always chaos when we link up?
- [44:37]
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Tony Ayo
Load up we out.
- [45:00]
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- [45:17]
Krystal Ball
Grace, I want to get your thoughts on some of the coalition critiques, I guess, of who is DSA and who's voting for DSA candidates. There's a bit of a divide that has emerged, you know, from sort of the establishment Democrats and the Republicans. They can't decide whether they want to say DSA is all white people or the problem is DSA is all third world brown people. We can get a flavor of both of these directions from Bhatia Ungar. Sargan went with the what has been the original critique, B5 that Darieliza Chevalier lost the Bronx part of the district by 30 points. She also lost predominantly black and Hispanic areas. She lost lower income areas by 10 points. She won with younger voters and higher income voters and won majority college educated areas by 20 points. So this is basically the idea that okay, sure, you can win in the commie corridor because it's this gentrifying area. You have highly educated young white people that like you. But the coalition doesn't really extend to communities of color. But now we have a new critique that's launched by Stephen Miller certainly said something like this. Matt Walsh and also Jesse Watters on Fox News articulated a version of this. Let's take a listen.
- [46:24]
Right Wing Critic
Crazy communists to right wing tough guys. Is that how America is supposed to be? Cuz that's the way it looks. These people don't believe in borders capitalism. Our founding fathers, they're here to steal, punish us and then throw around welfare. This is a third World takeover. This is what happens when you import the third world. Did you know that New York City is 70% non white, 40% foreign born, 50% of the apartments, they don't even speak English, not even their first language. These three women who Mandani endorsed weren't even born in New York City, weren't even raised in New York City. They're carpetbaggers. Carpetbaggers, Jessica. And everyone's talking about like Mondame, oh you got all this juice. Like he's this like harmless novice politician on a hot streak. This guy is trouble. This guy is a Trojan Horse and communism is gonna take over the Democratic Party and then we're gonna have to beat it because you can't, can't do anything else besides beat it to a pulp.
- [47:35]
Krystal Ball
So Grace, what is your response to both versions of that critique of the coalition that supports DSA and then supports these candidates?
- [47:45]
Grace Mauser
I'll take the more obviously evil and immoral one first. The right wing critique about the left and about New York City is just disgusting. It's so, so. It's so silly to be so afraid of people who did not grow up the same way you did. Nativism should never be a requirement. We're in a moment where our Supreme Court is considering making non US born citizens fearful over their very rights that have already been granted to them by our government. And DSA unapologetically stands in solidarity with those communities. People who came here many generations ago, but also people who arrived in the United States yesterday. It's particularly funny hearing that kind of critique coming from a political commentator who can't even say the mayor of New York's name correctly. But Mayor Mamdani as well as many of candidates in DSA are continuing a great legacy of immigrants who have come to the US to build economic and political future, who have fleed prosecution for a number of reasons, who have come to the US for any number of reasons. And New York City as well as America, I would remind Mr. Waters, does not have a standard language. You are not required to speak English as a first language. And that's what makes us strong. And I think you see that New York City is the powerhouse, the economic and political powerhouse of the country. And that is in large part due to the immigrants that live here.
- [49:37]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. New York City is kind of a particularly absurd place, I think, to level that critique since it's been a place of immigrants for hundreds of years, whether Irish, Italian and so on. It's just constantly evolving. Greek neighborhoods, etc. But I am also curious. You guys ended up winning. It seems like Harlem, which cuts against this kind of this rudimentary graphic that the New York Times had put out. It does actually seem that with black voters in Harlem, Dariel Ease actually seems to have beaten Espaillatt. What do you think it was about her campaign that was able to do that? Even though. Because I think the critique that there are more kind of white activists in DSA than kind of on average, say, in Harlem. Like, I think that, like those numbers are probably true, yet they were able to win over those voters in Harlem. So what, like what, what, what was able to bridge that divide a big narrative.
- [50:46]
Grace Mauser
Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Gustavo.
- [50:49]
Gustavo Gordillo
I'll say working class people of color in New York cannot afford to live here. 77% of Latinos cannot afford the true cost of living for black New Yorkers. The numbers are not far off. And our candidates are speaking to their needs. They're talking about a working class economic agenda that's going to side with the working class over the billionaire class. And we're running against people like Sbaillat who are trying to actually divide the working class against each other through racist attacks. That Latinos cannot have solidarity with black people. That Haitian is a term that should be a slur. You know, New Yorkers. This doesn't like land with New Yorkers. I was actually astonished that when we ran Darielisa, the racist attacks coming from Espaillot's camp, it was something that they thought could succeed. I think if anything, it moved voters closer to us. Now her district is about 50% Latino. The electorate is about a third black. There's just no way to win a race in this district with only a white electorate. I'll also add that in New York City, dsa, first of all, our steering committee is very multiracial. I think it's about 40% Latino. And where we are growing the fastest is in upper Manhattan and the Bronx. We've almost tripled in size there. Actually, we probably definitely have tripled in size there by now since the Xeron campaign launched. And the new members coming in are a pretty multiracial cohort. It's about 25% Latino. It doesn't quite look like the rest of DSA. And I think that's what happens when you build a mass movement that's actually reaching working class people at scale.
- [52:45]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, because bottom line is whether you're a young person in New York City, whether you are a person of color who's a longtime resident, you are all struggling with these same issues of affordability and an out of touch political class and life just being made very difficult for you on a daily basis. Grace, let me get your response to that as well, but let me add one more piece to it here because it's not just the right we had. Letitia James, who had something to say about the DSA victories this week as well. Guys put B6 up on the SCRE, said that it's a wake up call and quote, obviously there's some hurt feelings tonight, particularly in communities of color. What we have to do is sit down and see if we can come to Some sort of understanding, which again is hard to square with the incredibly diverse districts that were one with large multiracial coalitions here.
- [53:42]
Grace Mauser
I have a lot of respect for the Attorney General and I think we're on the same side on a lot of issues. However, I do think she's part of a misunderstanding of a progressive and establishment political class in New York that believes that leaders are always totally in sync with the electorate and with the people that they represent. In Bed Stuy, which is a historically and predominantly black neighborhood and area of the city in central Brooklyn, we now have socialists at every level of government except for Congress. Congress, of course, is represented by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. They won a majority of black voters. It wasn't close. We have a strong base of black socialism. We have very strong Latina, mostly leaders in DSA and elected official positions. These are just critiques that are stale and not reflective of what the electorate actually wants. They, yes, believe that demographic representation is very important. But what's more important is that you have a representative who is going to fight for you, who is speaking to your material conditions. And boiling things down like this is neither narratively coherent to me, nor is it it reflective of what we actually see in the voting patterns from Tuesday night.
- [55:13]
Saagar Enjeti
And last question for me, now that you're going to be sending a non trivial number of socialists down to Washington, depending on what happens in November, the socialist bloc could make the difference between whether or not Democrats can get over the 218 needed to not just form a majority, but also then kind of elect the speaker. There's obviously been a huge push by some people to just block Hakeem Jeffries from becoming speaker at all. My own read of that is that that's going to be very difficult because no candidate has kind of risen to oppose him. And Pelosi's very inspiring slogan used to be, you can't beat somebody with nobody. That was literally what she would run on. And she was correct. But you need another name to run against. But in order to then and to get the rules package approved, in order to get the vote across the board, Jefferies will need this block of social support. So that's a moment of leverage where you could ask for anything out whether you get it or not. But you could demand things like super PACs out of Democratic primaries, a pack out of Democratic primaries, or policy concessions down the line when it comes to whatever you're asking for or you do the money, the big money concessions, which then presumably lead to the policy concessions. Because if you can take the big money off the board, then they don't have the ability to push back against popular ideas. Is New York City DSA starting to strategize around what to do with this power in Washington? And is there anything you can signal where people should start exploring ideas?
- [56:52]
Gustavo Gordillo
I think that it's definitely true that Jeffries, if he, if the Democrats take back the House, he's going to have to earn the vote of socialists in Congress. You know, they are there not to be accountable to him, but they're there to be accountable to the communities that have elected him. And I'm not sure that he's totally in sync with, with the working class in the districts that are electing Democratic socialists. So I think the demands that you've raised are going to have a lot of purchase. I think among our base. Forcing big money out of politics, stigmatizing aipac, making them a non starter within the Democratic Party. I think these are all demands that there's going to be a lot of interest around. We've been so focused on just winning these campaigns. We, you know, we don't get ahead of ourselves in starting to think about what the immediate next steps will be for governing. But that's what we're starting to do now. We're going to be meeting, setting up, you know, increasing our federal social and office committee. That's the body that we use to coordinate with our elected officials in dsa. And I think this will be one of the top questions if we do end up having, you know, a powerful block like that.
- [58:15]
Krystal Ball
Lastly, from me, Grace. So we played in our last block, James Carville kind of melting down and saying there should be a schism in the Democratic Party, that people like Darieliza, they're not in the same party as him. You had Jamie Harrison say these type of candidates should not be Democrats, should not run in the Democratic Party. You've got all kinds of articles in Axios and wherever about how freaked out establishment Democrats are in the House. One apparently said they're even exploring switching to the Republican Party. You have sort of struck fear in their hearts. Are they right to be afraid?
- [58:47]
Grace Mauser
Not if they start doing stuff that we think we think will work. The reason that the Democrats have become weaker and lost ground not only to the Republicans, but to us as Democratic socialists, is because they have failed not just since Trump took office in 2025 for the second time, but for years. And not just since Trump took office for the first time either. They have failed for decades to actually fight for material changes for working people and voters notice that. They notice when you say something and then you do nothing to make it an actuality. They notice when you label someone a fascist and you complain loudly in the press about them, but you actually don't fight to get them out of office, to fight as hard as you can for the people, the immigrants, the trans people, the children and women that they're throwing under the bus. Everyone notices that. And if they're losing ground because of that, they should think about why that is. They should think about what they are doing and more importantly, what they are failing to do that is making voters change their minds, vote for Democratic socialists and then, worst case, sometimes turn to Republicans and people who are running on fascist platforms because Democrats have failed to do anything.
- [60:12]
Krystal Ball
Well, Grace and Gustavo, great to have you both. Thank you so much. Congratulations on some massive victories this week.
- [60:19]
Grace Mauser
Thank you. Great to be here.
- [60:20]
Krystal Ball
Our pleasure.
- [60:21]
Saagar Enjeti
And last, last note for the audience, the nightmare for the party isn't over. DSA has backed a candidate, Mehlat Kira, in Colorado who is up on Tuesday. Cori bush is up October 4th, August 4th. She's running to come back into office after AIPAC spent many millions to ouster. I noticed that the prediction markets are now quite panicked that Bush, despite having not a whole lot of money behind her, has a very good chance now of coming back to Congress because
- [60:52]
Right Wing Critic
these
- [60:52]
Saagar Enjeti
forecasters are seeing the energy that's on the ground there. So these are a couple more to watch. This block could continue to grow, but thank you both so much for joining us.
- [61:02]
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