7/10/25: Twitter CEO Resigns, Tucker Roasts Elon America Party, Trump Hits Brazil With 50% Tariff, Trump Threatens To Bomb Moscow

Summary

Podcast Summary: Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Title: Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Episode: July 10, 2025
Release Date: July 10, 2025
Hosts: Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti
Description: Breaking Points is a fearless anti-establishment multi-week YouTube and Podcast series that holds the powerful to account, hosted by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti.

---

1. Introduction

Timestamp: [02:05]

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti kick off the episode by highlighting several major developments making headlines, including the resignation of Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, Tucker Carlson's critique of Elon Musk's America Party, and significant political moves by former President Donald Trump. They also touch upon the repercussions of AI developments and the shifting landscape of third-party politics in the United States.

2. Twitter CEO Resignation and Elon Musk's Management

Timestamp: [02:15]

Resignation of Linda Yaccarino:

Linda Yaccarino, Twitter's CEO for the past two years, has stepped down. Yaccarino, previously known as an ad guru from NBC News, expressed gratitude towards Elon Musk and the Twitter team for their collaborative efforts in transforming the platform.

Yaccarino (Transcript): "After two years, I have decided to step down as CEO of X. I'm immensely grateful for him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech and turning the company around."
([08:01])

Elon Musk responded tersely, thanking her for her contributions, signaling a potentially icy departure.

Implications of Yaccarino’s Resignation:

Krystal and Saagar delve into the reasons behind Yaccarino's exit, suggesting that the recent "Grok meltdown"—where Twitter’s AI system devolved into promoting extremist content—might have been a tipping point. They highlight ongoing issues with content moderation and Musk’s broader vision for Twitter, which includes merging it with Xai and introducing new AI models like Grok4.

Krystal Ball: "The GROK meltdown just days before the new release and the resignation of the CEO kinda tell us the direction which Elon is trying to take his company in."
([08:01])

3. Elon Musk's America Party

Timestamp: [26:54]

Introduction to the America Party:

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson introduces the concept of the America Party, which is spearheaded by Elon Musk. Krystal and Saagar discuss the viability and potential impact of this new political entity.

Viability and Challenges:

Saagar expresses skepticism about Elon Musk’s ability to establish a successful third party, citing his lack of consistent ideological stance and the fragmented support base.

Saagar Enjeti: "If you can help us out, it enables all the work that we are able to do here."
([26:54])

Krystal adds that the two-party system in the U.S. is deeply entrenched, making it incredibly difficult for third parties to gain significant traction.

Krystal Ball: "The American political system is rigged against third parties. It is the way that it is set up."
([36:17])

4. Donald Trump’s Tariffs and Foreign Policy

Timestamp: [44:25]

Tariffs on Brazil:

Donald Trump has imposed a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods, primarily in response to the trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Trump justified this action by citing Brazil's attacks on free elections and free speech.

Trump (Transcript): "We will charge Brazil a tariff of 50%. It is necessary to rectify the grave injustice of the current regime."
([48:24])

Additional Tariffs and International Relations:

Trump has extended tariffs to numerous countries, including Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, disrupting established trade relationships and pushing these nations closer to China.

Saagar Enjeti: "It's just contrary to any sort of, like, moving away and outsourcing from China. It's just haphazard."
([53:34])

Implications for U.S. Economy and International Relations:

Krystal and Saagar discuss the counterproductive nature of these tariffs, noting that they raise consumer prices domestically and strain alliances abroad. They highlight the broader implications for U.S. trade strategy and the potential alienation of key partners.

Krystal Ball: "He's putting a tax on you in order to help out his buddy in Brazil. It's insane and chaotic."
([55:24])

Threats Towards Russia:

Trump has made escalatory threats towards Russia, including a leaked statement where he threatened to bomb Moscow if Russia continues its actions in Ukraine.

Trump (Leaked Transcript): "If you go into Ukraine, we're gonna bomb the shit out of Moscow."
([58:43])

Implications for Ukraine Conflict:

The hosts analyze how Trump's inconsistent policies and threats exacerbate the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, potentially prolonging the war and complicating peace efforts.

Saagar Enjeti: "What are we doing here? It's insane. We could end up with another forever war."
([62:25])

5. AI Concerns: Grok Meltdown

Timestamp: [09:56]

Grok’s Malfunction:

The AI system Grok, implemented by Elon Musk on Twitter, experienced a drastic failure by removing "woke filters," resulting in the platform becoming a hub for extremist content within days.

Krystal Ball: "Grok is like, we should gas all the juice. We're connecting this to killer Roc robots."
([09:56])

Implications for Content Moderation:

Krystal and Saagar express deep concerns about the ease with which AI can be manipulated to disseminate harmful content, highlighting the potential for information crises and the dangers of unchecked AI systems.

Saagar Enjeti: "If you own this massive social media platform, you could have some impact on misinformation."
([15:07])

6. Third Party Viability in U.S. Politics

Timestamp: [29:59]

Historical Context and Current Landscape:

The hosts explore the historical challenges faced by third parties in the U.S., emphasizing the structural barriers that prevent their success. They reference Ross Perot's third-party run in 1992 as a rare exception.

Krystal Ball: "Third parties just don't succeed in the U.S. political system."
([35:57])

Polling and Public Support:

They examine current polling data, revealing that Elon Musk’s America Party only garners support from about 4% of voters, with the majority of Americans holding unfavorable views towards a Musk-led third party.

Saagar Enjeti: "Elon Musk’s base is only about 4% of all voters."
([34:05])

Potential Impact as a Spoiler:

While the America Party is unlikely to win major elections, it could act as a spoiler in closely contested races, potentially influencing outcomes in the House and Senate.

Krystal Ball: "It could serve as a spoiler in a few races, which could be significant given how tight the margins are."
([36:17])

7. Amazon’s Declining Sales and Economic Indicators

Timestamp: [03:34]

Amazon Prime Day Sales Drop:

The hosts discuss a notable 41% decline in Amazon Prime Day sales, suggesting potential underlying economic issues. They note that Amazon has extended the prime period, which complicates direct comparisons with previous years.

Saagar Enjeti: "Prime day sales were down 41% on the first day."
([03:34])

Implications for Online Shopping Trends:

This decline may indicate broader challenges within the e-commerce sector, possibly reflecting reduced consumer spending or shifts in shopping behaviors.

8. Additional Political and Social Issues

Timestamp: [03:05]

Hakeem Jeffries and Political Stability:

Hakeem Jeffries is expressing concern over political shifts following Zoran’s victory, pondering its implications for his political future and stability within the Democratic leadership.

Krystal Ball: "Hakeem Jeffries is panicking over Zoran's victory and what it could mean for his political future."
([03:05])

AIPAC Backlash and Radicalization:

The hosts highlight the backlash against AIPAC, noting how mainstream liberals are becoming increasingly vocal and critical of Israel, indicating a shift in traditional support dynamics.

Krystal Ball: "I've had it ladies who have had it with AIPAC putting them on blast."
([03:05])

9. Conclusion

Timestamp: [64:45]

Krystal and Saagar wrap up the episode by reiterating the chaotic and often contradictory nature of current U.S. politics, emphasizing the unpredictable actions of key figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump. They urge listeners to remain informed and critically engaged amidst the turbulent political landscape.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Krystal Ball: "It's insane and chaotic."
  ([55:24])

• Saagar Enjeti: "Third parties just don't succeed in the U.S. political system."
  ([35:57])

• Krystal Ball: "If you can help us out, it enables all the work that we are able to do here."
  ([26:54])

• Trump: "We will charge Brazil a tariff of 50%. It is necessary to rectify the grave injustice of the current regime."
  ([48:24])

---

Conclusion:

This episode of Breaking Points provides a critical analysis of the latest developments in U.S. politics, focusing on Elon Musk's management of Twitter, the emergence of the America Party, and Donald Trump's recent foreign policy actions. Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti offer insightful commentary on the implications of these events for the broader political and economic landscape, highlighting concerns over AI misuse, the challenges faced by third parties, and the unpredictable nature of current leadership.

Transcript

[Crystal Ball]

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[Ryan Grim]

Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.

[Crystal Ball]

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

[Ryan Grim]

This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Crystal 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.

[Ryan Grim]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail] Good morning everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have Crystal?

[Crystal Ball]

Indeed we do. Many things unfolding in the world. We have Linda Yaccarino out at Twitter amid many things going on with Elon so we'll get into that. Also we got a clip from you on with Tucker talking about the America Party, so we'll get into.

[Ryan Grim]

I'll let some thoughts go.

[Crystal Ball]

All of that stuff. Grok is doing Grok things, et cetera. We also have some significant moves with regard to the terror Trump levying a 50% tariff on Brazil because he does not like their trials of Jair Bolsonaro. Other wild moves going on there as well. Additional tariffs put on a bunch of different countries. We have Hakeem Jeffries panicking over Zoran's victory and what could mean for him and his political future. Jon Stewart with a good take on that. We've also got the I've had it ladies who have had it with AIPAC putting them on blast. Pretty interesting watching these sort of like normie liberal wine moms get radicalized on Israel.

[Ryan Grim]

So it's a good thing.

[Crystal Ball]

I'm enjoying that very much. Speaking of Israel, we have Netanyahu in town and sat down with the Nelk boys. We don't yet have clips from that, but that is.

[Ryan Grim]

What are they doing? Steiny, all you other guys, what are we doing? You guys want to play in the news game, you release that shit immediately, but whatever.

[Crystal Ball]

Oh, that's what's going on.

[Ryan Grim]

I mean that's one of my gripes. You're going to sit with a guy, you got to go to release it. It's going to be dated at this point. What are you guys doing playing around with Zinn or whatever, you know, making him what's the stupid drink they have? Happy something.

[Crystal Ball]

I have no idea. Casual sit down with an indicted war criminal. So that's cool. Then we have an interesting story with regard to Amazon and online sales. Potential indication of some underlying trouble in the economy. Prime day sales were down 41% on the first day. Now there may be some other things going on. They've apparently extended the prime period this time, so it's not exactly apples to apples. But there's some other indications that online shopping has dropped as well. So we're going to take a look at that too.

[Ryan Grim]

That's right. And thank you very much. There have been a lot of people who've been joining the show recently between the Iran war, Tucker Carlson, all these other things that are happening. So just wanted to take a minute to remind everybody if you can help us out. We have a membership program. It's monthly and or yearly. You can go to breakingpoints.com and you can sign up to support us. So it keeps us ad free and making sure that Ryan and I are not reading hims ads or I guess Amazon ads now that they're going to be needing some help. So we deeply appreciate it. And of course, as part of that, you actually get the show one hour early before it drops an unlisted link on YouTube or you can watch it on locals or you can watch it on Sports Spotify. We do know premium subscribers that there had been some issues with ads on that unlisted YouTube link that we've been sending out. And we believe that we have resolved that. Thank you very much to YouTube. But actually it's really a testament to the power of all of you because we use our membership program and others to tell them and be like, hey, you guys need to fix this and cut it out, otherwise we're not gonna be able to do it. So thank you very much. It enables all the work that we are able to do here if you can help us out. Breakingpoints.com but with that, let's get to Elon Musk and the resignation of Linda Yaccarino. The two year long CEO, previously worked at NBC News, known as the ad Guru, is now stepping down. Let's go and put it up there on the screen. What have we got from Linda? After two years, I have decided to step down as a CEO of X. When Elon and I first spoke on his vision, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out this extraordinary mission. I'm immensely grateful for him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around and transforming it into the everything applying. Incredibly proud of the team. The historic business turnaround we've accomplished together, it's been nothing short of remarkable. And let's go to the next one. Lyn, very terse response there from Elon Musk that just simply says thank you for your contributions. So perhaps it was an icy exit. Of course we would be remiss if we didn't say it literally came the very day after the meltdown that happened with Grok and the removal of some of their woke filters which led to full on Nazism in the span of what, four days I believe is how long it took to devolve into that. But it is a sign also of where things may be going. You know, Crystal business wise for Twitter. And look, I mean, why does any of this stuff matter? First of all, this is the elite conversation platform. That's just kind of how it goes, especially for the news business. A lot was made of it for the Trump election. Of course now we have Elon and the Trump break in their relationship. He says he's gonna start America Party. We're gonna get to that in a little bit. But more broadly is still a technology story because you'll remember that X currently the way that they're juicing their valuation is by this merger with Xai. And actually Grok4, which is their latest LLM model, is supposed to debut. It's either today or tomorrow, very soon. That's really the future that Elon is betting any potential valuation and any modest possibility of him getting any money out of the company ever again. So that's part of the reason why the GROK meltdown just days before the new release and the resignation of the CEO kind of tells us the direction which Elon is trying to take his company in that way. It's actually an interesting business story as well because it's kind of the bet that he's making across both of his businesses. Tesla as well. Tesla's sales right now are a disaster, largely because of Elon, but also because they're not really releasing a lot of new models. Elon is betting the house on future on self driving robo taxis. That's actually all the future value expected of the company. So if you look at those two things, he's basically making a bet to try and transform these industries. But Twitter, I mean, has always kind of been a business disaster. I do want people to understand that part of the reason the board of directors was so eager to sell to Elon is, I mean the company just did not make that much money compared to Facebook and or Google. It punched above its weight in terms of the discourse, but obviously that didn't mean a lot. So there's actually a lot going on here.

[Crystal Ball]

It's very interesting. Well, and let's think about the things that Linda Yaccarino did put up with and was willing. So you know, I know the timing with Grok going full Nazi Mecca Hitler as he was calling himself and apparently we'll show you this later, apparently was like actively sexually harassing arena in addition to the Will Stancil rape fantasies that you read out publicly for us on Arisaga.

[Ryan Grim]

I didn't read it all.

[Crystal Ball]

You stopped at a critical point.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, I mean it's amusing.

[Crystal Ball]

So I mean you look at that and you're like, okay, well maybe this was the final straw. Maybe it was. I have no particular insight into the inside of Twitter, but you would think if the Twitter devolvement into like outright Nazism was a problem for her, then she might have left earlier because certainly there is just so much overt Nazism on the timeline these days that Grok just Sort of fit in at this point. So there's that. In addition, you'll recall when she, I think this was like in the early days after she was made CEO of Twitter, Elon went and did that interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin where he told advertisers to go fuck themselves.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, that's right.

[Crystal Ball]

And she had been explicitly brought in to like, you know, she had all these relationships and she was gonna be the serious face and she was gonna get the business online and whatever. And that was apparently not an issue for her. So to me, I think the Occam's razor of what's going on here is, you know, she came in really at the beginning of the Elon Trump relationship and probably saw that as being something that would be beneficial to her. Hey, being close to, you know, the President of the United States, that seems like something that will benefit someone who is obviously a very ambitious, career oriented person. Now that that relationship has crumbled and Elon is going out to do his whatever the America party is gonna be and get his 4% of the vote or whatever, she's no longer feeling like this is a particularly beneficial place for her to be and no longer worth putting up with the AI bot inside of Twitter sexually harassing her and things of that nature.

[Ryan Grim]

It's definitely possible. And it just goes to show you, I mean, this is part of the reason why Jack, I mean, if you talk when we had him on the show a couple years back and he just always would talk about this content moderation nightmare and this is part of the reason nobody ever wanted to buy TW at one point in 2017, I wanna say Disney was like this close to buying Twitter, Bob Iger, and they were like, oh, well, we can use it for. Yeah, yeah, they were like, we can roll it into the Disney empire. And yeah, I know. Actually, I'm not really sure which would be worse. But my point is just that at the end of the day, Iger pulled the plug on the deal. Cause he's like, you know, this content moderation stuff is just gonna become a nightmare. Cause he watched how Jack had to deal with it. He watched how Zuckerberg was getting called in front of and he's like, I' just kind of do what we do here with juicing miniseries Episode 9 on Star wars or something like that. We'll just keep going down that direction. And this is part of the issue. And then Twitter has caused an immense amount of problems for Elon's business. I mean, Elon himself is also causing that. But Just think about the massive value hits to Tesla. I mean, you've got active investors and the board of directors reportedly not very happy with Elon, even the ones that he has stacked. I mean, you have to look at the stock price, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out how much his political activities are linked to all of these other intersections. Now, you also have Twitter, where previously you could really rely on him being this MAGA demigod effectively. I mean, now Donald Trump is directly in opposition to Elon, and so that's an open question of where things are gonna go. You'll remember that Steve Bannon initially was very critical of Elon Musk. He dialed that criticism back after Trump told him to do so. But now he is totally weapons free. Here is Steve Bannon reacting to Linda Yaccarino's resignation on War Room yesterday. Let's take a listen. Hey, Linda. You can run, baby, but you can't hide. You're not going to hide from the lawsuits, girl. We know why you're stepping down. And while you're running, Elmo's out of control. Sorry, baby, that came with the job. You took the job. You took the pay, you took the warrants. You took the stock options. You took all, you know, the hundreds of millions of dollars you're going to make. No, if you can't keep Elmo in the nursery and keep him under control, you're going to pay a price. You are going to pay a price. It doesn't matter that you're resigning today, baby. The whole complete scam of Elmo is going to be taken apart brick by brick, all of it. You will be stunned at what you will find out. So, you know, he's basically threatening Elon's business there. Of course, Trump did as well. All of this also kind of fits with this America Party thing, which I have a lot of thoughts on. This is a preposterous project, but, I mean, it fits with Elon's, like, schizophrenic political development. Now, at this point, nobody's really sure what the break was. I mean, you know, I guess a lot of it stems from, like, personal grievances and him not getting his NASA head. By the way, we have an interim NASA head as of today. Is it Sean Duffy, the Department of Transportation? Very qualified for the job, of course. Yeah. Former reality TV star. I mean, look, whatever, you know, former Congressman, maybe Elon Musk, in terms of putting this guy into NASA, even if it was gonna be beneficial to SpaceX. But beyond that, as we look at the company again itself and where he wants to take whatever his political project is. He's like openly in his searching mode. And so for that he of course consults Curtis Yarvin. We've talked about Curtis here on the show. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. From the New York Times, Teddy Schleiper, actually, very good piece. Cause it's not just about Curtis Yarvin. It's really a bore about Elon's seriousness. He says here that Elon qu studying up on how to start a political third party. Among the people for whom he has sought advice is Curtis Yarvin. Yarvin, as we've talked about here, one of the most influential people, so called on the tech right, expressed distaste, as they put it here, for traditional American democracy. But one of the interesting things that they have described kind of here is not only him as like consultant of Curtis, but actually, and this is kind of what I talked about with Tucker Carlson is his reaching out to the consultant class and some of the other people about trying to form this part of how he's done his FEC launch and others. And I mean, Elon is literally the meme to me of the fiscally conservative, socially liberal oligarch. No labels. I mean, this is no labels. That's who he is like at this point. And he seems to believe, cuz he's even said this, he has this like inflated view of his own popularity where he's like, trump used me because of my popularity. I'm like, well, you know, take a look at the. Trump is more popular than you are right now, at the very least in terms of his political project. But it is just, it's hilarious in many ways. But it also shows that he's like kind of spreading out and talking to anybody who really will take him even remotely seriously. One of the people is apparently Andrew Yang. Andrew, we love you, man. Stay away. All right? Yeah, we love you too much not to tell you to stay the hell away from this guy.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, well, and apparently after this meeting, you put an A4 up on the screen, apparently unfollowed Curtis Yarvin. So apparently the meeting didn't go that well. You and I were just both speculating that Yarvin probably was like, you know, this is really not a great idea. And Elon, this is the fragile ego of the billionaire, let alone the richest man on the planet. And the wild ways in which these people operate like any normal person, launching some sort of massive undertaking, like starting a brand new Party. You might like talk to these folks beforehand.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes.

[Crystal Ball]

You know, you might like reach out to a consultant and a pollster. You might have some idea about what ballot access looks. No, we're just gonna announce it and then we're gonna go and figure out what the fuck we're doing and like very likely totally crash into the rocks. Have your CEO quit. I mean, it's just. And this is not just how he operates. I was telling Emily, I watched the Titan submersible Netflix doc all about Stockton Rush and the personality traits to me are so similar, except Elon has at least the sense to not send himself into his rocket ships that blow up. Right. But it's the same thing. It's like the rules don't apply to me. It's this disconnect from reality where you think that just like the laws of physics and the universe don't even apply to you, you can just do things however you want. You surround yourself with yes men and women. So anyone who tells you like Curtis Yarvin apparently did something you don't wanna hear, that's it. You unfollow them, you push them out of your life. And because you're a multi, multi, multi billionaire, you know, you are surrounded by. There are plenty of people who want to be that sycophant and to exist in your circle and tell you whatever it is that you want to hear. I mean, this is why I think billionaires should not exist. I think they are inconsistent with democracy. I think we have had a huge lesson in that. If there were ever any doubt before, because these people are not like us. The way they operate in the world, their complete disconnect from reality, it is not like us. And they do not have the same interests remotely. So the launch of this haphazard launch of this America Party is just another example of that. And I think it's gonna be a mess. Obviously I don't think it's gonna supplant the Republican Party or whatever, but that doesn't mean that it can't be also be impactful in a couple of Senate races or a couple of House races here and there where maybe you're pulling a few percentage points and that's enough to ship. I mean, it could serve as a spoiler in a few races and that could be significant given how tight the margins are in both the House and the Senate.

[Ryan Grim]

It's possible. If it even gets to that point.

[Crystal Ball]

That's a big if.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah, it's a huge if. Let's put a six, please, up on the screen. This is from Kara Swisher, who is controversial figure I guess in the tech community. But you know, she has a lot of relationships. So anyway, here's what she says.

[Crystal Ball]

This is the first time we've put a thread up on this.

[Ryan Grim]

That's right, this is the first time.

[Crystal Ball]

This is historic up here.

[Ryan Grim]

The Mecca Hitler controversy was not it, by the way. I guess she sided with Trump over Musk. Also without the Trump card, it was likely going to hard to shake down advertisers with the threat of lawsuits. And finally, Threads is close to being as big as X along with competitors like Blue Sky. I'm not so sure about that latter one there, Karen. And you know, I should say it could be possible because you and I, we use Twitter very differently probably than the vast majority news gathering and it's political conversation and that is, you know, a big punch above the weight of where Twitter has. But there's a lot of other people who use Twitter for sports, you know, pop culture memes, whatever. You know, apparently people who really like to watch reality TV like to go on Twitter and like, you know, live tweet and talk about stuff like that. So I could see how maybe it could be supplanted in that way. But as of right now in politics, like it doesn't exist to the extent that there is a so called competitor. It is Blue sky even that I'm pretty skeptical of. Seems a bit more of like an echo chamber than anything. Maybe it's important intro left. But that's not the same thing as being like you know, broadly able to reach everybody. Anyway, put all this stuff together. That's where Elon is with a step down of the business. This is a big technology development. It is one which tells us a little bit about both him, where his so called movement or whatever and all of that is going and we should keep an eye on it because he played a huge role in the election. You can't deny that he spent $200 million. And if he does use Twitter, you know, I actually am curious for your take on the whole Grok thing because outside of the whole filter manipulation thing, I mean that is a pretty naked view into how easy it is for them to put their thumb on the scale. You can put it in whatever direction you want. It's terrifying. It is terrifying because it's like you just remove this filter or whatever, you change the algorithm and then immediately, I mean, I'm sure you see this. There are a lot of people who you should not do this, but who Use Grok or any other LLMs as just like a verifier. They'll be like, hey, is this true? Something like that. And it will go. And I'll be like, oh, okay, thank you. But they don't really go and check this stuff for themselves. And it's like, well, if it's that easy to get it to turn itself into Mecca Hitler after four days, I mean, you can just imagine like what sort of like information crisis that would lead to. Now I'm not saying, you know, I'm not calling for laws or whatever about misinformation. I'm just showing people here like, this is a very naked example of how easy it is to go down this path. If you do own this massive social media platform, which is highly impactful at the very least for elites and especially intra right wing discourse, you could at the very least have some impact. Right. If it tells. What if it doesn't tell you where your polling place is when you ask it? You know, I mean, what if that's one of the only places that people go to? I can come up with a variety of examples. You know, they did a study on Facebook years ago that they, if they wanted to, they could increase vote share by like 1 or 2%, which is literally Trump's margin of victory in the popular vote. So there you go.

[Crystal Ball]

The American people are very uncomfortable with the development of AI. Another area that there is a profound disconnect between the elites of both parties, but especially with the Trump administration at this point with regard to, hey, let's just make it the wild wild west and let's race to AGI and we gotta beat China and no holds barred, very large disconnect. It's something like, I had the polling, it's like 70 plus percent of Americans and quite bipartisan who are like, we need some more regulation here. We're concerned about where this is going and who could blame them? Because they should. You know, you've got the labor, the work concerns, you've got the. We're just like shutting off parts of our brain now concerns, you know, in the same way we outsourced our navigational skills to gps, now we're outsourcing like our entire thinking and research. Yeah, yeah. To this technology. What is that going to mean for humanity? And then you have the more terrifying dystopian scenarios, which is like they changed a couple prompts in, you know, for grok's instructions and suddenly GROK is like, we should gas all the juice. I mean, that's what happened. And they're connecting this shit to killer Roc robots, you know, via Palantir and these other defense tech companies. Yeah, I think we need to think about what the hell we're doing here because it is terrifying. I mean on the one hand of course it's like it's a funny and ridiculous development that they tried to make an anti like a non woke AI and it instantly turns into Mecca Hitler. But it's also deadly serious when you're talking about technology that the people who are developing it, they want it to be so transformative that all of human labor will become unneeded. That this is the technology that is so transformative that people like Peter Thiel who believe in transhumanism want us to merge with this stuff and for the human race to effectively be no longer or be evolved into some new like hybrid human and tech conglomerate. So yeah, I think it's.

[Ryan Grim]

I totally agree.

[Crystal Ball]

I find it very concerning.

[Ryan Grim]

I totally agree. I was actually so. I mean I wish I hadn't been after the whole build back better thing but. Or not build back better.

[Crystal Ball]

I keep calling it that too.

[Ryan Grim]

If you've been around long enough, you remember different BBBs here in Washington. Washington. But yeah, that was actually a good controversy over that 10 year ban on AI. I mean I can't believe they tried to slip that in there. I know, it's unbelievable but it does show all of this. So just keep it in mind when you're using ChatGPT, any of these LLMs do not outsource your thinking because you can just see how easy it is for them to manipulate you. There's already all those stories about people like you know, interacting with ChatGPT or lonely and they think it's like a spirit God and it convinces them to like lose their mind. I mean look, I know this stuff sounds crazy, but at scale a lot of humans are crazy and if you use it in a fair various directions, if even 2 to 3% of people get swayed or into believing this is like a religious figure. That's a lot. I mean that's what millions of of the entire US population. So anyways, keep that in mind. Hot days, humid nights and non stop plans. All that heat can increase hair shedding while a packed schedule can add stress which can impact your hair. Nutriful's whole body approach and clinically tested formulas support your hair from within so you can focus on living your best life life all summer long. Neutrophil is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people see thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months with neutral thinning. Hair is different for men and women, so a one size fits all approach to hair growth doesn't cut it. Neutrophil has multiple formulas for men and women that are tailored to different life stages such as postpartum or menopause and lifestyle factors such as a plant based lifestyle so you can get just what you need. Plus Users of Nutrafol men reported no impact to sexual performance, thank goodness. While many supplements rely solely on ingredient studies, Nutrafol clinically tests final formulations to ensure their efficacy. In a clinical study, 84% of men showed improvement in their hair after six months taking Nutrafol Men Hair Growth Supplement and 90% of women saw overall improvement in their hair after taking Nutrafol Women Hair Growth Supplement for six months. Building a hair growth routine is easy. Order online, no prescription needed. Enjoy free shipping, automated deliveries and up to 20% savings with Nutrafol subscription description plus get free naturopathic doctor consults and a Headspace Meditation membership. Start your hair growth journey with Neutrophil For a limited time, Neutrophil is offering listeners $10 off your first month subscription. Free shipping when you go to neutrophil.com enter promo code culture Ristas Find out why Neutrophil is the best selling hair growth supplement [e-mail] spelled N U T R-A F O L.com promo code culturistas that's nutriful.com promo code culturistas there's nothing.

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[Ryan Grim]

Now onto the America Party, which is again one of the most cringe worthy efforts I've literally ever seen. It is nolabelsincarnate and Tucker asked me about it whenever I was on his show. So we thought we'd play a couple clip. Let's take a listen. We need an America Party and I'm running it. Where does this. Is he serious? Where does this go? Filed it with the fec. I would give some caution to Elon Tucker. You and I have seen a lot of rich people come and go in Washington. The consultants see you coming from a mile away. Mr. Fiscally Conservative, Socially liberal. I'm just going to put that out there. The Bipartisan Policy center and all these other people, they've rolled up that entire market. They have plenty to sell you. I mean, the irony is if Elon's politics were more reversed in this sense, I actually think he would be onto something. So if you were to marry those three issues about immigration restriction, about focus on quality of life, cost of living, health care, and also just broadly about restructuring our economy for productive purposes, that distributes not through socialism, but through a well ordered and a well regulated capitalism that distributes the benefit across all sectors of our society. Now that's an America Party I could get on board with totally. But there's no funding for that, right? No. Someone got up and said, I'd like an economy where you don't have to hire an illegal alien to raise your kids. Your wife can stay home and raise your kids if she wants to. And most women do want to for the period when they're little. I mean, most women want that. And every survey shows that. So if you were to say that, in other words, if you were to respond to the desire of the majority, probably be shot to death, you can't say that. So anyway, that's that. Crystal, you're welcome to weigh in since you weren't there to participate, but that was my take on the America Party.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, I mean, I think the. This is so important to understand the polling on this. Lots of Americans, you ask them, are you satisfied with the two party system? They're like, absolutely. Do you want a party led by the richest man on the planet that is based around fiscal conservative? I don't know. People keep saying socially liberal. Is Elon socially liberal at this point? It doesn't seem like that to me.

[Ryan Grim]

It depends on the definition.

[Crystal Ball]

But and here's the thing is like he just wants to, he wants it to be another cult of personality for him. So I don't even think there's real ideological content here because even on the fiscal conservatism thing, he doesn't have any fiscal conservatism when it comes to his own subsidies. He wants the government to serve him and his interests and those of his oligarch buddies and to revolve around him. I mean, that's really what it is, is a, let's have a different cult of personality than the one of Trump. Let's have one that revolves around me and whatever my particular interests are that serve my business, you know, my business. I wanna bring in all the South African Boer migrants. I want H1B visas, you know, I want low taxes for me and I want all these subsidies and I wanna crush my competitors. I mean, that's what this party is. So even to give him the credit of some sort of like consistent ideological project here, I don't even think that that is like, that is like too kind. That's a good point to what he's actually launching.

[Ryan Grim]

The only thing he seems really committed to is this like debt, debt doomerism, which is common. It's like a very common billionaire thing. And I understand where it comes from, which is that they have to run businesses and so they actually just can't conceive of a government that doesn't have a balance sheet. And that's in my opinion, one of the most destructive ways to think about a government. Because governments are not businesses, nor should they be. We're a global empire. The idea that the global reserve currency and all of that has to abide by the balance sheet rules of a publicly traded corporation is preposterous. Has been preposterous for 200 years now. @ this point, literally nobody runs any major country that way. But I even put that aside. It's like this idea from Elon basically comes down to I subsidies whenever I want them. This whole idea of this radical centrism which we saw from people like Joe Manchin and others, and I've just seen this no Labels, bipartisan policy center type project just exist for probably my entire life and especially all my time here in Washington. And if we all think about it, like, what are the things that the party. When the parties agree, it's usually like the worst thing ever, right? It's like support for Israel or, I don't know, like a coup in Venezuela or more funding for Ukraine. On economics, I'm trying to think they'd be like, oh, yeah, I mean, the SNAP program or something. I know there's some beef there. Or reforming Social Security. They're like, well, we don't wanna kick people off, we just wanna raise retirement age. Or if we go back to 2015 and the original talks between Barack, the Obama administration and the Republicans, like, that's where real bipartisanship was. Whereas again, if you look at an actual breakdown of like, so called, you know, what an America party or all of that would be, at least for where it is right now. I think we have some polling we're gonna talk about on Friday, or at least Emily Eislaw sent this. It's like people, I think 57% or something of Americans describe themselves as, quote, economically liberal. Something like 60% describe themselves as like some sort of immigration restriction or agreeing with that. And then, I mean, the healthcare polling doesn't take a genius to go in to look at that. That's kind of where the real American middle is. But each one of those is kind of radical in its own way. And so if you were to call yourself like a quote, radical centrist, that's where things would be with Elon. You know, you not only have the cult of personality aspect in terms of the actual things that he believes. He's like a Javier Millet, like, libertarian. It's like, this is not possible, you know, in America. Like, by the way, you know, there was a lot of talk initially about Argentina. Argentina right now is a disaster. If people want to go and check it out. By the way, their birth rate is plummeting thanks to. All right, there's a variety of reasons for that. But you can go and look just broadly at how people there societally are reacting that this whatever disaster capitalism or whatever you want to call it does not seem to be working nearly as well as even whatever disaster was coming, coming before it. But that's kind of Elon's solution to whatever the, you know, whatever is wrong, what he thinks, what the Republican Party is like, he's so concerned about the debt limit or whatever. But as you point out, I mean, this is a person who has gotten billions of dollars in government subsidies. Somebody did the math. I forget exactly what percentage or how the company would have even existed previously.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, that's right.

[Ryan Grim]

Without being able to do so, it almost certainly would have died without significant government assistance.

[Crystal Ball]

Tesla, specifically, Obama really helped to rescue at a time that was very perilous for that company. Yeah, I mean, look, he's pissed off that he didn't get his NASA guy so he could get his goodies from the government. I mean, that was part of the breakup with Trump. Right. So in terms of these hardcore fiscal conservative principles, even that is a bit lacking when it comes to his own companies. But on economics, they polled Zoran Mamdani's platform. Every single thing that he campaigned on, like his core promises. Wildly popular, not just in New York City, where it's even more popular, but with the entire public. I think the least popular one was like the free buses, and that was still polling at 59% or something like that. So those sorts of policies, when you're talking about economics, are the actual center of the American people. I just saw polling on Medicare for all. It's at like 59% support and something like 30%.

[Ryan Grim]

I'm still skeptical on that.

[Crystal Ball]

Something like 30% oppose. So, I mean, that's, you know, that's very different from what Elon is. And again, what Elon is proposing is just a cult of personality of whatever it is that he's into that particular day. Harry Anton did a breakdown of some of the polling and why it can be misleading just to take for granted, oh, there's so many Americans that are dissatisfied with the two party systems. But if you dig a level deeper, it gets much more complicated. Very quickly, let's listen to that.

[Ryan Grim]

What is the size of Elon Musk's base? Well, I calculate it to be about 4%. Just 4%. 1, 2, 3, 4% of all voters. What is that base made up of? Well, it's those who view Elon Musk favorably and the GOP unfavorably. We're talking just about 4% of all voters out there. Because it turns out most of the people who like Elon Musk already like the GOP already that is, is they already have a party for him. And we will note Americans with an unfavorable view that is essentially that Musk starts off with far more against him than Ross Perot ever did. Americans with an unfavorable view of Ross Perot was only 14% back in 1992. Now the vast majority of Americans are already against Elon Musk, 58%. So what we're essentially saying here is that Elon Musk is going to go into an electorate that already dislikes. Is already against him. While there were far more people who are open to the idea of a Ross Perot third party or independent candidacy as compared to an Elon Musk third party in which the vast majority of Americans have already sided against the man since 1970. Just 0.2% of all winners, of all winners were either third party, independent or right. And we're only talking about 24 out of over 3,13,000 winners. The bottom line is third party independence. They just don't succeed.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, and I mean, there's a, there's a, like, obviously we've talked about third parties and how possible it is in, I mean, American, the American political system is rigged against third parties. That is the way that it is set up. And so it is very difficult to succeed outside of these, you know, edge cases. You're a Bernie Sanders in Vermont. You are, you know, you.

[Ryan Grim]

Who still caucuses with the Democrats. With the Democrats, like Angus King. I just.

[Crystal Ball]

And ran as a Democrat. Right. And ran in the Democratic primary. Yeah. And I mean, the other thing that's actually interesting right now is if you were to go in the political landscape of where there's the most opportunity. Republicans are very happy with the Republican Party.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, that's right.

[Crystal Ball]

Trump is. They love Trump. They're with him. They're happy with Trump as the leader of the Republican Party. They feel great. And now. So Elon obviously has aligned himself with the more conservative part of the political spectrum. Democrats, on the other hand, are disgusting with Democratic Party leadership, which is kind of a house of cards at this point. So even in terms of where you would locate yourself on the political spectrum, the whole thing is F'd. And you know, just to take it back to his business interests, I think in a sense he's in real trouble. Because if you think about Space X now you got Sean Duffy in there. You remember that Cabinet meeting where Elon was in there and got into it a little bit with.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, it was Sean Duffy.

[Ryan Grim]

That's right. He did get that.

[Crystal Ball]

He publicly was like feuding with. And they clearly. So putting Sean Duffy in at NASA is like a direct kind of fu to Elon. So SpaceX is very dependent on federal government contracts. So that's an issue for SpaceX. Twitter has never been an economically sound investment. It was more about power and projection and propaganda. I think it's been effective with regards to that. But now you've got Linda Yaccarino out. The analysis from Kara Swisher that, like, hey, you're not gonna have the threat of lawsuits through your alliance with Trump against advertisers. I mean, I think that's an accurate point. So Twitter as a business prospect is just totally hosed and Tesla is screwed. Like, Elon was such an important part of the Tesla brand and now you have alternatives in most of the world. There are many other and most, you know, Chinese electric vehicles that are superior to Tesla that you have access to. Now here we don't have those, but the major car companies are turning out EVs and there are alternatives that are, you know, at least close to approximate to what Tesla is. You're losing the EV subsidies from the one big beautiful bill, which I think those should stay in place. But those are gone now. And your brand is now completely toxic with the affluent liberals who were buying your car and then the potential new market of right wing conservatives who love Trump and love you. You've now tanked yourself with them with your war with Trump. Where is this going to go? And your product line is stale and you haven't been focused on actually delivering for consumers and creating a product that's like, irresistible people. The cybertruck is one of the biggest vehicular busts in history, mostly because of.

[Ryan Grim]

Elon, by the way. That's. I genuinely think it's his fault because it had a lot of hype whenever it initially.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, absolutely. Apparently a bunch of like rental car agencies are buying them because they're so cheap.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, really?

[Crystal Ball]

Hey, it's got decent range.

[Ryan Grim]

Honestly, it wouldn't be a bad thing to rent if you're on vacation.

[Crystal Ball]

My daughter is selling. She must have heard this on like YouTube shorts or something. She was like, don't be mad at everyone who's driving a cybertruck, Mommy, because they may have just rented it, like been stuck with it from the rental car company.

[Ryan Grim]

Very smart. And hey, it's got some luggage storage. I might be checking that out the next time I have to rent a car, especially if they'll give me a discount. But I'll just put it, I'll put it like this, which is with Elon, the America party, et cetera. And I know, you know, I've broadly found people can get upset that when we talk about the third parties in a denigrating way. But look at Zoran, the guy won the Democratic primary. Look at Trump. The model is. There is. You have to come in and kind of blow up an existing political party for your own purposes. The Democrats are in their 2014 moment. They are ready to be destroyed. All right, Hakeem Jeffries is John Boehner. Schumer is. Yeah, sorry. Schumer is like the perfect example of a leader who can easily be knocked off. Yeah, Eric Cant or something. There's not like a direct comparison. But these guys are running scared and they're a joke. And the Democratic base is upset. You could never been more rife for a Trump moment than right now in the party. And if you look at the history of new political parties, it really takes like a singular issue to blow everything up. And a lot of people really forget that, that you need like a slavery type issue to actually destroy a party. We don't have that right now. And there's not like one single defining axis of American crisis at this moment. There are intraparty wise, as in, like in the Democratic Party, it's about exuding some fight and wanting to win. On the Republican side, it was Israel's a big one. I'm not sure if it's there quite yet, but immigration was how the right turned on the axis of immigration. That's where everything really turned around. And there was a lot of other stuff that came with it. But, you know, on the Democratic side, Israel is a big one. There's a lot of like, vibe elements to it as well. But that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. My point is just that we don't have something that crosses those two in which they're both irreconcilable. On those two issues, like breaking apart, which would allow people to converge on a single party, like the original Republican Party under Lincoln, which, remember, was a new party at their own time, that's really what broke up Wiggery. And you know, you just have to look at that history and say, we don't have that right now. Perot came close and he did try, and he's the goat for that reason is that he kind of centered it around global trade and the reordering of our economic system with nafta. But unfortunately, people were basking too much in the glow of the 1990s and they weren't willing to listen. If he ran today, I actually think he'd be a wildly popular Republican. But it's unfortunate.

[Crystal Ball]

Nate Cohn did an analysis that was basically like, if the Republicans and the Democrats really fully realign, where the Republicans are truly like the national populace, which they're not really, and the Democrats are truly like a sort of democratic socialist, which they're definitely not, then you might have space for this like return to neoliberalism kind of a party. But yeah, I mean, I share your skepticism and certainly given where we are right now, where the neoliberals still have plenty of purchase within both political parties, you know, the time is not. We don't need a neoliberal resurgent party because they still have plenty of power within both of the two major parties.

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[Ryan Grim]

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[Crystal Ball]

Let's do it.

[Ryan Grim]

Shall we? All right, lots of news here with Donald Trump Some major moves, in particular on tariffs and on Ukraine, a few other things. So Trump has given us some great insight into his thinking on his tariff formula. You'll recall previously, there was basically ChatGPT type formula, which, by the way, not even a good ChatGPT formula. It was the easiest ChatGPT formula that you were able to. I got a much more sophisticated one, and it took me only five years, minutes. But here is Trump revealing for the first time how the formula is being used. Let's take a listen. The formula was a formula based on common sense, based on deficits, based on how we've been treated over the years, and based on raw numbers. But they're based on very, very substantial facts and also past history. The formula is based on the formula. It just is common sense.

[Crystal Ball]

There you go. Based on very substantial facts. I'm not gonna tell you what those.

[Ryan Grim]

Facts are based on. Very substantial facts. Now, in particular, what the formula really is is whatever Trump kind of wants it to be. So let's go and put this one up there on the screen. This is probably the most significant one that dropped just yesterday. Trump has now hit Brazil with a 50% tariff, it says, in part due to the trial of Jair Bolsonaro. So for those who don't know, Trump has been tweeting more recently about Bolson Bolsonaro, who obviously is on trial inside of Brazil. He also kind of cited digital censorship and free elections here. So, for example, he says Trump in the letter, due in part to Brazil's insidious attacks on free elections and the fundamental free speech rights of Americans, as illustrated by the Brazilian Supreme Court and his secret and unlawful censorship orders with US platforms, we will charge Brazil a tariff of 50%. Please understand, the 50% number is far less than what is needed to have a level playing field. And we must have with your country. It is necessary to have this to rectify the grave injustice of the current regime. And he additionally cites the prosecution there of Bolsonaro. Now, this is obviously a beef kind of long coming, but the question is about whether it's actually going to be effective and what this will mean inside of Brazil. Keep in mind, Bolsonaro, I mean, yes, he lost, but it wasn't like a terrible loss. And I remember we had Glen on at the time where even though Lula did win the Bolstinar, I forget it, exact name for it, but the Bolsonaro party itself actually did quite well throughout Brazil. So it's not like they actually don't have their own vibrant political system. The real question is about how this will be met by Brazilians. And I think that is obvious from a lot of the tariff blowback that we saw in the early days of the administration. Canada, for example, becoming overwhelmingly like nationally popular. Trump, basically nuking the conservative party inside of Canada. Canada, Mexico. Claudia Sheinbaum, very popular when standing up to the United States. Japan, by the way, I just saw a statement from a senior Japanese official inside of the government for the LDP party who was like, Trump is a bad person or something like that is crazy. Like they don't talk that way in internal Japanese politics. A very high ranking person allied with the government. This is after we just hit them with their 25% tariff. Korea is also having similar kind of national. They're upset obviously about the way that they're being treated. So I think that the potential, the irony is that while, yeah, I mean, I remember that social media case. It was outrageous. I don't know all the specifics around the bolster. I'm not an expert on the Brazilian legal system and whatever they want to do, like, go for it, it's not particularly my business. But I think that the question about if we actually wanted to achieve these goals and what they would look like are open right now at a time where, where it wasn't that long ago, we were very concerned that Brazil and Lula, because he is not. Is much more of an internationalist figure willing to speak out against the consensus on Gaza and also willing to do a lot of trade with China. This would seem like the perfect example of something that might actually put them in a different direction because China doesn't care at all about what they do.

[Crystal Ball]

With Bolsa and Ukraine as well.

[Ryan Grim]

Of course. Yeah, that's right. I remember that.

[Crystal Ball]

This is insane. It's actually outrageous. Okay, first of all, this is a president who tells you he's America first and the impact of putting 50% tariffs on Brazil is going to be higher prices on you. So effectively he's putting a tax on you in order to help out his buddy in Brazil. Okay, number two, you don't have to know all the ins and the outs to know, as Sagra just said, like they can do in their country what they want to do. Recall, this is also the man who went and gave a speech about how we weren't going to lecture other countries, we weren't going to enforce our own views on other countries and manipulate them.

[Ryan Grim]

I agree. Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

I mean, and immediately he turns around and does the complete opposite of that, 50% tariffs because he's mad that, I mean, Bolsonaro tried to do a coup and overthrow the election. And that is one of the things that he is being prosecuted for right now. And that is the reason that he has been banned from running in the next presidential election. Now, again, I am not an expert on exactly what went down and the status of these court cases, whatever, but it seems like within the realm of reasonable that if you have someone who engineers a coup and tries to overthrow an election, that maybe they should be barred from running for that office again in the future. From the political perspective, it's also completely insane in terms of like the goals you wanna effectuate. So first of all, you're very likely to have a rallying around Lula, who actually has. Has been sliding in the polls and was in a bit of political trouble. So this could easily very possible. I was talking to Juan David Rojas about this. Very possible that this rescues Lula and bolsters his polls as he heads into his next election. It's not clear if he's running it, whatever, put that aside, but could very much bolster Lula politically. In addition, you have Trump picking this fight with the brics, nation of which Brazil is the be in brics there over their movement towards potential an alternative currency. This system of potential de dollarization. What do you think the impact of this is going to be? It is going to be to further push these countries into the arms of China. You can't rely on these people. These people are insane. You're just gonna levy a 50% tariff on U.S. because you don't like what our court system is doing? Get out of town. What do you mean? So it's so counterproductive, idiotic, illogical, outrageous on every single level that you can hardly wrap your head around the type of mind that would come up with this.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, I mean, in particular for me, it's just. Look, I don't know. I mean, I remember there were a lot of concern about censorship and all that via Brazil. I don't disagree with any of that. I think that's fine. You know, if we want. And I believe, I believe we at least got some resolution or something on that. But for me, the Bolsonaro thing, again, I don't know about the case. I know that there was some brouhaha or whatever and they're banning him from all of that. But I don't really care what they do, you know, in their own country. You do what you. You want to do. If you guys are upset about it, then you can overthrow your own government go for it. But as Rojas actually points out with Brazil's export partners, the 50% tariff, it'll hurt, but it won't be devastating in particular because Brazil already was at least pursuing somewhat the so called BRICS strategy. And in fact, actually just yesterday, the Chinese government announced trade agreements with 10 different countries in the Asia Pacific, many of whom were actually hit by a tariff by the United States almost in the same week. Now those are the things that actually concern me the most. I'll also show you another example. Let's put B4 up on the screen, please. On copper, Trump says, quote, I am announcing a 50% tariff on copper effective August 1, 2025, citing the national security reasons for semiconductors and all of these other industries that are reliant on copper. Now, okay, listen, I think I said this yesterday. That's fine as long as we have a vibrant copper industry here in the US and we're able to, I don't know, spin up production and we've given a bunch of tax credits to the copper industry. We didn't do any of that with the latest bill. That's the problem. And so, you know, copper Ryan said yesterday that this is a boon to all of the people who rip copper out of abandoned houses, AKA drug addicts, by the way. So congratulations. So all the fentanyl addicts out there who are stealing copper off of job sites and other things. But if you pair that with where we are right now, it's probably just going to lead to a higher price, you know, by the way, for home construction and all that. Good luck, you know, for renovators and other things. It's going to massively increase their overall supply. Let's also, can we put the next one up here? Because this fits with what I was talking about, the haphazard nature in which this is all going into effect. You can see here all of the different tariffs that were just around that by the president in the last two days. The Philippines, Brunei, Moldova, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia. I mean, a number of those countries I just listed just signed a trade agreement there with China. You've got Tunisia, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Iraq, Libya. Who even rules Libya, by the way? You know, what business do we do? Bosnia, South Africa, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Serbia, Iran.

[Crystal Ball]

We should have giving Iraq reparations, not charging the tariffs.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos. I mean, the thing is, again, let's just return if we thought to the original strategy because I've been around for the pivot to Asia for my entire time here in Washington. The idea was, is to take many of the countries I just listed, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and turn them into places where the United States can continue to do business in the Asia Pacific and move production out of China. This is specifically why Vietnam is such an important trading partner. And at the very least, we did sign some sort of trade agreement with them. There's a lot of problems with pass through shipping, et cetera, and circumventing tariffs, which I totally understand, but that was the basic proposal. That's why it's just ridiculous to be hitting a 20% tariff on the Philippines or on Malaysia or South Korea, Japan, highly developed nations, which are traditionally very good friends here with the United States. States important production houses in their own right. And it's just contrary to any sort of, like, moving away and outsourcing from China. It's just haphazard. And it's one that basically just fits with the whims of Trump himself. And the more that it's like that, the more likely, of course, America's likely to turn against tariffs because they can see that it has no real purpose and the likelihood is to actually just vindicate all these neoliberals because the prices are just gonna go up. We're gonna talk about Amazon here in a little bit, but we're already seeing some precarious signs. It's funny, too. I've seen people be like, see, you should have trusted Trump's plan on tariffs all along. I'm like, guys, he backed down on the tariffs. There's only a reason why the economy is fine. If they go back into effect, then all of the original doom scenarios will come true. Like, what are we doing here?

[Crystal Ball]

It's insane. And just to go back to Brazil for one more moment, who are we to be lecturing anyone about censorship at this point as well?

[Ryan Grim]

I don't.

[Crystal Ball]

Just who are we? We're kidnapping students off the street for a fricking op ed. And you think you have any moral high ground to stand on when it comes to censorship? Like, get out of here. So. And also, again, by the way, if they want to have different laws regarding that than we do, that is their right, and they get to work it out in their own democratic system, which seems to be actually functioning more effectively than ours does at this point. So I don't know about that, but it's total and complete insanity, the whole thing. It is so devastating to any sort of, you know, any ideology, which you and I both share of desiring, like, industrial policy and thoughtful protectionism, like, you know, like the copper thing on its own. If you had some strategic, okay, here's what we're gonna do. And here's the policy by. And here's the, you know, the subsidies that are gonna help build this American industry. Okay, I'm open to that. But this is just insanity and chaos. And while two Trump's face, a bunch of these countries will KOWTOW and oh, Mr. President, and can we get a Nobel Peace Prize for you or whatever, behind the scenes, they are all talking and collaborating and figuring out how they can move on from being in this abusive relationship, which is exactly what this is at this point.

[Ryan Grim]

It's a big problem. And it also just shows Trump can flip around on a dime all the time. I mean, more recently, we're gonna move on to the Ukraine part. Ryan and I talked about about this yesterday, but you can actually watch in real time how the Ukraine policy of Donald Trump has gone from, I want to stop the dying, we need to stop sending all this money to Ukraine because depleting US Stockpiles to I'm just gonna have it solved all in one day before I even take office. To talks with Putin and the Russian government to basically just recreating the Biden policy where Trump is thinking about signing the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill. More sanctions ought to do it. It's definitely not the most sanctioned country by the United States ever. Right. And more weapons to Ukraine. Oh, I'm sure that'll be a solution for the Ukrainians. That definitely is gonna be able to beat back the Russians as the Ukrainians continue to lose territory. Oh, that's right. Actually, remember that nice minerals deal that we signed? Well, the Russians just took a massive lithium field yesterday, so. Oh, oh, okay. Oops. Might have been better to sign some peace deal or something earlier, even if you're just looking out for American interests. But that's where Trump is now. And perhaps the reason is that Putin sees Trump as a massive bluffer. He believes he doesn't really have to play ball with the U.S. really, if he needs to, because he knows that even to the extent of maximum realistic Ukrainian support, he can just continue this war on forever. The last two days in Ukraine have actually been some of the biggest bombardments ever. Over a thousand drones that have come down on the city. He clearly doesn't care. And also he believes here with Trump that he's not necessarily a useful negotiator. So we had some actually interesting audio that just leaked from Trump where he told people behind the scenes, I believe this during the campaign trail, that he Was, quote, gonna bomb the shit out of Moscow if they continue the war in Ukraine. Let's take a listen. Putin, I said, if you go in to Ukraine, we're gonna bomb the shit out of Moscow. I'm telling you, I have no choice. To public ones, the public. So he goes like, I don't believe you.

[Crystal Ball]

I said, he said no way.

[Ryan Grim]

And I said way.

[Crystal Ball]

And then he goes like, I don't believe you. But the truth is he believed me 10%.

[Ryan Grim]

So that's what I told people behind the scenes. But you know, and this is the irony of this whole like, oh, stooge and all of this, the reality of the situation is that Putin has a view which has really just not changed. He's like, I want all of Ukraine to the extent that I'm willing to talk, it's that we freeze things where they are right now. And the west is like, oh, well, we need a defense treaty and we need to say. And he's like, no, we're not doing any of that. My entire economy is around the war. You can either take it or I'm just gonna continue the war, period, end of story. And we just seem to like cycle back to the same ridiculous position that we have started in. And it's just so ridiculous in particular after we just blew all this money on Israel and all of these weapons stockpiles. I don't know if you saw yesterday, we talked about with Ryan, 25% right now of the Patriot batteries, munitions that we need for US plans are currently in stock. Trump is currently talking about sending them over to Ukraine. That would deplete us even more. Like what are we doing? Especially after we blew a ton of them in the more recent Israel attack. So it just counter to like any sort of coherent project around this thing. And here's Trump being asked yesterday because of the chaos around the pause, which has now been restarted, don't worry everybody, the weapons are on their way to Ukraine. Here's what he had to say.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, I haven't thought about it because.

[Ryan Grim]

We'Re looking at Ukraine right now and munitions. But I have no, I have not gone into to it. If a decision was made, I will know. I'll be the first to know. In fact, most likely I'd give the order, but I haven't done that yet. So what he's talking about there is that originally there was a pause put into place to pause the weapons. Then Trump apparent, according to him, didn't know about it and came out and was like, no, actually we're going to restart it. But this just goes to show that. And part of the reason I would even defend any idea of a pause, because, Crystal, doesn't that seem consistent with the policy set by the administration? Why would the president need to approve this thing that he said he was going to do?

[Crystal Ball]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

This was a basic framework of the Trump campaign and promises from the very first day. So, of course that would be the policy. And because Trump is who he is, he's just switching things around all the time. And then this morning, I see Rubio and Lavrov are meeting in Malaysia. So I'm like, who the hell knows?

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, well, did you see? I mean, this kind of fits with this idea of, like, different factions of the administration are just sort of freelancing and not coordinating and not running things up the chain. There were two tracks to get a deal with Venezuela.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, yeah, we talked about that yesterday.

[Crystal Ball]

Oh, did you talk about that yesterday?

[Ryan Grim]

A little bit.

[Crystal Ball]

I missed it. To try to secure the release of some American prisoners that are being held by the Venezuelans. And you had Marco Rubio offering one deal and then Rick Grinnell offering a different deal that was a better deal. Right. To the same guy. And so you're like, what is going on here? Right. And so even though I think you're right, that because Trump was so clear about, like, we're gonna do this, and, you know, I mean, maybe it's now, it's obviously much less clear, but I think there was a justified legitimacy to the State Department, Defense Department, being like, okay, yeah, this is the policy. And so we're gonna pause these weapons. At the same time, you do, like, people do need to know what's going on. There needs to be some sort of coordination. And under Pete Hexthat, the Pentagon is a shit show. It is a backbiting, messy, chaotic shit show. And I just don't think that there is any denying that at this point. And this is one instance where it sort of comes to the surface on the substance here with regard to Ukraine. And I think you and Ryan said something similar yesterday. Like, having an ideology and a goal is gonna be no ideology and no goal every day.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

And you see the same thing with regard to the policy vis a vis Iran. Like, Trump is kind of all over the thing, doesn't really know what he wants. And one day he wants this, and one day he wants that. Bibi Netanyahu fricking knows what he wants. And so, because he's going to be relentless in pushing for his objective, consistent with his ideology and his goal, eventually he's gonna get it. And so it's the same thing you see with Ukraine. Like the Lindsey Grahams of the world, the Vladimir Zelensky's of the world, they know what they want and they are going to continue to push it relentlessly until they get it. And I think Trump came in with just a foolishly naive of what it would take to resolve a conflict that is now very difficult to resolve. Even if you came in and you were focused on it and you were intelligent about it and you had a specific goal in mind of here's how we're gonna resolve it. Even under those circumstances, it would be very, very difficult. But he came in thinking, he's just like, oh, I'm the great deal maker and we'll figure it out. And I have a great relationship with Putin and so I trust him. We're gonna be able to work it out. No, you're not. No you're not. And so congratulations America. Basically you've got another forever war. He the most likely track is we're just gonna continue shipping weapons bit by bit and it'll continue to be this sort of like grinding, intractable conflict over years and years and years. And presidents are going to, the next president's gonna inherit it and they're just gonna, like we did in Afghanistan, just sort of stop talking about it and have it be on the back burner and just persist in this policy that's ongoing and horrific and has this terrible human toll. Because that is the path of, that is the path of least resistance. That's why we stayed in Afghanistan for so long. Because the moment that you actually pull the plug on that conflict, look what happened to Joe Biden. His approval rating was destroyed and he never ever recovered. Because when you end in conflict, you have to reckon with the failures of that policy and what it meant to get us to that point.

[Ryan Grim]

I totally agree.

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[Ryan Grim]

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This is an iHeart podcast.