7/10/26: Dems Scramble To Replace Platner, Iran Trump Assassination Claims From Israel

Summary

Breaking Points – July 10, 2026: Dems Scramble To Replace Platner, Iran Trump Assassination Claims From Israel

Episode Theme Overview

This episode focuses on two major stories: the scramble within the Democratic Party in Maine to replace the scandal-hit Senate candidate Graham Platner, and unfolding developments in the Iran-U.S.-Israel conflict, including bombings, diplomatic wrangling, and sensational reports of alleged Iranian assassination plots against Donald Trump. Hosts Krystal Ball, Ryan Grim, and Emily Jaszynski, with guest insights from Maine reporter Nathan Bernard and foreign policy expert Dr. Trita Parsi, provide in-depth analysis, on-the-ground reactions, and candid commentary.

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Main Segments & Insights

1. Democrats’ Maine Senate Crisis: Platner’s Exit and the Battle for Succession

Timestamps: 02:10–33:22

Background

• Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine, was ousted after misconduct allegations.
• Platner’s supporters claim establishment forces exploited the scandal to overturn a grassroots movement.
• The Maine Democratic Party is now rushing to establish a replacement process seen as fraught and undemocratic by many.

Key Developments & Discussion

• New Nomination Process: Party executive director Devin Murphy Anderson announced late-night the process for Senate candidate declarations. Candidates must submit intent and collect signatures. ([04:54])
• Delegate Breakdown Controversy:
  • Of 600 total delegates, 100 are “superdelegates”—long-time party officials, described as “largely party stooges” ([09:23], Nathan Bernard).
  • Remaining 500 delegates to be chosen via county-level caucuses, but processes vary or remain undecided, leading to confusion and complaints about democracy. ([08:09–10:50])
• Candidate Dynamics:
  • Troy Jackson: Working-class, anti-war, Medicare-for-all candidate endorsed by Bernie Sanders; now vocally anti-genocide in Gaza—“Anybody with eyes and a heart knows the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza... When I'm in the US Senate, I'll never vote in favor of US Taxpayer funded military aid to Israel.” ([12:55], Krystal; [13:59], Nathan)
  • Narav Shah: Public health official, COVID-era mini-celebrity, but with baggage. Criticized by Sen. Tammy Duckworth over ties to an Illinois Legionnaires’ outbreak—“Maine deserves better than someone who put his public health image before the safety of our veterans.” ([17:52], Krystal)
  • Shenna Bellows: Maine’s Secretary of State, perceived as a consensus progressive, “very pro labor...absolutely would be for Medicare for all.” ([30:42], Nathan)
  • Others: Jordan Wood—a perennial also-ran with aggressive but costly fundraising, and Dan Kleban—a beer company exec who exited under pressure.
• Grassroots vs. Establishment Rift:
  • There’s deep disaffection among activists: “There's 600 delegates that are now the voice for 200,000 voters. Just no one wants that. No one thinks that's good.” ([21:07], Nathan)
  • Divided reaction among Platner’s supporters—some accept the scandal, others blame establishment timing and fear a “coup” against their movement ([22:41], Nathan). Platner’s personal appeal is noted, but many now seek a “spiritual successor” in Troy Jackson.

Notable Moments/Quotes

• Nathan Bernard: “They're [superdelegates] pretty super... these are largely party stooges, hacks, people that are highly involved in the establishment apparatus.” ([09:23])
• Krystal Ball: “Revolution is unfinished in Maine.” ([09:37])
• Krystal’s anecdote on workers’ hardships and the emotional state of volunteers: “The mood is not good, folks just, you know, period.” ([23:04])

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2. Iran, Israel, and Trump: Bombings, Arming Protests, and Assassination Claims

Timestamps: 36:22–56:26

US-Iranian Tensions Escalate

• U.S. bombed rail lines in Mashad, Iran, during the funeral for the assassinated Ayatollah, with civilian hardship as apparent intent ([02:59], Krystal).
• Dr. Trita Parsi: “Attacking those railways, bridges...these are war crimes. Not that that's something new, but unfortunately it's continuing.” ([49:50])
• Iran quickly repaired damage; attacks considered warning shots about escalation, targeting Iran’s alternative energy export routes.

Trump’s Comments & Israeli Influence

• Trump made ambiguous remarks about sending arms to “the people” in Iran, possibly referencing Kurds or anti-government groups ([37:55], Trump audio; [39:23], Parsi's analysis).
• Dr. Parsi: “I think he's talking about the Kurdish groups...the Israelis have very much pushed this narrative that everything would have been just amazing had this operation with the Kurds gone through. And I don't believe that for a second.” ([40:59])
• Israel provided U.S. intelligence alleging Iranian plans to assassinate Trump. Dr. Parsi is skeptical, suggesting Israel manipulates such disclosures to reignite war efforts. ([47:22])
• “Someone should do a graph of looking at moments in which the Israelis are releasing this type of intelligence and how it coincides with massive Israeli campaigns to get the war restarted.” ([47:35], Parsi).

Diplomatic/Domestic Fallout

• Ongoing jockeying within the US administration over who leads Iran negotiations (State Dept/Rubio vs. Kushner/Witkoff). Fox’s Brian Kilmeade: “You can't do this like a business deal. You have to understand the history of the region...” ([53:17])—Parsi reads this as a push toward a hawkish tack.

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3. German Industry, Drones, and Global Arms Economics

Timestamps: 59:04–65:41

• Germany attempts to repurpose VW auto plants for drone and Iron Dome munitions production, but Qatari investment blocks deals with Israeli defense firms.
  • “You’ve got the Israeli technology, but you’ve got the Qatari money. And so the Germans are kind of caught between the two of them.” ([61:23], Krystal)
• US arms manufacturers are similarly juggling politics and wartime production—for example, defense contracts for Ukraine and the exhaustion of US missile interceptors.
• Grimly humorous take: “Trump is slowing down the German war machine with his own war. I think that's eligible for another peace prize.” ([65:41], Ryan)

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4. New York’s “Immigrant Enclave Map” Sparks Culture War

Timestamps: 66:17–71:13

• NYC councilman Zoran Mamdani’s map designating immigrant enclaves omits Little Italy, sparking outrage from Italian-American community and former mayor Giuliani.
  • Locals: “It's disgraceful...he's not fair to the Jewish people...he's not fair to the Irish people...and now he hates the Italians. For what reason?” ([67:28], street interviews)
  • Krystal: “They brought us pizza. They brought us the mob. They brought us anarchism. What more could you ask for?” ([69:18])
• Hosts note the political misstep and the enduring importance of recognizing established immigrant stories.

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5. Listener AMA: Show Policy, Media Criticism, and Platner’s Persona

Timestamps: 71:13–94:49

Interview Policy & Media Ethics

• Krystal and Ryan explain candidate booking criteria: must be newsworthy or have real chances, noting the risks of overhype. “If you have any polling that shows a real race, show us.” ([78:47], Krystal).
• Openness to critics: “We're absolutely fine to have people on who dunked on me two years ago or today.” ([78:30], Krystal)

Breaking Points' Independence

• “Because we've been given this opportunity by the audience, we have to deliver on it or we're basically ripping them off and defrauding them.” ([83:58], Krystal)
• The team reflects on reporting challenges, public hate, and especially the importance of transparency in contested, emotional stories like Platner’s fall.

Platner: Working-Class Credentials Challenged

• Question addresses Platner’s privileged background; hosts defend his combat service and hard labor as an oysterman, balancing it against critics’ “rich kid” narrative.
  • “He served four combat tours of duty in the Middle East. That does completely change the story if you just want to say he's some little Hotchkiss dropout...But he served for combat tours of duty...I think it was a major source of people's attraction to him, to be honest.” ([90:31], Emily)
  • “He's every single day going out on the water before the sun rises, pulling up, you know, 50, 60 pound...oyster crates and doing that for hours in frigid, miserable conditions for years. That's not nothing.” ([92:31], Krystal)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Krystal on Platner replacement process: “Revolution is unfinished in Maine.” – ([09:37])
• Nathan Bernard on the delegate system: "They're pretty super... these are largely party stooges, hacks, people that are highly involved in the establishment apparatus." ([09:23])
• Dr. Trita Parsi on Israeli intelligence leaks: "Someone should do a graph of looking at moments in which the Israelis are releasing this type of intelligence and how it coincides with massive Israeli campaigns to get the war restarted." ([47:35])
• Ryan Grim’s irreverence: "Trump is slowing down the German war machine with his own war. I think that's eligible for another peace prize." ([65:41])
• Krystal on Italian-American contribution: "They brought us pizza. They brought us the mob, they brought us anarchism. I mean, what more could you ask for?" ([69:18])

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Notable Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:10 – Start of Maine Dems succession discussion
• 13:59 – Troy Jackson's stance on Israel/Gaza and foreign policy
• 17:52 – Tammy Duckworth statement vs. Narav Shah
• 21:07 – Delegate process seen as undemocratic
• 25:07 – Grassroots reaction to Platner ouster
• 36:22 – Dr. Trita Parsi joins; Iran/Trump/Israel segment
• 47:22 – Israel claims Iran plotting to assassinate Trump
• 49:50 – Analysis of bombings, civilian targets in Iran
• 53:17 – Brian Kilmeade on negotiations and US policy division
• 59:04 – Germany’s drone/defense conversion, Qatari/Israeli tensions
• 66:17 – Little Italy omitted from NYC immigrant map
• 71:13 – Audience AMA on show policies, Platner’s image

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Tone & Style

• The show retains its signature lively, sometimes sardonic tone, with each host bringing personal insight, humor, and candid assessments.
• Guests and reporters provide ground-level perspective (Nathan Bernard) and policy context (Dr. Trita Parsi).
• Hosts balance serious analysis with wry asides, especially on US and European political absurdities.

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Conclusion

This episode underscores the volatile intersection of grassroots politics and establishment power (Maine), the risks and misinformation of US foreign interventions (Iran/Israel), and the culture wars playing out on local stages (NYC map debate). The hosts’ conversational deep-dives, transparent approach to their editorial process, and openness to tough questions offer a rich guide for listeners seeking to understand fast-moving political crises from an independent, anti-establishment vantage.

Transcript

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[Nathan Bernard]

Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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morning in your inbox.

[Nathan Bernard]

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

[Ryan Grim]

It is Friday, July 10th with another Breaking Points Friday show. We've got one Ryan Grim and one Emily Jasinsky on my side of the time zone. Doesn't it suck waking up this early?

[Emily Jaszynski]

It's brutal. I was gonna say Ryan's outnumbered. We've got two California broadcast locations today.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, we're about to have another east coaster join us. But yes, you were all the way in California all week, Crystal, all the way at the beach hanging us out to dry with BRO shows on quite an awkward week.

[Ryan Grim]

What a timing for BRO shows. I just want to say, you know, as the programmer of this show, not my choice. This was not my vision.

[Krystal Ball]

I think we did a great job of our with our coverage, but completely agree.

[Ryan Grim]

Thank you. Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

So now we have Emily here and the coverage continues. So we'll have Trita Parsi on later in the program to talk about the latest strikes going back and forth the US because it wants to constantly go for the title of the like most vindictive and petty country on the planet, bombed the rail lines on the way in and out of Mashad, the city where they're holding the funeral for the ayatollah. Like the only purpose of strikes like that could be just to deeply inconvenience and harm the civilians going to attend the funeral of the supreme leader that the US Assassinated to start this war. But let's start talking about the process for replacing Graham Platner on the main Senate ballot line. This is this has this was the contentious decision that had Graham Platner, you know, withholding his resignation. He still hasn't filed his paperwork. He said he's going to do it on Monday. His argument was we won more we won more votes than any other campaign in the history of Maine. And we did so on the back of a populist, anti genocide, anti war message. And we want to make sure that whoever replaces us is also has a similar agenda. Otherwise it is a coup against the kind of the people of Maine and the the Maine Democratic Party have pushed back, saying that they don't want Platter Platter's campaign to have anything to do with it. So they're they've now structured and they're in the process of kind of putting together a plan that will have kind of 600 delegates and we're going to choose the next nominee. Nathan Bernard, who's job sites reporter in Maine is going to has some has some news on that is going to break that down. But first you want to play the latest from Devin Murphy Anderson, the main

[Ryan Grim]

of course executive director.

[Krystal Ball]

This is the Democratic Party executive director in Maine who last night gave an update on the process. As you all know, we have been absolutely committed to transparency. So even though it is incredibly late at night, I am coming to you live on the ground from the Main Dems headquarters. We are so excited to announce that our process for US Senate candidate is now live. Candidates now have the ability to submit their declaration of Intent and begin engaging Maine Democrats in earnest by earning their support and collecting signatures. We are fully committed to transparency, so we are making those candidate rules available to everyone. And you can read [e-mail] we are continuing to race towards the release of our fair and inclusive process to. To select a new U.S. senate nominee. And we are not leaving this office until that process is in the hands of you, the people. In the meantime, you can expect more updates like this from the ground to Mainers, thank you for being in this effort with us.

[Ryan Grim]

All right, Ryan, have you gone to mainedems.org I have not yet.

[Krystal Ball]

I bet Nathan has. You want to bring in Nathan?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, let's talk to good old Nathan because things are moving fast. Nathan, welcome to the show. How are you?

[Nathan Bernard]

Good, good.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

All right.

[Krystal Ball]

Nathan's been clear.

[Nathan Bernard]

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

[Krystal Ball]

No, I was just saying Nathan has been breaking a lot of news on this process along the way, including which. Which candidates are running, who. Who has the support of kind of which. Which faction within the state, including, you know, Platner's erstwhile volunteers.

[Emily Jaszynski]

But.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah. Nathan, how are you doing this morning? Thanks for joining.

[Nathan Bernard]

Good. Yeah, people are still hitting me up this morning, pretty much constantly. And to be clear, Devin. Devin Murphy Anderson, I think is her name. That is about, like, the candidates that are running, not the delegates.

[Krystal Ball]

Right, right.

[Tony Ayo]

Those.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Tony Ayo]

So that.

[Krystal Ball]

So the process is finalized for how candidates can get in, but they have not yet cemented the process for how. How the delegates are going to be chosen. Now, you reported that one county chair posted inside information about how this process was looking to unfold. Griffin, if you have Nathan's tweet, you can put that up. And Nathan kind of. It seems like this person got ahead of their skis,

[Nathan Bernard]

jumped the gun.

[Ryan Grim]

Bruce Bryant. Yeah, great name.

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah, Bruce Bryant. Bruce Bryant. I guess he was in this meeting last night with all the different county chairs from across the state who. Where they're still trying, definitely, to decide how the delegates will be elected. Bruce went onto his personal Facebook page and posted a press release kind of leaking their thoughts on the process. So in Oxford County.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah, I'll read it for the audience, in case you're listening. On audio, it says, press release, Oxford County, Maine. Bruce Bryant, chair of the Oxford County Democrats, is convening a county caucus for the purpose of electing delegates to the nominating convention for The United states Senate on July 19 from 1pm to 4pm at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School. Registration will begin at 1pm all county Democrats are encouraged to attend.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, and that's a Sunday, right?

[Nathan Bernard]

That's a Sunday. And the Cumberland County Democrats, which is by far the biggest county that'll have the most delegates, they do not have a process yet. The vast majority of these places do not have a process decided. So Bruce is saying that there's going to be caucuses, I guess, on the top level. We're going to choose 600 delegates across the state, 100 of which are just the state committee members themselves, which are essentially superdelegates. They're the ones that are decided.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, you pause on. Pause on that, Nathan. Because there's been a lot of grassroots effort since 2017 or so amongst. Among kind of normal Democrats who aren't party hacks to kind of enter into Democratic Party politics. Has that happened in Maine? Because some people might hear like a hundred party people and think, oh, these are just party establishment hacks. And maybe that's true. But it's also possible that genuine party activists have kind of entered the ranks. Who, like, who, who are these hundred people?

[Ryan Grim]

How super are these delegates?

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah, they're pretty super to be okay. Yeah, yeah, these are largely party stooges, hacks, people that are highly involved in the establishment apparatus.

[Krystal Ball]

Revolution is unfinished in Maine.

[Nathan Bernard]

Revolution is unfinished. Delegates. Very super, I would say, for those hundred.

[Krystal Ball]

Okay, so you got those hundred and then the other 500. Go ahead.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Well, I was just gonna say, structurally, which candidates does that process benefit?

[Nathan Bernard]

I mean, I think we have to see how the kind of. There's 500 county level delegates that are gonna be decided. And we, with dropsite, we obtained kind of the proportional breakdown of how that's gonna look. I guess the main Democratic party looked at 20, 24 votes during the election and kind of spread them out proportionally for the delegates for this. So it means that, like Cumberland county, where Portland is, for instance, will have almost a third of the delegates in this process. Troy Jackson won Portland huge. So maybe it helps him. I've heard two different kind of stories, though, of how those delegates will be chosen. One is the Bruce Bryant kind of line of thinking is that there's going to be caucuses, it's going to be more Democratic, there's going to be opportunities then for Platner volunteers, let's say. Or really every single coalition is organizing to go to these county committee meetings. So everyone's going to be vying for it. And if there's a caucus, it becomes a little bit more Democratic. The other way that people are looking at this is that you're going to have to file paperwork, you're going to have to be able to obtain 250 signatures in a small period of time. You're going to be, have to, able to navigate that process to even become a nominee, to become a delegate, to then vote on who the next candidate is going to be. So it, either way it's going to lean towards favoring people that know how to navigate these processes.

[Krystal Ball]

Walk us through the candidates a little bit. So Troy Jackson is this working class logger, where is it from? Northern Maine. So Allagash, who entered politics in the 90s as a, actually as a Republican candidate who was protesting the way, and Emily will like this, that you know, American workers, Maine workers were in competition with kind of illegal immigrant Canadian workers sort of to like put a glass on it. Um, and they did a bunch of direct action and then he challenged and they ended up running for the state, state legislature as a Republican, lost two years later, ran as an independent and won and beat this guy who'd been in there for decades or whatever. The seat had been Democratic for absolutely forever. And then eventually he switches and becomes a Democrat and eventually rises to, you know, state Senate. So he had, he has the support of Bernie Sanders. Yesterday he. Oh, and Griffin, do you have this? Yesterday he so and I guess I have to take it back on the ship. On the program yesterday, we read his announcement statement and he said he's going to, you know, push for Medicare for all, fight corporate power. And I noted that one of the things conspicuously absent was one thing that was conspicuously present in Graham Platner's agenda, which was ending the genocide and stopping the forever wars. He hadn't mentioned that. But yesterday, Troy Jackson, in response to the. Oh, this was in response to the killing of the man who organized putting up TV screens so people in Gaza could watch the World Cup. Israel killed him. Which we covered on the show. Troy Jackson comes out and says this is unconscionable. Anybody with eyes and a heart knows the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza. It has to end and we as Americans have the power to end it. When I'm in the US Senate, I'll never vote in favor of US Taxpayer funded military aid to Israel. So Nathan, he ran for governor and running for governor you don't really get asked a whole lot about foreign policy. But what do we know about where he is on the question of Israel's genociding in Gaza and in general, kind of the anti war agenda, since this is something that did motivate a lot of people to get excited about Platner.

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah. I mean, certainly he's anti Israel. He wouldn't hesitate to call what's happened in Gaza a genocide. I know during his gubernatorial campaign, there was the 314 pack, which I think Dropsite has done some reporting on.

[Krystal Ball]

It hasn't times been used as a APAC vehicle. At other times it's just backing, you know, scientists and public health officials.

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah. And that that vehicle was used as a means to attack him and back Narav Shah, who's another candidate now running for Senate. So certainly against the Forever Wars. I would. There's no question about that. Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Rob Shah also had video released yesterday from months ago of him calling out the genocide in Gaza as well. So it doesn't seem like Troy is the only one occupying this lane for what. Tell me more about this 314.

[Krystal Ball]

That's going to be tougher for him. But. Yeah, go ahead.

[Ryan Grim]

Right, yeah. Tell me more about this, this other, this other gentleman that you mentioned and his chances compared to Troy.

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah. So Narav Shah, he won the first round of ranked choice voting here for the Democratic primary for governor. So he got the most votes. Right. He ended up losing that race because of ranked choice voting. There was a coalition that formed really through Platner of Troy Jackson, Chelli Hannah Pingree and Shana Bellows. And that coalition ended up being very successful in our ranked choice race. Nirav Shah ran our CDC during the COVID pandemic. He became something of a mini celeb here. He would do these kind of zoom meetings where all the kind of 50 plus moms would tune in every single day. They absolutely loved him. And my mom loves him, honestly, you know, so it became a thing. Yeah, she. Before he was even running, my mom, who very like middle of the road liberal, she would tell me every time she saw me that she wished Narav Shah would run for something because she'd, you know, she'd vote for him in a second.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Nathan Bernard]

Kind of like Cuomo. Remember how he would do those basic videos?

[Krystal Ball]

Andy Bashir did the same thing.

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah, yeah. It was a version of that for Maine. And so it's a very small state. He gained a mega celebrity through that process and did do a genuinely good job of communicating tough public health information in a very understandable manner for people when people were really worried and scared. So his policy platform, I would just hesitate A bit spit on. There is such, I don't know how to put it. There's like such angst of people and such worry that whoever this next candidate is is not going to uphold what so many people just voted for in this Senate race. Anti establishment, ending the wars, Medicare for all, workers rights, housing rights, childcare, shouldn't be a second mortgage you're paying and completely bankrupt you. And every candidate it feels like, is coming out of the woodwork and just saying, well, now I want Medicare for all, now I want to end the genocide in Gaza. So that I would caution the Shaw stuff because of that and especially the 314 pack. It's just there's more to look into there and everyone is trying to jump on this train so that they can say, well, look at me, I'm just, I hold the same platform as Platner without all the baggage.

[Krystal Ball]

On the, on the public health front, there's a complicating factor here. So Tammy Duckworth just, just came out with a unendorsement, a non endorsement of Shah. So, so Nirav Shah was Republican, Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner's public health director. And Tammy Duckworth posted Maine deserves better than someone who put his, who put his public health image before the safety of our veterans. Too many of our heroes lost their lives under Nirav Shah's watch as Illinois public health director, I called for his resignation then and I strongly oppose his run for Senate now. I, I wonder how devastating that is to, to Shah. If is there enough time to get that out to, to voters? Like what, what's your sense of whether that would undercut to have a popular Democratic senator from another state saying do not send this guy to the Senate.

[Nathan Bernard]

A little inside baseball here. This is mini scoop for you. So during the gubernatorial primary, Pingree, Bellows, Jackson, the whole cohort, there was a lot of talk behind the scenes of saying that there's absolutely no way Shaw could be top of the ticket for us in this race because exactly. Of the Legionnaire disease outbreak that he helped oversee. They wanted to run ads on it. They were really pushing to get this information out there, which is important information, right? Especially because he's supposedly this public health guru that led us through the pandemic perfectly there. Also, this is another little inside information. There have been multiple accounts and this was going to be part of the attack ads they wanted to put out of nurses that said he internally did a poor job of leading the state through Covid. Their voices weren't heard. He suppressed potential care to marginalized communities. And furthermore, he didn't really do anything. Everyone saw him as this great innovator because they loved watching him on his. Do a spiel every morning and drinking their coffee in Shaw We Trust mugs were all over the state. Right. Like bumper stickers.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nathan Bernard]

So it was, you know, that. That kind of was his only innovation. People said, really he was just taking practices from other states to follow through on this. So I think if he were the nominee, I know right now that the volunteers for Platner, which are thousands of people, and really the people backing Troy Jackson or even a Shana Bellows, they're not. They would not organize for this guy or work for this campaign. So there's real risks. And I guess, plus Susan Collins could

[Krystal Ball]

put up an ad saying, you know, Tammy Duckworth says this guy shouldn't be in the Senate. Like, that's pretty bad if.

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah, yeah, there's real risks. And I just want to make clear, I guess back to the overarching. I can talk to a couple more of the candidates, but overarching. There's 600 delegates that are now the voice for 200,000 voters. Just no one wants that. No one thinks that's good. Right. Even if we have these caucuses that decide 500 delegates, we still have 100 superdelegates that are deciding this. There is still just this undercurrent feeling from all the conversations I'm having, even the most optimistic silver lining, Hopium pilled people that want to get out there and organize and take over the county committees, that this is extraordinarily undemocratic.

[Krystal Ball]

I would anecdote, anecdotally, like, what are you hearing from people about the charges against Platner? Like the, The. The successful effort to, to get him out by so many in the national and local scene, like, what. How are people? Are people like, good? He's. He's a terrible human being. I'm glad he's gone. Or is there some more complicated mix of reactions from just. Just the people that you've kind of interacted with?

[Emily Jaszynski]

And Nathan, can I tack on to that? Because it does seem like at first there was Total Unity Platinum. This is. This is the last straw. Then it seemed like as days went on, there was a more mixed opinion. So is that what it's. Is that also reflected on the ground or is that just kind of the artificial X bubble?

[Nathan Bernard]

No, no, that is of. I have. I'll say this anecdotally because I've had so many conversations at this point. I Don't think there's any question that of the validity of the story, the validity of the allegations. I think that people, though, are. They can't help but look at the timing and feel cheated. They can't help look at it and feel that establishment or the timing of it had something to do with it. I think that. That for better or worse, that is something that people are feeling. I've just heard it too many times at this point. And there's different reasons that that unity that you talk about is fractured. I think some of it just. He's a terrible human being. He needs to get out right now. Right. There's other people, though, that I think it. If you're just talking Internet, it depends which platform you go on, for instance, that look at it in different ways. X has overwhelmingly one opinion. Facebook might have another opinion. Substack might have another opinion. The people in Maine have a completely different opinion. Right. And the other side of that fracture is that because of these allegations, the severity of it electorally, it's going to be horrible for him and it diminishes his chances of winning a race that is so crucial. So there's that, too. It's mixed, right? It's. This isn't. People are hurt, right? This is. This is. People have put a year of time into this, not just the volunteers and staff, the people that voted for him. It. The mood is not good, folks just, you know, period.

[Ryan Grim]

So people are feeling like there's a establishment coup. People are feeling like there's some sort of establishment coup that's trying to get in here. You know, I've seen a lot of establishment people say, oh, they didn't really care. I mean, Platner's policies are one thing, but they really just like platinum or the guy is what I'm hearing from more national, sort of centrist Dem liberals, whereas we've been hearing from a lot of people on the ground that it was really more about his policies. Do people feel that Troy Jackson will be a spiritual successor? That really embodies the things that got everyone excited about Platner.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Yeah.

[Nathan Bernard]

I think it's foolish for people to the establishment piece to look at this and assume that 158,000, 150,000 plus people who just voted for Platner, that none of those people are going to be skeptical about this. Maine is the oldest state in the country. Right. They're not all on X. They're not all on Facebook. A lot more of them are on Facebook. Right?

[Emily Jaszynski]

They're probably on Facebook.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah, they're all like, Facebook is the hub up here for people chatting. So yeah, it's, it would be foolish to totally disregard that. I think in his message, his, his message leaving. It was all focused on the establishment. I think it would be, it would be foolish for people not to take that message seriously. Another little bit of information, his wife just did, an aunt. His. His aunt just did a post on Facebook that got widely shared and liked. Maybe I'll post it at some point on Twitter. But she basically said, hey, I hope Graham and Amy don't leave doing the grassworks grassroots work that they're doing, that they can get back to that. But also, hey, if you think the establishment had a part in this, but with your conscience. Right. So that's his aunt saying that on Facebook. So again, I think there is a part of that feeling that we just got screwed. Now this process is a comma 2.0 where we're just inserting it. The establishment inserts a candidate and it goes against everything that this movement was built on, which is an anti establishment movement at its core. I think Troy Jackson can fit that anti establishment molds and the policy platform the most closely. But again, I think to discount, there's the platform piece and then there genuinely is Platner as a person and what he was doing across the state as just a 41 year old guy that was outside the system, that represented someone who could be in this office and gain seniority for years to come. I think it would be foolish just to say that played no part in it. Right.

[Krystal Ball]

That's not Troy Jackson.

[Emily Jaszynski]

They cannot. I mean, truly, Nathan, you'll know this. That depressing turnout is going to be a disaster. If you have depressed grassroots activists who just are disillusioned by the party and not excited. Not even just the grassroots activists, but Democrats, center left type people in November who just say, I'm not sure showing up for this, I'm not excited about this person. That was the edge that Platner had until recently. In a close race that really is a disaster for Democrats.

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah, yeah, it's not good. And I think that there are certainly there's all sorts of talks and I think I'll, I'll post some stuff just about how volunteers are approaching who will be and the people that have dedicated the most time to this race are approaching who, who the next candidate will be. And Ryan and I have texted a bit about this already, but I think the other people.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Is it going to be Ryan?

[Krystal Ball]

No, it's the next candidate.

[Nathan Bernard]

You know, Actually the best candidate, I think Ms. Rachel is from Benford, Maine. So she's. I, I wish she would run, but I think the other people that are potentially going to step in here across the board, they all just lost their primaries. They all just lost, right? They're all losers. I hate to say it, but so literally, like, yeah, like they literally.

[Tony Ayo]

Respect.

[Krystal Ball]

Lost.

[Nathan Bernard]

Due respect. Due respect. But. And one of them, there's a guy, Dan Cleban running who runs main Beer company here. Fantastic beer, horrible candidate. Yeah. And he, he ran for two days. He raised I think $250,000 and then dropped out and gave it to Janet Mills. Because Chuck Schumer said, hey Dan, this is our girl. Like now you gotta go. And he's coming out and posting all this stuff of it's a genocide. I want Medicare for all. What are we talking about? You know, so it's all that sort of stuff too where I take it. Same with the Shaw stuff. Take it with a grain of salt. These people all just lost their primary. They're unemployed politicians that want to now jump at the next race to run in.

[Krystal Ball]

We've like one, we like one more minute. Shannon Bellows deserves a little time here because she, you know, she's kind of popular across the board. She knock on her, if there is one, is she ran in 2014 against Susan Collins. So Collins has been there, done that. Now she is much more a grown politician at this point. Now she finished a tight what, fourth in the third or fourth in the governor's race?

[Nathan Bernard]

Fourth.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, fourth, but everybody was kind of lumped together. She was part of the trinity of, of Troy, Jackson, Pingree and, and Bellows. Quick thoughts on her. I mean obviously she's not the anti establishment firebrand, but she's pretty progressive and well liked across the state.

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah, she's good. She's the Secretary of State right now. She blocked ICE from getting access to our license plate information. She's blocked Trump from getting our voter rolls. She's very pro labor. The labor unions love her. She absolutely would be for Medicare for all. I would assume that she would call out the genocide in Gaza and be against forever wars. So she's a good option. And if, if it's not Troy, I think depending on how these caucuses go and how this finest final county level delegate election system is decided, someone like her probably has the best chance, right? Because the party likes her. People generally like her. And then I guess the last guy that's running is Jordan Wood. He lost his Senate. He then went and lost the Congressional District two race. And now he's back in the Senate race running again.

[Krystal Ball]

His. His husband is with Mothership Strategies, which is the email firm that pioneered the panic emails in your inbox. That's like, try to look like utility bills and like the sky's falling if you don't give us $3. So he raises a lot of money,

[Ryan Grim]

but he's got a shot.

[Krystal Ball]

Spends it all. Then on fundraising. Not he doesn't use his husband's firm to his credit, but he uses.

[Emily Jaszynski]

But there's a good drop site. There's a good job site story on that, right, Ryan?

[Nathan Bernard]

Yeah, yeah, he's raised. He. He switched races to CD2 just because he was losing in a hurry. Raised, I think $2 million in the Senate race and then raised another several million dollars from doing the gun to my head, I'll vote for Democrats email headers.

[Krystal Ball]

And to raise every one of those dollars, you have to spend like 95 cents. So it, like, it comes out in the FEC like, oh, look, I raised $4 million. It's like, yeah, but you've spent 3.8 million on Facebook and on email, like, raising that. So it's not as impressive as it seems.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, Nathan, Nathan, thank you so much for joining us today and informing us from the trenches of Facebook. Please continue that reporting there for us because I'm certainly not on Facebook anymore, and I'm sure there'll be more reporting from you for us to share in the future. Where can people find you if they want to individually? Keep tracking your updates.

[Nathan Bernard]

I'll keep writing for drop site on this. You know, Ryan and I are following the race. We've been at this for almost a year now. So drop site, you can look for the written pieces and then Twitter. Nathan T. Bernard, you can follow me on there as well, and I'll be posting stuff, but yeah, glad I could share in Shaw we trust with you all.

[Ryan Grim]

That's. That's the Shaw of Maine, not Iran. All right, thank. Thank you, Nathan. We'll see you later.

[Nathan Bernard]

That's it.

[Krystal Ball]

That's really the return of the shot.

[Ryan Grim]

Listen, just. Just when you thought he was out, they pull him back in.

[Krystal Ball]

His mug should say inshallah, with a little music note.

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Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.

[Tony Ayo]

Now.

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I was looking for fun ways to

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tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

So I thought it would be fun

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[Dr. Trita Parsi]

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[Ryan Grim]

Well, this leads us nicely to our Iran segment here. Dr. Trita Parsi from The Quincy Institute. Welcome back to Breaking Points.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

Great to be with you guys.

[Ryan Grim]

Where do we begin? Ryan, what do we want to start with here?

[Krystal Ball]

Well, Trita, we have the two major pieces of news. The bombing of the tracks and the other civilian infrastructure. And then did you see Trump talking about arming protesters? Jeremy seemed to think he was implying he was arming the mek. I thought he was referring again to the Kurds. Did you see this?

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

I didn't see that part, but I would not be surprised that they're taking a second look, if not at the Kurds, perhaps at some other groups, the Baluchis or others. Because, as you know, next week Netanyahu is coming. The Israelis have been very much pushing this narrative that all of this could have worked out so well if just the Kurds had been armed, had it not been for that decision that had been pulled mainly because Erdogan objected, but also because the Kurds objected, which is kind of lost in the story. But had that not happened, then everything would have been awesome. And, you know, this war would have been won in four days, which is complete nonsense. I think this is an Israeli effort to kind of give war another chance effectively to create a narrative that allows that.

[Krystal Ball]

Griffin, let me play this. Let me play this. Trump clip for Trita. Ready? Here we go.

[Ryan Grim]

Immediately.

[Krystal Ball]

And that's an edict that's in writing. If they protest, if they go out in the streets, they will be immediately shot. They don't have guns. You know, we sent some guns, but the group that was supposed to give, which I said would happen to my

[Ryan Grim]

people, I said it, I called it.

[Tony Ayo]

Exactly.

[Krystal Ball]

We sent guns, a lot of guns. They were supposed to go to the

[Ryan Grim]

people so they could fight back against these thugs.

[Krystal Ball]

You know what happened? The people that they sent him to kept him because they said, what a beautiful gun.

[Ryan Grim]

I think I'll keep it.

[Krystal Ball]

So I'm very upset with a certain

[Ryan Grim]

group of people and they're going to

[Krystal Ball]

pay a big price for that.

[Ryan Grim]

Very poetic for it to be the wild, wild west underneath that ridiculous.

[Krystal Ball]

What a ridiculous timeline we live in. So there are some who saw that clip and, and assumed that he was talking about the attempt to arm the Kurds, which is which there's been plenty of public reporting on. Others have seen and said no. Looks like he's talking very specifically, he's talking about January. Like we were arming the protesters, which would be somebody like the mek, some anti anti government group. And then they saying that they kept the guns, treated your, after seeing that your, your reaction to it, but also, Lil, like, what. What do we. What do we draw from this fact? The fact that he's still kind of blustering about this, their inability to kind of spark an uprising that. That is successful there.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

I do think he's talking about the Kurdish groups because there was an effort back then to give weapons to Kurdish groups that would then be part of the war effort, as well as Kurdish groups that actually were part of the violent elements of the protest back in December and January. There's a group called the Pakistan, which actually was trained by the United states back in 2014 to take on ISIS. Now, it was supposed to be an Iraqi Kurdish group, but it was an Iranian Kurdish group. I don't know if the US didn't know that it was an Iranian Kurdish group, but nevertheless, they trained it, and it's been a very violent group, and it was using violence throughout the protest, even before the protest. So I suspect that there's some Kurdish groups that he's talking about, and he's mentioned in other interviews that he's very upset with the Kurds.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Now.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

They didn't do it because at the end of the day, the Turks intervened. But also some of the Kurdish leaders of the Kurdish government in northern Iraq were dead set against it because they knew that it would be a disaster, and they knew that they would end up paying the price for it because of Iranian retaliation. The Israelis have very much pushed this narrative that everything would have been just amazing had this operation with the Kurds gone through. And I don't believe that for a second. I think it would have been a disaster in many different ways. But it's an Israeli effort to essentially give war another chance to claim this narrative and that everything would have worked out well had this just one thing been done correctly. And that way, go back and be able to say we still can do war, because we actually didn't really fully try regime change.

[Emily Jaszynski]

And we were talking about what that might mean just in terms of going back to the beginning of the war. Netanyahu seemed to convince Trump that that was actually a great plan and obviously didn't work out the way that Netanyahu told the President that it would this time around. Trina, what could we see happen if that's. If that attempt at least is successful?

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

You know, it's interesting on the Iranian side, there's a lot of folks that are very worried that the whole MOU is just used to be able to. For the United States to be able to prepare itself for another round of war and given how the US Under Trump has behaved, it's not necessarily surprising that they would think so. But when you take a look at the fundamentals of the situation, you're still seeing a scenario in which only a third or so of the traffic of the strait is actually up and running. We're not seeing the strategic reserve of oil actually being filled up in the manner that I think the administration was hoping for. The second and third level consequences of the previous oil shock is still being felt. Some of it has not even started yet. So to, under these circumstances, restart the war without having, at a minimum, a completely different approach and strategy, to me does not seem to be something that possibly could work. If there's going to be another war, they're going to have to think it through very differently. And the circumstances are not such that there's been enough recuperation. And I don't have the data on what the levels of interceptors etc are, but it certainly doesn't look as if that in any way, shape or form has managed to be restocked in order to have another war. What I think may be happening, or ends up happening, is that if the war is kept at this level, in which it is below the threshold for the Iranians to close the Strait of Hormuz, then the US may find a degree of benefit in the war because it is degrading the Iranians without paying the price that the US and the world economy was paying when the war actually was fully in in shape, because that's when the strait was closed. Economies around the world were suffering tremendously. The Iranians are aware of this as well. But they're also looking at a different scenario, which is that even if the strait is not closed, this warfare is reducing the traffic already. And the reduction of that traffic, combined with the very low inventory of oil, including in the strategic reserve of the United States, which is, by the way, is not supposed to be used in the manner that it is used, is enough for the US to simply not have enough time to be able to conduct any of these military campaigns in a way that would strengthen its negotiating position. If this is, at the end of the day, some sort of a negotiating strategy. If I can take it just a step back and say this whole thing is just so idiotic because there was. I mean, look, this whole thing was about the fact that The MOU Article 5 has different interpretations. I personally don't find the Iranian reading of MOU Article 5 to be convincing, but their view is that it essentially gives them control over the strait during this period until it is completely reopened and a final agreement has been signed. The GCC and the American interpretation is different in the sense that they say, yes, the Iranians are responsible for making sure that this is safe passage, but it doesn't mean that they're the only ones that are in charge. And as a result, the US Is using the southern corridor in this faith, which is in the Omani waters, to pass shift throughs. Now, the Iranians are saying that's fine, they can go through there as long as they notify the Iranians. The Iranians want to make sure that all ships that are transiting the strait are notifying them, because according to the article, they are. Even though it doesn't use the word responsible, there's the key. Responsible for. Yeah, exactly.

[Krystal Ball]

Iran will make a.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

So as long as those ships actually do indicate to the Iranians that they're transiting, the Iranians are saying they're not having a problem. The US Position and the GCC were like, well, hold on. That kind of gives you complete control. It's better to have a scenario in which if there is any type of notification, the notification should go both ways. So there should be some entity on the GCC side that also gets the notifications and someone on the Iranian side. And the two sides were converging towards this agreement. But then diplomacy was paused because of the funeral of the Supreme Leader. And during that funeral, Saudi and Qatari and I think one other ship was trying to transit through the southern part, having its transponders off, which is not permitted, apparently. And this caused this big conflict now, because the Iranians saw that as a confrontation, as a provocation, something that was being used by the Iranian attention was on the funeral and that eventually shot at these ships. And this is what apparently caused Trump to really get infuriated. And now this whole thing started, and it really doesn't matter because at the end of the day, this is just for about another 10 days out of the 30 days in which this was supposed to be more or less resolved. It's not entirely the MOU. It was just like 10 days left, and now we're seeing the entire MOU and everything coming crashing down, frankly, because both sides are overreacting. I think the Iranians were overreacting in terms of using force against these ships, even though they didn't sink any of them. And I think the US Is completely overreacting by restarting the war over this issue.

[Ryan Grim]

Something else crossed our desks that I would love you to react to. This is from CNN which says that Israel shared intelligence with the US that Iran had devised a new plan to assass 2008 President Donald Trump, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. And how are we supposed to consume this news? You know, it's been used in the past assassination attempts on Trump as one of the reasons that we have to go to war with Iran. What do you know about this alleged new assassination attempt?

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

Obviously I have no idea what they're talking about. But let me put it this way. Someone should do a graph of looking at moments in which the Israelis are releasing this type of intelligence and how it coincides with massive Israeli campaigns to get the war restarted. I think the Israelis are very astute at playing Trump's psychology. They see that he is right now in a very bad space in general. He seems to have been very upset having to spend the last week with a bunch of EU leaders in NATO that he hates. And on top of that, the Iranians are shooting at ships and Ukraine, Russia is not going well. He just seems to be in a terrible, terrible position and treated the funeral,

[Emily Jaszynski]

probably the funeral clips, they were all. My assumption is that those were all over Fox News where they were saying assassinate Trump, death to America, that sort of thing. So they probably realize this ripe environment.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

Certainly, yeah. But also I think the size of those crowds may have made Trump a little bit jealous. It may not have played very well with him either. But you're right, there were slogans, et cetera, during the funerals calling for revenge against Trump. Undoubtedly what was important to notice is that it was never any senior or even mid level official of the government that was issuing any of those different threats. And that difference is of course important. But personally we've seen it before that they have tried to say that there is these assassination attempts and perhaps there are. When Trump wanted to go towards diplomacy, he completely ignored it. When he wanted to go towards a military confrontation, then he apparently was impacted by it. Are there any attempts? I have no idea, but I think if there were, I would suspect that the US intelligence would know more about it than the Israelis do.

[Ryan Grim]

You got something, Ryan? Ryan?

[Krystal Ball]

Well, yeah, I wanted to ask you about the strikes themselves. It appears like the US is attacking a lot of civilians infrastructure in Iran, particularly bridges and train tracks leading to the latest site of the Ayatollah's funeral. What do we know about and what do we know about what damage Iran has done to, you know, Bahrain, Kuwait and facilities there? And then there were also these reports that somebody was attacking Iran back from Bahrain and Kuwait, and it may actually have been Bahrain and Kuwait themselves. What, like, what do we know about the specifics of the fighting?

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

Sure. So first of all, let's remind ourselves, attacking those railways, bridges, et cetera, these are war crimes. Not that that's something new, but unfortunately it's continuing. Those specific railways were repatched and fixed within 24 hours. So the damage was not long lasting. That's different. If the US if the Trump administration targets bridges, et cetera, that's going to be much more difficult to rebuild. But the reason why those were very important was because they had really gained significance during the period in which the US Was blockading the Persian Gulf. It turned out that the Iranians started to shift a significant amount of trade and export of oil through the railway system that had been built that was not fully operational or had not been used to its full capacity. Started to be used to its full capacity. So I think the Iranians probably are viewing this as a signal from the Trump administration that if war goes back on, not only will the US Close the Persian Gulf again with its blockade of the blockade, but it will take out Iran's alternative paths to export oil or to import different things. So I think it was more of a warning. Particularly mindful of the fact that the Iranians could rebuild it in 24 hours clearly was not aimed at doing long lasting damage. When it comes to the idea that the Bahrainis and the Kuwaitis are striking at the Iranians. This information came from Israeli media, doesn't mean that it's false. But I personally doubt very much that the Kuwaitis and the Bahrainis would do that on their own because that would really invite a completely different type of an attack. What the Iranians have done so far is they're going after the US bases. And their argument is that if there weren't US Soldiers there and there weren't any US bases, then they wouldn't be attacking them. If Bahrain and Kuwait themselves are attacking, it's a completely different story. Then the set of legitimate targets from the Iranian perspective will of course grow significantly, including military targets that are owned by the Kuwaitis and the Bahrainis. So I'm skeptical at this point. We'll have to wait to see. But this is part of the imbalance that exists. Whenever something happens in Iran, we get images out of it because Iranians are not censoring people using their cell phones to film the damage, whereas that is taking place throughout the entire GCC states at this point, certainly in Dubai and of course in Israel, in which we hardly have any images coming out of what is happening there, particularly during the exchange of fire between Iran and Israel just a couple of weeks ago. And I really, you know, I think folks should go back and just do searches on videos from October and April 24 to June 2025. The amount of images that came out of Israel of ordinary people just filming it to the essentially zero videos coming out right now. That is because of military censorship. That is not because damages are not done. That's not because the missiles are not hitting. It's because there is a near total censorship that does not allow us to see what actually is happening.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, you mentioned earlier the crowds for the funeral blanketing Fox News. Now, Fox News has also recently, Brian Kilmeade was on a Fox News segment saying he's not really sure if Witkoff and Kushner are the men for the job. Let's take a listen for your reaction.

[Krystal Ball]

Also don't think that Witkoff and Kushner should be the ones doing this. They're business guys. They have not been effective in Ukraine, not been effective in Gaza. They have not been effective in this. They can't have three portfolios to begin with. We have a State Department for a reason. Marco Rubio, even Democrats admit, has been looked at as a genius internationally. He is the guy that most people would want even if you were, if you gave truthsaver to Democrats. You should take the lead on this because you can't do this like a business deal. You have to understand the history of the region and how distrustful the Iranians have been. They will only make a decision if they have no other choice.

[Emily Jaszynski]

I like that reaction.

[Tony Ayo]

All of those.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Well, I like that of all Brian Kilmeade's reasons. The fact that they're massively corrupt and like financially tethered to the people they're negotiating with didn't come up. But yes, your reaction? Treata.

[Ryan Grim]

They're business guys.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

I think this is actually a very important clip because the fact that he is very explicitly saying that this file should go to Rubio and the State Department tells you something about what's going on here because you do have a split in the administration in which you have a camp that is favoring the negotiations and the one that is much more skeptical of it. And he's essentially saying take the negotiations out of the hands of those people who believe in negotiations and put it in the hands of those who never have believed in negotiations with any of these people, with any of these different countries. And that tells you something about what they're really looking for. But it also makes me wonder, I mean, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that it was he and Rubio that went in and informed Trump of the fact that the Iranians were starting to shoot at some of these ships again for going through the southern corridor without coordinating with them, and that that prompted this whole beginning of him deciding to take military action, et cetera. It does not appear, at least from the Wall Street Journal reporting, that the actual negotiators, the ones that are in charge of the file, were particularly participants in, at least in the initial discussions in which this was done. And I think it adds to the picture in which we have seen in the past week or so, Rubio, after the MOU was negotiated, suddenly emerging into the scene here, both in Lebanon and in the gcc, despite the fact that prior to that he spent most of his time focusing on Venezuela and Cuba. But now suddenly he showed up, he mediated a deal between Israel and Lebanon that completely contradicts the mou, and it appears to me at least, to be an effort to sabotage the MoU. He went to the GCC states and got them to sign this public statement that completely closes the path towards one option of resolving the issue over the Strait of Hormuz. So both of those to me seemed as an effort of undermining the negotiations. And now you have Fox News saying actually put the negotiations entirely into the hands of the person who was opposed to these talks from the outset.

[Krystal Ball]

Trita, we appreciate your time. I know you had to get out of here pretty sharply, but always helpful to have you on.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Krystal Ball]

All right, have a great weekend.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Check out True to Substack as well.

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[Tony Ayo]

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[Ryan Grim]

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[Krystal Ball]

price void in Florida. All right, I've got. I've got something pretty fascinating for you guys that really isn't getting enough attention. Let me put this up on the screen here. So as well as a bunch of people probably already realize, Germany's auto manufacturing capacity is collapsing amid basically twin pressures. One, their energy costs have skyrocketed because somebody blew up a pipeline that was supplying them with all of their cheap energy from Russia. And so as a result, they can't compete like they used to be able to. And secondly, Chinese electric vehicles are just as. Emily, you saw it just dominating the global market. You were recently in Brazil, like what? Tell us, can you tell us real quickly about the BYDs?

[Emily Jaszynski]

I was all up in those BYDs.

[Krystal Ball]

How are they I've never seen one with my own naked eyes.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Yeah, no, I was actually really excited. It's. I would say, you know, at least in Brasilia, probably half the time, if you're getting an Uber, you're getting a byd. There's a big BYD dealership right outside of the Brasilia airport. They're everywhere. They're obviously very, very slick and a huge competitor to Tesla. So that's definitely a major. They're obviously not a major player in the global EV marketplace, and you can totally understand why I'm not an EV person in general. But they're slick.

[Krystal Ball]

And so Germany sees the writing on the wall, and what they're doing is they're saying, okay, well, if we can't compete when it comes to auto manufacturing, we do need a lot of drones because we live in fear of a. A Russian invasion. And so let's convert a significant amount of our industrial automaking capacity into drone making capacity. But there's an interesting hitch that just. Just arose. Not just drone making capacity, but all kind of defense capacity. Iron Dome, etc. Yeah. So let me put up this Jerusalem Post article. So the headline here, Qatar vetoes Volkswagen deal with Israeli defense company Rafael in Germany. So in other words, the Germans were trying to convert a Volkswagen plant into an Iron Dome manufacturing plant. And they're like, solves all of our problems except, oh, wait a minute, Qatar is a Gulf country that was just bombs by Israel, like, back, you know, back in 2024, and considers them to be a geopolitical rival. And they're the ones that have an enormous amount of investment in Germany. And so you've got the Israeli technology, but you've got the Qatari money. And so the Germans are kind of caught between the two of them. So now this. This effort to kind of rehab this Osnabruck plant into a weapons maker is now stalled because of that. It's an interesting window into. Way. Into the way that all of these kind of conflicting structural forces that we're watching play out on a daily basis are colliding with each other in what seems like a really unsustainable way.

[Emily Jaszynski]

That's crazy. And for the record, Ryan surprised us with this story. And what I did not expect him to say. There was none of this was on my bingo card. When he opened up by talking about the German Volkswagen plant, I was floored.

[Krystal Ball]

Brian didn't think it was going to Doha and Jerusalem. I did it.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

So, no, just. Just wanted to share that with the audience. No, no. You know, huge Deeper thoughts. But like, this is fascinating. Yeah. This will have implications for the US too, because in order, you know, so in the US you're going to have a bunch of weapons makers who are going to want to team up with the Israeli military which they're trying to fuse with ours. Elbit Systems, in fact, which is the number one military contractor in Israel is in the lead to get the American howitzer contract. So this is a multi billion dollar contract for an Israeli company to be making howitzers, like iconic American weapon system,

[Emily Jaszynski]

which we also just authorized patriots in Ukraine. Right. This week.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. Authorized, right. They're like, oh, go ahead and make your own. Like, because Ukraine is complaining that we're wasting all of our patriots in this unnecessary war with Iran. And meanwhile, all like the last ballistic missile strike from Russia on Kiev, every single ballistic missile went through and something like 32 people were killed. So they're starting to take, you know, significant casualties in these ballistic missile attacks from Russia because their stockpile of interceptors is basically exhausted. And so the US Solution was, well, here's a license, you can make your own. It's like, bro, we're getting bombed today. Like so, like, and you know, if they try to build a factory in Ukraine right now, Russia will bomb that. So Ukraine has moved most of its defense technology and drone technology into Poland and Germany and elsewhere. And the Russians have said, you know, well, if that's what you're doing, maybe we need, maybe we're then justified in hitting Poland and Germany. So yeah, they have a license. But like a license doesn't do much for you when the, when the missiles are flying, like right now to the

[Emily Jaszynski]

defense stocks up on the screen here, pretty much everybody down except for Northrop Gummen.

[Krystal Ball]

How are they losing money? How do you lose money in this environment right now?

[Ryan Grim]

So if I'm to get, if I'm to understand this correctly, Ryan, due to Trump's war in Iran, it has slowed down Germany's ability to turn a car company into a drone warfare company. Is that what I'm supposed to get?

[Krystal Ball]

Or in this, in this case, Iron Dome. But yeah, their broad strategy is to stop, you know, move away from some of their concentration in vehicles, which is sad. Those were cool cars because that was a short lived thing.

[Emily Jaszynski]

I called them the VW Bug, the Iron Dome. Always have.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, we'll have, we'll have Mercedes drones. But if Cutzer has anything to say about it, it's not going to be done with in coordination with Israel. And Israel helped develop the Iron Dome with The United States, which they love to remind us of. So they have some, they have some, you know, purchase to. To make these objections.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, Trump is slowing down the German war machine with his own war. I think that's eligible for another peace prize. Put it on the board for him there. But why don't we end. Why don't we end with another story that's. Let's get back home for a sec to New York City, where Zoran Mamdani is enraging. Enraging people with a new map of immigrants or immigrant locations, immigrant areas of the city, enclaves, which has angered one Rudy Giuliani. Let's look at.

[Emily Jaszynski]

And many more. There is an army of Rudy Giuliani's that are angry at Zoran over this.

[Ryan Grim]

We are, Rudy. Rudy says Momdani's decision to leave out Little Italy on his map of enclaves within New York is beyond shameful. Italian Americans contribute so much, not just in New York City, but the entire nation. He also left out Irish and Jewish enclaves. We all know what's going on here. And here we've got a map up that they put out here. We've got all sorts of places. We've got Little India, Little Egypt. We've got a Little Odessa. Little Odessa. There's a Little Ukraine. Don't worry Ukraine, we got you Ecuador, you know, all sorts of stuff here. But no Little Italy on this map. And of course, our friends at the Free Press had to dig into this and speak to local little Italians about this little Italian. Let's, let's see. I love Little Italy. This is one of my favorite restaurants right here. Let's take a listen.

[Krystal Ball]

Dami, I give you a year. You are not a New Yorker.

[Ryan Grim]

You have no.

[Nathan Bernard]

I'm Isabella Reggi, and today we are

[Krystal Ball]

here in Little Italy asking the locals how they feel about one of the oldest immigrant communities, Little Italy, not being included on Mayor Mondani's immigrant enclave map. I don't consider you to be my mayor. I think it's disgraceful for what I'm doing. He's got to be fair to everybody, and he's not fair to everybody. He's not fair to the Jewish people. But she makes everybody notice. He's not fair to the Jewish people. He's not fair to the Irish people.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

And now he hates the Italians.

[Krystal Ball]

For what reason?

[Nathan Bernard]

What do we do to him that

[Krystal Ball]

he should hate us? They always sort of pushed us to the side.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

I got Italy their own problems and

[Krystal Ball]

we're always pushed aside.

[Dr. Trita Parsi]

And I think about time that you

[Krystal Ball]

have to be firm about this, otherwise we'll totally be forgotten. If you understand what took place here over a hundred years ago between 1880 and 1920, when the mass migration of Italian immigrants first came, this was the stepping stone for the Italian. Well, the Bari family came here 120 years ago from Sicily. They were immigrants. They landed down in what's known as the Five Points. Grandma started the San Geno festival. That right up there. That is Grandma. That is Grandma. Grandma from the Bari family. Okay. She is the heart and soul of his neighborhood. My grandfather was on Society of Saint Gennaro, which happens to be this year, 100 years. So it means a lot to me, little Lily, you know, there's no such thing as left or right down here. Both sides of the street are beautiful. And what makes New York City such a special place is a collage of many different cultures. People from all over the world come here and settle, and they need to be recognized for the contributions that they brought to this. To this wonderful country.

[Ryan Grim]

All right.

[Emily Jaszynski]

I stand with them completely, honestly. And I think this is an inexplicable decision. That's actually sort of beautiful.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, there we go. I mean, why did he leave off?

[Emily Jaszynski]

Why did he leave that off, Honestly?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, they brought us. They brought us pizza. They brought us the mob, they brought us anarchism. I mean, what more could you ask for?

[Emily Jaszynski]

But why? Actual question. Why were they not on the map?

[Krystal Ball]

I don't know how they missed. I don't know how they left all this. It's absurd. Maybe, like, somebody read, like, how the Italians and Irish became white, and they're like, well, they don't count anymore as immigrants.

[Emily Jaszynski]

They've got Little Ukraine.

[Krystal Ball]

A little more recent Little Ukraine. I don't know. Put out a new map. Come on. Yeah, take the L and put out a new map.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Breaking Point stands for a new map.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, we absolutely need a new map. This is the most atrocious thing that he has done in office.

[Krystal Ball]

Italian discrimination.

[Emily Jaszynski]

It's bad politics, though. Like, it's actually bad politics.

[Krystal Ball]

Mom, Donnie, Misstep.

[Nathan Bernard]

Mom.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Huge.

[Ryan Grim]

Mom, Donnie, Misstep. Here we call balls and strikes, and that most definitely was a strike. That was a wild, wild pitch outside. And, yeah, I mean, listen, I think we're all going to be pouring out a Negroni in honor of the Little Italy, which is incredible. Everyone should go get a slice. Sit on the streets.

[Krystal Ball]

I honor the Italian influence in New York. Every time I go, I was surprised that there was.

[Ryan Grim]

There was a lot of, you know, clearly he, he, this, this one Italian owner also felt that way about his handling of Israel and, and Jewish nature stuff. So seems like the free press will be up and down those Irish patches.

[Krystal Ball]

Stray there. Was there a Ryan every time he's

[Emily Jaszynski]

in New York City.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, that's right. Michael Scott outside my favorite pizza plot.

[Ryan Grim]

Sbarro. That would be the ultimate humiliation. His Mamdani's next video is a Sbarro. Wow.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Sbarro's not bad. I'm not gonna lie.

[Ryan Grim]

It's an institution. Well, that's gonna do it for all of our important news segments for this Friday, but why don't we get into a little bit of supercast AMA questions from our members to round out this episode? All right. And it's time for some AMA questions. If you jo [e-mail], you too can submit an incredible written question that we will read on the Friday shows. This is my favorite part of the show and sorry sometimes if that runs short, but let's start with Amy Sinise, who asks. There's a big call on the left for media outlets like Breaking Points to interview Kashama Sawant. I'm sorry if I don't know if that's how I say her name. About her independent run for Congress against Adam Smith, one of the architects of the attempt to merge the Israeli military with the US military. I think you all should interview her. It would be weird to only interview Democratic candidates running against these incumbents backed by the Israeli lobby. As a leftist in Michigan, I have largely abandoned the Democratic Party except for a very few local candidates like Abdul, who I'm willing to vote for, but ultimately do not trust to be better than aoc. It would also be nice to hear from people like Brianna Joy Gray on some of these electoral issues. She offers a left perspective that Crystal and Ryan don't often get into. Your response?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. So on. On Kashama Sawant. So the, the way that we think about what having candidates honor is basically two things. One, there has to be, let's say there's something very interesting going on in, in their race. Like we have some news on the race. There's some particular influence in the race. There's a particular issue that, that this candidate relates to. Even if that candidate isn't like neck and neck with the other opponent with their opponent like that, that could be a reason to get onto the. To do an interview with someone who we don't necessarily think even has a shot of winning, but they're very interesting and newsworthy in their Own right. And then the second is if they have a realistic shot of winning and, and represent some newsworthy kind of movement in our politics. And, and, you know, we're happy to have people from all, all spectrums like on. It's not just the lefties or not just the, you know, mega types happy to have the establishment folks on to like, go back and forth with them and, and, you know, pressure test their own arguments. So those are the kind of the two buckets that they fit into. Suant doesn't quite fit the first one. You could cover Adam Smith and his role infusing the military without, you know, needing to talk to the, the opponent and maybe fits into the second. But we would need some evidence of it. I was, I was actually talking to Savvy Sabs just about this yesterday, and I was asking her, she was, she was saying, hey, why don't you guys have Kashama Swanton? And I was like, you have, do you have any, like, do you have any evidence that this is a, this is a real race? Because what we don't want to do is tell our audience this is a serious candidate who is in this election, and then election day comes and they get 7% of the vote. Because then the audience is like, you guys have no idea what you're talking about. Next time you tell me that this is a serious challenge, I'm not going to believe you. So, so there's a threshold factor there, but we have that point.

[Ryan Grim]

Not to interrupt to that point. You know, some people would then say, but wait a second, you had Zoron on when he was at like 1% in the polls. Like, how do you make the delineation there? And also, some people also feel like, a lot of people also feel like when people request us to have candidates on, they're like, that would be the thing that changes everything. If they get that breaking points interview, that's going to create a big avalanche that's going to change an entire race and boost a candidate from obscurity to the mainstream.

[Krystal Ball]

That it's, it's an interesting dynamic because it does have this reverse chicken and egg type of feel to it. Like the same way that candidates have a hard time raising money if they're not considered to be viable, but they can't be considered to be viable until they've raised money. It's the same problem that kids often confront right out of college. Like, well, we'd like to hire you, but you don't have any experience. Well, how can I get experience if you won't hire me. So there has to be an art to it as well to say, you know what? For a variety of reasons, we think this particular candidate, if given a little bit of attention, actually will catch fire. Mamdani fit that bucket. But Mamdani also fit the bucket that he was doing something that was interesting on its own. He was out in the street interviewing Trump voters about why they voted for Trump in New York.

[Emily Jaszynski]

That was.

[Krystal Ball]

And he was incorporating that into his message. So even if he flamed out in his election, like, that was interesting in its own right. In 2018, when I decided to kind of go all in on covering AOC's primary, I didn't suspect that she would beat him. I thought it would be more competitive than people thought. But Joe Crowley was in line to be the speaker of the House. Might even have challenged Pelosi, or Pelosi may even have stepped down at that point. And so I saw it as a vehicle to tell people who Joe Crowley was, because at the time, he had a national name ID of like 5%. Like, he had a. He had a DC name idea of 100%. He was extremely powerful, but nobody nationally knew who he was. So I was thinking, like, hey, this is a way to, like, just let people know who Joe Crowley is through covering this election. But then as we covered the election, she starts to catch fire.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Yeah, he was way high up in the Pelosi chain of succession.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Tony Ayo]

So the.

[Krystal Ball]

So the short answer to that is it's about. It's an art. It's guessing. We had Chuck park on in. In New York City. He ended up running a very close race. People didn't get behind him. If they had, he probably wins. And people regret, I think, at this point, not getting behind him. He'll probably. He'll probably run again. So what I said to Savvy stabs, is there any polling? And she said, I don't know about it, but there's, you know, she's raised like $400,000. That's a lot of money. You know, she's going to be facing millions if she gets serious. So if there's polling, this is what I would say to the Sawant campaign. If there's polling that shows that this is a serious race, then we're interested in covering it. Absolutely. If she raised $400,000, a poll is only five or ten grand nowadays. They're much cheaper. You can go ahead and run a poll. She had Savvy was like, you know, I know you guys have beefed in the past I was like, actually we, we haven't beefed. Like she has. It's been a one way beef. She's dumped on me a thumb. I don't have any problem with her at all.

[Ryan Grim]

And that's not, that's also not how it's okay to. We would still have them on if they absolutely have, like they have beef.

[Krystal Ball]

The whole, the whole world at some point or other has dunked on me at one point or another. It's fine. Like, that's, that's what I'm, that's what I'm here for. Like, have at it. We're absolutely fine to have people on who, who dunked on me two years ago or today. Like, it's fine.

[Ryan Grim]

Near a tangent. Come on the show.

[Krystal Ball]

Tannin is welcome. Like today on the show.

[Ryan Grim]

That'd be a lit Friday.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah. This morning I was saying that she should apologize and resign for her comment that she's talking about. Abdul Al said she's welcome to.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Welcome to.

[Krystal Ball]

Come on. Anyway, and she's retweeted somebody calling me a scumbag. She's still welcome to.

[Nathan Bernard]

Come on.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I retweeted now. Exactly. Griffin liked it. He thought his like was secret. I, I have, I know, yeah. Special access to likes. So anyway, so that's, that's what I would say. Bring us, bring us some data that shows us that this is a serious race and then we'll talk.

[Ryan Grim]

Absolutely. All right. I think that was a great insight in how we make all of these decisions. And then also, you know, there are other candidates that, you know, we might find sort of interesting, but don't really have like a big hook that the audience cares about sometimes. I'm not saying that about Kashama, but you know, we, for, you know, for opening up the kimono or parting it for a second. You know, we probably get like 20 requests a day.

[Nathan Bernard]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

You know, different candidates and different stuff. And if it was just candidates for two hours every single day, people would

[Krystal Ball]

want to watch that.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, it would be tough. So we try to wrap it into a story that people care about. So that's another.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Right. So the pitch was Zoran literally was. He had just been out in, I think it was Queens or it might have been. Yeah, he had just been out that weekend after Trump won, talking to Trump voters. And so that's where we were like, oh, this would be super interesting to talk to him. And it was a. I don't remember if they pitched it or if we just knew that that was happening, but that's how the segment was booked.

[Ryan Grim]

And I guess our instincts were right on that one. All right, this next one is from Brent Combs. Ryan, appreciate your courage to have hard conversations and report on sensitive topics. I'm sorry for all the misguided hate and commentary you're getting lately from reporting on the Platner story and such. How do you deal with this kind of stress and what motivates you to keep. Keep going? You are one of my heroes, man. Keep up the great work.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, I appreciate that.

[Emily Jaszynski]

That's awesome. Well, he.

[Krystal Ball]

You motivate me. We talked briefly about this on the show yesterday. We have a independent source of support and revenue here at Breaking Points and also at a drop site just from regular people. And as a result, we don't have bosses who wear suits down the hall who tell us what we can say. We don't have corporate or other sponsors that can threaten to withhold money. And that gives us a unique ability to just say what we believe, to search out the truth and report the truth. And. But very few people have that opportunity to do that. Most people, most reporters have to go through layers of complications to get from the gathering of news to the reporting of news, because we don't have to do that. I just feel this moral obligation to do it, especially when it's uncomfortable because the audience has put so much. The audience has built this because they want us to do that. So if they've built that and then we shrink from it, all we're doing is grifting. All we're doing is, like, producing some entertaining content and cashing people's checks who believe that they're funding something that is going to have the courage and the strength to stand up when it's difficult, but actually doesn't do it when, when the chips are down. So that's why I feel like an extra obligation to do it, even if it's not terribly pleasant.

[Emily Jaszynski]

What would the process have been like? Or how would it maybe have been different reporting out that Politico story if you were still at Intercept or HuffPost or other places that you've worked? Right.

[Krystal Ball]

Intercept probably would have been fine. Probably could have, probably could have done that just the same at the Intercept because, you know, then, you know, when we left, it was because we felt like that might be changing. But during the time that we were there, I don't think I would have had a problem. And I did a, you know, bunch of stories at the time that were, you know, controversial, and we, and we published them proudly. The Huffington Post, it was interesting. Like that kind of stuff didn't really come up in the same way at the time.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Right.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I had full free reign of the Washington bureau. Ariana had, you know, just complete, had just delegated complete authority. So I could have done it, but it was a different time. And like that just didn't have stories like that really that came up.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Yeah, makes sense.

[Krystal Ball]

Now today it would be abs. Completely different at the. What remains, I think of the Huffington Post. Yeah. So I mean that's, that's basically, that's basically how I, how I see that. That like, because we've been given this opportunity by the audience, we have, we have to deliver on it or we're, or we're basically ripping them off and defrauding them.

[Ryan Grim]

And that's what I've told everyone on Blue sky.

[Krystal Ball]

So they all. Blue Sky.

[Emily Jaszynski]

My first. So when I was a college student, I was doing at the time and Griffin, you're the same age as me, so you'll remember this and Ryan will remember it. Well, it was the era of the rape culture discourse. And so my first journalism work is when I was a college student reporting out some what we would now call MeToo stories, but at the time were kind of rape culture stories and then went on to do a lot of like media criticism of MeToo and have like reported out some of the stuff in the past. And I just think, you know, it's a nontroversy, the criticism that Ryan and to some extent Sager got this week for including a perfectly relevant detail because people read into it, projected onto it their own position on X, Y or Z. So I wasn't on this week except for Monday, so I just wanted to put that out there too. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And for people who missed that, we, we reported that Politico was aware that Jenny Rascott had texted Graham Platner that evening about saying I need a glute massage. And he's like, I'll come right over. And she's. And then she says, she said, no, no, no, don't come over. And Politico reported it as they exchanged text messages and she told him not to come over. Our point is that those are different scenarios. The Politico version supports a breaking and entering. The one that Jenny told truthfully and transparently supports possibly believing he saw that text message. He jumped in the car, he came over and didn't see the follow up text messages. If, and we don't know the wording of those follow up text messages either. So if you're going to try an allegation in the court of public opinion, then you put forward as many facts as you have for the public. And the reason I'm not too bothered by the criticism is that anybody who looks at this reasonably agrees with that. Like, there's just.

[Emily Jaszynski]

It's relevant context.

[Krystal Ball]

And you don't have to believe it's relevant context to believe it should still be shared because you're not the only person in a democracy. A democracy includes all of us. And it is unquestionably the fact that many people do believe it is relevant. And so it's for them, then it's not for you. If we were just a dictatorship and there's just one person making the decision, and it's you who's offended by the inclusion of this detail, then okay, fine. But that's not what we are. We are a democracy.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Goes to the credibility of. Of Racicot as well, that she was willing to say that to Politico.

[Krystal Ball]

That's a good point.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Politico ironed it out.

[Krystal Ball]

So, like, if. If she was like, yeah, right.

[Tony Ayo]

She.

[Krystal Ball]

It shows a level of confidence in her own.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Rendition of the events that she was willing to include that. And it shows something else on Politico's part to withhold it.

[Nathan Bernard]

Yep.

[Krystal Ball]

Yep.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Our final question. So, yeah, our final question comes from mmc. Ari Platner. I took one look at this guy's Wikipedia, which I'd not read before this morning, with the trust fund background, the being kicked out of Hotchkiss, the dropping out of gw, the bartending at the tune in, the getting the job farming oysters due to his mother's fancy food connections. Who in God's name thought this person was a reliable person to put forward as a paragon of progressivism or as a person we thought was capable of completing any kind of structured process? There is no evidence this person has ever completed anything of substance, ever. What were we thinking? And I guess if you're saying we, does that mean you live in Maine? Because the Mainers, right. They didn't really care about any of that. I mean, this guy got the most votes in any primary in Maine ever. In history.

[Nathan Bernard]

And.

[Ryan Grim]

And it does seem trumpy in the sense that I, like, I see so many centrist liberals trying to nail people like Emma Vigland and other people who are supporting Platner on this and being like, oh, well, the Mainers liked him just because he had a deep voice and because of all of his personal bona fides, but it seemed like it was more Trumpy. And they're like, yeah, I don't like everything about this guy, but I like the policies that he is so loudly, you know, pushing. So that, that seems to me to be what the majority of Mainers felt about Platner. I don't know if you guys have anything else to add.

[Emily Jaszynski]

There was an Axios article dunking and on some progressive media. I've seen this in other quarters as well, including us. I don't know if we were mentioned in the Axios story, but I know, Brian, you've probably gotten some of this over the course of the week. It's an interesting criticism. He did complete four combat tours of duty, which is what actually turned some of the, the hard left against Graham Platner. And it's one of those things also where if you're going to criticize a guy for not having true working class bonafides, I think it's fair to say to give scrutiny of where that loan actually came from. Looks like it was from his dad. Like $200,000 from his dad. I think it's perfect to be, to scrutinize his record. I think it's fair to say he went to Hotchkiss even though, as he explained to us, he dropped out because he didn't like it. All of those things totally relevant context that the voters of Maine had in front of them and so did the progressive journalists and the independent media outlets that were covering the guy. I just think when you serve for combat tours of duty in those wars, for better or worse, and I really mean that, it can give you a totally. I mean, you can't define that as blue collar or white collar, but I can tell you that's not white collar.

[Nathan Bernard]

Right?

[Emily Jaszynski]

That's not. That's an enormous physical sacrifice, human sacrifice, tragically, in many cases. And it just does give you a perspective on these things that is absolutely worthwhile. It doesn't mean it's the only qualification anybody should have. But I do think it was a major source of. And he, he talked about it constantly. He talked about foreign policy constantly. I think it was a major source of people's attract attraction to him, to be honest. And I don't, I, I consistently think when you have, you know, D.C. journalists being like, he went to Hotchkiss or okay, like he went to Hotchkiss or his grandfather was a famous architect, I get it. I do think that's relevant. But he served four combat tours of duty in the Middle East. That does completely change the story. If you just want to Say he's some little Hotchkiss dropout. Rich little Hotchkiss dropout who had his mom's, you know, restaurant to serve with the oyster farm. Do I think that his consultants and probably him played also him played into building a character? Yes, of course. That's, that's politics. And so if some people were overly credulous about it, I hear the criticism. But also, again, like he had that chunk of, what was it, Ryan, like 15 years of his life dedicated to that. That's a significant wrinkle in the story that he's just some rich kid, right?

[Krystal Ball]

Plus bartending, plus, plus the oystering, which people say, oh, this is just a hobby, blah, blah, like he's been doing it for five or six years. You know, I grew up on the Eastern shore, which is, you know, has a very strong waterman economy. I went out with my buddy, one of my best friends was a crabber a couple times. And 20 years later, I still remember how hard that work was. Like, you know, you're waking up at 3:00am you're, you're out on the water before the sun rises. You're, you're, you're pulling out of the water, like extraordinarily heavy. You know, this was trot lining. It's dangerous. Like the, the whole thing is dangerous. And then, but you're sometimes done, you know, for at least crabbing. You can be done by like 9 or 10am you're just completely wrecked for the rest of the day. And this is the eastern shore of Maryland. He's up in Maine where it's like absolutely freezing. He's every single day going out on the water before the sun rises, pulling up, you know, 50, 60 pound, you know, like gigantic oyster crates and doing that for hours in frigid, miserable conditions for years. Like you can call, like people have hobbies.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Like,

[Krystal Ball]

like, does that sound like something you're doing for fun?

[Emily Jaszynski]

There's also an infantry, by the way, that's also worth mentioning. It's not like he was, he was the infantry.

[Krystal Ball]

He was not J.D. vance, as he was like a spokesperson for like Stars and Stripes or whatever. What, what was his job?

[Emily Jaszynski]

I mean, I'm not gonna die.

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[Krystal Ball]

Going to awards, Buddha judge who like, like just went to Kabul for like, you know, five months and didn't anywhere

[Ryan Grim]

that had WI fi.

[Krystal Ball]

All right?

[Ryan Grim]

And, and you know, to talk about how hard it is to fish them, then you gotta shock them, which, which is equally hard if anyone's ever tried to shuck an oyster. Also incredibly dangerous. And respect.

[Emily Jaszynski]

When did you shuck an oyster?

[Ryan Grim]

I worked in restaurants for a long time. I was a dish pick guy.

[Emily Jaszynski]

But you were shucking oysters.

[Ryan Grim]

Not in the dish pit. By, by. You know, I got behind, I got behind the counter for a little bit. You know, I've shucked my fair share of oysters.

[Krystal Ball]

Think about that. Like Griffin remembers like viscerally, you know, the difficulty and the danger of, of that and, and he's maybe done it, you know, days or weeks. He's doing it for like five, six years. Like that's not nothing. And I think people just don't really think that's what I think.

[Emily Jaszynski]

I just remember getting yelled at by the oysterman at Sager's wedding for briefly putting my drink on the table where he was shucking his oysters.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, you were going to get some oyster guts in your drink there. He was looking out for you.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Public fair.

[Ryan Grim]

All right. And we'll end with Sebas101 saying for wonderful BP. Given the betrayals of Platinum and Fetterman, should progressives avoid ogre looking candidates for a while? To me he looks a little bit more like the Lorax. Like yeah, but yeah, Shrek is out. Shrek is out.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I guess we're. That's kind of the implication of this for sure.

[Emily Jaszynski]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, it really is.

[Emily Jaszynski]

It's not just Maine that's going to have a ripple effect for all of these indie startup candidates. So.

[Ryan Grim]

Okay, well with that we are going to end the Friday show here. Thank you all so much for so supporting [e-mail] and enjoying the newsletter. If you are somehow listening to this but not getting your newsletter emails still, please check your spam folder or promotions folder or your filters for breaking points because I do have stats on the background that say that 99.78% of the emails are hitting the inboxes. The little tiny rounding error amount is because someone input their email incorrectly. If you're still having issues, please reach out to helpit.com and that'll do it for us today. Check out Dropsite news with Ryan. Check out after party with Emily Jaszynski. And we've got Sagar back next week. We've got Crystal back next week from vacation. Lots more to cover and we'll see you then.

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[Emily Jaszynski]

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[Krystal Ball]

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