7/29/26: Americans Demand Bibi Arrest, West Bank Violence, Elon AI Extinction, Data Center Revolt & MORE!

Summary

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Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode: July 29, 2026 – Americans Demand Bibi Arrest, West Bank Violence, Elon AI Extinction, Data Center Revolt & More!

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti are joined by Jasper Nathaniel, journalist and publisher of the Infinite Jazz Substack, to break down the latest clashes in Israeli and U.S. politics, soaring public outrage over Benjamin Netanyahu, the ongoing violent escalation in the West Bank, and the deepening sense of oligarchic threat from tech billionaires like Elon Musk. They also analyze the populist backlash against data centers, the Democratic primary shakeups in the Midwest, and shifting dynamics in the Texas gubernatorial race.

The episode is packed with grounded on-the-ground reporting, sharp political analysis, and pointed critiques of the political and economic establishment—all with Breaking Points' signature blend of fearless, anti-establishment energy.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. Trump-Netanyahu Tensions & U.S. Public Outrage ([02:05]–[13:02])

• Trump Criticizes Netanyahu:

  • Exclusive audio of Donald Trump dismissively critiquing Netanyahu before and after their latest meeting in D.C., revealing strains over Iran policy and war strategy.
  • Trump: “Well, I don't need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi's telling me that because he wants me to stay involved... If we don't make a deal, we'll take [Pickaxe Mountain] out very easily.” ([03:09])

• Political Tensions:

  • Jasper Nathaniel explains Netanyahu’s desperation for a Trump endorsement as Israel heads into a tough election, and the newly real daylight between their interests.
  • Jasper: “Netanyahu is facing probably the biggest challenge... he really has sort of, he rides the wave of war to winning every election... they have competing interests right now, which is causing some obvious tension.” ([04:55])
  • Unlike with Biden, this conflict seems real over Netanyahu’s need to remain a symbolic "wartime Prime Minister" and Trump's desire not to be boxed in by another Middle East war.

• U.S. Poll: Americans Want Bibi Arrested:

  • New Economist/YouGov poll: 49% of Americans support arresting Netanyahu if he enters the U.S.; only conservatives, MAGA voters, and the oldest age bracket oppose.
  • Krystal: “Basically, everybody except for conservatives and MAGA voters at this point support arresting Benjamin Netanyahu. And I guess people who are 65 and older, but even that is pretty split.” ([08:50])
  • Discussion of how Trump’s relationships with Israeli interests are driven far more by financial entanglements than by any clear ideological line.

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2. West Bank Escalation: Settler Violence and State Complicity ([14:35]–[27:41])

• On-the-Ground Reporting – Jasper Nathaniel’s Account:

  • Jasper recounts widespread, coordinated settler violence in the West Bank, state-backed pogroms, and land grabs—sharply escalated ahead of Israel’s coming election.
  • Jasper: “Settlers have effectively completed their takeover of Area C... And now they've basically set their sights on areas A and B, which a couple of years ago would have been just completely unheard of.” ([15:13])

• Trigger Incident:

  • Detailed breakdown of a recent deadly incident: Settler killed (likely by Palestinian in self-defense), then summary executions of unarmed Palestinians by settlers or IDF members—followed by instant Israeli political and military retaliation.
  • Describes state use of these moments to set up new outposts and “legalize” land theft.
  • Key quote: “The settlers go out, they try to provoke a response from Palestinians that then justifies violence. That violence is then used to clear the land, which is then used to put down a new settler foothold, which the Israeli government then turns into a legal settlement.” ([19:13])

• Escalation in Settler Tactics:

  • Jasper’s direct testimony: “They are just much more aggressive and much more violent. They're, you know, coming into communities, and they're not wasting any time before they just start physically assaulting people, including myself...” ([21:23])

• Critique of Liberal Zionist Delusions:

  • Jasper dispels the notion that removing Netanyahu or installing “liberal” leaders like Eisencot would change settler violence or lead to a viable two-state solution.
  • “There is some other liberal version of Zionism of Israel that is actually against settler violence, that is actually, you know, for a two state solution—like that reality just simply does not exist in Israel...today.” ([25:01])

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3. Oligarchs vs Democracy: Tech Billionaires’ Authoritarian Visions ([29:18]–[44:29])

• Shopify CEO’s Shocking “Wealth-Tiered Voting” Proposal:

  • Tobias Lütke, Shopify’s CEO, advocates for stripping voting rights from non-income taxpayers and scaling vote representation by earned income—endorsing a return to 19th-century-style, anti-democratic elitism.
  • Saagar: “As if it is not enough that these billionaires can flood the campaign system with cash...We also need to directly strip votes from the poors so that the rich can guarantee their position in society permanently...” ([32:01])

• Silicon Valley’s Anti-Democratic Turn:

  • Krystal unpacks the “builders deserve power” mentality: “They may have convinced themselves...but what they really want is control because they just think they're better.” ([32:01])
  • Saagar notes the open embrace of network states, oligarchy, and “corporate authoritarianism” in elite Silicon Valley circles.
  • “To me, there's not much difference between libertarianism and a sort of corporate authoritarianism, because...libertarians...have a blind spot when it comes to corporate power." ([39:18])

• Elon Musk’s AI-Caused Extinction Apathy:

  • Audio and commentary on Musk’s dismissive attitude about AI’s risk of destroying humanity.

  • Musk: “Well, in the long run, we're all dead...so if the heat death of the universe is in fact the outcome, then it really is all about the journey because the destination is terrible.” ([41:40])

  • Saagar on Musk’s casual psychopathy: “You're not going to use any of that influence and power...to try to have some sort of, you know, global cooperation agreement with regard to AI development...No, instead, he’s just like, well, the first thing I tried didn’t work out. So I guess I'm just gonna join the race and perhaps myself be the person who destroys all of humanity.” ([42:17])

  • Musk as case study of near-total tech oligarch power (Starlink’s geopolitical sway, zero checks on influence), symbolizing bipartisan unease about data center and AI concentration.

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4. Populist Revolt & the Data Center Uprising ([47:58]–[56:07])

• Wisconsin Democratic Gubernatorial Primary Polling:

  • Francesca Hong, DSA-aligned, surges to lead as “data centers” become a central voter concern second only to healthcare.
  • Visual word cloud from polling: “The two things that jump out are health care and data centers.” ([47:58])

• Candidates Split Over Data Centers:

  • In primary debate, Hong is the only candidate to support a one-year moratorium on new data centers—a key populist stance.
  • Francesca Hong: Only candidate to raise her hand for moratorium ([49:13]).

• Political Implications:

  • Krystal: “Wisconsin has been actually a pretty hotspot of this debate...So to be that either bought and paid for or ignorant of where people stand on this issue is truly ridiculous.” ([49:35])
  • Saagar: “If you have, you know, that worldview, you’re not afraid to take a stand and say, yeah, I support a one year moratorium on data centers. That’s easy for you all day long if you’re one of these centrist candidates...that is just not cutting it.” ([50:48])

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5. The Populist-Left Midwest Wave: DSA’s Ascent ([56:07]–[60:21])

• Moral Clarity vs Centrist Cynicism:

  • Krystal analyses how populists have gained ground—mainly by expressing clear moral clarity and positions, much like Trump did in 2016, but now seen with coherent movement left candidates.
  • “If you're not picking up on that, like, if you're not even Kathy Hochuling right now, you're pretty far behind.” ([56:07])

• DSA Victories Across the Midwest:

  • Saagar details the rise of DSA and progressive populists in key gubernatorial and Congressional primaries across Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Maine.
  • Notable: Abdul El Sayed leads in Michigan despite AIPAC-funded smear campaigns and establishment attacks. ([58:57])

• Democrat Electability Arguments Collapsing:

  • The old establishment narrative ("only centrists can win") is increasingly ignored, as progressive and DSA-aligned campaigns surge based on authentic stances and policy focus.
  • “The establishment is thoroughly discredited. Their strongest weapon against the left was electability...It's just been so thoroughly discredited.” ([60:21])

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6. Texas Gubernatorial Race: Opportunity or Mirage? ([60:21]–[69:02])

• Talarico v. Paxton—A Shift in Texas?:

  • New polling shows Democrat James Talarico ahead or tied with embattled incumbent Ken Paxton, with notable Latino voter movement, though hosts voice skepticism about the scale of the projected Latino swing ([61:25]).

  • Krystal: “I think Ken Paxton in 2026 is a worse candidate than Ted Cruz in 2018.” ([63:27])

  • Texas described as a possible “nail biter” this cycle, with far more Democratic base excitement than in recent years.

• Key Demographic Dynamics:

  • Both hosts see Latino voters as the swing group to watch—whether economic decline, Republican cultural politics, or Democratic faith outreach will tip the scale in a close race.

• Bigger Democratic Lessons:

  • Krystal points to the decline in “Trump-centric” opposition messaging among Dems and the rise of clear policy focus (e.g. data centers, healthcare) as the new axis of electoral energy.
  • “What you're seeing from Democrats is that you don't hear the constant Trump anti-Trump virtue signaling. There's more focus on, I think, the policy.” ([66:30])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Settler Strategy:
  “The settlers go out, they try to provoke a response from Palestinians that then justifies violence. That violence is then used to clear the land...which the Israeli government then turns into a legal settlement.”
  — Jasper Nathaniel ([19:13])

• On Tech Oligarchy:
  “Imagine thinking that the problem in society is that the rich don’t have enough control. Like, imagine holding that worldview. That is so incredibly insane.”
  — Saagar Enjeti ([33:39])

• On Elon Musk and AI Extinction:
  “You're not going to use any of that influence and power...[to] try to have some sort of...global cooperation agreement with regard to AI development...No, instead, he's like, well, the first thing I tried didn't work out. So I guess I’m just gonna join the race and perhaps myself be the person who destroys all of humanity.”
  — Saagar Enjeti ([42:17])

• On DSA’s Momentum:
  “In Michigan, a key swing state...voters are not buying [the establishment’s] arguments anymore...This is a rout. It's shaping up to be a total rout in 2026.”
  — Krystal Ball ([58:57])

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Final Thoughts

This episode crystallizes the latest tumult in American and global politics: open U.S. public backlash against Netanyahu, the brutal mechanics of land theft in the West Bank, Silicon Valley’s openly anti-democratic fantasies, and the rise of a new populist consensus on issues like tech, AI, and the economy. Realignment is in the air, and Breaking Points’ hosts aren’t shy about calling out all sides of the establishment for failing to match the moment.

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[End of Content Summary]

Transcript

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[Krystal Ball]

Hey guys, Sager and Krystal here.

[Saagar Enjeti]

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

[Krystal Ball]

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

[Saagar Enjeti]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Krystal Ball]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com we're joined now by Jasper Nathaniel of the Infinite Jazz Substack, recently back from the West Bank. Jasper, thank you for joining US thanks

[Jasper Nathaniel]

for having me back.

[Chelsea Handler]

Of course.

[Krystal Ball]

We want to start with some audio here of Donald Trump criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Washington, D.C. for, I believe, his eighth visit over the course of the most recent Trump presidency. And here's Donald Trump criticizing, actually Netanyahu before their meeting yesterday over their disagreements in the Iran war. Let's roll the clip. You say that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.

[Saagar Enjeti]

There are reports now that Netanyahu is

[Krystal Ball]

going to talk to you about ongoing excavation at Pickaxe Mountain, construction vehicles entering

[Saagar Enjeti]

and exiting tunnels, paving new access roads. Sad satellite imagery and intel indicates that Iran is actively constructing and fortifying Pickaxe Mountain. How will we respond?

[Donald Trump]

Well, I don't need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi's telling me that because he wants me to stay involved. I mean, I don't necessarily. We have the finest, because of Space Force, we have the greatest cameras in the world focused on. We know exactly what's going on. But no, I heard Bibi announce that. I said, why don't you just tell it to me? Why do you have to announce it to the world? I know exactly what's going on at Pickaxe. It's not a big problem. We took out their nuclear sites and we'll have to take out Pickaxe. If we don't make a deal, we don't make a deal. We'll take it out very easily.

[Krystal Ball]

So that's obviously Trump on Fox and friends after their meeting later in the day, Netanyahu. We can put the next element up on the screen. Said, I have just finished an excellent meeting with President Trump. When I say excellent, it's not just lip service. A conversation with full partnership, with mutual support, with an understanding of the common goal of ensuring that Iran will not have nuclear weapons as well as other goals. Will. One of the best conversations I've ever had with the president of the United States, our friend Donald Trump, his entire senior team was there, as was our senior team. And here, too was an important, was an opportunity to exchange ideas and also to coordinate things that are important for the security and the future of the United States. That is according to a translation from Hebrew. Meanwhile, Barack Ravid reported, unsurprisingly, that a diminished Netanyahu arrived for his moment with Trump, for his meeting with Trump. So, Jasper, just with all of this happening yesterday, can you help us, from your perspective, understand, perhaps in Israeli media why this meeting between Netanyahu and in Israeli politics, why this meeting between Netanyahu? Netanyahu was pushing it. He's trying to show that he's still really close with Trump while Trump is criticizing him. What does all of this mean sort of domestically, from your perspective, at least for Netanyahu?

[Jasper Nathaniel]

Well, the main thing to keep in mind is that there's an election coming up in Israel in a couple months, and Netanyahu is facing probably the biggest challenge that he's faced in years, and he's desperately trying to get an endorsement from Trump right now, actually. Obviously, Netanyahu and Trump have been in lockstep for a long time, and now there's some daylight between them and. And Trump keeps sort of dodging the question about whether or not he's going to endorse Netanyahu. So I think there's just a very clear political element of this, outside of the various wars that are going on that Israel is trying to keep the US Involved with. But that's obviously the second part is I think that it has perhaps finally dawned on Trump, or at least on the people around Trump, that, you know, his interest, his political interest in getting out of the war with Iran is diametrically opposed to Netanyahu's interest to having a forever war, because, you know, he is a wartime prime minister and he really has sort of, he rides the wave of war to winning every election. And so, you know, they have competing interests right now, which is causing some obvious tension.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, well, and we should note that then Trump went on Fox and Friends this morning and was like, oh, I had a great meeting with Bibi, et cetera, et cetera. So. And, well, let's put C3 up on the screen. It's the latest Barack Ravid report about how a diminished Bibi arrives for his moment with Trump and laying out some of these alleged tensions between them. I don't know what to make of these reports at this point, Jasper, because we had this endlessly with Biden. Oh, Biden's very mad at Bibi and their, you know, their relationship is strained and he yelled at him. And we've had the same cycle of reports over and over again from Barack ravid at Axios about Trump as well. Do you see there? Do you think there is actual daylight between them at this point? Because on the one hand, like, we can all look at the situation with Iran and go, the best thing that could happen is for the US to cut their losses and just get out of this thing, whatever is required. Fine. Given the straight of Hormuz, apparently that's never coming back like it is what it is. But Trump seems to be making different calculations on an almost near daily basis. So what do you make of these friction with Netanyahu reports at this point?

[Jasper Nathaniel]

This is actually one that I'm taking a little more seriously than I have in the past. I mean, you know, with the Biden administration. These, these Barack ravid reports of, you know, Biden, you know, fuming about Netanyahu behind closed doors like that was basically the White House's PR strategy to be able to endlessly support Israel's genocide against the people of Gaz while maintaining a facade of some humanity. Now there is actually daylight, like I said, because Netanyahu and Trump are both, I mean, obviously they're both politicians, but they're both completely self interested, specifically self interested in staying in power because Netanyahu, like Trump, has all sorts of corruption suits against him and the minute he's out of power, he's much more vulnerable to being prosecuted. And I think that the Iran war where it stands right now, they do actually have competing interests. I mean, it's sort of straightforward. Trump wants out because he sees it as a political loser. Netanyahu wants in because, you know, he needs to, like I said, he needs to be at war. But also it's been his lifelong project to take out the government in Iran. So I think that there is daylight between them basically. And I think so we'll see how it plays out. I mean, listen, it doesn't mean anything is, you know, there's going to be a meaningful break. I would not say that Trump is actually going to, you know, pull out necessarily. I don't know. But that seems to be what's happening right now.

[Krystal Ball]

New poll actually here from The Economist in YouGov. We can put this element up on the screen. Americans in every age group are more likely to support arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than oppose it if he enters the U.S. well, he did enter the U.S. the poll was conducted from July 25th, 27th. 49% of the public supported arrest, while 27% opposed it. And if you break it down by age, it is in 18 to 29 year olds, a 58 to 17% gap, 30 to 44, 49 to 20%. And then it starts to narrow a bit, but it's still double digits, 45 to 64. That age demographic, 48% support arrest, 31% oppose it. And then if you're 65 years and older, it's a little bit more split, 43% to 40% MAGA and conservatives totally oppose it, 58 to 22% and 61% to 21%, that's MAGA voters, the latter, and 58%, that is conservatives, the former. So basically everybody except for conservatives and MAGA voters at this point support arresting Benjamin Netanyahu. And I guess people who are 65 and older, but even that is pretty split. So I guess what's difficult then to understand from behind the scenes with Trump and Netanyahu. It's not just Netanyahu, it's the donors who are close with Netanyahu, too. I mean, think about Marion Adelson, although they have an interesting relationship, but people like that who want Trump to support Netanyahu at every step, Likud at every step, they're completely out of touch with the public on this. But Trump is, it seems Jasper been willing. When we zoom out a year from any kind of tit for tat in the moment, he generally directionally goes with them. So it might seem like in this moment that there's real daylight, and clearly there is. But I guess what is the likelihood that from a big picture perspective, when we're looking back on this in a couple of years, we see him making major steps against Netanyahu, even while you have the public being so opposed to Netanyahu that they believe he should be arrested by huge numbers?

[Jasper Nathaniel]

Look, it's like everything with Trump. I mean, there's just a web of competing interests. I think most of them financial, and it's impossible to know which one is going to win out. This thing with the Saudi nuclear deal was sort of like perfect example where he negotiates this nuclear deal or the US Negotiates a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. There's clearly financial incentive for Trump to be doing, you know, good business with them. And then out of nowhere, he just says, oh, by the way, it's contingent on normalization with Israel, which had not been part of the deal at all. Took everybody by surprise. And then apparently quietly, he sort of walked it back. And like, I don't think he thought all that through. I think he's, you know, going one step at a time of like, what's going to help me politically, what's going to help my pocketbook. And so I just, I just don't know with Trump. I think that we in 10 years from now are going to learn so much about all the different ways him and his family and his cronies are financially benefiting from this. Like, you just can't overstate the degree to which the Trump family is just tied up with, you know, financial interests in the Middle east. That I think that is Ultimately, what wins out, that is also what has, you know, won out. In the moments when Trump finally comes out and says something against west bank annexation or settler violence, those very rare moments, it's always because an Arab leader told him he has to do it, you know, and it puts Abraham Accords at risk or it puts, you know, one of his deals at risk. So, like, that's always what it's about for him, I think.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Is Trump still popular in Israel? Because I know there was a moment after the MoU was signed where there was all this like, he stopped us in the back, etcetera, etcetera. But is he still popular there?

[Jasper Nathaniel]

I haven't seen the very, very latest polling. I mean, I think he's still, last I checked, he is still popular. I think, you know, perhaps he is. His popularity has fallen a little bit with the mou. But, you know, as far as I know, the people of Israel generally think that Trump has been, you know, their best friend that they've ever had, even if they have a skirmish every now and then. So, so. And that again, is why Netanyahu is fighting so hard to get his endorsement in the election.

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[Saagar Enjeti]

All right, let's turn to what's going on in the west bank, and I'll have you explain this latest escalation. There have been mass pogroms led by the IDF and illegal settlers. This, of course, has been ongoing. And you have been in the West Bank. You spent a month there and are just recently back to be able to document these ongoing pogroms against Palestinians in the west bank, but maybe explain to people this latest escalation that involved one of the settlers being killed and now the Israeli. Some factions, at least the Israeli government, are admitting this wasn't even at the hands of a Palestinian. Appears to have been because of friendly fire.

[Jasper Nathaniel]

So taking an even bigger setback from that, just to set the context on what's been happening the last couple months, probably since I was last on the show, is that the settlers in the west bank, who are, you know, sort of led by Smotrich and Ben Gabir in the government, and they have their own political leaders, too. They feel the clock potentially ticking, as in if the government changes hands, it's not to say the settlement movement is suddenly going to be disbanded. It's certainly not. But there will likely be less direct financial institutional support for the settlers under an Eisencot government than there is under a Netanyahu government. And so they basically are seeing this time, right now, these months before the election, as just a time for a mad dash to grab as much land as they possibly can. And so the settlers have effectively completed their takeover of Area C of the west bank, which is over 60%. That's the part that is ostensibly controlled by Israel, even though the land still belongs to Palestinians and lots of Palestinians live there. So the settlers have wiped dozens and dozens of Palestinian communities off the land in Area C. And now they've basically set their sights on areas A and B, which a couple of years ago would have been just completely unheard of for settlers to go and build an outpost in this land that is supposed to be controlled by the Palestinian Authority. So that's the background heading into last Friday, when a group of settlers who are coming from a settlement, this settlement, by the way, had just suffered terrible wildfires, actually, that had burned numerous structures to the ground. They blamed Palestinian terrorists, even though Israeli authorities say it was a discarded cigarette. And, you know, it is wildfire season over there. So they already are. You know, they have their justification for. For violence against Palestinians, as they always do, but they're always looking for another one. And so a group of these settlers go out for what they call a hike. This is a really classic euphemism among the settler movement, where a group of settlers armed with machine guns go into a Palestinian village, in this case the village of Tell, which is in areas A and B, where the settlers, even according to Israeli law, are not allowed to be. They go into the village and they are, you know, what settler leader Elisha Yared called initiating friction. They are looking for provocations. And, you know, what happens is a group of Palestinians come out from the village of Tell, has been attacked numerous times in the last couple of months. So, you know, perhaps they're not all that open to a group of Israeli hikers with machine guns coming into their village. There's some sort of a confrontation. One of the Palestinians there is able to wrestle a gun away from a settler. And the video shows that the settler is then holding a pistol. He reaches for a handgun, and in that moment, the Palestinian shoots him dead. Then some time passes. There's a video where a settler suggests that it was over an hour. But we see other video of the Palestinian who shot the settler walking around with the gun down, completely unarmed. And then you hear a settler shouting at a soldier to kill him, and he does. So the soldier then, or it could have been a settler dressed as a soldier, sort of unclear, summarily executes the man who shot the settler and three of his cousins, while all of them are laying down on the ground completely defenseless. At some point in this, an Israeli soldier was also killed. Again, they immediately blamed the Palestinians, but Israeli authorities are saying it looks like it was probably friendly fire. So this happens. Six people are now dead, two Israelis and four Palestinians. Immediately, without any hesitation, everybody in Israeli leadership, from Netanyahu to the far right, Minister Ben gvir, to Eisencot, who is, you know, who is running as part of the opposition. He's supposed to be sort of the liberal alternative to Netanyahu, to Yair Golan, who is potentially a new defense minister under Eisenhower, they all come out and call it a severe terror attack by Palestinians against Israelis. And they all call for a massive military response. And that's exactly what happens. You know, for the next couple of days, there's these huge military raids across. Across the West Bank. Settlers are, you know, calling for revenge and committing these terrible pogroms and, you know, what happens is within a couple of days, there are several new outposts set up all along the area where this occurred. Netanyahu comes out and announces, as part of the response, they're going to expedite the legalization of these outposts. And when he says that, he basically gives the whole game away, which is that the settlers go out, they try to provoke a response from Palestinians that then justifies violence. That violence is then used to clear the land, which is then used to put down a new settler foothold, which the Israeli government then turns into a legal settlement. And so that's the whole game right now. That's what's been happening for years, basically. And this is basically just a very sort of, you know, clear, discreet example of it.

[Krystal Ball]

Can we put D4 up on the screen? This is a tear sheet from Infinite Jazz. So this is Jasper's substack. And obviously, none of this caught you off guard, Jasper, because you wrote, I've had countless settler encounters over the past several years, but never have I seen them come out swinging the way they are now, showing up in a village and wasting no time before physically assaulting people. Of course, it's because they know that they are far more likely to be rewarded than punished, as you just described. They are, after all, doing the same states bidding. And I was hoping you could walk us through a bit of what you saw on the ground, which really was in the lead up to some of what we've just talked about. Like, again, you've been to the west bank many times, and you write here that this actually was an escalation from what you'd seen in the past.

[Jasper Nathaniel]

Yeah, I mean, you know, the two main sort of takeaways from my last trip to the west bank were, from this trip that just finished were, number one, like I said, the settlers have taken over much more land, but number two, there they are just much more aggressive and much more violent. They're, you know, coming into communities, and they're not wasting any time before they just start physically assaulting people, including myself, including the local Palestinians, including activists. And you know what I was just thinking the entire time that I was there, when I was, you know, seeing all these attacks and when I was being attacked myself was they desperately want one of us to respond. They want one of us to hit them back or to throw somebody on the ground or to reach for one of their guns, because then they have the excuse to come and level the entire village. And sure enough, you know, that's exactly what happened a couple months ago, earlier this year there was a similar incident in a village called Bait Imrin, which is not so far from tell actually where a young settler was out on what they call a land patrol, which is again where they drive into a Palestinian village, theoretically to patrol. But what they're actually doing is initiating friction. That settler collided with a Palestinian vehicle, crashed and died. It was immediately labeled a terror attack and it was used to justify pogroms which then led to the creation of numerous outposts which will eventually become settlements. So it's a very, very clear step by step process whereby the most violent settlers, many of whom are armed by the State of Israel, who are directly supported, strategically, financially, you know, defensively by the State of Israel, they go out, they, you know, cause problems, they commit acts of violence. Sometimes leaders of the Israeli government, when the press gets too hot, will, you know, condemn the violence. Netanyahu will call them, you know, juvenile delinquents. Occasionally they will make an arrest. But, you know, as soon as the press stops paying attention to that particular attack, the land that those violent settlers had seized through violence is then recognized by the Israeli government as, you know, part of a new settlement. So it's just, it's so clear. And the way the map has actually changed in the west bank just in the last six, seven months even, it's really striking. It shows just how much, you know, this whole idea that the Israeli government is against the settler violence in any way is just completely backwards. I mean, it is, the settler violence is literally the tip of the spear. It is the vanguard of the central Israeli state project of annexing the West Bank.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Jasper, can you talk a little bit about how the reality of what is being done in the west bank really undercuts some of the liberal Zionist here in the US talking points about Israel. Number one in pushing for a two state solution and number two in saying, oh well, the problem is just the extreme Netanyahu government. Once we get these liberal reformers in, then Israel is going to go back to whatever my fantasy of what Israel was once was.

[Jasper Nathaniel]

Yeah, well, look, I mean, there's this guy Eisencot who is sort of the, the. I think a lot of people are considering him like the potential great liberal savior in Israel who's going to wrestle, you know, control away from the right wing extremists like Netanyahu and Ben Gabir and Smotrich. I mean, putting aside his own sort of genocidal history, his own military doctrines of using like disproportionate force against.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He's the author of the Dahia doctrine. Just so people, he's the author of

[Jasper Nathaniel]

the Dah Doctrine, literally destroy an entire building, destroy civilian infrastructure in Lebanon or in Gaza to, you know, pressure the military. So, you know, even just putting all that aside though, you know, there is the, the popular liberal Zionist position both in Israel and in the United States and elsewhere is against the settlement movement because it is ostensibly, you know, they want peace with the Palestinians, they want, you know, peaceful coexistence. And so you have to come out against these, you know, feral looking, violent settlers who are, who attacking defenseless Palestinians. That is why even Netanyahu occasionally, like when he was on CNN a couple weeks ago with Dana Bash, you know, uses this line about a handful of juvenile delinquents, which is, is obviously bs. I mean, we're talking about a massive organization run by grownups, supported by the government. But again, look at, if you take Eisencott a couple months ago, this made no headlines in the U.S. of course he went out of his way to take a political trip to an outpost in the west bank that is known as one of the more violent outposts. It is known to everybody in the region as a place where settlers are leaving from to attack Palestinians. I believe they have even attacked Israeli activists from there. Actually, Eisenhower goes to this outpost and he has a meeting with the leaders there and he basically signals his support to them. And it's very clear what he's doing. He's saying, listen, even if the government changes and you no longer have your Smotridge and you no longer have your Ben GVIR or your Netanyahu, who are, you know, giving you, you know, all this sort of vocal support, don't worry like I still got your back, I still support you. And you know, that's also consistent with the fact that Eisencot does not support a two state solution, which, which is, you know, I think speaks to the just delusion that so many liberal Zionists in the United States are living with, which is that there is some other liberal version of Zionism of Israel that is actually against settler violence, that is actually, you know, for a two state solution like that reality just simply does not exist in Israel in, you know, the political reality that is Israel today.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, Jasper, thank you so much for your reporting and your bravery because you put yourself at great personal risk. I know there's been a lot of cost there. Everybody should go and subscribe to your sub stack because, you know, I have understandably been focused on the genocide in Gaza, but what is happening in the west bank is bank is horrifying and extremely consequential. So thank you so much for keeping your eye on that and helping to inform our audience.

[Jasper Nathaniel]

Yeah, thank you Crystal and Emily.

[Sissany]

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[Chelsea Handler]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

So we have some very interesting ideas being pushed by the nation's oligarchs as they see a rising populist revolt against them and increasing ideas of wealth, taxes and things that they find completely unacceptable. Let's put this up on the screen. This is the Shopify CEO. The headline here from Fortune is why did $154 billion CEO just endorse stripping most Americans of voting rights and taking us back to the 19th century? I'll read you a little bit of some of Mr. Tobias Lutke's ideas here. He's CEO of Shopify. His company commands a market cap of nearly $154 billion. He told his social media followers this week that a tax tiered voting system, one that would strip voting rights from anyone who pays no income tax, which is many millions of Americans, would be a, quote, good system. The exchange began with a provocation from Mr. Lutke. Pension recipients should have their financial futures locked in and guaranteed, but in return would be reclassified as dependents and lose the right to vote. The same way minors can't vote. So if you're someone who you know relies on Social Security, your right to vote would be taken away. Next, a reply from someone named Eric Thor, who claimed to be a retired banking executive as well as armchair economist and policy wonk love that type. Proposed a sliding scale. Zero votes for anyone who pays no income tax, one vote for those earning one to a hundred thousand dollars, two votes for 100 to 200. Scaling up in that pattern to a hard cap of five votes for anyone earning $500,000 or more. The pitch was framed as fairness reward, quote representation for those who, quote, foot the bill through taxation. That was the good system that Lucky endorsed. So Emily, as if it is not enough that these billionaires can flood the campaign system with cash, you know, such that Elon Musk can drop $250 million into the Trump campaign or Miriam Adelson or whoever, you know, George Soros or whoever your favorite boogeyman is that these billionaires can drop all of this money in through their own direct contributions to dark money super PACs, through corporate contributions to dark money super PACs, and have an outsize, an almost exclusive influence on our political system. That is not enough. We also need to directly strip votes from the poors so that the rich can guarantee their position in society permanently and not have to deal with the pesky working class rabble or poor rabble having ideas about how the country should be run.

[Krystal Ball]

It's astoundingly anti democratic and not in like a lowercase R Republican way. But that's what the tech oligarchs really are at their core is they believe that they should have a concentration of power because they do genuinely know better. This is not just in voting. This is also how they think the economy should be designed. They think that they can control a system that will be fair and just and will create peace and utopia for everyone if you would just give them the chance to completely dominate, which by the way, they basically already are. And they're suggesting things like taking away the vote from people who don't play the income tax like while you're doing wild fantasies, while you're enjoying your wild fantasies. Why not? You go in a different direction. Be like, we should just get rid of the income tax. Why don't you come up with something that at least makes a modicum of more sense? No, they won't do that because they actually just want control. It's not about justice and fairness ultimately, at the end of the day, I mean, they may have convinced themselves in some cases that they can be the facilitators of greater justice, but what they really want is control because they just think they're better. They don't think other people should have a. There should have a say in the system, because that's what gums up the works of the system, is people who don't know as much as they do, who haven't worked as hard and innovated and created and built. This is the language that they use around these ideas. Those people, they're the ones who are causing the problems. Just let us, the builders, the superiors handle it and everyone else, go about your lives. We'll give you universal basic income. You'll be fine. Universal high income.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm sorry, maybe universal, if we're feeling generous. Yeah. I mean, imagine thinking that the problem in society is that the rich don't have enough control. Like, imagine holding that worldview. That is so incredibly insane. You know, there's a political science experiment going back years now that found that the views and concerns of ordinary people have zero impact on their legislators, whereas the views of the wealthy have a lot of impact on legislators. They're able to dump money into campaigns, corporations are able to hire lobbyists. I mean, we can see the impact in so many of these primaries. Look at what happened to Thomas Massie because of all of the multimillions of dollars that were dropped into a primary against him. And you know, in order to lie about him and convince boomers in his district, he was having a throuple with AOC and Ilhan Omar. I mean, I'm not even kidding. That's literally what happened in this race. And you look at that landscape and say, yeah, the problem is rich people need even more control. This tiny, tiny bit of a say that normal people have through their vote. We need to take that away too. And the reason that I highlighted is because listening is one dude with a weird idea. But to your point, Emily, these anti Democratic ideas are completely commonplace and endemic within Silicon Valley at this point. Because they do. They see themselves as better than they think they should be. The ones who are making all of the decisions, they have a Completely. And it's kind of always been there underneath the surface. In Silicon Valley, it was previously masked with sort of like liberal identitarian values. Now the mask is completely off. But when they thought about, you know, here we're going to use this technology, we're going to absent ourselves from the democratic process, we're going to use this technology to foment a sort of revolutionary, our own revolution in our favor that we get to have control over. That has been the ethos in Silicon Valley among the elites for a very long time now. It has just become more overt because the things that you can say in, you know, in the public space has been so broadened to include just, you know, putting out there that you don't think we should have democracy anymore. We should have network states, that we should have oligarchs who run these things basically as kings. This is all very commonplace ideas now with Silicon Valley and obviously it's extremely dangerous. I also think that there is probably a bit of a panic right now because of a few developments. Number one, we have covered a lot and will continue to cover and about to cover a little bit more, the massive public backlash, which is truly bipartisan or cross partisan against data centers and the abuses of the tech oligarchs. This is a very unifying position. So I think they have to see some of this pushback and start to get a little bit nervous that the, you know, the rabble are starting to rise up. The rabble are starting to be discontent. You also have them freaking out over this very modest wealth tax that has been proposed in California and throwing a fit over that. And I think again, it's a sign of, oh my God, like they might have some other ideas about how things go. They might actually do something to try to trim our sales. And then they also see the rise of Democratic socialists who take very seriously the need to fight against the tech oligarchy and, you know, right. The ship and make sure that ordinary people have a stake in our society. I think, I think they see all of these things as truly like existential threats to their control, their absolute control over our country and over our politics.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And they're especially disillusioned right now that they see people on the right freaking out about data centers as well. Like it's pretty much across the board. Even Republicans are upset about data centers and that is a surprise to some of them. And that's why they've been trying to go in overdrive in some of these communities and start paying tons of money to Convince the communities to let them do whatever they want to do with the data centers. And maybe some of that money is very much needed in the school systems of the local infrastructure. But it's becoming, I mean, producer Mac and I were talking before we started the show about how some of these apartment buildings, you have to have a smartphone in order to like get into your apartment. And that's a silly example, but it's an example of how anti democratic our economy is right now. You basically have to have a smartphone then to live in this apartment, apartment building. And if you want to have a smartphone and live in this apartment building or many apartment buildings in major cities, you have two choices. You can do Apple or you could do Android for the most part. That puts an enormous amount of power in the hands of two companies. And so it's an anti democratic economy already. Obviously it's an anti democratic economy already. And the point you were making about how it used to be kind of masked, this mentality used to be masked in Silicon Valley by progressive identitarianism or liberal identitarianism is interesting because that's also what I was talking about when we were just. Or I was riffing on like, why not come up with an idea that's abolished the income tax? And I use that example specifically because the mentality of Silicon Valley and like web 1.0 and for some of web 2.0 was this like libertarian utopianism, that tech was taking us to a better and freer place for the human condition. All of these tech guys, some of them will still mask it with that language, but all of these tech guys became eager oligarchs and they realized that their technology was creating such concentrated power that I think, as we acknowledge, inevitably, inevitably, that concentrated power is going to end up in the hands of a couple of people. And rather than coming up with solutions that diffuse the power democratically, they're saying, well, there's just nothing we can do about it. So let the smart people take the wheel. You will be fine.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, to me, there's not much difference between libertarianism and a sort of corporate authoritarianism, because we're on the same. Libertarians always have a. I shouldn't say always. I'm sure there are some exceptions. There are a lot of ideas frequently, frequently have a blind spot when it comes to corporate power. Right. They're very attuned to potential abuses of government and I think serve a useful purpose there in terms of, you know, checking potential government abuses, but then have a complete blind spot. But when it comes to the mass amount of power that, let's say an Elon Musk can accumulate, throwing $250 million into an election and then being handed over the keys to the entire federal government and making literal life or death decisions for millions of people around the globe, that just doesn't exist for them. And if anything, they think that's good because these are the winners. They're the ones who deserve their place in society. So to me, it's no surprise that you go from a sort of generic libertarianism to an overt corporate authoritarianism, which is the ideology that many of these people embrace. So, you know, for me, those things are entirely consistent. And speaking of Elon Musk, you know, there's no one who better represents the casual psychopathy of this class of people than our nation's first trillionaire. Although SpaceX has taken a big old hit since their IPO. And I think Elon is no longer, for the moment, a trillionaire. But don't worry, folks, he's doing just fine. He still has more wealth than the human mind could ever begin to comprehend, let alone deploy. In any case, Elon had this very interesting, contentious interview with the, with someone from the Economist. A lot of the focus was on, and understandably so was on like his Islamophobia and this whole debate about grooming gangs and all of this sort of stuff. But I also paid very close attention to his discussion of AI and he's someone who has long thought there is a pretty solid chance that AI is an existential risk to literally destroy all of humanity. She asks him about this and just take a listen to how casual he is about the prospect of, yeah, what I'm doing, it might destroy all of humanity, but what are you going to do?

[Chelsea Handler]

Do you think there's still a 10 to 20% chance that killer robots mean the end of humanity? That's a high P do, as they say.

[Economist Interviewer]

Well, in the long run, we're all dead, of course, you know, so I mean, so I mean, according to the standard model of physics, the end of the universe is a long, boring, sort of thin gray soup of gradual cooling, meaning that's sort of the heat death of the universe, it's called. So if the heat death of the universe is in fact the outcome for our reality, then it really is all about the journey because the destination is terrible.

[Saagar Enjeti]

10 years is not very. We're all going to die anyway, Emily. So whatever. If I'm the one that causes it, well, that'll be more exciting than the long, slow death of the universe.

[Krystal Ball]

I suppose he's giving Teal when Ross Douthat was like, was there a chance that you're the Antichrist? And he answered, takes like that long pause and then it's like, no, but you're right, it's. What did you say? The casual psychopathy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's the perfect conclusion of Silicon Valley crazy. I mean, and the other part of his AI discussion, he's basically like, well, look, originally I was concerned about this. That's why I was doing OpenAI. I wanted to control it. Then I realized that all the things I was doing were just leading to more acceleration. So I just sort of threw my hands up and joined the party. And I want you to think about that. Like, this man is genuinely one of the, unfortunately, one of the most powerful people on the entire planet. Right? When he decided that we should destroy the entire USAID budget and subject, you know, kids dying of malaria to actual death in Africa, he was able to figure out how to do that. You're not going to use any of that influence and power. And I see no evidence that he's used any of his influence and power at the Trump administration to try to have some sort of, you know, global cooperation agreement with regard to AI development, to put some sort of testing or guardrail system in place to try to at the very least slow down and manage the rollout of this incredibly powerful technology. I see zero evidence that any of his immense wealth and power with the Trump administration specifically has been spent in that direction. Instead, he's just like, well, the first thing I tried didn't work out. So I guess I'm just gonna join the race and perhaps myself be the person who destroys all of humanity. These are the people who right now are in control. Like, you don't need to take away our votes. They already are running the show. But you wanna make sure, you wanna guarantee that the Elon Musk of the world can have infinite power forever and all of their completely insane and bananas ideas and their frankly, like, death cult that they're participating in to try to destroy this planet and make sure that they and a few people that they see as worthy can flee and escape to Mars or what crazy plan of the day is.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, and he's again one of those people who started with this, this like Web 1.0 idealism. And to your point, like, OpenAI going from nonprofit, like, he fought that. But here we are, 2026, he. The Starlink influence over the conflicts in Israel and Ukraine is a great example of concentrated power like Elon Musk in his hands. In his hands. He had the power to have dramatic influence over both those wars because the US government had to turn to him, Ukrainian government, Israeli government had to turn to him on Starlink. And that's a big deal for a drone based war, essentially like looking at Ukraine, where that war ended up going. He's massively, massively powerful. And right now, I mean, we're not talking about the future, we're talking about literally right now. Crystal. The amount of power that's in his hands is astounding and nobody is doing anything about it. So it's not surprising that you have Democrats and Republicans across polling upset about data centers. It's not just that they're mad about data centers on the merits. It's a proxy issue too, for the concentration of power and the control of the economy and the control of the culture and the world.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, that's a great segue to some new polling, some new evidence of just how disgusted Americans are with their lack of Democratic control specifically around data centers.

[Sissany]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

So a wild new infographic shows exactly how Francesca Hong has taken the lead in the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary. We had her on the show yesterday. She is a DSA aligned candidate who according to the pollings is kind of running away with this thing at the this point. Put this image up at the screen. So this is a. They use that the state of Wisconsin here to, to fill in as a sort of word cloud what voters say they are voting based on. And this is specifically Democratic voters in the Democratic primary. And Emily, the two things that jump out are health care and data centers. Just below that is affordability, then economy, then Trump, then I would say rights. And after that, every electability is a little bit smaller after that. But you know, and education. Um, but the big one that really stands out here is data centers. And in a previous earlier debate, there was a debate last night, but this is from an earlier debate in this race. The candidates for the Democratic nomination were all asked if they would support a one year moratorium on data center construction. And Francesca Hong was the only person who raised her hand and said that she would. Let's take a look at that.

[Jasper Nathaniel]

Do you support a one year or longer moratorium on data center construction in Wisconsin? Right.

[CarMax Advertiser]

Thank you.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We talked to Francesca some about this yesterday. This has really been a centerpiece of her campaign, Emily, and I bet a number of those candidates would like to go back and have that. Have a redo on how they answered that question.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean that, that's Kathy Hochul just did the one year moratorium and none of these other Wisconsin Democrats. Wisconsin has been actually a pretty hotspot of this debate. The Manitowoc minute guy was leading the charge against building data centers in the southeastern part of the state. This actually has rallied people in Wisconsin. So to be that either bought and paid for or ignorant of where people stand on this issue is truly ridiculous like that. There's just no excuse for that at this point. Politically now, I doubt that they have really great arguments on the merit against the one year moratoriums. People can make those arguments, but I doubt that's what they're doing. It seems to me like they're just completely out of touch with their own voters because they're all cynical politicians, or politicians are by nature cynical. No offense to the politicians out there who watch Breaking Points. I'm sure there are many of you, but you're making cynical political calculations in a gubernatorial election. So that to look at her being the only one saying she would support a one year moratorium in a world where Kathy Hochul just did that because she's seen this up close in her own state. Amazing to see that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I have to give some credit to Kathy Hochul, not only on this, but on other issues. She has read the polls, she sees where the wind is blowing and she has proven herself to be a very adept politician in terms of moving to where the public is, recognizing the power of Zoran's movement, the energy there, repositioning herself to be less adversarial. And she did that early. You know, I don't know if you remember, she appeared at a rally for him in advance of his, you know, his, his election battle against Cuomo in the general election. So she has proven to be relatively nimble and her finger much more on the pulse than a lot of other Democratic politicians who are out there. Let's put F2 up on the screen. You can see what the fallout is here for the rest of Francesca Hong's competitors. This is pretty wild. This is a state navigate poll for the Wisconsin governor Democratic primary. And Francesca Hong now is at 44%, nearing a majority. David Crowley at 15, Mandela Barnes at 14 and the other competitors, you know, down below 5%. Now the undecided is just at 13%. So in prior polls, Emily, there were, and this is what Francesca actually told us yesterday. In prior polls, the undecided number was really quite large. And I'm sure her competitors, both David Crowley and Mandela Barnes, were hoping that those undecideds were going to hear about Francesca Hong and how radical she was and they were going to flip to them and that would help them make up the gap. Well, people are now deciding their votes and they're overwhelmingly, according to this poll anyway, going for Francesca Hong. And I think it does come back to something. And I, you and I briefly discussed yesterday, which is if you are a DSA aligned candidate, if you have, you know, that worldview, more or less, you have a worldview, you're not afraid to take a stand and say, yeah, I support a one year moratorium on data centers. That's easy for you all day long if you're one of these centrist candidates who's trying to sort of of pick your spots and placate donors and use the standard talking points and avoid really taking a stand on anything that is just not cutting it. In a Democratic primary this year, voters know where they stand and they want to know that their political representation stands alongside of them. So the fact that she's been able to be very clear on a host of issues that are truly, truly centrally important to Democratic voters I think has set her apart and she's running away with it. Keep in mind, she's a state rep. Okay. Probably the vast majority of people in the state had never heard of her until very recently. Many of them still haven't heard of her up to this point. Mandela Barnes is the lieutenant governor, so he's someone who has statewide name recognition and it doesn't matter. It reminds very much of Graham Platner coming out of nowhere to just wipe the floor with Janet Mills, who was the sitting governor of the state, because people saw what he had to say and his very clear vision and said, that's the view that I share that view and I want my political representation to hold that view as well.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And I don't know if we can put the numbers back up on the screen, but look at this math. This shows that there's no South Carolina Clyburn option here in Wisconsin, meaning the plot to totally undermine Bernie Sanders. So Hong is at 44% and don't know is at 13%. So what you would need is everyone except for Crowley or Barnes, one of them to drop out. And then you would need to win most of those undecided voters over. If this poll is accurate and it does track with some other polling that shows her with a pretty significant lead. So it's looking like the election's in about two weeks. It's looking like she's running away with this and there is no option to consolidate. Actually, Michigan is a good example. There's no, you know, McMorrow dropout option on the table here to try and boost Crowley or Barnes again, at least if this poll is tracking with their internals, which when you have a race that looks like this, you have so many different candidates. It's a state based primary. Polling can be difficult. But this is looks like it's hers to lose at this point. Clearly hers to lose at this point. And your point about moral clarity and the politics of moral clarity right now, when you have people who are just fed up with the system. Donald Trump proved this in 2016. You had all of these other candidates saying they were going to tinker around the edges of the system and you didn't really know where they stood on Iraq and Afghanistan. Jeb Bush was running. So what would a Jeb Bush foreign policy look like versus a George Bush foreign policy? Trump comes out and he's like, nope, we're done. No new wars. No new dumb wars. He said different variations of it. He says, we're building a wall. That was totally different than what Rubio was offering. It was totally different even than what Ted Cruz was offering. And it was, he's gone back on no new wars. That's a huge problem for him and whoever inherits his movement, and part of why it feels like such a betrayal to people is that there was this, for him, sense of like moral clarity. As funny as that sounds to people, it's compared to the others, it's compared to the establishment. It comes across as like a clear sense of direction because it is an indictment of the establishment. And that is very attractive to voters right now. Now it's why populists are doing well across the board on the left and on the right. And if you're not picking up on that, like, if you're not even Kathy Hochuling right now, you're pretty far behind.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And one thing that is really different here from the Trump dynamic is Trump is very singular, to use the word that you used earlier. He is very singular and he doesn't actually have a coherent worldview. He has a forceful view, depending on the day, it can be in any number of directions. Whereas what we're seeing now is truly a sort of coherent movement ideology that is succeeding in, you know, lot of variety of places across the country. So you can no longer just say, well, Zorin's a kind of a one off, cuz he's so talented and he's so charismatic and it's New York City. And then you go, okay, well we have these other candidates in New York City are associating themselves with Soren and they're all winning. Okay. And by the way, it's not just New York City. Let's take a look at Colorado and Milat Kiros being able to unseat a relatively progressive, except on Israel, incumbent there in Diana Degat. Okay, let's take a look at Maine. And even with Graham Platner being pushed aside because of a credible Sexual assault allegation. The guy who replaced him and won overwhelmingly, Troy Jackson. He was backed by DSA in his gubernatorial candidacy and as a longtime Bernie Sanders aligned candidate. Then you take a look at the Midwest. Not only do you have Francesca Hong in Wisconsin appearing to run away with it, you have another heated battle between Peggy Flanagan and Angie Craig. Angie Craig being the establishment pick in Minnesota. It's looking very much like Peggy Flanagan is going to be able to win that battle. And then put F6 up on the screen. Abdul El Sayed. This is really a marquee race. This is coming down to the wire next week. This is F6 guys. New poll has a month up by 10 points here on Haley Stevens and gaining ground by the way. And when you push the what they call leaners. So people who aren't sure and you say, okay, but if you had to pick right now, who would you pick? He's up by double digits. He's up by 11 points in that scenario, 48% to 37%. He has a much higher favorability than Haley Stevens does in this poll. And this is in spite of the fact that AIPAC has really wanted to make an example of Abdul. You know, the mailboxes have been flooded with these mailers making it seem like Haley Stevens was endorsed by Barack Obama even though she wasn't smearing Abdul. Al said as some sort of a secret sexist, the airwaves are absolutely blanketed. And yet in spite of that, he still has the edge here. I mean, that is absolutely extraordinary that in the face of that wave of money that would have undoubtedly been successful in the past, was successful in the past against Jamal Bowman. Michigan was successful against Cori Bush. This time around, Democratic based primary voters in the state of Michigan, a key swing state with a very, you know, rural, urban, all sorts of demographics, races, religions, the whole gamut in Michigan, they are not buying it.

[Krystal Ball]

And if you look at that poll, it also had undecideds at 14%. And so that's with a week, yeah, less than a week now to go before election day. And the outside momentum is going to, or the momentum I should say is going with Al said. So that's really, really bad news for Haley Stevens. You're potentially looking at in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, the upper Midwest primary victories by the DSA aligned candidates like across the board. So as soon as those primaries are wrapped up in the next couple of weeks, the table's going to be set in all likelihood for some real battles with DSA aligned candidates for the populist left going forward. I mean, that's. If you're here in Washington at the dnc, you're looking at those numbers and thinking to yourself, I was going to say something that I should not say, but that is what you're thinking to yourself. You're like, oh, my gosh. I was just reminded there's this great Twitter account that's 10 years ago today. It posts pictures from 10 years ago today. And it reminded me of my favorite picture from the 2016 DNC, which is Susan Sarandon shaking her head, watching what's happening on the floor, just completely seething. Which if you were a Democrat in 2016, many people were completely seething watching this coronation of Hillary Clinton. 2026, maybe people just had to be patient, Crystal, because this is a rout. It's shaping up to be a total rout in 2026.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The establishment is thoroughly discredited. Their strongest weapon against the left was electability. Oh, and also this, like, weird identity racial resentment politics that they're still trying to use. And I think it's just been, the electability piece has just been so thoroughly discredited. I think the, the identity racial resentment piece has been fairly discredited as well. It doesn't seem to be landing in the same way it did when Hillary Clinton was using this against Bernie Sanders back in 2016. How are you going to say, oh, we can tell you who's electable. Donald Trump's in the White House. You told us, you know, what you were doing. This man is back here again. You are not able to vanquish him. We've been doing it your way. We don't believe you anymore. And there's a new media ecosystem that, you know, is able break through. And it's, it's not just, you know, like lefty, lefty shows, but, you know, Midas Touch is very progressive. And a lot of people who used to be MSNBC watchers are now like Midas touch watchers, and they're very favorable towards candidates like Bernie Sanders, candidates like Abdullah Sayed. So it is, it is a very new dynamic in the Democratic Party. Question now is how much that translates into the general election. And I did want to put this F3 up on the screen. This is the white whale for Democrats winning, trying to win Texas. You've got Talarico here in a new poll up by five points. What's interesting is that both he and Ken Paxton lost a little bit of ground from the last time. This is Texas Public Opinion Research did a survey in the field. So in any case, Talarico up 5 in this. Not sure what the margin of error here is, but this would be probably just outside of the margin of error. Could put F4 up on the screen. I'm not sure that I fully buy this because this just seems like too much of a shift. But according to this pollster, there has been a mass shift of Latino voters away from Paxton, who in May, just months ago, was leading among Latino voters in Texas by four points to Tellarico, is now winning by 46 points. Like I said, I'm a little bit skeptical that there have been that many minds change, but surely that represents some sort of a shift. Shift towards Talarico. And then, you know, we were talking yesterday, I don't remember if this was on camera or off camera about whether or not. Whether or not Dems had a shot in Texas and you were saying you thought Beto had a little bit more juice. It is interesting. If you compare the polls, we can put F4B up on the screen in terms of the polling, which we all know to take with a lot of grains of salt. At this point, at this point in 2018, according to the average of four polls, Ted Cruz was up on Beto by six points. You know, it was the kind of polls that people were looking at and go, okay, well, maybe you got a shot. But Ted Cruz still has an edge. Now in an average of five polls, you've got Talarico actually with a narrow margin over Ken Paxton. So like I said, grains of salt for polling all around. But that did kind of catch my attention here, just because it was different from what I recalled. You know, in my mind, the polls were a little bit different for Beto at this point in the race. But, you know, he was not in any sort of consistent way showing he was in a tie or even in a lead. And he ended up coming extraordinarily close to Ted Cruz. So I don't know, Emma, what do you think?

[Krystal Ball]

Well, believe it or not, I think that ken Paxton in 2026 is a worse candidate than 10 Cruz in 2018.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Extraordinary accomplishment for him, by the way, on that.

[Krystal Ball]

Truly. Truly, yes. So I actually just think Ken Paxton is such a flawed and difficult candidate for Republicans to sell in this race that it wouldn't surprise me if Talarico gets a boost because of that in a way that, like Beto versus Cruz, like Ted Cruz is Ted Cruz. But at least in 2018, it wasn't really until after the 2018 election that he started becoming much more aligned with the McConnell wing of the Republican Party, much closer to Senate leadership. It was after that election that Ted Cruz started making that transition. Beforehand he was still kind of, he had a little bit of his Tea Party juice left in him. So there was something that he could make a slightly more coherent kind of populist right case in a way that he couldn't now. And Ken Paxton tries to make a populist right case, but he's Ken Paxton. Ted Cruz has won elections in Texas so people can decide how they feel about Ted Cruz. Like I'm sure most of our viewers don't like Ted Cruz, but for a while he was really popular with conservative voters. He was seen as somebody who was deeply anti establishment. This is why he was was the second to Trump in 2016, as he was seen as somebody who was both this like kind of conservative movement figure and very deeply opposed to the GOP establishment, which was the combination that people were looking for or some people were looking for back in 2016. So it is, I think Paxton is just going to run behind Cruz probably. I'm looking at the RCP average in this race. Paxton is only up. 0.5.0.6 plus 0.6, 45.2 in the RCP average is where he is. Talarico is at 44.6. The latest new York Times Siena poll from the end of June had them in a dead heat, just an absolute tie at 47% of the electorate. So it'll be interesting to see how Talarico runs compared with the rest of the country because obviously Dems had a huge advantage in the generic congressional ballot in 2018, bigger than Dems have it this point in the cycle right now. But is Talarico going to outrun Dems around the country in Texas? I don't think he's going to. Honestly, I don't think he's going to win the race. It could happen. Of course. I don't think he's going to. I think it's still Texas, but I do think Ohio, North Carolina, those potentially Maine, although I don't think it's going to be nearly as close as it probably would have been. Those are going to be Nebraska. Dan Osborne in about Nebraska. I think those are going to be more nail biters than Republicans. Republicans realize right now and obviously they have a race on their hands in Texas. They're going to have to spend a ton of money on it. Last thing I wanted to say, Krystal, just as we're talking about 2018, is if we could put that Wisconsin map Up on the screen Again, this is F1. Look at how small you pointed this out. Look at how small Trump is compared to health care data centers, affordability that in 2018 polling still found something similar. But Democrats on the campaign trail, they were talking about health care and they were talking about Trump and Russia. Russia. The 2018 election was run by Democrats on healthcare mostly. But a lot of it was this cultural signaling against Trump. And that is, I think, the big difference between probably Beto at his point when he ran and a lot of 2018 candidates. And right now, what you're seeing from Democrats is that you don't hear the constant Trump anti Trump virtue signaling. There's more focus on, I think, the policy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And that makes it much harder for establishment Democrats who want to confuse voters about who they are and the way that they'll fight, et cetera, because it's very easy. I mean, this is Haley Stevens. She's got her yard signs that say stick it to them. Right. And they want to be able to run campaigns that are just like generic, I'm going to fight Trump. What does that mean? And voters aren't having it. They have very specific policy concerns and they want to hear those clearly expressed and reflected their political leaders. I do think that is an extraordinary change. And last comment I'll make about the tennis vote, the tennis vote, the Texas vote, is that you're right about Ted Cruz being a stronger candidate because he also has been, I think, still able to kind of straddle the divide in the Republican Party between, which is really evident in Texas between the, like, Trump MAGA types and the, in Texas, like the Bush wing of the party. Yeah. And John Cornyn, who Paxton was able to be, was much more emblematic of that Bush wing of the Republican Party that really kind of hates the Ken Paxtons of the world. I mean, this is the wing of the party that literally impeached him in the House.

[Krystal Ball]

In Texas, they hate him more than John Cornyn hates Paxton more than he hates Mark Warner. Right, like that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yes, absolutely. The case. And Paxton is a genuinely odious, criminal figure, like corrupt, personally odious. Like there is so much there with him. And so you also have a possibility of there's a good number of voters for Cornyn who said, I'm not voting for Ken Paul Paxton. That is another issue for Republicans here. And Democrats obviously very unified behind Telarico. There is a lot of excitement for him from the people I know in Texas on the ground among the Democratic base. I think Latinos are the swing demographic in the state to watch. You know, are they going to stay more with Republicans or are they, you know, disgusted with the economic decline, with the war, with some of the, you know, absolute cruelty with regard to the deportation efforts? Does that swing them more towards a James Talarico? I don't know. It's going to be an interesting one.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. That's where I think some of the culture war stuff is going to the Hispanic voting bloc. I think that's going to be a big deal. Talarico's faith is going to. He's going to play it up and Republicans are going to attack it in different ways. So definitely they have a race on their hands. No question about it. They're going to have to spend a ton of money. The polling is like obvious on that point. So, man, what a cycle. We're excited to keep covering it here, Chris, though.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Absolutely. All right, well, that does it for us here today. Tomorrow I will be in again with Sagar, so look forward to that. And Emily and I are going to jump onto an AMA live now. If you want to participate in those, become a premium subscriber@breaking points.com we will see you guys soon.

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