← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
7/7/25: Texas Hit By Massive Floods, Elon Starts New Party, DOJ Says There Is No Epstein List
01:11:10
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- [00:00]
Sagar Enjeti
This is an iHeart podcast.
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- [01:35]
Krystal Ball
Hey guys, Sagar and Kristal here.
- [01:37]
Sagar 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.
- [01:44]
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.
- [01:50]
Sagar 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.
- [02:01]
Krystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com.
- [02:09]
Sagar Enjeti
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Breaking Points. Sager is out. I don't know if I can disclose the reason that he's out.
- [02:15]
Krystal Ball
We can. He just.
- [02:16]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, we can. He just messaged.
- [02:17]
Krystal Ball
He just responded.
- [02:18]
Sagar Enjeti
So he's recording with Tucker right now in Maine, reacting actually to the interview that Tucker just dropped with the president of Iran. So Sagar will be back on Wednesday. So we've got the wonderful and brilliant Emily Kishinsky in today for Sagar.
- [02:32]
Krystal Ball
You're welcome, everyone. No, I'm excited to hear all about Sager's first of all, I'm excited to listen to Sager's conversation with Tucker and to hear all about what went on.
- [02:42]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, indeed. And I'm going to try to get Dr. Parsian also to react to that interview once we've had a chance to review it. But that certainly will be in the show tomorrow. A lot. In the show today, the death toll continues to rise after those horrific floods in Texas. So we'll tell you the latest there, show you some of the truly horrifying images and also all of the questions over whether the response was impacted and the death toll increased by those cuts made by DO at the beginning of this administration. Speaking of Elon, he is officially launching the America Party, or at least he says that he is. What will that mean politically? We also have this is sort of an Elon linked story as well. Trump says, Emily, there is no Epstein conspiracy. The Trump DOJ saying there was no client list. He definitely killed himself. Releasing some video and a report. We can all just put that to bed. Nothing to see here.
- [03:30]
Krystal Ball
We've now have what, 10 hours of video they released last night?
- [03:33]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [03:33]
Krystal Ball
So we'll get into it. But basically this was a Sunday night news dump to Axios for some reason about how they're just fully closing the Epstein investigation six months into the Trump presidency. No new information. Everything's fine.
- [03:46]
Sagar Enjeti
Right? No conspiracy. Don't worry about. It's fine. I don't know why Ghislaine Maxwell's in prison then. If there was no conspiracy, who was she trafficking to?
- [03:53]
Krystal Ball
I wish her well. That's not what Trump said a few years ago.
- [03:57]
Sagar Enjeti
Should I wish her well? That's exactly what he said. And it's Elon linked, of course, because back when they originally had their big blow up, he said Trump is in the Epstein files. And that was sort of like the nuclear bomb. And so now they're feuding again. And this is coming out. And Bibi Netanyahu is in town, which by the way, later in the show, we're going to talk to Jeremy Scahill about the implications, the potential for a cease fire. What's going on with Iran. As Bibi comes back to town, we're also going to take a look at a couple of media stories. Zoran Mandani being attacked by the New York Times. Really interesting story. This one Fascinating. Yeah.
- [04:30]
Krystal Ball
A lot of layers to peel back.
- [04:31]
Sagar Enjeti
There are indeed. And this is all over the boxes he checked when he was applying to Columbia University School, by the way. He didn't even get into. But so there's a lot going on there. We also have Tim Dillon and Joe Rogan unhappy with the Trump administration over immigration, specifically, Rogan also talking a bit about Gaza. So really interesting always to dig into that. And then Emily and I are going to do an AMA live after this show for those of you who are not premium members, if you want to become premium members and be able to access all of those AMAs, breakingpoints.com, we so appreciate all of your support. And with that, let's go ahead and jump into the very latest out of Texas where we can put some of these images of the flooding and the aftermath of the flooding in Texas hill country right near San Antonio up on the screen. As of this morning, we know the death toll is at least 81. This marks one of the deadliest floods in this country in a century. Now, this is an area where flooding is not unknown, but the rapidity and the extent of the flooding here was absolutely catastrophic, made worse by the fact that you had a lot of families on vacation in campers near this river and also tragically, a girls summer camp. You can see here. This is a father who is searching amid the debris here for his 8 year old daughter who continues to be missing. We know there are still dozens of people who are unaccounted for, including 10 from this camp. I believe those were nine girls and one camp counselor who continue to be missing from that camp. And the death toll here, obviously utterly devastating and made even more so by the fact that so many children were impacted. We're going to get to some of the political questions here, of course, and immediately people turn to, hey, you guys, Republican Trump administration, you just cut a bunch of positions at the National Weather Service. You just cut a bunch of positions at these local offices that are not only supposed to handle the weather forecast but also supposed to communicate with the Is that part of why this death toll is so high? But before we get to that, Emily, just your reaction to the horror coming out of Texas right now.
- [06:59]
Krystal Ball
You know, I think like a lot of people, I spent the weekend basically trying to avoid these stories. The father of the video of the father that we just saw in particular.
- [07:07]
Sagar Enjeti
Is the one unimaginable.
- [07:09]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that one just stayed with me. We didn't hear it, but the audio he says something to the extent of, I know she was here. And the fact that there are still 10 girls unaccounted for or 10 people unaccounted for from the camp, just thinking about what the families are going through as you're sifting through debris from a flood, looking for little girls with the first responders whose job it is to look for these little girls in the floodwaters. Two of them, sisters, were found clutching each other. I mean, this is one of the worst, one of the worst stories I think anyone can remember reading in a long, long time or living in a long time.
- [07:51]
Sagar Enjeti
Hopes are fading that they're going to find additional survivors at this point. And the rescuers are concerned also because there is more rain in the forecast, another significant rainfall in the forecast for today. So, you know, we are all certainly thinking about those families who are impacted, those families who are still holding out hope that their loved one will be found. And there was one remarkable rescue story just recently, a young girl, I think, who survived clinging to a mattress. So, you know, and there have been, obviously, stories of absolute heroism from the rescuers. I know one in particular rescued, like, 150 girls at this camp. So just absolutely horrific. At the same time, as I said, you know, a lot of questions here about what went wrong. And there's a lot of layers because first of all, you have the question of, okay, the forecast was wrong. The forecast underestimated the amount of rainfall by about half. And so you're talking about very different scenario when it's 6 inches of rain, still a lot of rain, versus 12 inches, which is what ultimately fell. You have questions about that. So that would be the National Weather Service. You also have questions about, okay, well, did the right warnings go out at the right time? This was all complicated by the fact that this was unfolding at night. So, of course, you have people who are asleep. They may not necessarily be receiving all of those alerts that are going out. And then the other layer is, okay, then you also have in these offices people whose job it is to communicate with the community and make sure the community is prepared in these events. So was that. Were those relationships still active? Was that communication happening in the way that it could so that the community could fully prepare? Texas officials came out pretty hot, blasting the National Weather Service for the inability to predict the amount of rainfall that actually fell here. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of that.
- [09:42]
Texas Official
Original forecast that we received on Wednesday from the National Weather Service. Predicted 3 to 6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4 to 8 inches of rain in the Hill Country. We worked with our own meteorologists to fine tune that weather statement. And as many of you know, and many of you in broadcast journalism and meteorology, you can go back and look at your own forecast. And the amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.
- [10:08]
Krystal Ball
This rain event sat on top of that and dumped more rain than what was forecasted on both of those for when we got the report, it was about 7ft or so on the South Fork and within a matter of minutes it was up to 29ft. And all of that converged at the Guadalupe and that's where we saw those very quick rise and flood.
- [10:28]
Texas Official
But listen, everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service, right? You all got it. You're all in media. You got that forecast. It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.
- [10:37]
Sagar Enjeti
So, Emily, look, sometimes weather forecasters, sometimes they get it wrong. But you also can't help but look at the fact that the National Weather Service took significant hits from Doge and asked the question, would they have been better able to estimate the amount of rainfall if they had full capacity here? So what is your, you know, what is your reaction to that from these Texas officials who, by the way, I mean many of these Texas officials are Republicans who supported the cuts. So the blame shifting here is also a little bit rich.
- [11:09]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, in times like this, I was like to go to people in the area who have some like Matt Lanza, a meteorologist, a Texas based meteorologist and he posted on X in response to the Homeland Security Twitter feed. They posted this long thread about 12 hours ago saying the mainstream media is deliberately lying about the events leading up to the catastrophic flooding in Texas. He responds and says the quote, msm isn't lying. They're doing their job by asking completely valid and crucial questions. Since the admin has proposed zeroing out essentially all NOAA research in the 2026 budget and his fire had taken buyouts of hundreds of employees in recent months, he though has an interesting take. He says while the local NWS office did good work during this event, the reality is that these questions are perfectly valid and reasonable given the circumstances. And yes, the office is still understaffed, if not comparable to worse offices. He expanded on this in a super interesting substack where he has basically complicated meteorological language broken down in a more understandable way about how you had just this, you had such a. I don't, I'm trying to avoid using the phrase perfect storm, but like really, that's what you had for something between 1 and 4 in the morning to escalate like it did in ways that just you can predict. But it's such a. When you have an area that's so prone to flooding, you know, you have like 8 out of 10 times you get a flash flood warning. And sometimes it's bad, but it's never this bad. And so he says, did budget cuts play a role? No. In this particular case, we have seen absolutely nothing to suggest that current staffing, budget issues with NOAA and NWS played any role at all in this event. Then he goes on to say, in fact, weather balloon launches played a vital role in forecast messaging on Thursday night as the event was beginning to unfold. But he said, use this event as a symbol of the value of NOAA and NWS bring to society understanding that as horrific as this is, yes, it could have always been worse. So where I find myself is sort of. I think the questions are entirely valid, especially because, Krystal, you alluded to this just moments ago. It now seems like where the focus should be is on what happened after the forecasting. And as these warnings were starting to hit. It's one in the morning, people are asleep. There's summer camps, There are children along the riverbanks. Was the message conveyed in ways that were reasonable? I think these, like these are entirely, entirely legitimate questions. So we'll see as this comes out exactly what happened. But when Republicans talk about cutting the administrative state, when people like me talk about cutting the administrative state, administrative state and events like this happen, you always have to own it. I mean, you always have to own it. When it looks like there's a correlation. I don't know. I'm not convinced that there is in this case. And I don't have any particular position on whether the National Weather Service was overstaffed. No idea. But you always end up politically on the hook.
- [14:04]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. Let's go ahead and put the New York Times up on the specifics regarding those. Those vacancies in the local offices. So they said as floods hit, key roles were vacant at the weather service. Crucial positions at the local offices in the National Weather Service were unfilled as severe rainfall inundated parts of Central Texas. Their San Angelo office, which is responsible for some of the areas hit hardest by Friday's flooding, they were missing a senior hydrologist, a staff forecaster, and a meteorologist in charge. According to the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, that is the union that represents those workers. The nearby San Antonio office, which covers Other areas that were hit by the floods also had significant vacancies, including, and this is the one that people have really focused in on, specifically a warning coordination meteorologist and science officer. Staff members in those positions are meant to work with local emergency managers to plan for floods, including when and how to warn local residents and help them evacuate. That office's warning coordination meteorologist left on April 30 after taking the early retirement package. So that was the. Remember the fork in the road email that went out from Elon, from Doge. So this guy took that offer. They used that offer, you know, of course, to reduce the number of federal employees overall. And they did not rehire someone, they go on to say, under the Trump administration. So overall, the weather service, like other federal agencies, has been pushed to reduce its number of employees by. By this spring, through layoffs and retirements, the weather service had lost nearly 600 people. That's from a workforce that was only 4,000. So 600 out of 4,000 is a very significant cut. And so this individual in particular who took the early retirement package, I watched videos of some of the local meteorologists talking about, like, this is the guy we know. This is the guy we're constantly in communication with and talking about. And this is the person that the community knows. So sometimes it is impossible to know what the impact is ultimately of that person's departure. Because even if you had filled that slot, you don't have that individual who had all of these relationships over all of those many years and may have known to do something that was not strictly inside of the protocol, but would have been thinking, oh, my God, this summer camp, I gotta let them know. There's a lot of questions like that that I think will probably forever be unanswered about the actual impact of these cuts. Let's go ahead and put the local reporting, the next piece up on the screen here, just to see how quickly this flooding escalated, which is horrifying. You can see this chart here. This is from the Texas Tribune. They say in a Texas region prone to catastrophic floods, questions grow about the lack of warning. And you can see how quickly and how rapidly this escalated, with the river reaching its peak of 36ft in height at 7am on July 4, leading to absolute devastation and catastrophe. And so, you know, Texas Tribune is not just the New York Times and national outlets, it's also, you know, Texas Tribune that are asking some of these same questions about whether or not these cuts played a role in the absolutely devastating toll. Again, worst, one of the worst floods in terms of death toll in a century that unfolded here. And of course there's, you know, there's a climate, climate change question to this as well as we see these catastrophic extreme weather events, these once in a hundred year floods happening on now a decade by decade basis more and more frequently. That's, you know, a big piece of this. And then the other part as well is you have the Trump administration not only cutting fema, sorry, not only cutting the National Weather Service, but also wanting to cut female so that in the wake of these horrific tragedies, you also have a lessened ability to help people who have survived and help communities be able to rebuild. Let's go ahead and go to a 4 Trump yesterday evening got asked some of these questions both about FEMA and about whether the cuts impacted the response and, you know, created more death and destruction in the wake of these floods. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. Are you investigating whether some of the cuts to the federal government left key vacancies at the National Weather Service or the emergency coordination?
- [18:27]
Krystal Ball
They did not.
- [18:28]
Sagar Enjeti
They did.
- [18:28]
Donald Trump
I'll tell you, if you look at that, that what a situation that all is. And that was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup. But I wouldn't blame Biden for it either. I would just say this is a hundred year catastrophe and it's just so horrible to watch.
- [18:48]
Sagar Enjeti
Are you still planning to phase out fema?
- [18:51]
Donald Trump
Well, FEMA is something we can talk about later but right now they're busy working so we'll leave it at that.
- [18:59]
Krystal Ball
Go ahead.
- [19:00]
Sagar Enjeti
And Emily, to me it's particularly sick because Trump ran aggressively on the response to Hurricane Helene, claiming that the Biden administration didn't do enough there, which there may well have been failures from the Biden administration. You know, fema. I'm not, I'm honestly not certain if there was more that they could have done on there or not. But he really positioned himself in the closing days of the campaign as someone who is going to be better on disaster preparedness and disaster recovery. And then as soon as he gets in office runs in the polar opposite direction. And not only has he been talking about getting rid of FEMA altogether and just sending it to the states, they're also diverting FEMA funds to, for example, building Alligator Alcatraz right now. So again, you not only have the Doge chainsaw that came in and cut the National Weather Service, cut noaa, this has been a long time conservative priority. By the way, it was in Project 2025. This didn't just come out of nowhere. But not only do you have that.
- [19:52]
Krystal Ball
That'S a nine, by the way.
- [19:53]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, we can put that up on the screen. This is something Ashley Sager and I were talking about. I think you were talking about it too, even before Trump got elected, when we were talking about Project 2025. There is an ideological project, you know, an attack here on the National Weather Service, which comes both out of an ideological commitment to just cutting the government overall, but also out of ideolog to doing anything about the climate crisis. And that's spelled out quite clearly here that they feel the National Weather Service is a key part of what they call the climate change alarm industry. And so there was a concerted effort to go after this. And so sometimes I think some of the Elon cuts, Doge cuts were sort of random and haphazard. This one was planned out, this one was messaged in advance. Not that they talked a lot about it on the campaign trail, but Trump, of course there was just shifting it to the side and saying actually the water situation there is somehow Biden's fault.
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- [22:49]
Krystal Ball
Void where prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply what's interesting also about this is people remember the leaked video of Russ Vogt talking about how the goal was to demoralize bureaucrats. So we talked about some of the cuts crystal earlier this year affecting tornado warnings. And I pulled up an Associated Press article from May that said as of March, some of the weather service offices issuing tornado warnings Friday and Sunday were above the 20% vacancy levels that outside experts have set as a critical threshold. So those are offices with 25%, 29%, 32% vacancy rate in, for example, Wichita. And what's interesting about that vacancy rate, that's positions that are unfilled that they are trying to fill, that is not positions that were cut. Which is really the sort of public marketing of Doge is that we are slashing, kind of permanently slashing. The idea was the size of the federal government. These are people who were in all likelihood to the point that we were just talking about in the Kerval area. They were driven out of the work, they took early retirements, they decided to go work in the private sector. And so I think it does crystal reflect on Doge overall when you say these are positions that are actually not being cut, they're just vacant. They're just completely like they're some of these if it's a vacancy right, that implies that they don't want to get rid of the position because they're still actively filling the position.
- [24:22]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [24:22]
Krystal Ball
Which is very different from just slashing the size of the offices. Totally.
- [24:28]
Sagar Enjeti
What also speaks to so for this individual in particular, who was known for doing the local coordination and was a veteran and took the early buyout, it also speaks to the fact that a lot of the people that were pushed out were some of the most effective, some of the people that you would actually want to keep and prioritize keeping. So all the language about Doge, oh, we need to get back to merit, et cetera, et cetera. But then the actual program that they used to go about doing this was almost tailor made to push out some of the most senior and most valuable individuals throughout the federal government who would be the most difficult to replace. And I went and looked this guy up, he's on LinkedIn, he's now doing, yeah, private consulting, went to private industry. Yeah, that's exactly what happened here. And so those vacancies continue to remain but there's a hiring free at the agency so it's not like they have the possibility of hiring in to fill these positions even. And then they also things like the remember there was that freeze on any sort of expense reimbursement so that there was an inability to travel to coordinate between you know, from the state office to the local communities, et cetera. So you know, I was telling you, I was watching the. This is going to seem like a total diversion but I promise it connects. I was watching the Titan submersible documentary on Netflix and when you see that dude Stockton Rush who went down with the ship, the way he went about doing things and just like there was no cost to all of the like I'm not going to get my submersible classed and inspected by the federal government. I'm not going to play by the rules. I'm an innovator. And he talked about how he molded himself after Elon Musk. Musk. There were so many personalities similarities there where it's just like these guys think that none of this stuff matters. Like there aren't gonna be any real world impacts of their willingness to cut corners and do things however they wanna do them. I mean you see it with Elon too with like the USAID cuts. He's in total denial that that has impacted anyone's lives. Obviously even if you're someone who like doesn't like usaid, you have to be honest and admit of course when you pull funding for medicine away from kids who need it, that's going to impact people's lives. And so there were huge warnings here about what this could ultimately mean for life and death. The living, you know, heads of the National Weather Service, all of the previous heads, they put out an open letter. We can put this up on the screen. This is a seven warning of exactly this. They said that NWS staff will have an impossible task to continue their current level of service. Some forecast offices will be so short staffed they may be forced to go to part time services. Not only are there fewer forecasters, there are fewer electronic technicians who are responsible for maintaining the critical nexride radars. Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed. There will be needless loss of life. We know that's a nightmare shared by those on the forecasting front lines and by the people who depend on their efforts. So they warned of this. There was actually a warning from a Florida forecaster again, a veteran meteorologist down in South Florida that went viral at the time and is now going viral again because he also is sounding the alarm about what these cuts could mean as we, you know, right now we're already into hurricane season. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
- [27:56]
John
When is it going to turn, John? It's not turning. It's coming straight to us. It's going to turn. The turn will come Monday afternoon, Monday evening into Tuesday. Remember that? That was about six years ago. That was Hurricane Dorian as it was absolutely devastating the northwest Bahamas. As a Category 5 sat over that region for two days, it was headed straight west. Lots of people in Florida were concerned the hurricane was heading here confidently. I went on TV and I told you it's going to turn. You don't need to worry. It is going to turn. And I am here to tell you that I am not sure I can do that this year because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general. And I could talk about that for a long, long time. Let's talk about the federal government cuts to the National Weather Service and to noaa. Did you know that Central and South Florida National Weather Service offices are currently basically 20 to 40% understaffed from Tampa to Key west, including the Miami office, 20 to 40% understaffed. Now, this type of staffing shortage is having impacts across the nation because there's been a nearly 20% reduction in weather balloon releases, launches that carry those radiosondes. And what we're starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded. There's also a chance because of some of these cuts that that NOAA hurricane hunter aircraft will not be able to fly this year. And with less reconnaissance missions, we may be flying blind. And we may not exactly know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline. Like happened a couple of years ago in Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Mexico. What you need to do is call your representatives and make sure that these cuts are stopped.
- [29:53]
Sagar Enjeti
So there you go. Dire warning there. That was, I think, back in February from that South Florida forecaster. And, you know, the immediate wave of these cuts. And there are a lot of questions about what happened here. And I think it's fair to Say, we don't know at this point whether the cuts made a difference here or not. But a lot of questions you can't help but ask. Did the cuts to the National Weather Service, these local offices, these vacancies, these individuals who had longtime expertise in this community, longtime relationships in this community, could those people have made a difference here if they hadn't been pushed out? If these offices were not, you know, understaffed with these significant vacancies? And it's, it's horrifying to see and certainly this won't be the last time that these questions are raised either with regard to the National Weather Service or anything else. And, you know, Emily, this is anecdotal, but I will say we were, you know, we were at the beach last week. We tried to plan out like our daily schedule. The forecasts were the worst I have ever seen. They were. I was looking on the weather app, which gets all of that information comes from the federal government, and it was just like wildly wrong every single day.
- [30:58]
Krystal Ball
Really.
- [30:59]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. And look again, weather forecasts in the best of funding times can be wrong. But I look at them like, this could be doge. Like this could. The reason that this is all wrong could very well be that they just don't have the resources to accurately forecast the way that they used to. And it's, you know, contributes to the sense of it also, like, the loss of life here is obviously the critical. And the fact that this is a major possibility again, as we head into like the worst of hurricane season. I think this is a dire warning for the country about the track we're on. And it's also just this sense of decline, like things that we used to be able to do, used to be able to keep planes in the air without like, you know, crashing into each other, crashing into a helicopter. Whatever. We can't forecast, we can't prepare the way that we could even a decade ago. I mean, that is. It' swith with horrifying and tragic consequences.
- [31:52]
Krystal Ball
Well, and I'm very curious to see if this is creeps into the abundance conversation at all, given that Texas is such a focal point of the debate between Texas, California as an argument for abundance. Because Mike Baker in the New York Times runs down. Yeah, see, he's been running down. He has a thread on X ray. He's running down all of the apparent ostensible local cracks that led to the situation that transpired on Friday. And it's pretty interesting that people didn't want to, for example, pay for what they saw as way Too expensive warning signs or warning sirens. So there are a lot of I think important questions that are going to be asked because of all of this. The quick thought on the political component that we were just talking about. I mean I'm sure that there are defensible cuts to the National Weather Service. I have no idea how many they are. I don't even know what they look like. I'm sure you can, you can find an argument that there would be a more efficient NWS or NOAA or whatever with a couple of precise cuts. Scalpel, not sledgehammers. And that what they ended up saying is Doge was sort of teetering on the brink. But the musk mentality has probably damaged the project of making a more efficient federal government for a generation because now it is inextricably, emotionally, viscerally linked with everything that happens afterwards. Sometimes it'll be fair, sometimes it won't be fair. But either way, the way that he. I just wanted to make that point about Stockton Rush that you brought up. I think that's super incisive because it's this people who come from the tech world who are super online and or the highest echelons of business and you know, they're you know, heirs. I think Stockton Rush was an heir, right?
- [33:44]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, he was. Yeah.
- [33:45]
Krystal Ball
Right. And start tinkering with life and death in a way that I think lacks the gravity and the consequence of the decision making and that I don't know the project of like actually shrinking the scope of the federal government will ever recover from at least in the next couple decades.
- [34:02]
Sagar Enjeti
Not to mention, I mean Elon will tell you, first of all, they didn't save any money. Nope, none. They cost the federal government money to make it work. They made the federal government work worse and less efficient and it costs more money.
- [34:13]
Krystal Ball
Right.
- [34:14]
Sagar Enjeti
And they just passed the big beautiful bill which is going to blow up the debt and the deficit. So if there was any pretense of this is all to get our spending under control because we have such a large debt and deficit, I mean, no, you just made things worse. That's it. That's what you accomplished.
- [34:35]
Steve Bannon
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Ryan Seacrest
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Elon Musk
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- [36:29]
Krystal Ball
No purchase necessary. VGW Group Void where prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply. That is the perfect segue into our next block, which is the America Party is now, I guess, official. Crystal we're going to learn more about filings and such in the days ahead, but let's put the first element on the screen. Elon Musk on the fourth of July tweeted, Independence Day is the perfect time to ask if you want independence from the two party. Some would say uniparty system. He started tweeting like Trump. It's interesting. Should we create the America Party just.
- [37:01]
Sagar Enjeti
To pause on that? Sorry. One of my biggest pet peeves on the left. One of my biggest pet peeves is these people who all will talk like Obama forever. Pete and Beto and Cory Booker and there's Josh, Pierre or whatever on the right. The way everyone posts like Trump and tries to talk like Trump is so annoying and grating. Like can people please have their own personality?
- [37:26]
Krystal Ball
It's not only annoying and grating, it is also, I don't know, Crystal, a little homoerotic Sometimes I see a post.
- [37:38]
Sagar Enjeti
From how about all the daddy posting about Trump? How about that?
- [37:42]
Krystal Ball
It's a lot sometimes, but sometimes you see a post from like, I don't know, Charlie Kirk, he's really bad about it. He posts like, when Trump started getting more and more popular back like 10 years ago now, his style changed so conspicuously on Twitter. Anyway, this is entirely beside the point, but it seems like Elon is playing that game as well now. But he. So his poll results on X. This is another super Trumpian thing, right? Chris, remember when Trump during the 201516 debates against other Republican candidates would constantly be citing Twitter polls like in the debates and in media hits?
- [38:19]
Sagar Enjeti
He was this time, remember, he was citing that cat turd poll.
- [38:22]
Krystal Ball
Here you go by a factor of two to one, you want a new political party. Elon Musk says, and you shall have it. Because people who follow Elon Musk on Twitter, he apparently got 1.2 million votes said that they want a new political party. Now, that is not a question that says they want an America party necessarily. It says, you know, we live in a one party system, not a democracy. So that could mean a lot of different things. But it's really. There's no point in parsing the seriousness of this poll on social media. But Trump responded to this and this is our next element. This was B. This is B1B with a very long post on X where he says, I am saddened to watch Elon Musk, or untrue social Elon Musk go completely off the rails, essentially becoming a train wreck over the past five weeks. He even wants to start a third political party despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States. The system seems not for them. Seems. Yes, Excellent.
- [39:21]
Sagar Enjeti
Never is an overstatement. Anyway, go ahead.
- [39:24]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, he is from the Republican Party.
- [39:27]
Sagar Enjeti
Which is a third party. Yes.
- [39:31]
Krystal Ball
And then he goes on, I mean, this is like a 300 word post on truth Social. He goes on to talk about the EV mandate. He says, my number one charge is to protect the American public. So they were trading barbs all weekend, basically. Musk then went on to say, the Republican Party has a clean sweep of the executive, legislative and judicial branches and still has the nerve to massively increase the size of the government, expanding the national debt by a record $5 trillion. So, Crystal, this all happened after, as promised, after Donald Trump on the fourth of July, he got his perfect ceremonial moment, signed the one big beautiful bill at the White House on the fourth of July. That is what Elon Musk said Basically would be the impetus for the America Party. And just very quickly, the next element. He is now saying that he could target just two to three Senate seats in eight to 10 House districts by basically as this person he interacts with a lot on Ex Mario Nafal says, skipping the national circus hit where margins are razor thin. Now that's actually a very smart political strategy.
- [40:42]
Sagar Enjeti
But that's a smart political strategy if you want to hand Democrats those two to three Senate seats in eight to 10 House districts.
- [40:49]
Krystal Ball
There it is. Yes, that's exactly what will in all likelihood happen.
- [40:54]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. And by the way Elon interacted with this post, which gave me the sense that this was at least somewhat in the ballpark of what is actually happening here. Because Nafal is not always the most reliable character and it drives me crazy like so many digressions today. But the, the downgrading of links in the Twitter algorithm has made it so obnoxious so that people like you can't go and check easily what people are actually saying with used to be that you posted the link so you could go actually see anyway, whatever. So the Trump post is still very interesting to me because yes, it's long and goes after Elon and says he's gone off the rails or whatever. It still feels so mild to me compared to what he says about remember how humiliated Ron DeSantis came to me? Tears in his eyes. I mean he just like he knows how to absolutely humiliate people and he doesn't really do that. In fact, to be honest with you, I don't like either of these guys. I hope both of them fail. The points he made about Elon were pretty reasonable. He's like, he's mad about his EV subsidies and he's mad that he didn't get his hand picked guy into NASA so that he could get whatever he wanted for SpaceX. True. Yeah. All Stars.
- [42:12]
Krystal Ball
Correct.
- [42:13]
Sagar Enjeti
Perfectly reasonable points there. And so I don't know, it's just interesting to me. And then this will tie into the Epstein blog too, since Elon had floated previously like, hey, Trump's on the pedo. Basically Trump's on the Epstein client list. And then once the they sort of like calmed the waters, he deleted those posts and said he had gone too far. So I don't know. But in terms of the America Party, do I think this is going to be some successful effort to supplant either of the two main parties, which is what a third party actually has to do in order to find significant success? No, I don't think so. Especially because what is it even, like, what is the ideology here? I mean, start. I guess he's talking. Yeah, Deficit reduction. Okay, then. And what are the other pieces that go along with that? And very unclear, because Elon's ideology has been kind of all over the place. We can put just to Steel, man, the argument for this sort of like, neoliberal austerity direction of a third party, which is not a new idea. I mean, go talk to the no labels people. Go talk to the third way people. Like, this is their whole bag. And there's very little public support. While I think there is massive public support for like, hey, we'd like. We're frustrated with this political system. We are frustrated with these two political parties. We would like some options other than D or R. That would be great. But then when you actually get down to the details of, oh, it's gonna be a neoliberal austerity party run by and for a billionaire, then that seems like a little bit who makes his money in China. Right? A little. Right. The America Party by a billionaire who makes this money in China. I guess that is very American, actually. But in any case, the public support for that starts to dwindle pretty quickly once you get into that territory. Especially at a time when Elon Musk has completely nuked his own personal favorability ratings. Certainly with liberals, but also with Republicans. Maga Republicans. At this point. Nate Cohn did an analysis saying, hey, you never know. This was from a little while ago. This B5, guys, you could put this up on the screen. This is really interesting again to Steelman, the case. This is Nate Cohen's analysis. He says, listen, if the two major parties truly go in this more populist direction, where you're doing tariffs and you're doing industrial policy and you're doing big spending, and maybe the Democrats actually go in a sort of like, Zoron AOC direction. This was pre Zorin. But anyway, maybe the Republicans, they actually go in this more populous national Steve Bannon type direction. And then you're left with these neoliberal business market types who don't really have a home. Then maybe there starts to be some logic for this centrist third party. But to me, where that analysis falls apart is like, I think neoliberals already have two parties that continue to serve them. I mean, this giant bill that just passes big tax cut for the rich, the tariff tariffs have ended up certainly not being the revolutionary change at this point that Trump had originally advertised. He's backed off the most maximalist position of that he's very responsive to the needs and desires of billionaire oligarchs.
- [45:28]
Krystal Ball
By the way, that was big news over the weekend.
- [45:31]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [45:31]
Krystal Ball
And it's unclear exactly what's going to happen as of right now, but they moved the July 9th tariff deadline to August 1st first. And they're saying many more deals are going to come. So far they have the uk, Vietnam and China, but they right now are even as we speak actually like trying to do what they've been doing since April at this point.
- [45:53]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [45:53]
Krystal Ball
There was a July 9 deadline and now it's suddenly August 1 a couple of days beforehand. So it just underscores exactly what you were saying.
- [46:01]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. And then so there's both. The fact that I think, you know, neoliberals have plenty of places, politically or not politically, homeless was far from it. And we'll see what happens. The Democratic primary in 2028, whether there is any sort of significance. I think it's possible. I think there's a real rupture over a kind of actually litmus test around Gaza that may end up shifting things. But that's another conversation for another day. But the other question is like the public is done with this. So yeah, you may have a lot of like rich business people and this has always been the thing with third way and with no labels and whatever. The problem is not getting a bunch of rich business people to be like, hey, let's have tax gets a new regulation. The problem is that public support for that at a time when the ideology of, you know, standard Reagan, Clinton, neoliberalism is so broken and veiled and what people are desperately questing for is something different that is actually going to work and be responsive to the concerns of the modern age.
- [46:56]
Krystal Ball
Well, and this is where I think Nate Cohn's analysis, the history of it was I think really helpful context. But he says over the last few years a new constituency has begun to emerge. For now, it does not have a home in either party. And it's not clear that either party party will be able to easily accommodate its demands. He says it favors things like deficit reduction, deregulation, free trade and high skilled immigration and crystal. I do not think that is a constituency that exists outside of Wall street and Silicon Valley.
- [47:23]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [47:23]
Krystal Ball
That is not a mass constituency. And that's really the problem with quote unquote America Party. It's not that most Americans are satisfied with the two party system. Basically nobody is satisfied with the two party system. That doesn't mean it's still the doesn't win in a lesser of two evils versus some type of different system like UK or a lot of Europe. But at the same time, this idea that there's a massive appetite for. What does Cohn say? Deficit reduction, deregulation, free trade and high skilled immigration. This is also interesting because that's basically the Republican Party that Donald Trump changed forever. Like if you describe it like that, deficit reduction, deregulation, free trade and high school immigration. That is what every other 2015, 2016 Republican primary candidate was saying that they were in favor of. Donald Trump created a third party within the Republican Party essentially. And its success is still post Trump up in the air. Like we actually don't know what's going to happen to the Republican Party after Trump. And there's certainly no constituency for the old Republican Party. So the idea that maybe a bunch of billionaires, this is exactly what you were saying, could create Astroturf, another no labels or third way. Of course you can. I mean you can pump a bunch of money into it. You can maybe win a couple of. Yeah, you can win a couple of House races, whatever. That doesn't mean that he's breaking the third party system. I just think that's. The idea that that's actually gonna happen is obviously absurd. But he's got a lot of money.
- [48:54]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, no, he does. And listen, my fondest hope would be for all of the people that you mentioned to basically put themselves in some fringe third party and consign themselves to.
- [49:03]
Krystal Ball
Irrelevancy and elect Democrats in the process.
- [49:06]
Sagar Enjeti
Do that. Go ahead. You're going to have Andrew Cuomo, you're going to have Michael Bloomberg, you have Mark Cuban. There's all. Speaking of mark Cuban, put B6 up on the screen. He's very open to this. Let's see Andrew Yang also. Come on, Andrew. Andrew. I have so much affection for Andrew Yang. I absolutely do. And I genuinely, you know, and I speak, I still talk to him semi regularly. I genuinely think his focus is we need to change this system is not working. And so anybody who's like, let's do different things, like, yes, let's do it. But then Cuban, I mean, it's just too perfect. Cuban is out there like, oh, I can help you get ballot access. Good, go for it, buddy. Do it, do it.
- [49:50]
Krystal Ball
Well, see, this is one of the problems that Cohn identifies is that that typically people who are dissatisfied with the two party system don't agree on much. Therefore there's never a route really towards a third party because to cobble together the people upset about left and right. You have to also have some type of thread. You have to have some type of unifying factor other than we just don't like the other two parties. And if Musk thinks that it's the national debt, that's insane. It's another thing that people are upset about, of course, but it's nobody. Again, if you polled most Americans and said, is the national debt a problem and do you not like the two party system right now? People would be like, yeah, yes, don't like the two party system. National debt is a big deal where we wish that the nation had its fiscal house in order. Most Americans would absolutely agree with both of those things. That doesn't mean that it's their top voting priority or that they're going to be coerced into voting for a third party when other people are speaking to their priorities.
- [50:47]
Sagar Enjeti
Not to mention. Okay, yeah, in theory, just like Doge was kind of popular at the beginning.
- [50:53]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [50:54]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, should we cut the spend?
- [50:56]
Krystal Ball
Sure. Yes.
- [50:57]
Sagar Enjeti
Should government be more efficient? Sure. Should we gut the National Weather Service and FEMA so that, you know, little girls die in a flood? Should we do that?
- [51:07]
Krystal Ball
Or should we push the most expensive or the most experienced people out?
- [51:12]
Sagar Enjeti
Do you want your Social Security cut? Do you want your Medicare cut? Because Musk again, is a gigantic federal government contractor with the Pentagon. So it's not going to be the military budget, I could tell you that much. Which also did not happen under Doge. There were cuts. Yes. To National Weather Service. No cuts to the military.
- [51:29]
Krystal Ball
Was BBB just put a bunch of money into the military.
- [51:32]
Sagar Enjeti
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Which is why, just to go back to your point about Trump, I think it is both fair to say he changed the Republican Party and fair to say that there are a lot of, of just ramping up the previous Republican Party priorities in Trump. And I think BBB is the perfect example of that. The one big beautiful bill where you get, you know, cuts the social safety net, very Paul Ryan esque. Cuts the social safety net. You get a very Paul Ryan tax cuts literally drafted by like Paul Ryan and his accolades. Tax cuts that predominantly benefit the wealthiest among us. You get a massive escalation in the military budget. Again, these are key Republican priorities. And you know, Republicans have, I think he has significantly upped the rhetoric and the, I would say cruelty surrounding the immigration and deportation program. But that's also not entirely new to the Republican Party. I think that is the part that maybe is the biggest break from the Republican Party. That passed because, I mean, making ICE the largest federal law enforcement agency, making that budget larger than the military budget of many significant countries like Brazil and Israel, like that. I mean, that is truly different. Now, I think things like the tariffs, the, you know, different approach to China, those sorts of things are a genuine break. But it also can be overstated how much the Trumpian approach is truly a break from the Republican past when you've got got cuts to social safety net, tax cuts for the rich and a giant national security state. That seems pretty consistent with the Reagan era Republican Party all the way up till today.
- [53:16]
Krystal Ball
But Trump voters are probably not going to be super satisfied with it. And that'll be interesting to see how the Republican Party deals with going forward.
- [53:23]
Sagar Enjeti
They're going to get on board with it.
- [53:25]
Krystal Ball
Well, the Trump base is different than.
- [53:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Like the people, independents, right?
- [53:28]
Krystal Ball
People who voted Trump or typical Republican voters, whatever it is, or people who went like Obama, Trump and are not big, like, they're not going to the rallies. But then they realize the man who promised not to cut Medicaid now has a plan in place that requires them to jump through all these hoops lest they lose their Medicaid. Something like that. Yeah, we'll see. Because I think that's one of the biggest unanswered questions, open questions in politics is what happens after Trump to the Republican Party? Does it just revert? Because one big beautiful bill suggests potentially reversion in the future. Now, on the other hand, we gotta roll this clip B3 of Steve Bannon, because this gets to the question of what happens to the Republican Party after Donald Trump. One person who's not going anywhere is Steve Bannon and he has a new nickname and it's Elmo the Mook.
- [54:17]
Donald Trump
That's always human nature. This is what you have here in the United States. You have maga. You have the hardest core opposition to maga, and you have a lot of people kind of in the middle seeing which way the fought the buffoon Elmo the Mooc, formerly known as Elon Musk, Elmo the Mooc. He's today in another smear and this only a foreigner could do this. Think about it. He's got up on, he's got up on, on Twitter right now a poll about starting an America party, a non American starting an America party. No, brother, you're not an American. You're a South, South African. And if we take enough time, improve the facts of that, you should be deported because it's a crime of what you did among many.
- [55:06]
Krystal Ball
And so Crystal Bannon, I would say, is arguably more so than Trump, the sort of primary gatekeeper, champion of what the MAGA agenda should look like based on his. His sense of the MAGA base. And he's been critical of Doge. He's been critical of one big, beautiful bill and ultimately trusts Donald Trump, as he would say, but at the same time is sort of signaling. He's like, waving the red flag, the warning flags, and being like, this is veering off course. So the idea that Elon Musk, I mean, it all is so naive. And I think this is. Is a fair criticism that Andrew Yang has gotten over the years. Like a bunch of Mark Cuban. There are a bunch of guys in the business world who for years have said, like, we just need to run the country a little bit more like a business. We need a break from the past. We can do this cash infusion and disrupt and all of that. But it's like turning the Titanic around. And Elon Musk thinking that because Donald Trump sort of surgically attached him to MAGA meant that the MAGA base wanted to prioritize austerity and actually putting the debt first and foremost above anything else. That was just. That was always crazy. Like, the idea that the Republican Party was ever going to actually cut the debt is completely insane.
- [56:30]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, and here's the other thing is Elon Musk is not genuine about this. He doesn't have any problem with his subsidies that he gets for the federal government.
- [56:36]
Krystal Ball
He says he does, but he doesn't.
- [56:38]
Sagar Enjeti
Right. I mean, look, Obama rescued Space X and Tesla.
- [56:42]
Krystal Ball
Tesla, yeah.
- [56:42]
Sagar Enjeti
And, you know, Elon is, look, I think the EV credits are good. I think we should have the EV credits. I think we should be doing industrial policy around electric vehicles and the energy generation of the future. Like, Elon and I are aligned on that. But, you know, these guys don't actually want small government. They want a government that gives them what they want. And that is exactly the problem with the government is that is way too responsive to billionaires. It has created these billionaires who have been able to generate. I mean, most of these billionaires, they have been able to rig the system and create monopolies. So it's not like they really want a fair and competitive playing field. Quite the opposite. Many of these people absolutely despise Lina Khan and her efforts to try to create actual market competition. And the other big problem at the core of the. Of this government that I'm talking about, I'm not just talking about the Trump administration. I'm talking about over decades is that they have outsourced any sort of values and principles to market logic and thought that the markets would just figure it out for them to the extent that even the faa, basically, the airlines regulate themselves. I mean, this is the sort of thing that happened during the neoliberal era. We went way too, too far in the direction of catering to the Elon Musk and the Mark Cubans of the world. So that's what people are revolting against. The idea you're going to have any sort of grassroots, like mass support for this type of effort I think is preposterous. But that doesn't. None of this is to say that it can't have some significant impact when you're talking about, look, what's the House margin at this point? It's like three seats or something. It's very close in the House. There's another retirement. A guy in what, Tennessee is retiring, something like that. Anyway, there's another House Republican retirement. It's very narrow in the House. The Senate is also fairly narrow, although there's a bit more of an edge for Republicans there. Look, if you field some candidates in a couple of key seats, that can absolutely be enough to take away, let's say, 4% from the Republican Party and hand some seats to Democrats. So I'm not saying that it won't have any impact. What I am saying is that it will not have the impact that Elon Musk is purporting that it will have.
- [58:54]
Krystal Ball
If it has impact, it will be disproportionate to the actual national appetite for what he's calling for, because it'll be like massive cash infusions that throw races in one direction or the other. Not that captured the imagination of millions of Americans who want the debt to be prioritized in their political lives. And it's one of the saddest things about the situation our political elites have put us in is that you now have, for example, Trump voters who are on Medicaid, who, again, just as an example, let's say they think the national debt is way too high. But at the polls, you now have a billionaire demanding that they put the this abstract question of the national debt, which I agree with Elon Musk and others, that it has a serious effect on inflation. I don't think you can really say it doesn't. It's pretty obvious that the higher the debt goes, the more that our budget is paying interest on the national debt. That, yes, prices are higher because of all of this. And that is a significant problem but you're asking people then to table their immediate urgent interest. Interests is the billionaire who can afford us to feed his family, even though it's massive, and put food on his table and pay all of his bills, saying that the American people should table their immediate everyday kitchen table issues in the interest of this abstract question of the national debt that just is not a constituency that exists.
- [60:27]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, and they're going to ask you to sacrifice. They're not going to sacrifice. Well, yeah, of course they're not going to sacrifice. To sacrifice their federal government subsidies, they're not gonna be willing to pay any more in taxes. It's all gonna come out from the people who can afford it the least, which is why it's such a thoroughly. Should be a thoroughly discredited political project.
- [60:45]
Krystal Ball
And when they fuck up, they get bailed out. Silicon Valley Bank. I mean, it's over and over again. Yeah. So it's insane. Finally, Musk did complain. Well, he's had a couple of interesting moments of self awareness. Like you could just see like a glimmer of self awareness a couple of times since he's gone back to posting a bunch on X. And one of them was him saying that the chainsaw in retrospect actually looked like it lacked empathy. No kidding. Dancing around with the chainsaw at cpac. But another one was him saying that Trump was happy to have him when his poll numbers were higher, but now that they're lower and Musk is less popular, Trump is less inclined to keep him around. And Nate Silver does have an interesting net favorite favorability of chart of Elon Musk dating back to before he endorsed Trump starting in 2024. And he is, he does have a higher net favorability. It was up around like at its highest in 2024, seven plus 7% in January 2024, right before he endorses Trump. It's like plus 4%. And it actually though declines after the Trump term begins. So it sort of stabilizes between the endorsement and the election. But after Trump takes off and Doge becomes an actual government program, which was only supposed to be this outside advisory council, it starts to dip precipitously. Like that's when it starts is really when Doge becomes real. So Musk kind of has himself to blame for the situation he finds himself in.
- [62:10]
Sagar Enjeti
I would say so for sure.
- [62:15]
Steve Bannon
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Ryan Seacrest
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Krystal Ball
Purchase necessary VGW Group void we're prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply.
- [64:16]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, should we talk about this latest with regard to Epstein? Because this is just you can't make it up. And as I said before, it connects to Elon because he threw out there. Oh by the way, Trump is on the Trump is in the Epstein files. Which Trump and Epstein were friends. Trump was on Epstein's plan multiple times. Trump is pictured at parties with Jeffrey Epstein. So he is in the Epstein files. Exactly. What that entails may be another matter. In any case, we now have gone from the Trump administration promising doing their big photo op with the influencers. Remember this where they got their binders, Epstein files phase one and Pam Bondi out there saying I've got the client list on my desk. I'm reviewing viewing thousands of hours of videos. We're going to get you the truth to. Now let's put this up on the screen. They're saying nothing to see here. Nothing to see here whatsoever. The DOJ and the FBI conclude Epstein had no client list. There was no client list.
- [65:13]
Krystal Ball
No client list.
- [65:14]
Sagar Enjeti
He committed suicide. Absolutely no indication that he was killed and that he had any sort of blackmail material on any powerful people they sought, say, specifically, investigators found, quote, no incriminating client list of Epstein's.
- [65:31]
Krystal Ball
Pause right there. Yeah, the language. This is written by lawyers, the Department of Justice. No incriminating client list, which is not the same thing as no client list. Incriminating is a very subjective term which could mean that there are a bunch of names in the Epstein book. Basically, we know this and it's true that not all of those people are incriminated by Jeffrey Epstein mingling with them at a Harvard business fundraising lunch and taking their number down. Absolutely. Absolutely. That is a hell of a wiggle word right there.
- [66:09]
Sagar Enjeti
So no incriminating client list, no credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals and no evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third party.
- [66:20]
Krystal Ball
So, and this.
- [66:21]
Sagar Enjeti
There you go.
- [66:22]
Krystal Ball
As, by the way, Pam Bondi said just a couple of months ago that the Epstein client list was on her desk. Now the DOJ is saying there is, quote, no incriminating client list, which has been interpreted as them saying there's no client list, understandably, because you would think that a client of Epstein would be not just a financial client of Epstein. But it's implied when Pam Bondi says she has the quote, unquote client list on her desk just a couple of months ago. That is sex trafficking clients of Jeffrey Epstein. That's what she was implying when she said it. So for the DOJ to now, just a couple of months later, say there's no incriminating Epstein client list is a incredibly suspicious. I don't even need to say it, but it's an incredibly suspicious flip flop that is being done with some careful language. And absolutely nobody is buying it. People in MAGA world are not buying it. Nobody is buying it. The question is how important it is to the people who are not buying it. And I think it's going to be pretty damn important.
- [67:28]
Sagar Enjeti
You think so?
- [67:28]
Krystal Ball
Yes, I think so, based on what I've seen so far.
- [67:31]
Sagar Enjeti
What have you seen?
- [67:32]
Krystal Ball
So, Robby Starbuck, Mike Cernovich, a lot of these online MAGA influencers are absolutely furious. And of course, they're taking it out more on Pam Bondi than they are on Donald Trump because Bondi has so far. And some of that actually might be reasonable. Julie K. Brown, who has done some of the most important Epstein reporting, posted back in February. It's interesting to note that Pam Bondi was Florida's attorney general from 2011 to 2019, a period of time when Jeffrey Epstein's plain records became public. Victims lawsuits were filed and a lot of new evidence against Epstein surfaced. So questions should be asked about why she didn't take up the case or launch a probe when she was Attorney General in Florida. And this is a persistent problem for the Trump administration. This happened actually the suicide, the quote, unquote suicide of Jeffrey Epstein happened on Trump and by the way, Bill Barr's watch. Bill Barr's dad was the first person to give Jeffrey Epstein that job at a private boarding school despite the very strange qualifications he would have have. Very, very strange. It happens on Bill Barr's watch when he is Attorney General of the United States. Alex Acosta, Donald Trump's first Labor Secretary, was involved in the sweetheart plea deal in Florida and said at the time he was told Jeffrey Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone. Pam Bondi was AG from 2011 to 2019. Trump himself was obviously, as Crystal mentioned earlier, very friendly, what with Epstein.
- [68:59]
Sagar Enjeti
Epstein said they were besties for a decade.
- [69:04]
Krystal Ball
The evidence is to suggest that there's something deeper going on. My personal theory, Crystal, is not that it's related to Donald Trump himself. I think it's very unlikely that Donald Trump himself was out there talking about how Epstein openly talking about how Epstein likes him young and hanging out with him when NBC News was profiling Trump at Mar A Lago and is personally implicated. But the Bill Barr stuff goes way deep. I mean, we're talking like way decades. That stuff goes decades back. So I think it might be more like Trump's orbit and people that he's protecting that he's hired because it comes back to him for having hired them, that it happened on his watch that they just released. What footage of surveillance cameras. I pulled up an Inspector General report report from 2023.
- [69:54]
Sagar Enjeti
You can put MBT2 up. This is the video from outside of Epstein's cell. They released like 10 hours of video that shows no one going into the cell that is supposed to definitively prove that he did in fact, quote, unquote, kill himself.
- [70:08]
Krystal Ball
And this is the available footage that again, an Inspector's general report from 2023 talked about. They said the available recorded video footage from the one Shu camera captured a large part of the common area of the SHU and portions of the stairways leading to the different different tiers, including Epstein's cell tier. Thus, anyone entering or attempting to enter Epstein's tier from the common area would have been picked up by that video camera. And Epstein's cell door was not in the camera's field of view. And reviewed the video and found that between approximately 10:40 and 6:30, no one was seen entering Epstein's cell tier from that common area. So again, we've known this stuff since 2023. The question is, if Epstein's cell door is not on the camera's field of view, what is going on? The question is why? If you look at the letter that the DOJ put out, they say that they are not going to release any of the allegedly thousands. They say they have thousands of videos of Jeffrey Epstein and images, some of which involve victims. They say they're not putting any of it out because it would be inappropriate to put basically this disgusting material into the public view re traumatizing victims. Absolutely, truly true. But to say that we are literally closing the case and you are not getting a single shred of evidence from this trove that we apparently have, some of which is just Epstein, I guess, talking to a camera, that's insane.
- [71:27]
Sagar Enjeti
Right?
- [71:27]
Krystal Ball
We don't even need to say that it's insane, but it's worth saying this is so insane.
- [71:31]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, okay, so we've got a few things going on here. We've got number one, the Trump Epstein connections, which, look, Steve Bannon himself said he thought the Jeffrey Epstein was the only person who could take Trump down. So they're interesting point, long relationship, who knows? Okay. And you have, as Emily very effectively put out all of these different Epstein connected people in the first Trump administration and in this one. And you also have. So you've got the battle with Elon Musk erupting again. And Elon had threatened previously, basically like, oh, by the way, Trump's in the Epstein file, like accusing him of being a pedophile. And then you have Bibi Netanyahu in town.
- [72:12]
Krystal Ball
Exactly.
- [72:13]
Sagar Enjeti
And there are a lot of suggestions that what Epstein was really up to is he wasn't just freelancing as a horrifying sex trafficking pedophile monster, but he was linked to Mossad specifically and was trying to gather information about various powerful people so it could be used to coerce and influence American policy and foreign policy around the world. We know that he had connections with Ehud Barak, invested in some Israeli defense startup, Ghislaine Maxwell's Father appears to have been linked to Mossad.
- [72:51]
Krystal Ball
Yes.
- [72:51]
Sagar Enjeti
So that's always been sort of. I mean, the part about what powerful people were ensnared, obviously that's important. This, like, criminal mass enterprise, obviously that's important. But even more significant in terms of our ongoing foreign policy and the type of tactics that would be deployed would be information around whether he was in fact, a Mossad asset who was trying to entrap people and coerce them and be able to drive American foreign policy. So it was also not lost on me that this nothing to see here, no incriminating client list. Case closed. Comes the night before Bibi Netanyahu arrives into town. And at the time that he is having this blow up with Elon Musk, that timing seems so incredibly suspicious.
- [73:41]
Krystal Ball
It is also quite interesting that on a Sunday night, they gave Axios the exclusive on the story. It is beyond bizarre. Alex Eisenstadt, obviously, good for him for getting the scoop. But on a Sunday night, the administration gives a memo saying they're just closing up the Epstein file to Axios. They just have their big victory. One big, beautiful bill, generational piece of Republican legislation, as they see it, that they signed on the 4th of July a couple of days earlier. They have Netanyahu coming on Monday. What a great time, if you're a political strategist, to bury a piece of news like this or to attempt to bury a piece of news like this. And the Mossad connections cannot be understated. I'm reading from the Times of Israel here. The Times of Israel mentioned that Robert Maxwell, who many people actually think was killed by Mossad, but we don't have to even go down that rabbit hole. He is buried on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives. Many members of the Israeli intelligence community attended his funeral. So did Yitzhak Shamir, Israel's then Prime minister. Shamir eulogized the British tycoon for the political connections he brought to Israel during the 1980s and for the money he invested in it. That's obviously to going Gillian Maxwell's father, as Crystal noted, and someone that Jeffrey Epstein knew well.
- [74:56]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. And for people out there who would say, okay, well, if there's anything bad about Trump in this information, why wouldn't the Democrats, why wouldn't Joe Biden have put this out previously? This is the answer. It's because they also, I mean, first of all, it's a bipartisan affair. Like we know about Bill Clinton being on the plane and whatever as well. Right. But second of all, no Republican or Democratic administration is going to want to reveal the truth, if the truth is, in fact, that Jeffrey Epstein is a Mossad asset or was a Mossad asset.
- [75:29]
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
- [75:29]
Sagar Enjeti
So I don't know, guys. I mean, just to me, too, just the political stupidity, it's so idiotic. It seems so suspicious to be like, on eve of Bibi Netanyahu coming to town while I'm having the same fight with Elon and after my base has been really very interested in this whole case to just be, oh, nothing to see here. Case closed. We're not giving you any evidence, and we're moving on after. By the way, we didn't play this up, but Pam Bondi had literally said just months ago, I have the Epstein client list on my desk.
- [76:01]
Krystal Ball
She said it on Fox News.
- [76:03]
Sagar Enjeti
On Fox News, she says this, and it indicates she's going through thousands of hours of material and it's all going to be revealed. And the influencer binder situation, that was just phase one. And she's gonna get to it. And now she's gone from client list on my desk to, there was no client list, actually.
- [76:21]
Krystal Ball
And Cash Patel and Dan Bongino were pretty vocal members of the MAGA community, insisting that there was something weird about Epstein going on and that if they were put in government implications, that we'll come in and we'll be transparent.
- [76:40]
Sagar Enjeti
We're going to reveal the truth and.
- [76:41]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, tell the public.
- [76:43]
Sagar Enjeti
Even though Trump himself was always very, very squeamish on that country.
- [76:47]
Krystal Ball
Yes. Rachel Campos Duffy asked him that question on Fox News, and you could see the squeamishness from Trump at that point where he said he was going to be open about RFK files and JFK files and MLK files. And then Epstein, well, maybe we'll take a look at it. You'd have to go back and watch the video. But it was. It was conspicuous at the time.
- [77:08]
Sagar Enjeti
And they edited it to make it look like he was just like, yeah. But he goes, yeah, well, we have to look. And private people may be involved. And that's a tougher one. That's a tougher one.
- [77:17]
Krystal Ball
And he also, people remember, as we're just like, listing all of the interesting moments and connections from Trump world and Epstein world. He wished Ghislaine Maxwell well when he got a question about her being in prison. This was. I want to say this was early 2020, around that time.
- [77:34]
Sagar Enjeti
It was towards the end of his first administration.
- [77:36]
Krystal Ball
And then you have, yeah, Cash Patel going on Joe Rogan and Dan Bongino and Cash Patel doing that joint, I think it was a farm news interview together. Looking like they were ashen faced and pale and just insisting that they absolutely there was nothing to see. No, there, there. I mean it's just crystal. You started this by saying you couldn't write this. Technically you could write this. It's just that everyone would be like they couldn't, they wouldn't be that dumb.
- [78:04]
Sagar Enjeti
Right?
- [78:05]
Krystal Ball
They couldn't be that dumb.
- [78:05]
Sagar Enjeti
They got to do a little bit, a little bit better than this.
- [78:09]
Krystal Ball
You would think the strategy would just be to like not just stop, just say you're working on it. Yeah, just over and over. Say you're working on it and it'll wear thin. But it's not a two term administration. In all likelihood just try to run out the clock from a political, cynical political strategy perspective. Can't even do that.
- [78:27]
Sagar Enjeti
Incredible.
- [78:46]
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