← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
9/29/25: Dems Vs Trump On Gov Shutdown, Multiple Shootings Across US, Bibi Brags About Social Media Control
01:10:21
Loading summary
Transcript164 lines
- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:06]
Annabe Sofa Advertiser
Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Annabe, you never have to stress about messes again. @washablesofas.com Discover Annabe sofas the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [01:05]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with every LG XBoom and for a limited time save 25% at LG.com with code fall25 bring the boom XBoom.
- [01:35]
Variety Podcast Host
There's a lot going on in Hollywood. How are you supposed to stay on top of it all? Variety has the solution. Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.
- [01:49]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Where do you see the business actually heading?
- [01:51]
Variety Podcast Host
Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co Editor in Chief Cynthia Littleton.
- [01:57]
Krystal Ball
The only constant in Hollywood is change.
- [02:00]
Variety Podcast Host
Open your free iHeartradio app, search daily Variety and listen now.
- [02:05]
Krystal Ball
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [02:07]
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.
- [02:14]
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.
- [02:20]
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.
- [02:31]
Krystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning everybody. Happy Monday have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
- [02:43]
Saagar Enjeti
Indeed we do. Government shutdown possibility. This week we will break down the details of what exactly this fight is over. Also, there was a rash of mass shootings over the weekend. Truly horrifying stuff. We'll break down for you what we know about those killers and the loss of life therein. Bibi bragging about acquiring TikTok. Guys are definitely gonna enjoy that segment. We've got Eric Adams officially dropping out of the New York City mayoral race and some people calling on on Sliwa also to get out of the race. So it's a head to head spoiler alert, alert. Cuomo would still lose to Zoron, but some interesting stuff there. We've also got Zoron going back and forth with the adl. Trump announces invasion of Portland. Ken Klippenstein is gonna join us with the latest reporting with regard to their national security crackdown. And comedians flocking payday in Saudi Arabia and a lot of dissent within the community. So that's an interesting one for sure.
- [03:37]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, there is some things to say about it and I'm excited actually to cover that and at least get some culture in the news. Thank you to everybody who's been supporting the show. BreakingPoints.com We've had banner month here on YouTube, so thank you all as well for those. If you can't support the show, no worries. Just please go ahead and hit the subscribe button on YouTube. And if you're listening to this on a podcast, please just go ahead and rate us 5 stars and send an episode to a friend. It really just helps us grow. Word of mouth is the best advertising there is and we don't spend a dollar on any of that. All right, let's go ahead and start with the government shutdown. As Crystal said, tomorrow is the official deadline at midnight. And it does look all roads currently lead to a shutdown, although we will talk soon about whether the Democrats will cave or not. But here we have the initial word from the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, basically saying we're not negotiating at all, calling the Democrats bluff. So we'll see what happens. Let's take a listen. So just to be clear, there's not going to be any negotiation at this meeting. This is just going to be you and Thune and Trump telling Jeffries and Schumer we're not giving you anything. Look, I'm not going to get in front of the president and tell you what he will do. But I've talked with him, you know, a couple of times, even yesterday. And I'm telling you where his head is. He wants to bring in the leaders to come in and act like leaders and do the right thing for the American people. It's fine to have partisan debates and squabbles, but you don't hold the people hostage for their services to allow yourself political cover. And that's what Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are doing right now. So basically saying, we're gonna go to the meeting and we're gonna tell them we're not negotiating. This is gonna be them telling us, we are not giving you anything, Mike Johnson. That is where the President's head is at. And so the Republican strategy is kind of interesting. This has been telegraphed now for quite some time. We were talking about it a bit before the break, and there is the biggest is, are the Democrats gonna cave? Because for years, they went after the Republicans for manufactured shutdowns. They called them reckless. They said they were holding the government hostage. But the thing is, now the Democratic base is like, yeah, I wanna do some of that. They're like, give me some of that. Let's screw over Trump. But the X factor here is that Trump, and we'll get to this in a little bit, is also like, listen, if you guys are gonna shut the government down, then I'm gonna do some crazy stuff here and I'm gonna fire a bunch of government employees. I'm gonna do whatever I want with the government. Ton of unilateral authority on how to actually execute a shutdown. The Obama. I remember the 2013, the quote, Boehner shutdown, as Obama called it at the time. They were furious because the Republicans shut the government down. And Obama was like, all right, I'm gonna close all the national parks. And they're like, well, you didn't actually have to close the national parks. He's like, yeah, but I can. To show the public what you're doing. Eventually, they did cave. To be fair, there was a government shutdown under Donald Trump. I covered that day in and day out. He caved completely to Chuck Schumer and to Nancy Pelosi. It was over border wall funding. But after a while, he folded completely to the pressure. And, you know, a lot of the public was actually pretty upset about it too. So shut down politics are very, very hard to predict. But, yeah, the big question, are the Democrats going to fold? No idea.
- [06:47]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, and so it really rests on Chuck Schumer's shoulders because the dynamics here are, you know, they need to pass a funding Bill, the funding bill, cuz Republicans have control of the House, has already passed the House. So that's done and D now it needs to get through the Senate. The Senate, you need Democrats help because of that 60 vote filibuster rule. So that's why you have this dynamic. And there's no doubt that Schumer wants to cave. I think he didn't wanna do this to begin with, to be totally honest with you, but he's feeling the pressure from Democratic base. That's like, when are you all gonna actually fight? And the dynamics for Democrats are pretty grim. They don't have, you know, they don't have the House, they don't have the Senate, they don't have the presidency.
- [07:29]
Krystal Ball
They.
- [07:29]
Saagar Enjeti
So this is one of the only times that Republicans need them. There was another time earlier in this Trump administration where the base again really wanted leaders to fight. The Democratic leadership decided not to fight at that time and to completely stand down. They have been raked across the coals from their own people ever since that moment. And so that's why they feel pressure to do something this time. So what they've decided to draw the line around is these health care subsidies. So they're really making a stand saying, we are not gonna vote for this bill unless you restore these Affordable Care act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year. And the basic dynamic is you've got Republicans kind of divided on what to do about those subsidies. I think that's why Democrats see this as a winning issue. Not to mention, obviously it's very popular to continue the subsidies because if you don't, you're going to have millions of people who ultimately will be unable to afford health care through the ACA exchanges and you're going to have premiums spike dramatically for some 22 million Americans. So there are a lot of Republicans, including actually Trump's pollster Tony Fabrizio, who have warned about these premium spikes, saying, hey Republicans, if you guys let this happen, this is actually going to be a political problem for you. You have some Republican moderates who want to extend those subsidies, some more hardline like fiscal hawk types who don't want to extend those subsidies. And so that's why they kind of picked this issue for the fight, because they feel like it's a popular one and one where the MAGA base is divided.
- [08:56]
Krystal Ball
No, it's smart. I'd give it to him as you, by the way, two ACA members here, right? Small business owners. So looking at 18% increase, plenty expensive. Thank you President Trump for that one. Especially when you have a child and your premium goes up by 50% and you're like, oh, wow, okay, all right, now imagine having a couple of them. I can't even put myself in that headspace. But the point actually around this is I think they backed their way into a shutdown. And that's very much the same way that the Republicans back in 2003, 2013. And also, I'm trying to remember a few of the initial Tea Party waves is, look, they just wanted to shut down, like at the end of the day, and then they would pick the issue of which they were gonna fight and try to mobilize the base on. At the end of the day, it's like the Seinfeld thing. It's like a shutdown about nothing. But it's a shutdown for the sake of satisfying all institutional politics. I do really wonder, though, how this rubs up against Democrats, because they really were the party of norms and of perpetuating them. And that's still where the Senate broadly is. Right? Like, that's who Schumer. Schumer and a lot of his 65, 78 year old colleagues. These are institutionalists. They don't like to see what the Republicans did. They hated Mike Lee and Ted Cruz and these new bomb throwers. And the thing is, because we're not yet in the post 2026 period where some new blood of some sort is gonna come into the Democratic Party, who would really be rallying this? Yeah, the Republicans right now or the Democrats right now are so torn. And you see this in Schumer's comments, Bruce, word he had to say recently, just yesterday on Meet the Press. Let's take a listen. The bottom line is very simple, Kristen. It's up to them. If they come into the meeting to seriously negotiate. And the reason we've been pushing for months, we've been resolute that we need a meeting, that we need a real negotiation, that you don't do this by one party putting together a completely partisan bill and saying, take it or leave it. So they felt the heat. The president at first said no. Remember, he first said yes for a meeting, then he said no for a meeting. He went on a rant against Democrats. But I think they felt the heat and they now wanna sit down. But the fundamental question hasn't been answered yet. And we'll see on Monday. I mean, you know, we need to see. It's just kind of weak, in my opinion.
- [11:07]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, well, did you see, did you see his answer when they Asked him like, oh, what are you gonna do? We're gonna cover Trump threatening Portland with invasion, full force if necessary. And they're like, what are you gonna do about this? He's like, well, I would hope there are some Republicans who would object. Like, dude. And you were laying this out. Like, this is really kind of the fundamental divide between where Democratic leadership is and where the base is. Leadership is still in this, like, sort of normal politics mode. Like, I'm gonna reach across the aisle and we're gonna get a bipartisan deal done. And we wanna maintain the norms and institutions. And the base is like, no, fucking burn it down. Like, even if there are consequences, even if it's risky, we want to see you fight. And even on the healthcare thing, like, what the bas want them to fight on is health care. Yes. But also you need to get your troops out of American cities. Like, the sort of fascist crackdown aspect of the Trump administration is what the base. Yeah. Is where the base would really want them to pick a fight. I'm under no illusion that Chuck Schumer's gonna pick a fight over Israel, but those are the areas where I think the Democratic base is most inflamed and would like to see them fight. They're like, trying to be. I think you said this too cute by half with the healthcare thing. Yes. It's a really important issue. Okay. We're talking about millions of people, cost of healthcare. This is critically important. But you can also kind of see just the, like, the political machinations are a little too negative. Like, we poll tested this and this is what our focus group said. And this is where we know that the MAGA base and the Republican electeds are divided. And so that's why we're picking this particular spot as well.
- [12:37]
Krystal Ball
Absolutely. We should also think back to the way the Republicans did. I mean, look, if you want to take a page out of political effectiveness, the Republican Party has been very good at this over the last decade so. The 2013 shutdown was broad. It's not. Not just the 2013 shutdown. Cause some of that was ACA. But to be fair, that's where the Republican base was. Right. They were like, no, we're done with Obamacare. The future fights that the Republicans picked with Obama were all on illegal immigration, which by the way, the polling was not necessarily like on their side, quote unquote. But that's where the base was and they listened. I think that's though, the reason why is because they had Tea Party. Like the Dems have still not Gotten truly smacked with reality about where their base is. Eventually, after the Dave Brat stuff with Eric Cantor, they're like, all right, it's a matter of political survival. They're like, this is what we have to do. Brat beat Cantor purely on the issue of immigration. And then, obviously, Trump comes in, 2016, wins the primary, probably based on that message more than anything. And so when you put that together and you can also see that's what fight and being, you know, that's what fight. And with the base politics and trying to move the country looks like that's what a real political effective party ultimately is all about. And so with Trump, though, and this is where the norms thing is all gonna come into play, because Trump doesn't care about norms. So let's go and put a 3 up on the screen. He just gave an interview to C. It was by the phone, so we're just pulling some of the quotes. He says, quote, I just don't know how we're going to solve this issue. Trump said. A source close to Trump told cbs, the president privately welcomes the prospect of a shutdown because it enables him to wield executive power to slash government programs and salaries. And so that kind of leads into a four. We can put that on the screen. Behind the scenes, the White House is very happy about a shutdown. They say that they can just use it as an excuse for mass layoffs, for deregulation, and for military deployments. Because one of the things with shutdowns is they always pay the troops. So it's one of those where everybody pays the troops, everybody makes sure Social Security goes out, everybody else kind of comes down. But the thing is, is that because of their extraordinary powers, as I said, the executive under a shutdown, while technically is not supposed to be able to do whatever it wants, it basically can do whatever it wants and declare whoever they want essential. So for them, they're like, oh, okay, cool. So we don't have to run this Department of Education. We'll just do ice. The military and Social Security, they're like, good luck Democrats. Right? And so, I mean, kind of smart, to be honest, because, you know, they borrowed that page from previous shutdowns under Clinton and under Obama, where as they continually had to, as the executives started to grapple with what shutdown means, they became very good at saying, all right, we're gonna use it for political purposes. We're gonna do whatever we want. I think the Democratic response is, Trump does whatever he wants anyways. Right? That's exactly. Yeah.
- [15:16]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't know, it's funny there. Put that headline back up on the screen because it makes the point. They're like, like layoffs, deregulation and military deployments. He's literally already doing all of those. So that's why I think the base in particular feels like, where's the threat? You're already doing whatever you want with your executive power. You're already acting like a king and have zero checks on you. So this is the only bit of power that Democrats can wield whatsoever. So that's why they're like, you have Chuck Schumer. You have to fight, you have to do something here. And you know, I mean, the problem for Democrats is that their leadership is extremely weak. They're extremely poor messengers. Trump is an extremely effective and relentless messenger. And that's what the shutdown politics end up usually boiling down to. Like, who can message the public better, you know, which side. And look, the Democrats have a decent hand to play because they can say, listen, just give us, just make sure Americans health care premiums aren't going to go up. That's it. That's all you have to do. And we'll go along with your thing. Why is this so hard? Many of you are saying you want to do this anyway. So they have a decent plan to play. Do they have a decent player to play that hand? Really? Not so much. Yeah.
- [16:29]
Krystal Ball
Let's go through the history of the government shutdown. So the most recent government shutdown was the one I believe under, well, prolonged government shutdown. There's been many shutdowns, 24 hours or whatever, that didn't really matter. But in January 2018, there was a three day shutdown. That's when they did a filibuster over DACA. But ultimately they caved. So you could see that it wasn't particularly successful. The big one was the 35 day shutdown. I have the timeline right now in front of me. That was December 22, 2018. I remember. Cause Trump was in the White House all alone and he was like, I'm all alone here in the White House. Democrats, he's like, please, wild times. But that one again was over border security. And even though Trump dragged it out for a month, yeah, he ultimately came because what happens is, and this is all about timing as well. The longer it goes, the executive seems to get some of the blame, even with good politics or good messaging. Just because people get sick of no government services or, you know, here in Washington, I mean, we feel it the most. Right? Because we have all these federal government workers, but in general, like the federal government is the biggest employer. You never know. We could listen, we're heading into hurricane season. Like you really want them shut down with a hurricane, it could be politically disastrous for the administration prior to that. So this was a 2013 shutdown. That was the ACA one. That was 16 days. And then obviously President Clinton had a 21 day shutdown over with Gingrich. I'm not as familiar with the details of that one. I've read a little bit about it, but broadly it looked like Clinton was the victor in that Shutdown. In the 2013 shutdown. I think it's pretty unambiguous that Obama was the broad victor on the politics there. Yeah, if you think with Trump, he was definitely the loser against Schumer and against Pelosi, there's no honest assessment because he literally gave up nothing after 35 days. So that's what I mean, we just don't know where these things would go. I think it'd be smart for the Democrats to shut down. I mean, look, it's not only where the base wants it, but also because the base is already pissed off at Trump for like extraordinary action and he does it anyways. It's like, okay, whatever. And I mean look, it's kind of in a bidirectional. The Republicans base would also love it too. They're like, great, now we get to do whatever we want. So I don't see as much. And I don't know right now I'd put my money on Dem's caving at some point either immediately. I don't know if they'll cave immediately, but a 72 hour shutdown and then they're like, oh my God, Trump just fired 15,000 employees. You could see it.
- [18:54]
Annabe Sofa Advertiser
Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? WashablesOfAs.com has your back. Featuring the Annabe collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out. Where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right. Sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anna Bay sofa backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return, shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back. Upgrade now@washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [19:54]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG XBoom and for a limited time, save 25%@LG.com with code fall25. Bring the boom XBoom.
- [20:25]
Variety Podcast Host
There's a lot going on in Hollywood. How are you supposed to stay on.
- [20:28]
Saagar Enjeti
Top of it all?
- [20:29]
Variety Podcast Host
Variety has the solution. Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new daily Variety podcast podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.
- [20:39]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Where do you see the business actually heading?
- [20:41]
Variety Podcast Host
Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co editor in chief Cynthia Littleton.
- [20:47]
Krystal Ball
The only constant in Hollywood is change.
- [20:49]
Variety Podcast Host
Open your free iHeartradio app, search daily Variety and listen now.
- [20:56]
Saagar Enjeti
One thing to mention about the previous shutdown that you said, you know, Trump lost and Pelosi and Schumer won. Pelosi and Schumer. Pelosi is a much better tactician, much fiercer, much better messenger. Think and feel however you want about her. She is a much better politician than Chuck Schumer is. I think that much is totally clear. So this now resting on the shoulders of Chuck Schumer and like, kind of Hakeem Jeffries is like, shouldn't be too confidence inspiring here in terms of, you know, how the Democratic base being able to pull off something that approaches a victory. The other thing that's worth saying is let's say that we're wrong, that it's actually Trump that caves. That's like, you know what? I wanna make sure everybody has their healthcare. We're gonna do a great thing for the people. We're gonna make sure everybody has healthcare, Right? Let's say that he does that. There is nothing that would require him to keep that deal. Because you just had a Supreme Court, once again, shadow docket ruling that essentially allowed them to go forward with what's called a pocket rescission, meaning that Congress can authorize, let's say, the ACA subsidy extension and then he can just decide not to do it. The Supreme Court now hasn't ruled officially fully on the merits of that, but until they do, and God only knows when that will happen, he can do whatever he wants. He is not obligated. And this is completely different. Okay. Power of the purse is supposed to be with Congress. Supreme Court has, at least for now, greenlit him being able to back out of whatever deal that he strikes here and say, no, you know what, I changed my mind. I don't wanna do the healthcare subsidies ultimately. So that's an important dynamic to keep in mind here as well as we move into these negotiations.
- [22:34]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, let's put a five on the screen. I've seen this. A lot of progressive Democrats passing this one around.
- [22:39]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, my God. So you can't make it up.
- [22:42]
Krystal Ball
In the midst of shutdown planning, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has circulated an invitation for a, quote, Napa retreat on October 3.
- [22:49]
Saagar Enjeti
The wine cave is back, y'.
- [22:50]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
All.
- [22:50]
Krystal Ball
That's what I was gonna say. The wine cave. The infamous wine caveat. Should the government shut down, the retreat would fall on what might be day 12 of the shutdown. The itinerary features accommodations at the Hotel Utenville with a resort and spa that extends a Tuscan European vibe.
- [23:04]
Saagar Enjeti
I love it.
- [23:04]
Krystal Ball
And a wine tour and dinner at the Staglin family vineyards. And amidst its wine caves. The plan for the luxury trip comes amidst Trump administration's threat of mass firings for federal workers. A Democrat briefed on the event tells us is also slated to include Representative Haley Stevens, who is campaigning for a state's open Senate seat as a gritty daughter of the Midwest. So, and that's important with these Michigan Dems. Slotkin recently talking about. Remember when she was on Colbert after our show and she was like, these are just corn fed folks. No, they're not. Okay, Like CIA people are not corn fed folks. Well, they're Yale Harvard graduates, nerds, you know, just stop.
- [23:44]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, the other thing that's just a little note there is. So this is a dscc. So that's a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. And they invited Haley Stevens, who's running in the Democratic primary for that Michigan Senate seat. But she, you know, she's up against two other significant contenders. That would be Abdul Al said and Mallory McMurra. So this is also the DSCC putting their thumb on the scale for Ms. Haley Stevens, who, by the way, has received some $5 million in Israel lobby funding. So just so you know.
- [24:15]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that's. I don't know. Dems need to get their act together with the base. Like, you guys need to fight. And I know, look, it's coming from me, just whatever. But I don't see, like, at this Point, the Tea Party action people were barnstorming the country in this point in the Obama administration. They were everywhere. Yes, the cope is always like, oh, but that was all billionaire funded. Oh yeah, there's no Democrats who fund the billionaires. Like come on, like what are you guys doing?
- [24:42]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, but the billionaires don't want this kind of thing.
- [24:44]
Krystal Ball
But then why not?
- [24:46]
Saagar Enjeti
They don't want the, yeah, they don't want the, you know, the, like pro Palestine, you know, tax the rich. That's where the energy is the party and that's not where the billionaires are.
- [24:56]
Krystal Ball
Then get your shit together. Because at this point, like you need to organize, you need to do something because you are not currently on track to deliver the type of success that the Tea Party was able to cause. That was about money plus grassroots. That's ultimately. And I think the grassroots. Everyone always tries to say the Tea Party was astroturf. Sorry, it wasn't. It was like actual mass outrage. Yes, there was a lot of money backing it that helped, you know, all that stuff. This is the truth. With all grassroots style movements, there's money in all kinds of special interest groups. It's only when you have an issue that actually resonates are you able to do anything. So if the Democratic base does not gonna have their billionaires, then do something about it. Like you need to form your political action committees, get out there, create the litmus test for candidates. Actually just hammer the shit out of em. Create and find your slate of issues and then you have to hold the line. You're like, if you do not support that issue, we will not vote for you. Like if you do not commit immediately to making sure that we're no longer with Chuck Schumer, that we're gonna defund Trump or whatever, pick your issue, then you're not gonna do anything. Because in the absence, these Haley Stevens people can always come around. This is what the pro Republican establishment politicians would do. They're like, but I'm fighting against Obama. And they're like, whoa, yeah, but we need you to fight against Obama on our terms. You don't just get to say fighting Obama. Same thing here. You can't just say, oh, DRUMPF is bad. It's like, is that it? Right? Because that's the easiest possible slate. I don't think the Dems have gotten their act together, period. Obviously not gonna come from the national level, but I don't even see it at the grassroots level. Like people need to show up. You know, there's some campaign canaries in the Coal mine.
- [26:31]
Saagar Enjeti
You've got Zoron being most important.
- [26:34]
Krystal Ball
He's an extraordinary politician. Very different circumstances. Very, very liberal city and base. Like what made the Tea Party extraordinary was we're going into the Blue Dogs and we're blowing them out. You know, we're going into the. The primaries were primaring people. We're making their life hell. Eric Cantor spent more on steak here at a steakhouse in Washington than Dave Brat spent on his entire campaign. Like, you gotta fight back against that.
- [26:59]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I hear you on all of that and I do wanna see more. But I will say also with Dave Brat, it's not like you would've said, oh, there's this organized like Dave Brat move. It came out of nowhere. And there are a lot of things like that that are happening. So just to name a few. Obviously Zoran, obviously Graham Platner. We already name checked Abdul Al Said, who are drawing really hard lines. We're not gonna vote for Chuck Schumer. We are pro Palestine. This is genocide. Like going hard. You also have Cori Bush has jumped back into the race. Yeah. Against Wesley Bell, who's one of the top like AIPAC recipients in Congress and constantly shilling for them. Just signed a letter against recognizing a Palestinian state. You've got Shoikat Chakrabati, who was AOC's chief of staff, who's running against Nancy Pelosi. I actually don't think Pelosi has officially announced.
- [27:43]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, she has.
- [27:44]
Saagar Enjeti
That she's running again. But he just released some internal polling that showed him actually faring pretty competitively with her, which is a lat is a shocking turn of events.
- [27:53]
Krystal Ball
That's true.
- [27:53]
Saagar Enjeti
That anyone could even be in the race. And there are more, many that I don't even know their names. So you do have these dynamics playing out in primaries. You're right. And I ran in that 2010 tea party year, so I can tell you for sure the energy was real. Right. There was funding from the top. There's no doubt about it. But there was also a genuine backlash to Obama that was being expressed at that time. There's no doubt about it. It here you have also that genuine Democratic base backlash, but somewhat more inchoate and less sort of like organized than it was. No, it's worth saying too. It is still pretty early. Like we're still. The formation of primary fields is happening right now. And part of why Schumer feels like he has to do this, which is not something he wants to do again, he feels like he has to because he feels the heat from his base. There's no doubt that if he runs again and AOC runs against him in a primary, like he's going to lose. And he's aware of that polling. I'm sure he's aware of the way that people perceive him and how they don't see him because he hasn't as being any sort of a fighter. And so even the fact that they're picking this fight is an expression of how they are feeling pressured by their own base.
- [29:07]
Krystal Ball
Very well said. I just. People don't. If you're too young and you don't remember the Tea Party Party, here's what happened. Plus 63 GOP seats, plus six GOP seats in the Senate, plus six GOP governors. The biggest midterm victory for a party since 1938. You have that same type of energy if you want it.
- [29:24]
Saagar Enjeti
And state level.
- [29:26]
Krystal Ball
Right. And I didn't even get into that state legislature was a thousand state legislators.
- [29:29]
Saagar Enjeti
It was massive. And which that the terms for redistricting, which ended up being, you know, continues to be consequential.
- [29:36]
Krystal Ball
Very well said. And that's my point is I don't, I just don't see that. Yeah, Here, okay. I have it here. 20 state legislative chambers which flipped, which was specifically important for the 2010 census for redistricting. That's what power actually looks like. I just don't see it yet. You could be right. It could come, you can have some organic. But there's a big difference, let's say between a 25 point swing and a 60 point swing, like to make it extraordinary and to just like punch the administration, like if you want it in the face. But I don't know right now there's not enough seriousness of taking control. I think it largely has to do with the establishment and the way that they think because fundamentally to their money, bottom line, issue set, et cetera. It really is an existential threat. But you gotta keep in mind it was very similar for the Republicans too. For a lot of these establishment Republicans, the way that they did business back in 2009 was completely disrupted and destroyed. You can only teach them by hitting them. There's no other way. So we'll see. I don't know. I personally again, I think the Dems are gonna blink. I just think that they're so married to like the federal government as an idea that the mere prospect of mass firing, like you're gonna put it against, you know, you're gonna put it past Trump to fire 25, 30, 40, 50,000 workers like he will. Right. And they're gonna freak out about that. That's a big part of the 2018 shutdown. Part of the reason that Trump cave. But the big Democratic message was all these federal government employees are not getting their paychecks. Right. It's devastating. So there's like a religious marriage between the bureaucrat and the Democratic Party that I'm not sure at the institutional level. I don't know if they're willing to stomach what it takes to actually go through it.
- [31:17]
Saagar Enjeti
No, we'll see. I think, like I said, I don't think Schumer wants to do this fight. He's forced into it. And so I think probably his plan is like, let me put up some sort of show of resistance. And then once I get cred with the base for having allowed a shutdown to go through or stood up to Trump or whatever, then I'm gonna find some way to walk back from this ledge. That would be my guess of his plan.
- [31:40]
Krystal Ball
But don't you think a 72 hour cave is worse than a shutdown? If you're gonna cave, then just cave.
- [31:45]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't think he. I don't even have to say I don't think. I know that. These Democrats are totally out of touch with where the base is and what they want and how sort of radicalized they've become in this moment. And part of their radicalization is about what Trump is doing, and part of it is about the failures of their own media apparatus and their leadership. And I say I know that they're out of touch with this because in particular, one of the manifestations of this frustration is obviously on Israel. And you still see them all out there trying to find some middle ground and tiptoe around it. Hakeem Jeffries still not endorsing Zoran. I mean, it's completely insane. And, like, you all have no idea how loathed you are by your own Democratic base. I mean, Zoran outperformed Hakeem Jeffries by like 20 points or something ridiculous in his own district. And I don't think they've internalized that. And I'm not sure what it's gonna take for them to internalize that. I don't know what their Dave Brat moment is going to be, but one of those is coming where they're gonna realize like, oh, we really are in trouble here with our own people.
- [32:49]
Krystal Ball
You know why? I hope so, because politics should matter. The expression of your vot actually matter. And the one thing I think you can say about the Republicans is they mostly do what their base kind of wants them to do. And they don't really care that much they do about the media or whatever. And there's just too much institutional elite worship. And fundamentally that's where my war is with these kind of that bipartisan, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer type style leadership. These people need to go. They're largely the ones responsible for even the reason, like where we are where we are today. So yeah, I would like to see them be punished and punished badly and because the voice of people actually should matter. And political leadership is supposed to be broadly reflective and there's actually no way to solve existential questions if you don't actually tackle them and if you just kind of put your blinders on and look past it and pretend that it's all fake. So we'll see. I am an accelerationist though, so that's me.
- [33:44]
Saagar Enjeti
Are you officially 100%?
- [33:46]
Krystal Ball
I've always been. I've heightened the contradictions. I think it's good.
- [33:50]
Annabe Sofa Advertiser
There's nothing like sinking into luxury. @washablesofas.com you'll find the Annabe sofa which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom. Starting at only $699, the stain resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop now@washablesofas.com Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [34:50]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because, let's be real, your music deserves the future of sound is now with LG XBoom and for a limited time save 25% at LG.com with code fall25. Bring the boom XBoom.
- [35:20]
Variety Podcast Host
There's a lot going on in Hollywood. How are you supposed to stay on top of it All Variety has the solution. Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.
- [35:34]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Where do you see the business actually heading?
- [35:36]
Variety Podcast Host
Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co editor in chief Cynthia Littleton.
- [35:42]
Krystal Ball
The only constant in Hollywood is change.
- [35:45]
Variety Podcast Host
Open your free iHeartradio app, search daily Variety and listen.
- [35:49]
Krystal Ball
Now let's get to the shootings.
- [35:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, very grim situation unfolding over the weekend. Four separate mass shootings. Let me give you the top line for all four and then we can take a look at the, I guess the most deadly one which was a Mormon a shooting at a Mormon church. So four dead and eight wounded there. Perpetrator was also killed in gunfight with cops. You had two killed and five injured in a casino in Texas. You had one dead and others injured in a neighborhood in Pennsylvania. And you had a gunman who killed three people and injured five others at a pac North Carolina waterfront bar. That suspect has been taken into custody. So I'll give you some details on all of these. But let's go ahead and start with this Mormon church shooting which is absolutely horrific. Can put these images up on the screen. You can see the church was not only so a pickup truck rammed into this church. The killer then shot indiscriminately at people. We don't have a lot of details about the exact sequence of how this unfolded. Law enforcement is also saying there were IEDs which were recovered from the scene. As I said before, the death toll has now risen to four killed and eight wounded. This was a Mormon church that was in Michigan. So truly horrifying series of events here. Let me go ahead and show you some images of the truck that rammed into the church here. You can see it there. People noted right away, of course, the American flags in the truck bed. And then also there was an Iraq war veteran lighting license plate on that truck. And sure enough actually put before up on the screen. It turns out that the alleged, we'll say killer here who also was, like I said, killed by law enforcement in a gun battle pretty quickly after this all unfolded. By the way, law enforcement is getting a lot of credit for their rapid response, preventing even additional loss of life from this horrific situation. So looks like this was an Iraq war Veteran, Thomas Sanford, ID'd as the gunman who attacked this church, killing two and setting it ablaze. Don't know a ton about him. He does have a young child, roughly 10 years old. He is married, served in Iraq for I think roughly four years overseas. Let's Go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of what law enforcement had to say. This is B3 during this incident.
- [38:14]
Krystal Ball
What we know right now is that a 40 year old suspect from Burton, he's a male, he drove his vehicle through the front doors of the church. He then exited his vehicle firing several rounds at individuals within the church. Ten gunshot victims have been transported to local hospitals at this time, including one who has been deceased. Officers who were trained immediately responded to the area. One was a DNR officer and then one was a Grand Blank Township officer where they met the suspect and they engaged in gunfire with that particular individual neutralizing that suspect. And that suspect is no longer with us. As I said, it is a 40 year old male from Burton.
- [39:07]
Saagar Enjeti
So as of now, Sagar, we have no idea about the motive here. Of course everyone quick looked to see what this guy's political affiliation was. He appears to be Republican, but it also appears like this is someone who was a veteran of one of our wars who apparently lost his mind. They're starting to talk to people who knew him. Haven't been able, the press hasn't been able to get in touch with the family. Like they're not responding, no surprise there. But the people they were able to speak to were like I would never in a million years think that this guy would do that. One thing they're looking at, I have no idea whether this is related or not, but the day before this shooting and attack occurred, Russell Nelson, the oldest ever president of the Mormon Church died at the age of 101. And then this is obviously an attack on the Mormon Church. Police are looking into whether that that's linked in any sort of a weird way. But it appears that this is someone who was mentally ill.
- [39:59]
Krystal Ball
There was an interview posted late last night of a local politician who was canvassing the area and he actually interacted with the suspect per his testimony. And what he said is that when listen, anybody who's involved in public life and you and I have been in this situation before, you get to meet the bottom 2% of the population who are like mentally ill and schizophrenic who have kind of crazy ideas. And he apparently court cornered this local politician and had that classic side of mental illness where on the surface perfectly nice guy within two minutes is talking about how LDS is the Antichrist, the Mormons. So you know, it's a listen, I mean the Mormons are a classic target unfortunately for a lot of people involved in like these wars over Christian theology. And it's a very easy Target in particular for somebody if you're mentally ill and if you're steeped in all of this and look pure speculation. But it's not a bar leap to say somebody who served in Iraq. If you look at the suicide rate, mental illness rate and the effect of what all that takes, not to mention he didn't seem to be doing particularly well, was living in substandard conditions. So you put all that together with what happened and it's very, it's a very tragic incident. Especially the Mormons. Always have been targets for people, for people like this. And it's really sad. I mean, you know, it's just these are people who are gathering. Some of the people who were shot were literal children. It's Sunday. It's supposed to be like a sacrosanct place. So it's just, it's a horrific tragedy. But it's one of those where when you put it together broadly and I, unfortunately I was not here for the ICE shooting, you guys did a good job. But the point around it is just look at these guys. It's like rampant mental illness throughout, throughout the country. And in the veteran case, I mean, look, we all agree, I think that nobody does nearly enough. It's highly inefficient. Even though the VA spends a ridiculous amount of money per patient, the services and the administration that they do, it's a disaster. Most of the veterans I speak to almost always have a substandard experience. It's very easy for guys like this to slip through the cracks. And it's obvious. I think it's pretty obvious to me that that's probably, probably what happened here. 0408 Some of the worst years to serve in Iraq, then you have a prolonged period of time. Mental illness can happen very quickly. It can be exacerbated, as we've talked about at length about drug use online, just periods of time you can snap and the slide through that is not a surprise. And the fact that this local politician is saying, I canvas this guy and within minutes he's telling me about how Antichrist and lds. Yes. Gives us a little bit of an insight, Right?
- [42:38]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, well. And that wasn't the only murderous shooting, mass shooting by an Iraq war veteran over this weekend. So we can put this next B5 up on the screen. This was at the North Carolina waterfront. So they say a lone gunman killed three people, injured five others at a pack North Carolina waterfront bar late Saturday. Police are describing it as a highly premeditated attack. This guy who now calls himself Nigel Max Edge he changed his name to that who's 40 years old. Old, detained by the Coast Guard, charged with three counts of first degree murder, five counts of attempted murder, five counts of assault with a deadly weapon, another. And he's another veteran of our war on terror foreign wars. So, you know, we don't know that much about this individual yet, what he was doing and saying. Police are calling this premeditated. We don't have a motive for this one either. But again, fits the, with the pattern of, look, we send these mostly men overseas and have them commit these horrific acts that haunt them. They come back home, they have very little support in terms of reintegration into society and then downstream from that you have horrific acts like this. This is not to like, I'm not trying to like smear, bespert, besmirch veterans whatsoever. Quite the contrary.
- [43:58]
Krystal Ball
It's their fault they were put in a disastrous situation.
- [44:00]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I'm saying that we should, we should pay a lot more attention to them. First of all, we shouldn't get into these foreign wars. And even outside of these individual violent incidents, there is a long term societal correlation of after you have a war, when people come back, there's a spike in violence, there's a spike in crime. Not to mention that then you have in our culture, it's a mass gun culture. One of the things that are in common with all of the mass shootings we've been talking about lately is all of the, these men were very proficient with firearms and been around them, highly trained on them, et cetera. And that's one of the dynamics here as well. But what's interesting is there's been very little journalistic interest in the question of what the blowback has been from what we did to these individuals when we sent them overseas for the Iraq and Afghanistan war in particular, I had to go back to, There was a 2000, 2008 New York Times investigation and they identified 121 homicides that were linked to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans from 2001 to 2008. And they found that was an 89% increase in such cases during wartime compared to before we went to war in Iraq. So they were able to establish somewhat of a, at least correlation and an uptick. And you know, you had similar instances after the Vietnam War as well that were, you know, tracked. Tracked closely too. So you have mass mental illness exacerbated in the veterans population because of what they've seen and what they've done and what they've been through and the total lack of support and complete neglect. And this is also not to let off the hook these killers, by the way, or just analyzing here the societal trends. And we end up with this explosion of violence and looking around and going, why does this only happen with us? I don't think it should be a mystery when you consider the combination of a combustible gun culture, rampant untreated mental illness, and a society that's kind of coming apart at the seams.
- [45:58]
Krystal Ball
Of course, I don't think you can deny any of that. I mean, I know the gun culture thing is one of those where people really latch onto and I get it. But if you look at it practically like we've talked about, the Charlie Kirk shooting ad nauseam is a bolt action rifle. It's never getting banned under, quote, unquote, it's not going to be banned under, under even the most extreme liberal gun control law.
- [46:20]
Saagar Enjeti
I am fairly hopeless about any sort of gun control measure that would really deal with the problem for exactly the reasons you're stating. But in analyzing all of these things and why we have these mass shootings and other countries, don't you have to name it as a faction? Because, I mean, part of why. Yeah, and part of why Tyler Robinson's able to allegedly take that shot is because he's raised in that culture. He's very comfortable with weapons, he knows what he's doing, he's a proficient marksman, et cetera. So that's, I'm just pointing to those facts. Obviously these are military trained.
- [46:52]
Krystal Ball
No one's going to deny that having 400 million guns in the country does not make it unique. I think it's just frankly a constant. It's not going to change. And I mean, we've had a lot of debates here. I don't really think it should change. But you know, if to echo what Charlie Kirk once said, when you have a nation with the second Amendment, you do accept a certain level of violence that is not going to be seen in other societies. That is a simple constant. Now of course, you know, everyone always likes, like to post that as some sort of own. It's like, well, you know, if you have other countries, they don't have like even close, they have. You're worried about authoritarianism and fascism and all that in America. It's like, well, look at a lot of other countries which are western but with no guns. It's very, very different in terms of their culture and the level of subservience that those people put up with from the government. So that's part of what the Czech is supposed to be now, all kinds of debates about AR15s and, you know, magazines, et cetera. Most of which I think is silly and brown doesn't work. But dealing with where we are right now, the veteran piece, the mental illness piece, but also, look, I mean, I was not able to join for that ice shooting, but thank you for bringing up on my behalf. Drug use and weed use was a big part of it. And everybody just wants to move past it and listen, it's one, it's not all of it, but. Oh, it just turns out that this ice shooter is, quote, obsessed with weed. I've been trying to tell people that the reflection of what we see from legalized marijuana, from just this culture of degeneracy. Turn on football. You know, I've been watching football this season. Cause I can't leave my house from the baby. Everything is just Arby's, gambling and booze. It's like, oh, do we do anything else in this country other than get fat as shit and watch TV and drink alcohol? Apparently that's not what anyone. I mean, the few spare bucks that you should probably save, you're gonna put on your shitty parlay, which you're 100% going to lose. It's like an opiate of the masses, quite literally. And that leads to a lot of downstream hopelessness. I've talked about this with gambling. If you look at the data, legalized gambling, and in particular when a home team loses, the data tells us that domestic violence goes up. That's what we're dealing with here. And in output, the actual, like money and stakes and all that part of the population in a 330 million people, 1% is a lot of people. That's millions of people. They're gonna go crazy. That's part of the issue. And everyone's like, well, just because 1% is gonna do it badly, it's like, no, but sometimes the 1% is so bad that we actually should consider what the societal norms and all this discussion around it, like, with alcohol, most people can drink responsibly. One out of seven people cannot drink responsibly. It causes all kinds of crazy downstream effects. Are we willing to accept hundreds of thousands of DUIs and deaths and drunk driving, et cetera?
- [49:33]
Saagar Enjeti
Me?
- [49:33]
Krystal Ball
Not really. I think we should do a lot more to actually reduce alcohol consumption or the health effects. Obesity. Big.
- [49:38]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, weed has done more than anything to reduce alcohol consumption.
- [49:41]
Krystal Ball
Okay, yeah. Oh, fantastic. It's so great. But now we just have violent schizos who are shooting ICE detainees. What a great trade that we all make. Both should go down.
- [49:52]
Saagar Enjeti
There are parts of what you're saying that I agree with, and I think I view it from a leftist lens of, first of all, addiction is very profitable, right? That's why the food and the algorithms and the gamble, like everything is set up to addict you and keep you locked into whatever that thing is. So that's number one. And you know, I see a lot of these things as being downstream from the policy and societal choices. So, you know, I don't know, like the ICE shooter, I don't know that his weed use was related. It could also be that's attempted self medication is often the case.
- [50:31]
Krystal Ball
That's not self medication. Then if you're taking something that literally makes a certain percent of its users go violent schizo, then that's not medication.
- [50:37]
Saagar Enjeti
Sorry, I'm not saying it's like effective self, but that is what a lot of people who struggle with weed addiction, they feel it is self medicating. They're trying to check out of a life that feels horrific to them. And so in any case, to say like the weed is the cause of the violence, well, the weed could be a correlation because you have someone who's struggling with mental illness and isn't getting treated and they're treating themselves. And that's what I'm trying to point out. But fair enough. But in any case, with these two dudes, we don't have any sort of weed connection that we're aware of.
- [51:10]
Krystal Ball
Well, I'm just waiting.
- [51:11]
Saagar Enjeti
Okay, so it's gonna come out. But you know, if you like, there's a big temptation to sort of draw a circle around all these things and try to see, because we've had this rash of them and try to like, tell a story about it. You know, it's a very natural human impulse. And it could be that there is no real story to tell about all of these disparate shootings and murders. But if I had to try to tell a story, you know, they all seem to spring out of sort of the societal ills that we're struggling with, right? Disaffected young men, political extremism, the blowback from our endless, you know, wars and what we subjected, you know, these young men and women to when we sent them overseas to fight and die in these, these immoral, pointless wars that only made things worse. All of those sort of chickens are coming home to roost is what it feels like right now. And to add one that'll serve some of your points There was also put B6 up on the screen. There was also a shooting at this casino in Texas. This one. We really have no idea what the. This is Kiryan Jones, 34. What the motivation was. What's going on here? I don't have any more information for you, but you could imagine. Imagine what might have been going on, why someone would be angry at a casino. That's certainly a possibility. And then did we put B5B up just so people could see the picture of the. Yeah, this is the guy that's accused of murdering the people at the North Carolina waterfront. Now, his story in terms of his service, he was actually injured, I think shot four times in a fractured friendly fire incident and suffered severe brain damage because of this. He was actually, as it says here, once escorted this American Idol star to the Country Music Awards because he was sort of like a minor cause celeb because of the injuries that he had suffered, et cetera. And then after that, you can just imagine a sort of downward spiral and how you. I mean, I can't really imagine how you end up in this situation where you're murdering people, but you can certainly imagine a downward spiral for this individual who already was suffering with this brain injury.
- [53:30]
Krystal Ball
We're not absolving any of these people. What we're showing is like we're trying to look at the. Yeah, on the gambling point. I mean, look, Vegas. Anybody who lives in Vegas will back me up on this, because I've spoken with people and I was telling you guys about it. The amount of suicides in Vegas parking lots and hotel rooms is shocking. The LVPD and others mostly try to cover it up because they don't wanna affect tourism. But the amount of violence, as I just talked about, domestic violence, when people miss their parlays and they end up beating their wives, lots of alcohol use. Also alcohol and weed use combined. And, oh, shocking. People start to commit crazy crime. Same thing. There's just something about people who get driven to the brink. I've seen it. Have you ever been to a casino and you see somebody who is gambling out of literal, like, with a look on their face of absolute, sheer desperation? It's like, bro, you gotta get outta here. What are you doing? But instead, what does a casino do that's the most profitable customer, right? Not the guy who's just sitting there betting the pass line, having some fun. This guy who's just hoping for the big one and then ends up losing their entire paycheck. Again, we don't know all of the circumstance but yes, violence in casino. These people have security and all that for a reason. Cause people are crazy. And that's just, just my final PSA here on gambling because I was just looking. 52% of bettors in the U.S. which is some 100 million people, have now gambled more than $50 per month in this NFL season. That is quite literally, statistically, if you're watching this and you're a medium household income, that's your margin, which is crazy in a country like today. But $600 per year of your after tax income is quite literally your safety margin. So do you really want to be blown to a company which, you know, Dave Ramsey, I recently saw him say this, he goes, these people are buying the most expensive advertising literally in the history of the world. You think they're doing that with charity dollars? It's your money. All right. And so in the meantime, people just get addicted, you know, to the thrill. It has the highest rate of suicidal ideation of any addiction. More so than heroin addicts, more so than everyone else. It's the easiest part one to cover up, right? Everybody's. It's like the keeping up with the Joneses thing. You have no idea how financed the cars are in the driveway. And then there's a silent life of desperation in the back. And then people just break. So stay away from it. That's all I can tell you. Especially if you have kids, please, please keep them away. It's bad. It's permeating everything in our culture.
- [55:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, true.
- [55:53]
Krystal Ball
All right, let's get to TikTok, shall we?
- [55:56]
Annabe Sofa Advertiser
There's nothing like sinking into luxury. At washablesofas.com, you'll find the end Anabe sofa which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom. Starting at only $699. The stain resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop now@washablesofas.com Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [56:56]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG XBoom and for a limited time save 25% at LG.com with code fall25. Bring the boom XBoom.
- [57:27]
Variety Podcast Host
There's a lot going on in Hollywood. How are you supposed to stay on top of it all? Variety has the solution. Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.
- [57:41]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Where do you see the business actually heading?
- [57:43]
Variety Podcast Host
Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co editor in chief Cynthia Littleton.
- [57:49]
Krystal Ball
The only constant in Hollywood is change.
- [57:51]
Variety Podcast Host
Open your free iHeartradio app, search daily Variety and listen now.
- [57:58]
Krystal Ball
Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is here in Washington for this week. He will be having an unprecedented fourth visit to the White House. Congratulations to him. But while in the United States for the United Nations General assembly meeting, after having a mass walk while his speech, he took some time out of his busy day to meet with US content creators specifically to brief them about the propaganda war over Israel. He was asked specifically how should Americans or how should American pro Israel forces fight back against the rising tide of what they call antisemitism. And here he now speaks about how one of the most important things is the new purchase of TikTok talk. Here's what he had to say. But we have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we're engaged. And the most important ones are on social media. And the most important purchase that is going on right now is class. Tick tock, tick tock. Number one, number one. And I hope it goes through because it's, it can be confident, consequential. And the other one, what's the other one? That's most important. X X. Very good. And you know, so we have to talk to Elong. He's not an enemy, he's a friend. We should talk to him now if we can get those two things, we get a lot and I could go on on other things but that's not the point right now. We have to fight the fight, okay? To take give direction to the Jewish people and give direction to our non Jewish friends or those who could be our Jewish friends. The most important purchase that's going right now is TikTok. I hope it goes through because it's going to be consequential. So, Krystal, I once again ask, will you join me in calling for the ban of TikTok? It was important even for on the whole China data thing. But one of the things that people underestimated is that what Trump saw with his victim victory after 2024 was all the kids here. But it's the power of the algorithm and what obviously the worry about that was with China, but now because it's Trump, he's like, oh, we'll preserve TikTok, but we'll make sure that a bunch of pro Israel forces are involved in the purchase. And it's undeniable that TikTok is very good at shaping culture, which is why the Chinese ban TikTok in their own country. Just to be very clear, for people who don't understand that and now what they're looking at it is they've already installed the censorship head over there. They get to keep their business. Everyone is going to keep scrolling. Don't deny yourself. It's like we just talked about weed addiction and gambling addiction and all that. It's exactly the same thing downstream of the hours a day that people are burning on TikTok and scrolling. Well, now it's gonna have the same propagandistic efforts kind of behind the scenes. It's now probably the most overt, politically controlled social media platform. Alongside Twitter. No, I would say. I would say alongside.
- [60:58]
Saagar Enjeti
I was gonna say.
- [60:59]
Krystal Ball
I'd say the only reason why I think it's more consequential is Twitter is for elites. So it's very important at shaping, you know, elite culture and conversation. Only a couple hundred million people use Twitter globally. Like in the United States. It's a couple hundred million people on TikTok. Like actual people who have no Twitter account, don't even know what's going on over there, not involved in the wars over whatever, you know, some sort of political going on. They're scrolling. That's where a lot of their information is coming from. So by far, in my opinion, the most consequential at a small D Democratic perspective for shaping whatever the future conversations.
- [61:32]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. So now instead of owned by China, it's gonna be owned by Israel. Okay, well, great.
- [61:36]
Krystal Ball
Could have banned it.
- [61:37]
Saagar Enjeti
Great stuff.
- [61:37]
Krystal Ball
Should have banned it.
- [61:38]
Saagar Enjeti
Definitely worse. I mean, I just. I guess I don't see it as any worse than X or other social media. I mean, I think it's all poison. Like, that's where I am I don't know what the answer is. I don't know that a complete ban is the answer, but I'm kind of like at a loss as to what to do about all of these things that are set on colonizing our mind. Right? Colonizing our attention. That's what they're like. That's the commodity that they trade in and with dystopian outcomes, frankly, but the ones which we can't resist. We were talking about the gambling addiction, the scroll, both of TikTok and YouTube shorts and Twitter. It's all modeled off of slot machines. Machines like to keep you endlessly scrolling. That's the whole idea is the endless scroll. And yeah, I mean it's brain poison. And I just. The one thing I will say, like, I think if Bibi really thinks that this is going to help him win the propaganda war, like the propaganda war for Israel's already lost. That battle is over, it's done. Now they have to operate in the realm of just like pure power politics, like cracking down on anyone who dissents. You know, using their, their main ally and most important ally, only ally that matters, the United States of America to do their bidding in terms of cracking down on our own population backing them in their endless wars. Like that's where they're at. They've already lost the sort of soft power competition in terms of global opinion. I don't think that their ownership of TikTok is necessarily going to change that. In fact, if anything thing it's going to further piss people off and enrage them that they feel that heavy hand of censorship now coming down from their favorite platform.
- [63:20]
Krystal Ball
I would hope so. I'm not yet quite sure about our current population and in particular with some of the calls right now for open censorship. Here we have Israeli politician Yair Galan openly says the next step is strict controls on social media. In particular going after Twitter and saying that they need to be ban what he considers to be anti Semitic voices. Let's take a listen. The next thing I will do, we will do is to put restriction on.
- [63:50]
Saagar Enjeti
The social media in a way that.
- [63:54]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Not allowed to make brutal propaganda in the social media. Because this is a worldwide problem.
- [64:04]
Saagar Enjeti
And.
- [64:05]
Krystal Ball
It should be initiated by the United States of America.
- [64:11]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
The place where all the big firms.
- [64:15]
Saagar Enjeti
Is settled, Facebook and X and all the rest.
- [64:22]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
This is a major problem for democracy.
- [64:24]
Krystal Ball
All over the globe and we need to treat it seriously, we need to take it seriously. Facebook, X, they all need to be banned. I mean, does anybody else just think it's so crazy that Bibi comes to America and assembles a group of social media influencers, including his own son. Is that the only interaction that he has with his own son?
- [64:47]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, I didn't know.
- [64:48]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, you're not. What? So your son, who by the way lives here in America. Why? For what reason? What's his visa status? Anybody wanna call ICE over that one? How exactly isn't he draft age eligible? Shouldn't he be fighting in Gaza if he's so patriotic and amazing and he's sitting over here on our soil, presumably, presumably on some sort of friendly visa, being guarded by the literal Israeli Shin Bet as he lives in a penthouse apartment in Miami and firing off tweets from his sunny little balcony about how they need more censorship of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. It's just so naked. It's so unbelievable. And I hope that you're correct that the propaganda war and all of that is lost, but I don't know. Still, like even with all of the sentiment moving. Yeah, at a basic level the politics have not changed. Like at the power level, the Trump administration, they could care less about rising tide of look, even amongst Republican younger voters, it's like the sentiment is lost. They just don't care. They're like, look, this is what we are going to do. The average Republican politician still doesn't care. The average Democrat politician will pay a little bit of lipstick service, but at a power level they're not doing anything about it. Slotkin here on our show, maybe I'll vote for it, maybe I won't goes on. Stephen Colbert then says she would have voted against it if she was there, but we'll never know. Cuz she wasn't there because she was. It's like, what's going on here? You know, it's like, does any of this even matter?
- [66:15]
Saagar Enjeti
No. The hard power, like they still have a lock on a lot of certainly the Trump administration, no doubt about that, and most Democrats. But you know, let's to the point of whether or not they're winning the propaganda war. Should we take a listen to a little bit of the propaganda and you can tell me if you find it, Tell me if you find this persuasive or not. This is C3. These are some of the influencers who were gathered at this meeting to get a, get a sense of some of the content they're putting out to the TikTok world.
- [66:43]
TikTok Influencer
We were asking him the hard questions that a lot of people from our generation have been raising concerns about. For example, and the same way he listened to us and took in our criticisms. I'm truly hoping that he you guys will listen to the answer. Apac. APAC is something that I see all the time. Number one, AIPAC is not an Israeli organization. It has no ties whatsoever to the government of Israel. It's not foreign lobbying. It's a lobbyist group that happens to be lobbying for a certain group of people. Right. And this is not unique to Israel. There are multiple countries that do this and there's multiple different groups that do this. For some reason, people just attach on to APAC despite the fact that even if PAC makes up less than 5% of the lobbying. So if you have a problem with lobbying like me, that's totally fine. I'm against APAC because I'm against lobbying. But you can't just hone in on one specific group. If you're going to be against it, then be against it for everybody. Moving on from that, we were asking questions about these rumors that Israel has been going out and funding people and no, none of us were paid for that meeting. But I wish. Bibi, if you want to write the 150 million check, go for it.
- [67:50]
Saagar Enjeti
It.
- [67:50]
TikTok Influencer
But we asked, we asked about funding and as he explained, Israel is not offering to fund anybody. They're not trying to get involved in American political advocacy groups. That has never happened. And if you're concerned about this, who you should be concerned about is Qatar. The last thing that we really touched on was the aid. People don't know this, but Netanyahu's first address to Congress was to say that they didn't want aid. Jimmy Carter, who is a notoriously anti Israel president, is actually who started this because he saw that Israel was building up their air force and he didn't want them to. So he gave them aid that they could only use to buy military weapons from us and they had to agree to shut down their manufacturers. So now they're dependent in a way on this aid for military operations that America doesn't want them to lose because we use it as a leash on them.
- [68:38]
Krystal Ball
So smart points.
- [68:39]
Saagar Enjeti
I just pulled this up on TikTok. Here are the top comments. Number one, on the payroll confirmed. Number two, that AIPAC paycheck must be insane. Number three, did she just say that? APAC not an Israeli lobbying group with four question marks as a conservative, that man is a war criminal. How much are they paying you? As soon as she said AIPAC was an Israeli lobby, I scrolled sell out, confirmed, unfollowed, we're not buying it, et cetera, et cetera Yeah.
- [69:02]
Krystal Ball
I mean, look, I don't know. I feel very dark about how this is all playing out right now. And the reason why is that as disturbing and preposterous as all these influencers and all that are, they have currency. I mean, they're meeting with the prime minister of.
- [69:21]
Saagar Enjeti
You know what it makes me think of though, Sagar? It makes me think of, you know, we covered the chorus dark money scandal with the Democrats where they're paying this, like, you know, one of the influencers does some American Girl doll like pro DNC memes. You listen to most of these people content and you're like, okay, good luck. Or the DNC started their own podcast. Ken Klippenstein loves posting the views on it. Like, just because you put money behind a thing doesn't mean anyone is gonna buy what you're selling. Doesn't mean anyone's gonna be like. And like I said, if anything, people watching that were just like, screw you. Basically, it had the opposite of the intended effect. We've got one more we can show you too, which is, if anything, I.
- [69:59]
Krystal Ball
Mean, this is the best one.
- [70:00]
Saagar Enjeti
This is wild. This is C4. Take a listen. Imagine supporting people who start wars just to lose the wars so they can cry about it and then try it all again.
- [70:10]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
You must see anti Semites or lose. Literally obsessed with Jews. Now walk with me. While you must see anti Semites are stacking eviction notices, Jews are out here stacking up businesses.
- [70:21]
Saagar Enjeti
Jews control all the industries. Maybe if you spent more time taking notes from successful people, you wouldn't have to spend your nights and weekends spreading hate from your anonymous account with an anime profile picture.
- [70:32]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Do you work as hard as Jews?
- [70:34]
Krystal Ball
Do you network like Jews?
- [70:35]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
No. Because you're too busy cheering on a group of musty T terrorists who smell.
- [70:39]
Krystal Ball
Like dirty earring backs.
- [70:40]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
And if we're gonna keep it real, you're really mad because your income is.
- [70:43]
Krystal Ball
Giving side hustle, period.
- [70:44]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
How are you gonna hate from outside Shabbat?
- [70:46]
Krystal Ball
You can't even get in. Wow.
- [70:49]
Saagar Enjeti
So.
- [70:50]
Krystal Ball
So they have their own sassy gay black guy. Congratulations.
- [70:52]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, well. And I love the way.
- [70:55]
Krystal Ball
Who is that influencing? I don't know. It's being paid. I mean, look, it's perverse and it's sick, but like, pretty clearly they're finding. Is that reaching an audience? Probably not, but they're obviously. Look, they're doing it for something. Like they're making some money perpetuating this stuff. I believe that some of these people were present at the Bill Ackman summit.
- [71:14]
Saagar Enjeti
That was there with Charlie.
- [71:16]
Krystal Ball
Both of them were both of those. Sure. And that's my point is, like, it still does come with access to power. That's what makes me feel dark, really, about the entire thing. At the end of the day, people's salaries are getting paid. Do I think that influences anybody? No, I certainly don't. I think it's pretty pathetic and ridiculous. But they're getting meetings with the Israeli prime Minister. One of the things is, when you look at Israel is that at the end of the day, believe in hard power. So for them, this influencer briefing, everybody can laugh it off. I don't laugh it off because clearly they still think it's important and maybe it's a signal to the future TikTok people that these people need to be boosted in the algorithm or something. And you and I know, like, there is enough kind of mindless scrolling and lack of information, lack of just attention or whatever that to casually just stumble across and get, quote, the truth. Clearly the Israelis believe this is like an existential and very important mission for them to try. And will it work? No, I don't necessarily think so, but I don't know. I wouldn't put it past them. I trust their judgment in respect of controlling the conversation.
- [72:17]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't. I mean, I'm glad to. Not because I just think that they have so cocooned them. It really is. I'm not equating the two, but it does remind me a lot of the dnc. Like, they're so high on. On their own supply. They're so cocooned in their own bubble and so insulated from their critics because they just immediately write anyone off who has anything negative to say as an anti Semite, and they don't let it penetrate. And so I think they are completely disconnected from the way that they have just become reviled around the world. Around the world and reviled in the US In a way that has never been the case. And so, you know, I mean, that, like, that thing was a mess. That was a disaster. I don't think there's one person who looked at that and was like, oh, you're right. Not to mention it was anti Semitic. Even as they're trying to, like, stand up against anti Semitism. They're like, the Jews control all the industry and are really good with money. It's like, what are you doing here? So in any case, I mean, there's always gonna be shameless hacks who suck up to power no matter what. That's what these people are. They know that they can get into these meetings. If they toe the line, they may genuinely have some ideological belief about it or whatever. But. But more importantly, there's always gonna be sycophants who circle power and that's what's going on here. It is very dystopian, don't get me wrong. The consolidation of media power in Trump aligned hands and in pro Zionist hands, that is very disconcerting. And the amount of sway that they can use these social media platforms, they're out there saying like, look, we're gonna tell Elon what to do and he's probably gonna do it cuz he's our buddy is also really wild and dystopian. So I don't wanna download. I just want to say that I think that their hasbara efforts have been laughably pathetic. No one is buying their bullshit anymore. Very few people are buying their bullshit anymore, I should say. And we all have access to reality now. Like you're not going to be able to stop the flow of the videos of the horror coming out of Gaza. And by the way, your own soldiers post their own war crimes so we can see it directly from them as well. Well, we can listen to the statements that you make about how you're trying to manipulate all of us and buy up the media platform so that there's no dissent. We can listen to them saying in Hebrew, you know, we can hit the translate button and hear them talking about how there's no innocence and how they want to displace everyone and exactly what the plan is. So, you know, I think it will be very hard for them in this environment to just hide reality and hide the truth and to turn back the clock and, and then persuade people, oh, you know what, I was wrong. It's not a genocide. Like actually this is the most moral army on the planet or whatever nonsense.
- [74:55]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, listen, I hope you're right. Let's go to C5, please. Up here on the screen which shows the list of the influencers that all.
- [75:03]
Saagar Enjeti
Like I said, there you go, first of the list. Yeah, you're not new.
- [75:05]
Krystal Ball
That's crazy.
- [75:08]
Saagar Enjeti
He's an influencer.
- [75:08]
Krystal Ball
He's not an influencer. He's a Nepo baby living in our country. Deport his ass, please. Send him, send him to Gaza. All right. You know, one of the hallmarks of a society, like one of the things that it's easy to romanticize it as horrible as it was, but in the First World War, something I've always respected about the British and the Germans and all their societies is that when the leaders went to war they actually sent their own sons because they believed in it. Like you had the Prime Minister of the UK whose son was literally killed in combat. You had crown princes and others in the field of battle. The average life expectancy for a British soldier almost entirely taken from the upper crust, like the lords and others who supported the war was like. I don't even remember exactly the timeline but it was very, very short. But my point is just that nowadays, you know, it's the norm of the chicken hawk meme where you have the Congressman and everybody else. This kind of relates to our shootings Block who support the war, their kids get to go to college, get exempt. We don't even have a draft anymore. But it's like very few of them ever sign up for military service. And then it's like the working class men and women of the country who actually have to go abroad and face the consequences. That's like the post World War II status quo. So there is something very sick about that. And clearly that's also present in Israeli society as well. And by the way, to that point, Paramount has now released a new trailer for something called Red Alert. A four part miniseries depicting the real life stories of the victims of October 7th massacre in Israel. Why does that matter? Because Paramount was bought. By whom? David Ellison? The guy who wants to hire Bari Weiss over at CBS News. Paramount Skydance, now owned entirely by David Ellison who also just made an all cash bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, including HBO Max. So you're gonna have two Hollywood studios that are all under control. Who the hell knows what's gonna get released nationwide? I don't know. I mean that's where again the ability to shape culture is from TikTok to the literal movie studios. It's gonna be very, very interesting to see like what the divide on that and whether it can hold and who actually controls everything. I tend to believe a lot of it is a lot more top down than people think to be able to push this stuff out into the ether. But potentially the Internet will still be more powerful.
- [77:18]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean I just would say like they are becoming more overt and more heavy handed. But like the western media has been aggressively pro Israel forever and certainly the way they framed October 7th, post October 7th, our involvement, et cetera. So it's not like they haven't been trying on the propaganda front and still you have this massive revolt against what they're doing. Democratic Party is lost, Independents are lost, Republicans are divided. Young Republicans are increasingly lost. So I think it's probably too late to put those pieces back together, but they are certainly gonna try.
- [77:56]
Krystal Ball
They're trying. We'll see. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe it'll be a boon for independent film or something, but then how do you get it distributed? See, that's the issue with Hollywood. It's so bottlenecked and so controlled. That's probably the thing I worry about the most. And also, just don't screw up. Hbo. Please, please, please. It's like, let us just have our tasks. All right, Great show. Shout out to that.
- [78:28]
Annabe Sofa Advertiser
Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Anabe, you never have to stress about Messes again. @washablesofas.com Discover Anabe Sofas, the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [79:27]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Have you ever heard a story so unbelievable it just had to be true? Roofman is the jaw dropping new film about Jeffrey Manchester, played by Channing Tatum, a man who becomes infamous for breaking into over 40 McDonald's through the roof, then secretly living inside a toy store for six months. With humor, suspense and heart, Roofman is a cat and mouse story that will keep you hooked until the very end. Don't miss Roofman. Only in theaters October 10th.
- [79:53]
Krystal Ball
This is Boyang from Las Culturistas and.
- [79:55]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
I'm Matt Rogers, also a host of Las Culturistas.
- [79:59]
Krystal Ball
Big news to share. Do you know what the perfect thing to bring to any party is? But when we talked about this, I'm a person, not a thing. Oh, I didn't mean you. I meant Casamigos. Okay, chic and honestly, the only other correct answer. Casamigos. Margarita.
- [80:12]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
That's that.
- [80:13]
Krystal Ball
A sleigh.
- [80:14]
LG X Boom Advertiser / Matt Rogers
Ah, Casamigos.
- [80:15]
Krystal Ball
Anything is a sleigh. Anything goes with my casamigos. Anything goes with my casamigos. Bo, you're a poet. Please drink responsibly. Imported by Casamigos Spirits Company, White Plains, New York. Casamigos Tequila. 40% alcohol by volume. This is an I heart podcast.