9/4/25: Epstein Victims Threaten List Release, Xi Military Parade, McDonald's CEO Dire Warning

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode: 9/4/25: Epstein Victims Threaten List Release, Xi Military Parade, McDonald's CEO Dire Warning
Date: September 4, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of Breaking Points explores three major stories shaping politics, international affairs, and the American economy:

1. The push by Epstein survivors and Congress to release all Epstein files, including victims threatening to compile and release their own list of names.
2. China’s high-profile military parade and its symbolism for global power shifts and American military strategy.
3. Dire economic warnings from the McDonald’s CEO, revealing stark divides in the lived experiences of Americans amid uncertainty and inflation.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti bring their signature blend of left-right independent analysis, featuring a key interview with Congressman Ro Khanna.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

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1. Epstein Victims Threaten List Release & Congressional Push

Timestamps: 02:42 – 26:13

Press Conference & Discharge Petition

• Saagar recaps a major Epstein press conference:

  • Congressmen Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie introduced a discharge petition to force the government to release all Epstein files.
  • The event included 10 Epstein survivors.
  • Survivors expressed frustration; one survivor stated:
    • “Several of us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list of names.” (05:08)
    • “Many of us were abused by them.” (05:25)
    • “Jeffrey and Elaine were always very boastful about their friends, their famous or powerful friends. And his biggest brag forever was that he was very good friends with Donald Trump.” (05:34)
  • Survivors may publicly compile and release names if the government does not act.

• Krystal summarizes survivor sentiment:

  • “They’re gonna release their own list. Obviously some of the MAGA people are upset that Trump was named there. Trump’s defense… he’s just one of many. Very true. Which is why you should just release all of it, isn’t it?” (05:57)

Deep Systemic Coverup

• Survivors and hosts highlight lack of government transparency:

  • Survivors have had no meaningful DOJ contact. (06:49 – 07:38)
  • Krystal: “...They have been sidelined, really in all of this… it’s not about Trump or one particular person, it's about them. And then it’s about a system of extremely powerful people… that came together… to cover up a lot of what was going on there.” (08:40)

• Saagar:

  • Points to connections with powerful figures, e.g. Ehud Barak: “We just had emails released between him and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who's very enmeshed in the Israeli security, defense, industrial complex.” (10:08)
  • “Even just to know, this is how it goes for you if you’re rich and powerful. Okay, thank you. It’s good to understand that about what is going on in America.” (10:45)

Epstein’s Political Fallout

• Krystal:

  • Discusses how the Epstein saga damages Trump’s “warrior against the deep state” image:
    • “Trump really positioned himself as this warrior against the deep state...and that image, the Epstein story was a dagger in the heart of that particular image.” (11:36)
    • Describes Trump’s rhetorical flexibility and how the MAGA base has moved on:
    • “MAGA base is about 25 to 30% of the American public, maybe actually less at this point. That’s 70%. Now, Trump won the popular vote, which means at least some 51% of the people who voted in the election...are not so called MAGA. So those people matter a lot.” (12:37)

• Saagar:

  • Notes that the Epstein story, while coded as “anti-establishment,” is bigger than partisan politics:
    • “If you can’t tell me here then this whole apparatus seems very simple. The whole facade crumbles. That’s why I’ve always thought the story is very deeply important.” (13:19)

Notable Quotes

• Trump, dismissing the story:“This is a Democrat hoax that never ends...from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it’s really a Democrat hoax…” (14:05)
• Saagar’s retort:
  • “He called it a hoax while these, we, these women were speaking out...It’s not a hoax because Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted pedophile. That takes away the whole hoax things. It's not a hoax, it's not a lie.” (14:19)

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2. Interview: Congressman Ro Khanna on the Epstein Files

Timestamps: 17:18 – 26:13

The Fight for Full Disclosure

• Khanna describes the wrenching survivor testimony:
  • “They were in tears. They were talking about being in junior high or in ninth grade and being raped...and having to recruit other junior high and high school friends…” (18:03)
  • Stresses bipartisan support: every Democrat, plus 4 Republicans, and "confident" count will reach 218 soon. (18:25)

White House & GOP Resistance

• Saagar: “The President has reportedly been pushing very hard to keep Republicans from signing…” (19:20)
• Khanna: “It’s as hard as I’ve seen them whip against anything...millions of dollars being spent against [Massie] from the White House, from the billionaires, some who may be implicated in the Epstein files from AIPAC.” (19:32)

Oversight Committee's "Stunt"

• Krystal: Notes that the supposed release of 33,000 “Epstein files” was “already public” and a cover for GOP inaction. (21:00)
• Khanna: “That’s less than 1% of all the files...they’re not releasing the key things, which are the witness interviews... the financial records... the CIA or FBI investigations...” (21:33)
• Confirms survivor attorneys know the contents and will corroborate releases. (22:05)

Ghislaine Maxwell Discussion/Redaction Worries

• Maxell’s plea for a Trump pardon infuriates survivors. “It was embarrassing...the purpose of the press conference...but some were so outraged by Maxwell’s abuse...they wanted to speak about that.” (22:41)
• Khanna on possible redactions: “It’s going to be a fight for disclosure...but the first step is to get the law passed to call for the release of the file.” (24:07)

Moral Core & Nonpartisan Issue

• Krystal asks about “distraction” framing.
• Khanna: “No one is saying that after yesterday...if a nation is going to allow rich and powerful men to assault and traffic young girls without any consequence, then it’s a nation that has lost its moral bearings...Anyone who was there would realize that this was the most basic human issue.” (24:57)

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3. China’s Military Parade: Power, Innovation & U.S. Weakness

Timestamps: 28:18 – 47:00

Military Spectacle & Geopolitical Shift

• Krystal & Saagar detail the massive Beijing parade:
  • Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Putin together—demonstration of emerging alliances.
  • Saagar: “It’s the scary part...ICBMs and other missiles capable of hitting anywhere on the globe...They have got one singular goal, which is America. You will not mess with us. If we want to take over Taiwan, we’ll damn well do it.” (29:11)
  • Krystal: “What we have learned in the post Ukraine environment is that production—the native capacity to produce—is the single most important thing for a nation in a time of crisis...We are the Japanese and the Germans now...China has been able to marry economic production with stunning technological development.” (35:42)

U.S. Military Delusions

• Saagar cites coverage downplaying China’s technological advances:
  • “China is now innovating and it is leading in the process. The regional military balance that has for decades favored the US and its partners is being irrevocably changed now.” (33:06)
  • Krystal: “We’re sort of living in a delusion about our unquestioned military superiority. And I think, for anyone who's paying attention, this parade is one symbol that should help pop that bubble.” (35:20)
  • Uses World War II analogy: U.S. used to win by outproducing enemies, now China holds both tech and production.

Elite Ambitions & Historical Cycles

• Xi and Putin (paraphrased) on immortality and long-term visions:
  • “...Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and can even achieve immortality.” (38:53)
  • Krystal: “They look at themselves as the inheritors of a 2,500-year-old culture...this will be the single most important battle for the 21st century...it is the story of our time.” (40:07)
• U.S. decline compared to previous global transitions; Trump and Biden unable to adapt:
  • “Trump is just in it for himself...But also in this moment...Trump has accelerated the coming together of these world leaders.” (41:37–41:51)

Rewriting World War II & Emerging Alliances

• Parade narrative seeks to rewrite China’s place in the post-WWII world order, assert a multipolar vision.
  • “They love to flip the terms on the United States and be like, oh, a US led world order, what has that led to? Chaos. Iraq…” (42:27)

Global South De-Dollarization

• Developing countries move away from dollar debt—more evidence of shifting world order
  • “Sometimes it takes decades. And the initial signs though if you’re smart enough, you can see that they start to rhyme with a lot of problems...” (47:00)

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4. The American Economy’s Two-Tier Reality & The McDonald’s CEO Warning

Timestamps: 50:43 – 69:42

McDonald’s CEO: Dire Warning for U.S. Consumers

• Clip from McDonald’s CEO on CNBC:

  • “...with middle and lower income consumers, they're feeling under a lot of pressure...it's really kind of a two tier economy. If you’re upper income...things are good...what we see with middle and lower income consumers is actually a different story...traffic for lower income consumers is down double digits...we're seeing breakfast, people are actually skipping breakfast…” (51:00)

• Krystal:

  • “Listen to the CEO of McDonald’s. People are skipping breakfast. Now, I will say on McDonald’s, it’s still outrageously expensive compared to where it used to be...The McGriddle, it cost me $9...” (52:04)

• Saagar:

  • “It’s not just the prices are high. It’s also that the wages are not keeping up...the two tier economy comment is the perfect way to think about it.” (53:44)

Corporate Profits Driven by Cuts, Not Consumption

• Krystal cites a Wall Street Journal piece:
  • “American companies...are beating profit expectations...not doing it by banking on blockbuster consumption. Instead...they’re squeezing out costs, boosting productivity, turning to new technologies...The processes are quote, ‘human lite.’” (54:34)

Inflation, Stagnating Wages, Smoke-and-Mirror Profits

• Companies use automation and price hikes to keep margins, not pass gains to workers.

  • “...some of this is just financial engineering, basically like smoke and mirror accounting tricks to get things to look better than they actually are.” (56:45)

• Wages not keeping pace with inflation.

• Black unemployment surging (7.2%), attributed to government job cuts; potential “canary in the coal mine.” (58:36)

The Subscription Hell & Consumer Frustration

• Everyday costs are spiraling—everything is “pay for play.”
  • “Everything apparently Disney World, I talked about this. You go, they charge at every step.” (60:59)
  • Streaming services fragment content and hike prices, even for previously “ad-free” subscriptions. (61:18)
  • Saagar on video games: “If you are willing to shell out the dollars, then you’re going to advance more in the game and participate in the full experience or whatever...back in my day, you bought the game and that was it.” (63:28)

Bleak Jobs Numbers & Manufacturing Contraction

• Breaking news: Jobs numbers weaker than expected. (64:55)
• Krystal: “We’re now at a place for the first time in a long time where you have more job seekers than you have job openings.” (66:52)

Systemic Blame, American Dream, and Resignation

• Krystal: “I really. Sometimes when I look at the average prices and then I look at the average income, I do not understand how people make it at all...” (64:07)
• Saagar: “People are conditioned to think of it as a personal failing if they’re not able to make it...compare American working class in Youngstown vs. British working class in London—differences in who gets blamed for system failures.” (68:05)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Survivor at Epstein press conference: “We know the names.” (05:20)
• Krystal, on government inaction: “...part of what is so, you know, I think, horrible about it...the treatment that they suffered...a system of extremely powerful people...used their power...to cover up...” (08:40)
• Saagar, on China’s new tech: “China is now innovating and it is leading in the process. The regional military balance...is being irrevocably changed...” (33:06)
• McDonald’s CEO (via CNBC): “It’s really kind of a two tier economy...traffic for lower income consumers is down double digits...” (51:00)
• Krystal, on subscription fatigue: “Everything is subscription. Everything is pay for play. And even what you’re paying for is not even particularly good.” (63:28)

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Conclusion

This episode cuts through some of the biggest headlines and hidden stories:

• Epstein Survivors challenge government secrecy, threatening to expose what the system will not.
• Ro Khanna pushes for bipartisan justice, highlighting the deep emotional toll and political resistance.
• China’s assertiveness—militarily and diplomatically—signals the U.S. is no longer unchallenged on the world stage.
• The American economy is increasingly divided, with even the CEO of McDonald’s painting a bleak picture for working and middle-class Americans, as corporate profits ride on cost cutting, automation, and consumer price hikes.

Breaking Points delivers urgent clarity on stories too easily dismissed by mainstream narratives—offering a sobering, honest look at American reality in 2025.

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Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

Good Morning, welcome to Today.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Krystal Ball]

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Wake up to where it's all happening.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We're getting back to all of it and the best way to start is together.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Watch the Today show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC.

[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

Apply hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

[Saagar Enjeti]

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

[Krystal Ball]

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

[Saagar Enjeti]

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

[Krystal Ball]

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

[Saagar Enjeti]

Indeed we do. We're going to take a look at that big Epstein press conference yesterday with Thomas Massie, Ro Khanna and Marjorie Taylor Greene. We want to hear from the survivors and Ro Khanna is going to join us. Is he coming in studio? I believe so.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't know.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I think he'll be here. Producers can tell us either here or remotely. In any case, we'll have Ro Khanna to break all of that down. We're also taking a look at this giant Chinese military parade, what it says about the state of the world and our own military, where it stands in the pecking order at this point. We've got some new signs of economic turmoil, including some very revealing comments from the CEO of McDonald's. New York Times reporting that the Trump administration, Trump himself is trying to intervene directly in the New York City mayoral race to try to clear the field for Andrew Cuomo. Very interesting what's happening there. Juan David Rojas is gonna join us to break down whether or not we are prepping to invade Venezuela. So you definitely want to stick around for and I am taking a look at Tim Dillon's defense of his appearance at a Saudi comedy Festival. I don't know if you guys have been following this. It's not just Tim Dillon, by the way. Basically every comedian you've ever heard of is going to the Saudi Comedy Festival. Part of their whole whitewashing of their image through cultural and sporting events. So there's a lot to dig into there.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, that's right. I'm excited to listen because Tim was honest about it and I think your monologue is what, culturally what it tells us, which is important.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yes, that's right.

[Krystal Ball]

Before we get to that, thank you to everybody who has been signing up BreakingPoints.com to become a premium subscriber. Obviously, we did, we did get the AMA off without a hitch, I might say we actually got it done. And of course, we have our Friday show.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It took us like a month to figure it out.

[Krystal Ball]

It only took a couple weeks, but we did certainly do it. Now, here's the thing. We have the Friday show. We have all the benefits and more. But you are supporting our work, our ability to get the congressman here in studio and so much more behind the scenes with the team. So thank you to everybody who is able to do that. BreakingPoints.com Again, if you can't afford it, no worries, just please go ahead and hit subscribe on this YouTube video to our channel. And if you're listening to this on a podcast, just please rate us five stars and send the show to a friend. It's the most helpful thing that you could possibly do for us. So with that, let's go ahead and jump into the Epstein press conference. Congressman Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie introducing a discharge petition in the House of Representatives to force the government to release all of the Epstein files. They were joined by 10 Epstein survivors who were there at the press conference who spoke quite poignantly about the current cover up by the government. Let's take a listen and let me.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Announce now several of us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list of names.

[Krystal Ball]

We know the names.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Many of us were abused by them. Now together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names.

[Krystal Ball]

We all know we're regularly in the.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Epstein world and it will be done by survivors. And for survivors, Jeffrey and Elaine were always very boastful about their friends, their famous or powerful friends. And his biggest brag forever was that he was very good friends with Donald Trump. He had an 8 by 10 framed picture of him on his desk with the two of them. Like they were very close.

[Krystal Ball]

So that was some of the. They're gonna release their own list. Obviously some of the MAGA people are upset that Trump was named there. Trump's defense and many of the. He's just one of many. Very true. Which is why you should just release all of it, isn't it? That's really what it all comes down to. Yeah, but it's just, it's like, oh yeah, it didn't have to all be a story by you, but you're the person who created it. You whipped people up and got people interested in the story, promised transparency, took it away. And now it looks like, you know, at least the appearance of by your own behavior is that it is largely because that you yourself were present. Easy way to get around it is just to release everything. Here actually was an interesting moment on MSNBC where they were asked specifically about Trump and in particular what they knew about that. Let's take a listen. So can I get a show of hands? Who here is satisfied with the level of contact they've had from Congress?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Nobody.

[Krystal Ball]

Let me do, let me ask this. How about the Justice Department? I want to ask A couple of.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Things about what you knew about things that were happening with this case that.

[Krystal Ball]

You'Re obviously involved with. Show of hands. Did any of you hear from the Justice Department before they released that memo, that two page memo earlier this summer? No. Hands. Were any of you told that Todd Blanche would be speaking with Ghislaine Maxwell prior to that interview over the course of two days?

[Saagar Enjeti]

No.

[Krystal Ball]

No. Were any of you told about the prison transfer that Ghislaine Matteau.

[Ryan Seacrest]

No.

[Krystal Ball]

Were any of you? Do any of you feel that the DOJ has communicated with you enough this year?

[Saagar Enjeti]

No.

[Krystal Ball]

No. Have any of you had any communication with the doj? No. Nobody in this room has heard at all from the Department of Justice? No. Is that surprising to you?

[Ryan Seacrest]

No. No.

[Krystal Ball]

The reason I think that's important is this traces back to the original sin, you know, within all of this, the non prosecution agreement that was agreed to with Epstein in 2007, which violated all of their rights because they were not informed of the sweetheart deal that he got, which enabled him not only to continue a lot of his behavior, again by the admission of the DOJ and others, a lot of the testimony, including people who've spoken out previously. But it does go to show you how they have been sidelined, really in all of this. And I do think it's important, you know, not to forget all of them. But then particularly what all of this stacks upon each other for, you know, we have a system again, where legally they were required to be informed of all of that. And then they were like, oh, that's the reason that it got voided back in 2018. And a lot of these stuff was even allowed to come to light. And since that period, again, they've just been kind of shuttled about as pawns within this bigger story. And this is part of what is so, you know, I think, horrible about it. It's not about Trump or. Well, maybe it is. It's not about one particular person, it's about them. It's about the treatment that they suffered. And then it's about a system of extremely powerful people, both sides, business, et cetera, that came together and it seemingly, you know, used their power, influence, et cetera, in order to cover up a lot of what was going on there in a way that no reasonable person would have ever expected to be treated if they did not have all of these sorts of connections. Those connections themselves remain, I believe, the central part of the entire story.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, you're so right to talk about the original sin there because we were just talking before the show about, you know, the Palm Beach PD originally, once they get the first tip about this, they're pursuing this like they would any criminal case. And obviously they're well aware that Jeffrey Epstein is an incredibly wealthy, well connected individual. But they're tracking down the leads, they're going, they're talking to these girls, they're talking to their families, they're compiling a case file, and then the whole thing basically gets quashed, swept up in the sweetheart deal. So let's say that you are a, you know, you think that there's nothing more to see here than basically one evil guy and Ghislaine Maxwell facilitating, doing these horrific things. And there's no larger conspiracy, there's no larger cover up. We also deserve to know if rich and powerful people can just get away with things just because they have that kind of money. Like that would also be an important piece of information to have the reason. I mean, there's obviously a lot of reasons why we're suspicious that there are other things going on due to the power and connections that he had to. I mean, we just had emails released between him and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who's very enmeshed in the Israeli security, security, defense, industrial complex. So there are many other questions there as well. But even just to know, this is how it goes for you if you're rich and powerful. Okay, thank you. It's good to understand that about what is going on in America in terms. I'm curious, Sagar, for your view on how this has played out politically and whether or not this has ended up being a significant story for Trump. Because certainly it seems like with the MAGA base, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie being there. Thomas Massie is now like Persona non grotto with maga, certainly with Trump, he's working hard to try to primary Thomas Massie and get him removed from office, et cetera. But it sure seems like most of the MAGA base has moved on, that they have more or less bought his idea that this is a Democrat hoax, that there's nothing to see here and all these people only care about it because it has to do with Donald Trump and they have sort of moved on from it. I still continue to think though, that it, it's an important story not only because of the substance of it, but from the political perspective. Trump really positioned himself as this warrior against the deep state. Right. Who was gonna fight on your behalf, who was gonna reveal the truth, expose the secrets, et cetera. And that image, the Epstein story was a dagger in the heart of that particular image. And that was a big part of his appeal with, you know, I'm gonna talk about Tim Dillon in my monologue today with like that circle of people who felt like this was like a renegade who was gonna come in and blow up the system.

[Krystal Ball]

Trump's greatest strength is that he was a blank slate for which you could project anything that you wanted. You could be anti war and you could project it. If you could be pro war, you could pro Israel and anti Israel. Right. These were disparate forces. Epstein, I could go on for Maha, you know, like all of that was a project which he could subsume, he could wink, he could nod. He was pro IVF and he was pro life. Now, if you're following the policy and all that, you know, some of that would start to fall apart. But in reality, that's not how most people vote. Like they look at it. And unfortunately, one of the things about Americans is that they actually take a lot of the work of politicians say seriously, if you look at it. And so for the Epstein thing, it's like you just said, MAGA base is about 25 to 30% of the American public, maybe actually less at this point. That's 70%. Now, Trump won the popular vote, which means at least some 51% of the people who voted in the election. Maybe half of the people who voted for Trump then are not so called maga. So those people matter a lot. That's why I've talked about Israel in the context of Michigan. Are all of the people voted for Trump in Michigan because Israel? Absolutely. Was it enough of a margin to get him over there? Absolutely, yes. Now, the Epstein one, I don't think anybody really voted on Epstein per se, but we live in an anti institutional, anti elite moment. The Epstein story resonates deeply. And by the way, you know, if I'm in public or anything, what's the number one thing I got asked about Epstein? Number one? Number one. Now, I mean, a lot of that is because of the work that I do and that's maybe it's a little bit self selecting, but that's also usually my gauge. I'm like, this stuff still hits like it really does to a lot of people. And I think the reason, again, is that if you're not willing to engage and or tell the truth about what's happening with this, then what else are you covering up? It's like a side issue. It's kind of like one of those symbological, like areas for politics where if you can't tell me here then this whole apparatus just seems very simple. The whole facade crumbles. And that's why I've always thought that the story is very deeply important. It became kind of maga coded because it was anti establishment. But now you're the government, you are the establishment. So it kind of flips that on its head. Trump, by the way, not helping himself all that much in the way that he talks about all of this in terms of making it look like a cover up. He continues to call it the quote, Democratic Epstein hoax. Let's take a listen. He was asked about this in the Oval Office. Is the Justice Department protecting any friends or donors, sir? So this is a Democrat hoax that.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Never ends from what I understand. I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given.

[Krystal Ball]

But it's really a Democrat hoax because.

[Ryan Seacrest]

They'Re trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant Today.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He called it a hoax while these, we, these women were speaking out and they were saying we're not a hoax, we're human beings. It's not a hoax because Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted pedophile. That takes away the whole hoax things. It's not a hoax, it's not a lie. And on that note, Eric, every Republican should be able to sign on to this and that's the real hoax that they're afraid to sign onto it because somebody who, you know, who is a real coward from one of the Trump admin officials came out and called this a hostile act against the Trump administration. The hostile act was Jeffrey Epstein raping 14 year old girls. That was the hostile act and it's not a hoax.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, good for her. Props to Marjorie for being able to speak out about this. We have Congressman Ro Khanna standing by. He's going to break down some of the latest on his discharge petition. Let's get to it.

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[Saagar Enjeti]

Good morning. Welcome to Today.

[Ryan Seacrest]

From back to school to tackling your.

[Krystal Ball]

To do list, the Today show is your best start to the day. It's a new season and every morning we're here to help you take it all on as the forecast calls for football all across the country, blockbuster stars, live concerts and so much more.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Wake up to where it's all happening.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We're getting back to all of it and the best way to start is together.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Watch the Today show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC.

[Krystal Ball]

Joining us now is Congressman Ro Khanna. He's been a leader on the release of the Epstein files, including a press conference we just showed everybody yesterday. Thank you very much for joining us, sir. We appreciate it.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Thank you for having me back.

[Krystal Ball]

So you had that press conference yesterday, we were saying a little bit before. It was very emotional. There were some calls from many of these Epstein victims not only for release of the files, but also for potentially compiling their own quote, unquote list. At the same time you've been working with Congressman Thomas Massie for a discharge petition. Guys, we can put a five up here on the screen. So Congressman, can you give us any update on the amount of signatures and particularly Republican signatures you will need in order to get to this to the floor and potentially for a vote and for a release of the Epstein files?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Well, first of all, I just hope everyone takes the time to watch the survivors. I felt just overwhelmed with disgust hearing them. They were in tears. They were talking about being in junior high or in ninth grade and being raped and they were being talking about having to recruit other junior high and high school friends to come to Epstein's house to be raped. It was horrifying and I so admire their courage. I don't understand how every person is not supporting what they want, which is the release of these files. And this is something that has gone on well before Donald Trump. They've been asking for this for years. They're finally being heard. We have a situation where we're going to get all 212 House Democrats. There's one of our members who lost his mother, unfortunately. And so he's going to come in in the next few days. He will sign. And one other member signing Today, we'll have 200. We have four Republicans and so we need two more signatures. Thomas Massie and I are in conversation with about 10 potential people who are open to signing. I'm very confident by the end of this month we are going to get to the 218 number and then we have seven days and then we will have a vote on, on the bill.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The President has reportedly been pushing very hard to keep Republicans from signing your discharge petition. What is your awareness of those efforts? And you know, how hard are they whipping against this?

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's as hard as I've seen them whip against anything. I mean, the President, from my understanding, is reaching out to individual members. We had 12, remember, co sponsors on our bill and Thomas Massie and I say we probably shouldn't have gotten the co sponsors. It was giving a roadmap to the White House on who to who to target. And that's why we're being a little bit more vague about how we're going to get to at 2:18. But we're very confident we will get there. But look, Thomas Massie has millions of dollars being spent against him from the White House, from the billionaires, some who may be implicated in the Epstein files from a pack. I mean, he's a profile in courage and other members see that and they say, well, we don't want millions of dollars spent against us, so it really takes some guts to sign. But now with Marjorie Taylor Greene, with Nancy Maine and with Lauren Boebert signing, and after hearing those survivors, I really do think some other Republicans are going to do the right thing. I mean, it was just so emotional yesterday.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Has aipac. Sorry, just to pick up on what you just said. I know Thomas Massie, AIPAC is unhappy with him for other reasons. Have they taken an interest in the Epstein file release as well, to your knowledge?

[Ryan Seacrest]

No, I should make that clear. They're going after him because he talks about human rights in Palestine. I mean, you know, with me, they just tweet at tweet against me. But with him, they actually are pouring in millions of dollars to try to defeat him.

[Krystal Ball]

Congressman, one of the things that happened earlier this week is that the House Oversight Committee released a bunch of, quote, Epstein files. I spent hours, unfortunately, going through a lot of it. It turned out that almost 99% of it, I believe from your commentary, was already public. So, wasted several hours of my life. But that seemed to be a cover for some Republicans to not vote for your petition, despite the fact that, again, the vast majority that's been so called released was already publicly available. Is that how you saw that stunt by the Oversight Committee?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes. Look, if you're not following this closely and someone says, well, 33,000 documents were released, the average person says, well, what more do they want? Well, that's less than 1% of all the files. The parts that were released were already public. And they're not releasing the key things, which are the witness interviews with other men who tried to cover up for Epstein, with other men who are part of this farm system and abused young girls. They're not releasing the financial records. They're not releasing the CIA or FBI investigations. They're not releasing what the survivors are telling us should be released. And people often say, well, how do we know that they're going to release something accurately? Well, the survivors lawyers have seen these files. They know that there's explosive information in these files. So they will be able to corroborate when there is a release that the information has been released. And this is what the survivors want for closure and for justice.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's. I think that's a really important point. What did you make? The other thing they did is they released the audio and the transcript of that Todd Blanche interview with Ghislaine Maxwell. What did you make of that?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Well, it was embarrassing that Maxwell is lavishing praise on Donald Trump to try to get a pardon. And it actually really upset and angered some of the survivors. In fact, the purpose of the press conference for many of the survivors was to get talk about the Epstein files and the release of that. But some of them were so outraged by Maxwell's abuse, abuse and how Maxwell is being treated that they wanted to speak about that and did speak about that. I mean, they were raped because of Maxwell as girls. And now they're hearing Maxwell be treated as some kind of victim or trying to get some kind of pardon. You know, I don't think we fully understand when we call when the President calls this a hoax, when they're talking about pardoning Maxwell, the impact that has on hundreds of survivors across the country.

[Krystal Ball]

Congressman, another thing I wanted to make sure that I specified with you is I saw that there was potential for the CIA and others to actually redact or not include, even with your legislation, some of the potential ties and or scrutiny on intelligence. So what safeguards have you built in and pressure? Can you ensure that even if such a release does happen, that it is not covered up, let's say for 60 years a la what's happening with the JFK filing?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Well, it's going to be a fight for disclosure and I'm not saying that our bill is the panacea and it's going to solve everything, but it's going to get us a lot of the information, particularly where the financial support for Epstein was coming from, who the other powerful rich men were engaged in the COVID up, were engaged in the sex trafficking. Are we going to be able to fully understand if there were foreign ties and who they were? That's going to be a fight. I mean, obviously there's always is. They will claim national security privilege. We will push for as much as can be released, but the first step is to get the law passed to call for the release of the file.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Congressman, I've heard a lot of Democrats, you know, they're signing onto the discharge petition, so we want to, we want to give them credit for that. But I've heard them describe this issue as a quote, unquote distraction. How do you see it?

[Ryan Seacrest]

No one is saying that after yesterday. I mean, you can't say that it's a distraction. I mean, there are human beings who were raped as girls. And if a nation is going to allow rich and powerful men to assault and traffic young girls without any consequence, then it's a nation that has lost its moral bearings. I mean, I think this is the most fundamental issue. And you know what? It's an issue that possibly could bring us together. Are we still capable of coming together as a country on anything? Like, can't we come together as a nation and say underage girls should be protected, our kids should be protected, that we should stand with survivors who are crying in front of the country telling us that they were raped as girls? You know, Marjorie Taylor Greene was so emotional afterwards. She gave me a hug. I mean, this was not politics. It really was not. It was. Anyone who was there would realize that this was the most basic human issue. And I really think that's how people should look at it. We've gotten too inured being in Congress thinking oh what's going to have a polling advantage or a political advantage? This is something just basic justice.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Congressman, we really appreciate the work that you are doing and please keep us updated on this petition and we're really hoping that it can go through. Thank you for taking time out of your day to join us.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Thank you. Thank you for covering it.

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[Ryan Seacrest]

VGW Group void where prohibited by law.

[Krystal Ball]

21/ Terms and conditions apply Good Morning.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Welcome to Today.

[Ryan Seacrest]

From back to school to tackling your.

[Krystal Ball]

To do list, the Today show is your best start to the day. It's a new season and every morning we're here to help you take it all along as the forecast calls for football all across the country, blockbuster stars, live concerts and so much more.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Wake up to where it's all happening.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We're getting back to all of it and the best way to start is together.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Watch the Today show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC.

[Krystal Ball]

Turning now to Beijing, where we brought everybody the news of the Shanghai cooperation, the SEO meeting where Modi and Putin and Xi were together. It was a major moment for the rise of multipolarity. But now we have to focus in specifically on China, which had a stunning display of military might in the capital. And with Xi Jinping and millions of Chinese soldiers, service members, all gathered in immaculate uniforms of production for the ages, which a single message to Washington, do not mess with us. We are one of you now. You have to deal with it. So we have some video that we can show all of you. I mean, one of the most stunning things actually was Kim Jong Un. I believe this is one of the first ever international meetings ever even taken part of. Vladimir Putin was right there next to him, basically, as I talked about the rejoining of those two countries in the post Ukraine environment. But you can just see the pomp, the circumstance, the pageantry, the actually being able to march in formation, all of their uniforms that were put together. I mean, there's only one audience in the world for all of us, it's Washington. And actually this is the scary part because what do we see here? We have ICBMs and other missiles capable of hitting anywhere on the globe, 30 to 60 minutes. They had a stunning display really of a lot of their new military technology, by the way. They don't have, have supply chain problems, they don't have Lockheed Martin stocks and other things that they have to deal with. They have got one singular goal, which is America. You will not mess with us. If we want to take over Taiwan, we'll damn well do it. If we want to continue to fund Russia, we will. And by the way, that's why we're starting a new pipeline. It's not an accident that Russia and North Korea were standing there side by side. And if anything, I think that that picture with modi, with Putin at the SCO, and now with North Korea and Kim Jong Un standing by its side is a perfect symbol of the failure of US diplomacy because at every single instance this was avoidable. We had the Putin summit, we could end the war in Ukraine if you really wanted to. You could? Absolutely. We could restore decent relations with Russia and find some sort of agreement, rapprochement or whatever with Ukraine, with North Korea. Trump met with North Korea. He met with Kim Jong Un, shook his hand, all sort of this devil. But the one thing is, in both times, he refused to drop the neocon line with North Korea. He's like, but you gotta give up your nukes. And they're like, no, it will never happen. It will quite literally never happen. So drop it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Nor should they.

[Krystal Ball]

Nor should, by the way, they would.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Be, look at our foreign policy idiots to do so.

[Krystal Ball]

So they're like, no, it's not happening with Putin. They're like, oh, you have to. Yeah, I don't even know what the demand here is of Putin. Right? It's like, oh, we're gonna meet with you, but we're still gonna fund Ukraine. He's like, okay, well I've got millions of troops and China's got here, they have my back. India's gonna keep buying my oil, so I'm just gonna keep rolling, all right? And in the meantime, you guys can figure out whatever it is that you want and I'm just gonna continue inch by inch. I don't care how many soldiers of mine die in Ukraine, in the end I'm probably going to win. And so that's their strategy. And then same with China. Like it's not just tariffs. I support tariffs on China. Again though, the level of capriciousness has made it so that Xi has in the last decade been able to fully go in on the Made in China 2025 plan. I mean, by the way, you know, a lot of that weaponry was distinc. If you went and read all of the primary source documents that they released 10 years ago, you see there the ability to compel Modi, Putin, North Korea. You can make fun of these states if you want to. A lot of them are not like economic powerhouses. But what we have learned in the post Ukraine environment is that production, the native capacity to produce is the single most important thing for a nation in a time of crisis. China has been able to marry economic production, economic growth. They have state managed capitalism at the highest, most efficient. And they have now the ability to bring all of these former US Allies and or US like states which were able to engage with the United States, go in with China and say, hey, they're gonna be a better partner to me. So combined with their deterrence, their weaponry, their economic, their, I mean just the sheer might of their economy, of their defense sector. Anybody in Washington who's dealing with the bullshit that we are today should be deeply afraid. And this is scary because as someone who's been covering this for l a decade, I remember reading those 2025 plans, I was like, ah, it's never going to happen. Or you know, Washington's going to wake up. The pivot to Asia is finally happening. We're here now, we are here now and we lost. We have to admit it. Can we even catch up? Maybe that's A big question mark. So it's stunning. It really is.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. That parade, I think that military parade is an intentional global wake up call, or wake up call, at least here at home, that we already live in a different world than most Americans imagine that we live in.

[Krystal Ball]

That's right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And I was taking a look at this foreign magazine article. The headline is China's military is now leading. Wednesday's parade proved the regional military balance has irrevocably changed. And I just want to read you a little bit of this just to underscore what I'm saying here. It's now widely accepted that the story Western countries once told themselves about China's technological development. It's a mere imitator of Western tech. It steals ip, its successes result from wasteful public subsidies, is inadequate. I would say that's putting a kind of. This story still has some elements of truth, but is much less true than it used to be. China is today an innovator and a technological leader in robotics, electric vehicles, nuclear reactors, solar energy drones, where they make 70 to 90% of drones made in China, by the way, guys, high speed rail and AI, if confirmation were needed. The September 3rd military parade through Beijing confirms that we must add military tech to this list. It's no longer enough to say that China's military is catching up or that is copying foreign military equipment designs. China is now innovating and it is leading in the process. The regional military balance that has for decades favored the US and its partners is being irrevocably changed now. One thing that they of course don't have that we do is we have these military bases spread all over the world. They do not have that. So that is a very different kind of an orientation towards the globe. But in terms of military tech, you know, I've been listening to Seth Harpoo. We had on this show to talk about the Fort Bragg Cartel. The book that he just wrote, he, you know, studies and follows and researches and does all kinds of incredible journalism around the state of the US military. And he says we're fooling ourselves if we think that we just reign supreme and it's unquestioned. When's the last time we won a war? Look at how we did with. How did it go with us in the Houthis, right? How did it go with us in Afghanistan? How is it going with all of our weapons? And know how and yes, you know, special operations, special operators on the ground in Ukraine, how is that going? Right? Even in Gaza, where it's our tax dollars funding this horrific genocide. It's our weaponry. How is that Hamas is still able to operate and able to, you know, to take out IDF soldiers at times. So we're sort of living in a delusion about our unquestioned military superiority. And I think, you know, for anyone who's paying attention, this parade is one symbol that should help to pop that bubble.

[Krystal Ball]

Absolutely. I think I said this last. It's the analogy. I was having dinner with somebody who's very knowledgeable about US Defense. And the analogy was is that the United States, in the lead up to World War II, our technological advantage was simple production more than anything. So the B17, the B29, they were not the world's greatest aircraft, but we could just make a shitload of them. You know, the Nazis invented the V2 rocket. They invented the first jet engine, the first jet or not jet, the first jet aircraft that the United States States actually had to engage with above the skies of Germany. Guess what? We still won, even with the technically less superior aircraft. Why? Because you could produce a ton. There's great stories. You know, the Japanese Zero was one of the most sophisticated airplanes of its time, but, you know, the production after it was eventually bombed away, the Japanese would have to like use a horse drawn cart to bring a newly finished piece of air material to unless another. Now we are the Japanese and the Germans, we have this stunning B2. It costs $2 billion, but we don't have the oil to put in it. We don't have the production facility or others to create the ammunition that goes into the basic gun. Now what China has been able to do is not only match US stunning technology, they have the entire supply chain to deal with it if they need to. They have the economic might and all the ability to, to sustain all of that. Meanwhile, we're living in a service based, financialized, ridiculous system where I was just telling you today, Fanduel is now going to fund public transportation so that fans can get to an Eagles game in Philadelphia. The government can't fund it because, oh, Fanduel is stepping in. That's a reality.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Our military parade was funded by what, Palantir and Coinbase. I mean, it's.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, we have some. Let's put that B2, please, up on the screen. This is a simple symbol of, you know, we can't march.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Compare and contrast.

[Krystal Ball]

It's all. Yeah, look at this.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Just compare and contrast.

[Krystal Ball]

Look, I, I do not want to be in a position where I'm putting down our service members, you know, and they probably didn't have a lot of time to prepare for this because it was shoddily and hastily put together. The individual people in there, I have nothing but deep love and respect for what I have concerned about what is the system that places them in potentially harm's way and has failed them and at the same time is raping the American taxpayer who has to spend a trillion dollars a year for this nonsense. Take a look at their GDP spending per capita on military and then compare it to ours. That's the most important thing. The other thing that we all need to grapple with is that Xi and Putin, they are megalomaniac crazy, but smart, and that we have megalomaniac crazy, but not smart. And just to show you all, all this particular clip is Xi and Putin chatting about how everyone, anyone could live to 150 with organ trans. I mean, these guys are obsessed with transhumanism and with living forever in the exact same way, but they may actually be able to do it. Let's take a listen. In the past, people rarely lived longer than 70 years, but today they say that at 70, you are still a child.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Human or organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you.

[Krystal Ball]

Become, and can even achieve immortality. So, yeah, you can even achieve immortality.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The longer you live, the younger you become.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, you know, and I've talked about this with Putin. He's a czar. She. I mean, he's the new song emperor. Like, these guys are not communist. Or, you know, they're like, oh, he's the new Soviet Union. And guys read a book. Like, you have to go way, way deeper. And if you look at the way that they talk about the Chinese elites in particular, they look at themselves as the inheritors of a 2,500-year-old culture. You know, they're not looking at themselves as history began with Mao Zedong. That's part of it. But it is part of a much, much broader picture. And so, you know, in a way, it's like the old world is punching back. And here in the U.S. like, we're just.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This is what Jaegor says to me. He's like, you know, maybe the aberration was like, you know, us of Western dominance in the world, that the historical tradition is actually China being the leader of the world.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Lex Freeman asked me that. We did a podcast. He's like, will the American empire fall? And I was like, well, statistically, yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's like asking, are we gonna one day die? Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

I said, it's a fight club quote. You know, on a Long enough timeline, the survival rate for everything drops to zero. Exactly. Yeah. If you look at the. Yeah, exactly. The aberration in China was that during the 1900s, it was weak and it was divided. A lot of kind of was. It depends. It's complicated. But the point just broadly, is that where they see their, you know, historical, where they see themselves today is on a long timeline that we cannot. We can barely conceive of in their culture and in their history. And so this will be the single most important battle for the 20, you know, for the 21st century. It might be a hot battle, it might be economic, who knows? But it is the story of our time. You really cannot grapple with it unless you are actually all the people alive who really had to deal with psychologically, the rise of either Nazi Germany or the Kaiser, Imperial Germany. That's what it was like to live through when you were the British Empire and the sun never set upon you, and all of a sudden you have this state, Germany, this new state, and they're ramping up industrial production and science, and it caused all kinds of destabilization and nobody really knew what to deal with. And it ended in the First World War was a catastrophe, an absolute catastrophe. And I don't have any faith that our statesmen today are smarter and able to deal with this crisis. And the people back then were a hell of a. I've read all their. A lot of their primary documents, correspondence. They were a hell of a lot smarter and thinking deeply, and they still weren't able to avoid, you know, some sort of horrific.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, I mean, Trump is just in it for himself. Like he only cares about what he can squeeze out of the state.

[Krystal Ball]

Because this is the. It's not Trump, it's Biden. I mean, it's the system.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Sure. But also in this moment, like, Trump has accelerated this.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I agree.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This is the Trump effect. Like he has accelerated the coming together of these world leaders. And you even had some, you know, attempted rapprochement between South Korea and North Korea in the context of this. And I think it's also important to remind, cuz we talked about this earlier in the week. You know, the purpose of this parade in part is to recast the narrative of World War II and the post World War II order and to put China at the center of that and China as a leader and the true sort of heir to the post World War II order. So it's, you know, narratively and propaganda. From a propaganda perspective, it's interesting as well.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, absolutely. It is Fascinating to see them try to reclaim the World War II. I mean, look, I mean, I do get it in a certain way. I think, what 20 million Chinese died in this Second World War fighting the Japanese. It wasn't all the Chinese Communists. You know, a lot of the Chinese nationalists are the ones who died in that as well. So, you know, it was a little complicated. Sometimes they were pretty happy to let the nationalists get killed by the Japanese if it meant it was good for them. It's an interesting story. A lot of people should actually spend more time thinking and reading about it. But the point more broadly is that they love to flip the terms on the United States and be like, oh, a US led world order, what has that led to? Chaos. Iraq, you know, and they love to talk about zero sum competition or mutual respect. Mutual respect in their minds means Taiwan is ours and you can fuck off. Or how Russia decides to elect its country is its own business. If Kim Jong Un has to create a famine to create ICBMs, so be it. And in the 90s, it would be very easy to say, well, that's not who we are. Well, you can't say that in the year 2025, not in the midst of Gaza, Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Iraq.

[Saagar Enjeti]

How are we gonna stand on some territorial integrity principle when we're funding a gender. It would be insane to go to war with China over Taiwan.

[Krystal Ball]

Our Secretary of State is on his way over to Israel, apparently, or I guess I should say whatever what they claim to be Israel, apparently. He's going to participate in a stellar event, you know, in. Yeah, exactly. The Secretary of State of the United States of America. So really we're going to fund Ukraine to protect their territorial integrity. Okay. I mean, you know, it's like, oh, and we have a problem with monarch, we have a problem with dictators, really. That's not who we buy our oil from, is it? Wait, it all falls apart on a very basic scrutiny. Let's go ahead and get then to Trump, which we've been building up here, who is, you know, he kind of admitted the quiet part out loud. He was like, they were doing it. Cuz they wanted me to watch and I was watching. Let's take a listen.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I put out a truth last night. You saw that? And I was the one that brought it up. I said they're only doing this. They're really, they're looking to. When they, when they did what they did, I thought it was a beautiful ceremony. I thought it was very, very impressive. But I understood the reason they were doing it and they were hoping I.

[Krystal Ball]

Was watching and I was watching.

[Ryan Seacrest]

My relationship with all of them is very good. We're going to find out how good it is over the next week or two.

[Krystal Ball]

They were hoping I was watching and I was watching. He told them in a truth that he was like, they all conspire against the United States. Well, what are you gonna do about it? And not just wave, you know, like wave around and tell Putin big things are coming. Like what? Like what exactly? What do you have left? What cards do you have left to play? You wanna know who? China's cards? Let's go and show everybody. Let's put this up there on the screen. All the military parade, all the military equipment that they were debuted. It's stunning. Hypersonic missiles, combat vehicles, unmanned aircraft, undersea drones, nuclear missiles capable of hitting anywhere on the globe. I mean, I mean, this was a massive shot at the Pentagon. This all has production lines capacity that does not rely on us. Does anyone wanna know who we rely on for some of our military equipment? Right. It's called China. Seems smart, really works out. And the more that you look into all of their capacity and their show, it's like you said, they not only have the ability to spend less cause they don't have some great geopolitical projection. By the way, Trump yesterday was like, yeah, we'll send more troops to Poland. I was like, oh, really? Why? You know, for what reason? Why? Why do we need troops in Poland and all over the Baltics and Germany and Korea and Japan and I mean, I could go on forever. Some of those make sense. Japan, Korea, et cetera. Germany. Why? I mean, again, it's one of those where nobody asks basic questions, keep cutting these checks to the Pentagon. And that's what it looks like when you're actually intelligent and you think deeply about what this is all gonna to look like and potentially should look like in the future, should anything happen. The last thing we wanted to mention was about Korea, because this was actually very interesting. Let's go and put this last part up on the screen. Obviously, Korea, one Of the top 10 trading partners of the United States, one of the most important US allies in all of Southeast Asia, actually sent their speaker in parliament to shake hands with Kim Jong Un at the Beijing military parade. Now why is that important? Well, it used to be in the first Trump administration that the United States was the one who was trying to broker some sort of peace and or rapprochement between the south and the North. But now the Koreans, who look not exactly in love with China are sending delegations to the Beijing military parade and basically a word to Washington is you treat us like shit. They don't treat us so bad over here. Even though we have all of our differences and they're willing to shake hands with Kim Jong Un and potentially broker some sort of of peace via China, without the United States, it would be a disaster. So everybody keep their eye on this. I know it can seem tedious and more, but I mean it really is. Like it's like the 1930s or the early 1900s all over again. Like the entire world order is being rewritten before our eyes. It's not that hard actually to figure out. What's hard to figure out is how to avoid what usually happens when something like this does seem like it's on the horizon. The last thing I wanted to mention was this story which again challenges dollar supremacy. Can we go ahead and put B7 please? Which is developing countries have been swapping out of dollar debt to cut their borrowing costs. They say that sovereign borrowers are now turning to lower interest rate currencies such as the Chinese renminbi and or the Swiss franc to get around the fluctuations in the interest rates of the dollar set by the Federal Reserve. So just another little thing that we can look at just broadly about all of the signs of where things are going. I'm not a BRICS person. I'm not saying it's all happening tomorrow in the end of the US empire. That's not how it works. The point is that sometimes it takes decades. And the initial signs though if you're smart enough, you can see that they start to rhyme with a lot of problems, which is probably a good segue to our economy block, which is about how we have troubling signs in our economy economy and a lot is fake. So let's get to it.

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

Good morning. Welcome to Today.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

Wake up to where it's all happening.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We're getting back to all of it and the best way to start is together.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Watch the Today show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC.

[Krystal Ball]

Turning now to the economy, as we said, and to where we can actually look to some truth. Unfortunately, it comes from the CEO of McDonald's who shockingly actually dropped some truth bombs on CNBC about how divided the country is on whether you make over $100,000 or not. Let's take a listen.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Part of what we also saw was that particularly with middle and lower income consumers, they're feeling under a lot of pressure, he said. I think there's a lot of commentary about what's the state of the economy, how's it doing. And what we see is it's really kind of a two tier economy. If you're upper income earning over $100,000, things are good. Stock markets are near all time highs. You're feeling, you know, quite confident about things. You're seeing international travel, all those barometers of upper income consumers are doing quite well. What we see with middle and lower income consumers is actually a different story. It's that consumers under a lot of pressure in our industry. Traffic for lower income consumers is down.

[Krystal Ball]

Double digits and it's because people are.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Either choosing to skip a meal, so we're seeing breakfast, people are actually skipping breakfast or they're choosing to just eat at home. And so for our business, which has a significant group of consumers which are in that middle and lower income, we needed to step in with something like what we're doing here.

[Krystal Ball]

Listen to the CEO of McDonald's. People are skipping breakfast. Chef is too. Now, I will say on McDonald's, it's still outrageously expensive compared to where it used to be. I don't eat McDonald's maybe more than two or three times a year. My wife gets hungry for it. She's nursing whatever, she gets what she wants. So I go to McDonald's, the McGriddle, it cost me $9 and I tweeted about that. People made fun of me because apparently I don't use the app. No, I'm not, I'm not degenerate enough to have the McDonald's app or to be knowledgeable enough about set deals. But in my head, as a child of the 90s, you're on a road trip and you roll up to McDonald's, how much do you think that should cost? Couple bucks, you know, buck 99. And yet it's not just the price. What he really said there, which is important is if you look, he said below 100,000, you're seeing a massive reduction in lower income consumers being able to go out to eat. And people are skipping breakfast. Now, I think that's, hopefully they're getting enough to eat, you know, elsewhere and, or trying to eat at home. But the totality of it is that, yeah, it might be marginally cheaper on a percent basis to eat at home, but it's still really expensive to eat at home. If you're talking about a cup of coffee, we've talked here about coffee futures, Folgers and more has actually exploded in price. If even if you look at the basic necessities of goods, meat in particular, protein, the price is just astounding. You can still eat cheap if you want to, but it takes a lot more effort than it used to in the past. So if you put that together, I think here is where you should listen to the CEO of McDonald's or the CEO of Walmart or these other people who have to cater to all of these customers. And now McDonald's is scrambling to try and bring back, you know, below $5 meals and more because they can see the consumer cannot afford it. That's the, that's the real trap.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I mean, down double digits, he traffic from lower income consumers. I mean, that is a very significant sign. And it's not just that the prices are high. It's also that the wages are not keeping up. We covered previously. I think the two tier economy comment is the perfect way to think about it. You've got the stock market that just keeps going up and up and up, seemingly totally divorced. And we'll talk more about what's going on there from the actual real economy. What people deal with trying to make ends meet on a day to day basis and meanwhile especially lower quintile wage wages are not keeping pace with inflation. So people are struggling. They're going into deeper and deeper debt. They are very pessimistic about the future. They are holding back on any purchases that they can. They're apparently skipping breakfast so that they can make it all work in their budget. So these are dire indications of where the economy is headed right now.

[Krystal Ball]

Absolutely. And there is some really troubling stuff behind the scenes. And I've talked about this in particular with the stocks is I was like man, I just don't get how with inflation, with reduction in consumer spending tariffs, how can the market continue to go up? Well now we have a little bit more of the story. Let's put this up here on the screen. Fantastic piece by the Wall Street Journal behind this season's bumper Earnings, job cuts, price hikes, glum workers, quote, consumer spending is not driving company profits as much as reducing expenses, improving efficiency. That could be a problem. They say American companies are once again beating profit expectations. But they're not doing it by banking on blockbuster consum. Instead, the latest batch of quarterly earnings gets a lift from managers who are squeezing out costs, boosting productivity, turning to new technologies. All of whom who say they're holding down hiring often while finding new ways to get employees to work more efficiently, AKA work more and are raising prices when they can. The processes are quote human lite. Now that is from one chief financial officer last month telling investors about the initiative that includes automation upgrades, global logistics say higher profit margins despite a nearly 8% drop in revenue even though there is a prolonged freight recession. How do you do that? You raise your prices. And so yeah, the companies are doing fine. The investors in the stocks are doing great because that's what they demand. The number has to go up. It literally must. It's an American contract. It's like baked into our blood at this point. But what does it mean for all of you? You're paying more, you are working more hours for less pay. You are potentially not going to get get a raise. You may even get a price cut and then you'll be Lucky to actually work, you know, and continue in your job. Put that together and it just makes a lot more sense about how exactly the McDonald's CEO with the straight face can talk about, you know, oh, well, we're, you know, we have all of this traffic down, et cetera and all of that. But then if you look at the way that they continue to juice their profit, it will be, you know, the $5 stuff and maintaining sales there while also, I guess, taking advantage of idiots like me who apparently roll up to the window and pay $9.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Pay full price. Yeah, pay for McGregor, don't download the app. Y. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot that's going on in this article. I mean, first of all, AI has got to be a part of this. As companies are increasingly trying to, instead of hiring, when we're talking about white collar workforces, hiring those new college grads who's, by the way, unemployment rate has really skyrocketed and is quite high at this point, rather than hiring those new college grads, they'll use AI and force their existing workforce to work more to avoid building out their workforce and to save costs. That way you have them, what's called taking price. So using the excuse of tariffs, inflation and also genuinely facing higher costs in certain regards, they're using that to hike prices even beyond what is required. And then the other thing they talk about in here is the financial engineering that's going on too. So share buybacks, they say, have helped put a shine on profits. Reducing the number of shares outstanding increases, companies earnings per share numbers mechanical regardless of operating results, overall LSEG data indicates that repurchases added about 1.3 percentage points to the S&P 500's gains in the second quarter. Some of this is just financial engineering, basically like smoke and mirror accounting tricks to get things to look better than they actually are. That's a piece of it as well. If you look through this article, they have a chart in there that's pretty stunning where they look at consistent consumer spending, consumer purchases, and then they take out inflation, they take out the price increases and the line, if you don't take them out, then the line of consumer spending, oh, it's going up and up and people must be doing okay. If you take that out, it's flat since 2021. So I mean, that tells you a lot right there about how, you know, how fake a lot of the profits that are being generated here by these companies and how little bearing they have on what is actually going on. With your average consumer out there.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

And again, this is the Biden. Everyone understood that under Biden. Yeah. The S and P was up by, like, 60% over the entire course. Were you 60% better off if you were invested? Yeah. If you were buying stuff. No. You're buying steak at the Costco. Yeah. Good luck. All right. To go ahead and you know what a lot of people have done. If you really want to feel truly crazy, go in your Amazon cart and scroll all the way back to 2020 and go look at what you were paying for basics, and then compare it to. To today. You can do that with Walmart. If you use Walmart or any of these other places. You can even look at your credit card bill broadly. And look at. I use, like, tracking. I know exactly how much I pay for, like, every. At the grocery store, for example. You can compare based on five years ago to today. And, you know, just general. Keep in mind, it is astounding sometimes like 40 or 50% higher, depending on the number of goods. You're also showing. You know, stuff is showing up in all kinds of the wrong place. So both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal just wrote stories about how black Americans in particular seem to be struggling right now. Let's put this up here on the screen, both of them. What they say on the New York Times side is that if you look at this, it's largely a cut to federal agencies. And that's also an important part of the story because the federal government is the largest employer in the United States. And they said that this is one of the most staggering losses of employment that black women have ever seen in our current economy. On the Wall Street Journal Journal side, they say unemployment may remain historically low, but unemployment for black Americans is some 7.2%. Probably, again, attributable, it seems to like federal agencies. But the point just broadly, is for Trump, one of the things that he could hang his hat on when he got elected was what was. I got historic margins with black people. I got historic margins with Hispanic people. And if you talk to a lot of those guys or. Or gals. Guys, and in some cases gals, what did they say? That they voted for Trump on the economy. They were fed up with Biden, and they didn't feel like Kamala was gonna do anything about it. So, look, pocketbook and all that. Sometimes it's number one, not always. But I do think it can be very disillusioning broadly when you look at all that and the general experience of being an American consumer today. In my opinion is hellish. Like it's just deeply expensive. Everything is pay for play no matter what.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, you feel exploited at every time.

[Krystal Ball]

You really are. I mean it's like you go out to a restaurant, I don't drink alcohol. You go out to a restaurant and it's not even particularly good and it's like 60, $70 and you're like what am I paying for? Like again, in my head it should be 35. Should have just stayed at home, you know, same with the drive through. Just everything apparently Disney World, I talked about this. You go, they charge it every step.

[Saagar Enjeti]

All the subscriptions like the. Now if you're a big NBA fan and you want to watch all the games, good luck. Yeah, you're going to have to, you have to buy like friggin seven different streaming packages in order to pull it off. So like this deal we thought we were getting with the cord cutting and cable going away, now we're just getting screwed. Now every company out there can nickel and dime you or much more than that, frankly to death. So yeah, it just, it feels the level of sort of pillaging and exploitation has been through the roof. It's been absolutely insane. And you know, just to go back to what we're saying about black workers. Black workers are frequently the reason it's an important statistic obviously is because of we want people to have jobs. They also tend to be canary in the coal mine for the economy because historically, you know, unfortunately you have black people higher represented in low wage, lower skill employment. And so you have that dynamic. And then you also have the American government. The federal government has been, you know, helped to build out the American black middle class. And that is nowhere is more evident than in and around D.C. and so when you have doge coming in and just wantonly slashing random government positions, not saving any money by the way, just making everything worse and kicking people out of a job. You can see the effects of that showing up in the black unemployment rate. I'm sure that is especially pronounced right here in this region.

[Krystal Ball]

Absolutely. You know, to your, to your point, I don't know. Do you know what NFL red zone is? I know that a lot of my friends are not taking this well. Well anyway, I'm sure a lot of our bro audience does now I think you pay for it. It's like to be able to watch all the games or something, whatever. But the point they now they're gonna have commercials. So you pay for it and you have to watch commercial. That's how everything Works now everything. Or, you know, it's like Hulu. It's like, oh, you could pay 7.99 to watch with ads. We can pay $14.99 to watch with no, like, 14.99 for, like, a show that you might watch once a year. And then, oh, you gotta have Netflix, too. And then, oh, you have to have Disney plus. Just had a kid, apparently. Gotta have Disney plus. Well, if you're gonna have Disney plus, you might as well have the Disney plus version with no ads, because then the kids will get angry. It's just. It never ends. It's everything. Everything is subscription. Everything is pay for play. And even what you're paying for is not even particularly good.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The fucking video games. It's the same thing.

[Krystal Ball]

I know.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I've heard that.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, like Roblox.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You may pay on the front end or you may not pay on the front end, you know, to download this game. But then if you want to do this thing in the game or you want to rise to this level in the game, then, oh, you got to buy. You got to buy the Robux. You got.

[Krystal Ball]

What is it? It's, like, crazy. You can play for it, or you could pay to, like, get around. I think it's out for again. I don't know. I don't.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, it varies per game, but if you are willing to shell out the dollars, then you're going to advance more in the game and participate in the full experience or whatever. It's, you know, I mean, it's just at every turn and, you know, not to be all like, back in my day, but back in my day, you bought the game and that was it. That was the end of the story.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, they could never have envisioned they would have done it if they could have. They just didn't have the ability to do so and to milk people for as much money as possible. So I don't know. I really. Sometimes when I look at the average prices and then I look at the average income, I do not understand how people make it at all. Like. Like, period. Just the monthly nut. The absolute basics. I'm like, do you have any money left at all? And then, no. You know, you look at the credit card numbers and all that, I'm like, yeah, that's the only way that any of it makes sense. By the way, some breaking news just came across the wire. US companies have announced just 1400 new jobs in August. That's the lowest for the month since 2009. Layoffs surging to 39%, 85,000. These ADP payroll numbers. This is first squawk that just literally just came out as of this year.

[Saagar Enjeti]

1400.

[Krystal Ball]

That's what they said. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm making sure. Yeah, that's. That's the. That's the number from adp.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So when do we get the. Do we get the government jobs report? Tomorrow?

[Krystal Ball]

I think they're separate.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm not sure they are separate, but it comes out on Friday, so we'll probably get that one. I think it's the first Friday of the month, so probably get that tomorrow.

[Krystal Ball]

Wow. ADP number. Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

While you're looking at that, put the next element up, guys.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

At least the tariffs are going well or restoring our manufacturing glory here. Oh, wait. Actually, manufacturing contracts drop for six months in a row. So that's a big part of the story, too. Here is Trump was talking, ironically, about how the court decisions with regard to tariffs were creating uncertainty. It's like your whole thing is complete insanity and chaos. What are we talking about here? There's no ability for anyone to plan. No company would want to hire into these circuit. No company would want to invest, build out big manufacturing plants in this industrial environment because you don't know if the tariffs are on. If they're off, they obviously used. Very likely it's going to be struck down. The authority that they use to levy these tariffs, they're very likely to be ultimately struck down, at least some broad swath of them. And so that has also raised prices for consumers, made business owners much more uncertain about what the future holds, and created another massive chill on the economy that is filtering through as we speak.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. By the way, it was a misprint. It's 54,000 jobs. Sorry about that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Holy cow. All right.

[Krystal Ball]

Still not 54,000, according. Better than 80, but below the consensus forecast of 75,000. See, this is why not believe everything read on the Internet. Got to go. And you read it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

54,000, though.

[Krystal Ball]

What's CNBC doing there?

[Saagar Enjeti]

54,000. But now it's still not good anyway.

[Krystal Ball]

So 54,000 jobless claims increased to 237,000, up from 8,000 from the prior week. And previous estimates, job openings said it was one of the worst levels for job openings in July since 2020.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Wow.

[Krystal Ball]

There you go.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, and let's put this last chart up on the screen because that underscores the point. We're now at a place for the first time in a long time where you have more job seekers than you have job openings. So you can see that that Red line. Those are the unemployed looking for jobs. And there are now officially too few job open openings to go around. And this was according to BLS data, so government data. And this was compiled by Steve Ratner and posted online. So, you know, that's also a very significant data point in terms of the trajectory of the economy.

[Krystal Ball]

Yep, absolutely. So you can see all this stuff together. I don't know. It's not good. I always think it's gotta end, but it actually doesn't. That's the one thing where these people are somehow smarter than me. They can always figure out how to massage it, buy back stuff, whatever. They never like the bubble. Everyone always is. Like, there's a bubble that's gonna happen and it just never stops. It's like they endlessly are able to figure it out. The really crazy part too is people just take it. They just keep paying and paying and paying. That's why I keep meaning about your monthly bills. I'm like, at what point do you're just like, no, we're not dealing with this anymore. But I don't know. People are conditioned, again, I really don't know.

[Saagar Enjeti]

People are conditioned to think of it as a personal failing if they're not able to make it, rather than. I really think that that's part of the sort of perniciousness of some of the American dream ideologies. Like, if you work hard and you play by the rules, you can make it. And there have been studies about that. Because you have that so deeply, culturally enmeshed. People are much more likely to blame themselves if they're struggling versus looking at the system saying, okay, I need to protest against this. I need to vote this person out of office versus other countries. The comparison I saw specifically was the American working class, like in Youngstown versus the British working class in, like the London suburbs.

[Krystal Ball]

Interesting.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And yeah, and so, I mean, it's a real phenomenon as people. People turn inward and they blame themselves. They think that it's a moral failing if they're struggling in the economy.

[Krystal Ball]

It can be both. Like, some of it can be your fault, but a lot of it can. I mean, you.

[Saagar Enjeti]

When you look across the country, you don't see these trends.

[Krystal Ball]

Housing, I mean, this is why we were talking about the Fed.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, the housing.

[Krystal Ball]

You don't create, you know, you don't set interest rates, period. Like, you're at. Literally at the mercy of the gods in Washington as to whether your mortgage was at 3% or at 7. Like, you have no say on that whatsoever. So, like, yeah, that's not your fault. You don't set the price of meat like you don't set the price of any of this. I guess all you can really control is your job. But you know within this and you look at the overall outpacing in terms of inflation for necessities and particular educate and especially anything that's going to better yourself like education, education or any of the other things compared to the amount of wage inflation, it's just devastating. So I don't know, tucker said. People said that people should stop paying their credit card bills. Maybe we should.

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[Krystal Ball]

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A single mother, Stacy, falls in love.

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