Making & Breaking Points with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti

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You know, I don't know when I'm going to leave this job. I don't know when I'm going to stay in this job, I don't know how these things are going to do. But when I do, you should replace me with indeed. You should call indeed when you're replacing me because, listen, this podcast requires skills. You need a face, you need a pie hole so that you can open your pie hole and just spout. That's not everybody can do that. And so, you know, if you need to hire, you got to say to yourself, this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. You can reach candidates that meet your specific criteria like if you want them to have skills or pie hole certifications. Maybe even you want to know what the location is. Only indeed can get that stuff done efficiently. Trust me, you know, you got to, you got to kiss a lot of frogs unless you use one of these services there like indeed. 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And then, you know, we'll talk about the other things. It's the dog days of summer. There's not a whole lot going on right now. It's a little bit quiet. Senate is on recess. The House on recess. I am going to go away. I've got a lovely, like a snorkel vacation planned in this beautiful crystal clear. It's, I probably am not pronouncing this right. Hormuz, straight of Hormuz, where we'll see the, that's never going to fucking end. But we got a great show for today. I wanted to bring on a couple of folks that I feel like have been doing the kind of, I'm on the left. I'm on the right discussion. I feel like they do it in a way that engenders good faith. And so I wanted to highlight them on today's program. So let me get to them right now. We'll discuss all things left, right populist and otherwise. Please welcome to the program, the hosts of Breaking Points. Ladies and gentlemen, here we are, the final weekly show podcast before summer break. And we have the co hosts of Breaking Points, Crystal Ball and Saga and Jedi are joining us today to discuss all that is happening in the world. First of all, welcome Crystal. Welcome, Saga. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much for having us, John. I want to start by saying I don't feel comfortable seeing you two in separate spaces. We had a debate about that actually, but it just was a little bit technically easier this way. So I'm sorry that we made you uncomfortable. And same for you to see you at home in a t-shirt. It's throwing me off from my childhood. Oh, dear God. If only you knew, Saga, how painful it was for me to put on the suit for my for my one 20 minutes a day and all that. That's actually why I left the show in 2015. I just decided, hey man, I couldn't take that anymore. I'm done with the button down. This is over, but we're delighted that you're both here. And I want to ask you because you're both such an interesting dynamic. As you guys have worked together, do you find that your political opinions are starting to converge? Because I think the point of it is sort of at a guy a little bit on the right. You know, Saga, you'd worked at Daily Caller. You're done something crystal more on the left. But as I listen to you guys, I find there is a great deal, not just of respect, but convergence. And I can't think of another show where sort of the idea is to get those contrasting viewpoints that has had that. Is that how you're experiencing it? I would say it depends very much on the moment of the news cycle. So if you had been watching us regularly leading up to Trump's victory or after Trump's victory, when we were talking about immigration and mass deportation and Seacad or even today, we had a big debate about like woke 1.0. You might get a different impression. But the concept of the show, you know, from the beginning, even predating the current iteration of breaking points was, okay, if we got the best face and faith interpretation of the populist right in conversation with the populist left, what would that look like? And my theory is that there would be different overlap than you might find on sort of the traditional like Crossfire to name a throwback. Oh, I just got a cool something just the difficult Crossfire sort of cable news dynamic. And so I think that's what you're picking up on. And certainly on the Iran war, on changing the relationship with Israel, on, you know, economic issues, there is a lot of overlap there. I think the thing you said, Crystal, that resonates the most with me is best faith, good faith. I think and saga, maybe that's what I'm thinking of. It might not be a convergence of opinion. It's that it's a good faith discussion. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that we both really built our show around is like a rejection of cable news and just not only the format, but the very way in which they want to increase division. And we have plenty of division, which we showcase very openly. And honestly, as you just pointed out, Crystal about our woke 1.0 debate. But in it, there was a good faith, I mean, Crystal heard me out and I heard her out and we gave our counterpoints. And there was no like yelling or screaming at each other. I also, whenever you're talking about convergence, I think that one of the things that really comes with respect is understanding. And so we've been doing this, you know, not just this show, but our previous iteration of the show for almost like seven or eight years now. What was that when the rising? What was the first one? It was rising. That's it rising. And one of the things that comes with that is you come to understand very deeply where other people are coming from. And it's really useful because it helps not only in your interactions politically, but like even in your everyday life, like when you hear somebody say something, you can understand where previously would have been like, what an idiot. You're like, okay, I see how you got to that conclusion because of the information you took in or your worldview is just fundamentally really different than my worldview. And there's a level of acceptance with that, one of the best compliments that we both get, you know, if we're in public or something is like, you really help my relationship with my dad, you know, he just helped me understand like where my dad was coming from whenever he would rant about X, Y, and Z, like I understood why and then or vice versa, you know, like help my relationship with my kid and like my kids really into DSA. And like, I don't understand what that is. But when I hear Crystal talk about it, it's like, okay, I kind of start to make sense to me. And so, you know, in that way, it's really edifying. And part of the reason why I love doing the show, as you've come together and now it's been like, as you said, seven years or, does it help you also identify the bad faith actors in our political and media hellscape has that has there been a way for you to discern, oh, these people are performative, these people are bad faith. And do you do you avoid that now? Avoid those folks or do you expose? Oh, it's a mix. Yeah. I mean, definitely that is certainly the case. And look, I have become less tolerant of a lot of pundits on the right. There are very few who are actually on the right that I would work with at this point because I just think there's so much lies and propaganda there that to deal with that on a daily basis would not be productive. You know, if you're doing a debate and you're having an engagement or trying to expose, that's one thing. But to work together with someone every day, as you know, is an entirely different relationship. So, for example, in the wake of your John Fetterman interview. I don't think that is someone I could work with every day. I'm not sure John Federman is working with John Federman every day. Just bad faith arguments, a lack of an ability to really even grapple with the questions that you're asking, etc. But what has made it work with soccer is we've had some very heated debates, very hot and over issues that we both care a lot about and I think are very consequential. What makes it work over the long term is that we're both capable of saying, you know, what I got it wrong there? You were right. You had a point. And I think over the long term, that's part of what has built the trust that enables it. I totally agree. And it's like, you know, Chris is vice versa. I think, you know, especially at the height of a lot of pretty crazy moments, 2020 and others. They're not a lot of people. I think who I could have stomped. But yeah, I mean, as Chris said, it can get hot and that's fine. I actually think it's healthy. It's normal. It's reflective of literally the nature of the country or literally living. They're one of the most tumultuous times I think in modern American history. It's probably akin to the 1960s in a lot of different way. Or actually, maybe the 70s is a better comparison. But here's what's sad. I think I'm the only one who's lived through both of those. So I can, if you have any questions, that's true. I've only read about it, John. Yeah. I'm happy. I'm happy to tell you about it. Right. But I mean, John, since you were there, you know that that was a moment of very actually limited public debate. And in my opinion, one of the reasons why things went really wrong was because of the convergence of the mass media era. Like for me, this is honestly surreal to be able to talk to you because you were so instrumental for me as a kid who is growing up in bush country, hearing these lies about the Iraq war. There is only one place that I could go to to expose like this level of hysteria and nonsense, which I just here propagated all day long on all three cable networks. And that was at a time of total ubiquity in mass media part of the reason that we got into the war that we did. And it went as long as we did. I think that the Iran war is, look, it's a disaster, but it is a hopeful story in that the poll numbers went south immediately. A huge amount of the American public is getting their information from sources or, you know, different from sources like us, many others who are out there who are able to expose the absolute holes in all of the propaganda that the Pentagon or the White House is able to put out. And so look, it's a disaster that we're in this, but it's actually a hopeful story that the public turned on it almost immediately. And so that we didn't have that edifice to prop it up, that we did at that time. Well, let me ask you a question because it brings up sort of the incentives of those systems that created that because I think you're, you make a nice point about the 60s and 70s being tumultuous in that same way. I think the Iran war has gone south, in some ways, because this administration doesn't respect us enough to lie to us. They kind of don't give a shit what we think. And in the 60s and 70s, the lies were generally, you know, media has found a way, the incentives of it to get weaponized, bad faith actors weaponize it, right? The ubiquity of cable news was at first, and TV in general, in the 60s and 70s, politicians weren't quite sure what to do with TV. And you remember the debate between Kennedy and Nixon. And Kennedy went out there and he understood the television as a visual medium, and Nixon was like, I don't need makeup, I look great. And he got his ass kicked on the TV side. But if you listen to it on the radio, people thought Nixon won. Do you think it's, in some respects, the media has just politics has figured out how to weaponize media. Is that fair to say? Like you just talked about all these bad faith actors, right? They exist as part of a political ecosystem as a way of, you know, Roger Ailes very famously said, I want to create something so that would happen to Nixon could never happen to another Republican president. You know, sometimes we separate media and politics, but isn't it true that in a lot of ways, there's a symbiosis, a lot of it's been co-opped by politics. And I'm curious what you think of that. And we can talk a little bit about breaking down those ecosystems. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a double edged sword on the one hand, absolutely. And the amount of propaganda, the amount of lies, you know, you go on Twitter now X and there's all these accounts that are just AI Slop accounts feeding all kinds of nonsense. It makes it very difficult actually to sort out what's happening in the war, not to mention there's a total censorship lockdown on the US as part of what is happening in the region. On the flip side of it though, there's also a hopeful story there because in its best incarnation, you know, they haven't been able to cover up the horrors in genocide. People watched that in 4K themselves and they took their own moral opinion of what was happening there and it went directly against what the bipartisan elite consensus had been for years and years. I think you're right that it's insulting that they didn't even bother to lie to us this time before the war. I think it also reflects the fact that Donald Trump doesn't feel that he needs to go through the mechanisms of democracy. We just have to swallow whatever insanity he's going to do, but I also think the fact that you have so many dissenting voices in new media that were critical from the beginning and able to expose the very thin level of propaganda that had been fed to us has also been a positive point. Now I get concerned because there are also legacy media has its advantages. There was a real tradition and a firewall between opinion and that, you know, and the journalist part and the advertising and those walls fall down in new media. But overall, I think when you look at those two stories in particular, you can see that it has helped to create a better atmosphere for democratic under small d democratic understanding of what these wars and what this genocide actually are. I think that's a really important point. It's a double edged sword as Crystal said. I compare it to the invention of the printing press. I mean, that's how the internet I'm seriously that's what the internet. Yeah, because I mean, what did that actually do? Is it decentralized media? We literally had something called a 100 years war, a Protestant regional reformation, chaos, millions of people died. But of course, nobody would say, well, yeah, the invention of the printing press was bad. It was just unleashed a new medium of debate. Motivit was propaganda actually pornography, one of the original inventions of the printing press of mass distribution, just like the internet. But what it demonstrated, I think, on a long enough timeline was a more informed public. And that's the thing we're working things out, as Crystal said. And this is where I think all of us can be upfront and honest, like we are in a difficult position because we are people who do the news, but Crystal and I are also business owners. We co-own our company. But we set rules at the very beginning. We do not read ads period because we believe that if we did so, it could potentially compromise things in the future. Now, we know that we have sacrificed literally like multiple zeros of income. However, what we've decided instead was to build a more anti-fragile business. For example, like we have a premium subscription program. We have YouTube revenue. We have like dynamic ads, which are not as that we read, which we have no negotiation or interest in. But it took a level of intentionality. However, though, there's no reason that we had to do that. If we wanted to read Man'scape ads, we could. And most people are not doing that. And are not going to do that. Yeah. And most people are not doing that and are much richer than us as a result. But we believe you're starting to make me work out. You're starting to make me sweat. And it's why I look to quince to create a new wardrobe. Hey folks, I know you're trying to figure out ways to skip through these little ad reads here. I get that. I know. I know what you're doing. I know you're looking into that Spotify thing. Yeah, listen, I'm applying your bastards. And I'd be honest with you, I'm not crazy about reading them in the first place. Generally, except for this one. Ground news. You know, I'm always going to go to bat for the ground news. Ground news, because it's, I hate the news. I hate what it's doing to me emotionally. I hate that you don't really know where the information is coming from. Sometimes you don't know how it's being manipulated. And it adds to the creeping fog of sadness that grows. But I have to keep up. I have to understand what's going on in the world. And that's why ground news. It's, they've got a website. It's an app. You can see how different news outlets will frame the same story. They've got a blind spot feed. So you can challenge yourself about your news consumption to get the same unlimited access to the vantage subscription. Go to groundnews.com/steward and subscribe to get 40% off discount only available for a limited time. That's groundnews.com/steward or scan the QR code on screen. But soccer, so this is, this is really interesting to me because we're talking about media independence. And when you think of independence, I think writ large, you think of it as media independence from corporate interest. We're not, we're not owned by universal or GE or any of these things. But independence is also, are you independent from a political motivation? Yes. That's another form of independence. And a lot of people I think are captured by that. But the third avenue of independence. And I wonder about this for you is, What are your incentives to the audience? You know, when you say we have a subscription amount on all that and do the incentives of, look, we all know in an attention economy what sells the most is probably outrage, anger, and those things. So how do you and your model avoid being captured by the rage of the town's people? You know, how do you avoid pitchforks and torches? Well, that's where we're really blessed, honestly, it's a right-left show. So you know, at any given time, a decent portion of the audience is mad. And so that's actually built into a works well. It works really well. So we're going to be hated no matter what, but we are very often hated by our own paying, so we might have one of the most agnomonious, you know, honors of being often hated by the people who pass. But that's built in, as I said. So at various different times, we've gone through these, you know, types of events before. People are mad that you said x, y, or z. But because of our political independence and the right-left kind of dynamic that is baked in to the heart of the program, it means that there are always new people who also show up. That's one of the things where a lot of the, and you actually can see this. There's a lot of articles about MAGA media and how it's collapsing as enthusiasm in MAGA and the project with Donald Trump, especially with younger men, starts to go down. People who went all in on just Trump alone or on right-wing so-called media are seeing a dramatic reduction in their overall revenue and views because that's just not really what people want to hear right now. That is just not something that could ever happen to us because Crystal would always represent a side of somebody who's critical of MAGA, right? Or I mean, even I am, obviously, as well. But vice versa, let's say whenever Joe Biden was president. And so we are very lucky, honestly, in the way that we designed everything. But what you're laying out is a very real problem and it explains grifterism, which is basically people who have to continue it going, manufacture and create new type of controversies purely for an economic incentive, which isn't enough of a cancer that we have today. Yeah. I mean, audience capture is very real. You can kind of, if you're watching channels close, so you can tell who's just catering to their audience and what they think, you know, an algorithm wants them to produce. But I also want to say with regard to the fury and the pitchforks, like I think people have good reason to be furious right now. I think both on an economic level, you know, we've been thrust into this war that basically no one wanted that is devastating for the global economy. It's first and foremost, devastating for Iranians and Iranian civilians. We have used our taxpayer dollars used to fund a genocide that again, the public has vociferously turned against. And we have a system that is rigged by an oligarch class. So I think talking about those things, the way that the AI oligarchs literally want to take everyone's jobs, yeah, people should get angry about that. Those are things that should infuriate you. Right. And so we don't shy away from that. You know, I think to be informed right now is to be angry and furious about the state of affairs. All right. Let me ask you because it's, you know, it's such an interesting thing to point out how many real things there are that can shock the conscience of people. And yet, I think if I'm being fair about where the real energy of the debate is right now, it's whether or not Ennis Cantor is going to get drafted into the WNBA, like the real outrage in this country and culture doesn't seem to be about those, those very real points you just, you just articulated. Well, and to me, Sagar may have a different take on this, but to me, it's very obvious what's going on here. Trump's approval is in the toilet. His war is a disaster. The economic numbers are trash. People are furious. I think it's the greatest economy this country's ever had. I forgot about that. Yes. According to Fox News, absolutely. And Republicans are facing what is likely to be a landslide defeat in the midterms. So what are they doing? They're going back to the culture war bag of tricks. Here's a Chinese object that I can tangle over at Fox News to get our own base back in line. But I actually don't think that that's what's driving. For example, the electoral results that we're seeing in democratic primaries across the country and likely to see in the general election in the fall. There, you, to me, the number one issue is very likely the economy, but it's also horror at a foreign policy that is both expensive and deeply immoral. Yeah, John, I would push back a bit. I agree with you. What? How dare you, sir? Well, I just think it's reflective, maybe of a cable news bias because you're right. Sure. I believe the WNBA was the second most mentioned topic on Fox News this week. And that's probably true of the 65 plus crowd. If I were to go and ask them, however, the segments that perform best on our channel are things about the housing crisis are about flock cameras, data centers, AI displacement and job loss foreign policy. I mean, I never thought I would have my dream job of being able to speak to guys like Professor John Meersheimer, who is a literal idol for over like an hour and a half and have him describe like great power politics and the Iran more and watch millions of people want to engage with that type of content. And so I do think like, look, are we amusing ourselves to death empirically? Yes. I mean, not just in terms of sports, but with gambling and many of the other vices which are exploding in our current society. However, what we always also point out on the show, that is derivative of real problems like housing, which is the one I would say we see the most consistent rage in terms of not just our audience, but in our demographic and is direct. It is like downstream of so many of the other problems that we face like as a society. And so yeah, go ahead. And I also just say, John, that I think to the revelation, this will feel like a bit of a left turn, but the revelations in the Epstein files of the way that this powerful elite actually has this incredible class solidarity and the way that they operate. I think it's blown some of the lid off of this idea that, you know, what we should really be focused on is trans people or these culture war debates because we've been able to see the way the powerful actually work in the world and the view that they have of the rest of us. And so I think that that has been a very educational and illuminating experience for people as well as they process some of these like new red meat culture war debates that are thrown into the mix. Yeah, it's just hard to imagine, you know, when we talk about it and the importance of it, all these things that you're bringing up are truly important. And yet there's been no accountability for any of it. All right. And it seems like what there is accountability for either legislatively or otherwise are culture war issues that like a giving example, you know, the SAV Act being, you know, at the forefront of so much of the problems that we're going on in the Senate right now and the liberals, they don't want, they want illegals who are voting in millions of numbers, not to, you know, show an ID, you know, just utter nonsense that gets thrown out there or the trans debate as being at the forefront of what's in everybody's minds about the death, like nuance is utterly removed through the process of our media and our politics, yet the things that you talk about that are facing Americans or are making them question the legitimacy of our institutions. Are never addressed seemingly with no accountability. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the core of our show. Go ahead. Right. Can I give you another example of that, John, which is very much top of news cycle right now. So there's this whole controversy about Hassan Piker and whether or not candidates should associate with him and Abdul Assad famously had a rally with him. So he's being targeted right now is like, how dare you associate with this guy who said all these terrible things. The clip that they usually point to is where he says that we quote, unquote, deserve 9/11. When he's talking about the concept of blowback and for which he is since apologized. Meanwhile, Abdul Assad is running against a guy who literally was in Congress after 9/11, who authorized the Iraq war, who supported mass surveillance, who defended torture, but weren't that guy is fine. But associating with someone who said something that was edgy one time, that's what's out of bounds. That's what should be offered. That's not just me, but I think most people, JD Vance's spiritual advisor, you know, the preacher that JD Vance considers one of his sort of spiritual advisors talks about male dominion over women, you know, there are all kinds of extremes in terms of association. I remember with Obama, you know, yeah, go ahead. Just think about though the contrast between Hassan Piker said a thing in response to 9/11 versus this guy actually was in power and was involved in the horrific lies leading up to that war, the authorization of the war, the torture, the murder of Iraqi civilians. And so we're when you talk about accountability, where is the accountability for that? Where's the moral weight on that versus, I mean, many of these guys that were villains on your show when you were covering the Iraq war are still around today to propagandize us and push us in the Iran war. So I think that lack of accountability point to is a big failing in our society. And in my opinion, it has to be corrected in the next administration. People have to go to prison for the crimes that were committed, whether it's rogue ice agents, whether it's insider trading within this regime, that has to happen for us to reestablish anything approaching a healthy society. And I will say, John, I was for me. I know I want with two liberals here. So I'm just trying to take away my values, careful. Sorry, a leftist and a liberal, a leftist and a liberal. I'm going to have to fact, I'm going to have to check on that JD Vance spiritual advisor. I was going to say, I was like, I'm fairly certain that's not true. I was a Hegseth, but JD Vance was Peter Teal. Okay. Like when asked by Ross Dutat, should human beings continue to exist, long paused for like eight seconds to be like, I don't know about humans. And like has unbelievably, you know, this, the other people that are in those words, my point being guilt by association, which is often thrown in Democrats faces whether it was Obama spiritual advisor can be thrown into the rights faces, but it never seems to be done in that. That's where what was a pastor right? Is that right? Pastor right? Now that I think about it, yeah, I think the vein I'm picking up on, yeah. And this is where I'm, I mean, I would say this is like the great disappointment, political disappointment on my life. As I said, was I was inspired to get involved in politics because of Iraq. And watch and you know, the, the centerpiece of the 2024 campaign. And it's fair for people to say that you were fooled was no more foreign wars. I mean, the vice president, as you said, wrote an op-ed endorsing Trump, Trump's best legacy, no new wars. Stephen Miller famously said, Kamala will send your sons to war. A significant contingent in the 2024 campaign was we are not going to war with Iran. And so to live in a reality, where Trump dastardly and disgracefully attacks Iran under the cover of negotiations twice, kills 168 schoolgirls, you know, delivers the greatest strategic disaster to the United States, potentially either since Vietnam or a clipsing it. If you talk to one of our guests, Professor Robert Pape, to live in that reality with those people who I really did trust. And I'm saying it's on a personal level. I know many of them. I came up in politics, kind of in a same cohort. It has been the greatest, like, betrayal of my lifetime. And, and I think what's really disappointing is how much of it is clearly BS in that I believe that the voters believed that the wars were bad. And so to live in a reality where Thomas Massey, you know, loses his house primary purely because of a pack and pro-Israel money and a boomer Republican base who if you'd pull them under. Well, and that Trump, I mean, let's not deny. Yeah. And Trump. Right. Of course. 100%. Right. Those two together, like those two forces together. Saga, I want to ask you a question. And I mean, isn't, and this is for crystal too. The dynamic that you're describing is a politics that distorts reality that creates an impression and then makes policy choices to, to ameliorate that the damage of this false reality. And you're saying that your dividing line for that was Iraq and now Iran. I think maybe the disconnect here for whatever you would call liberals or the left or any of those things is that the entirety of Trump's operation has been that is a con is what you're saying. That's right. Has been the same dynamic you're describing that has disappointed you in Iraq and Iran. I would say has disappointed me when you say the Haitian community is eating cats and dogs. Well, that's the same immigration wise as Saddam Hussein is using these aluminum tubes to enrich uranium. And that's why we have to go in there. In other words, the reason that has been given for so many of these policy decisions that I would disagree with is also a distortion of reality. I think that's entirely fair, John. So I find it interesting that somehow Iran, it's like the whole Tucker Carlson of it. I've had enough really because it looks to me like it's the same shit that's been happening from day one. I think that's entirely fair. Again, to take a step back. And I can only from my perspective, like I would the Haitian thing. Yeah, it was a lie. The truth is a lot of us sat and swallowed it because we wanted less immigration. And we're like, okay, well, I mean, this highlights a topic and an issue, which we can fight on. We can put the left on the back foot because, you know, they want, you know, mass amnesty. And we don't. And that was a tactical, political decision that people in politics make all the time. But I'm not even sure they want mass amnesty. Like I even think that's a red herring. I don't know that they do want mass amnesty. But we don't have a politics in this country that's functional enough or literate enough to have an actual conversation about what immigration in this country should look like. I think that again, I totally take your point. And this is where this is the most common. Look at me. Like look at me. Yeah, come on. You're my parents are loving this. My parents are loving this. We put me being put in my place. But I do think like what the Iran thing and again, I can explain it from my perspective, which was these were people whose entire careers literally were kind of built on opposition to the new conservative agenda. And did we know Trump is a liar, a con often says various different things. Absolutely. Many of us knew that or would say it in private. What we also knew is that in his first term, he was incredibly deferential to a lot of his staff. A lot of the people we were hiring, he was hiring. I knew for a fact, you know, at the very least had a genuine belief we shouldn't go to war with Iran. So, but, but, but what was extremely blackpilling to use an online term was to see those same people have to defend the war. And in some cases use, you know, Iraq rhetoric. I mean, I remember the vice president who I seen give lectures against the war with Iran or you know, against, you know, new conservatism. He was in the oval. It was in the middle of the Iran war. And he's like, it's like a suicide bomber. We're not going to wait till the suicide bomb goes off to disarm it. And I was like, oh my god, we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. These are rice all over again. I actually couldn't believe it. And then, you know, Mark Teeson is back on my television screen. And Ari Fleischer is back on my television screen. And the same liars, like who are just fine, this like, and to watch that happen. Like I say, fine, I was fooled. I didn't think it would. I thought that the lesson was learned. And there's a major maya culpa that has had and has to be had by people who thought that it would be different and said so publicly. So that's kind of where I am currently. Chris, what do you think of that? Because it's hard for me to hear a mea culpa about an Iran war when the entire regime is there. There's an inevitability to the reality distortion field and the actions that they take based on a reality that they are creating. Yeah. Well, this is something soccer, and I have had it on over on our show quite a lot and have sorted through in many conversations. And I've certainly had my, I told you so's. And in fairness to soccer, it's not even and I told you that I don't mean it that way. Honestly, it's not that. No, I get what you're saying, though. And I think one of the biggest differences in my view going into Trump 2.0 and soccer's view, apart from the fact that we have different ideologies. And so, we have different things that we consider to be good or bad, specifically on immigration in particular. But soccer's view was that there were institutional constraints the first time. And there will be some institutional constraints this time. That's true. I looked at the what had been done in the off season, whether it was Project 2025, whether it was all of the plans to fire mass fire government workers, whether it was the Supreme Court taking control of the Supreme Court and then the Supreme Court giving Trump a green light to commit whatever crimes in office that he wants to, whether it was the mass loyalty tests and fealty that he demanded and demanded that people back up his 2020 election stolen lies. I looked at that and said, no, this is going to be gloves off. It is going to be a most maximalist version of what he would want to do of what his id is. And it's going to be horrifying. Now, even I don't think could have anticipated all of the doge and C-Cott and murdering random fishermen in the Caribbean. I could have anticipated and did anticipate the Iran war. But those were, I think, two of the very different frames that we had coming into this. And, you know, for me, I'm very much caught between people who now are seeing some of the problems. I want to say great come along. But I agree with you that there has to be some reckoning with, okay, how did you get it wrong? And again, I think Sagar has actually done this, but how did you get it wrong? How did you end up in this place? And what are we doing going forward? Because if you're now just all of a sudden pretending like you had nothing to do with his rise, if you aren't reckoning with the other lies and horrors that unfolded during Trump 1.0 and in the off season and in the buildup to Iran, then it's going to be very difficult to have any sort of like coming together or certainly coalition formed around that group. I only eat food now. That afterwards I can swim in the bowl that I hated it. Can you imagine if your cereal bowl was literally big enough, you could eat your cereal and then go for a quick dip. Oh, the time I would save, but I got to tell you, this magic spoon, man. It's healthy food. Serial. Imagine that. Serial, but healthy. It's magic spoon, changing the game. They got 13 grams of protein for those of you going through the change of life, as I am, where you get the old sarcopenius. As they come in, you got to get that muscle up, and you got to get that protein. Zero sugar, by the way, five grams of net carbs per serving. 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That was fake. That, we enabled it. We worked our asses off to amplify the lying, to help create a reality distortion field that has given us all of these bad outcomes from invading Iran to a shitty reflecting pool because they're all one and the same, they're part of the same process quite frankly. It's all the same great, it's the real great replacement theory. Let's take all the partisans and replace them with ideologues because partisans are part of the game, ideologues are a whole different version. And now what they've done is they've created a little isolated group that can say, oh no, we didn't go along with it. So whoever kind of rises up to next lead MAGA, that group can bless and provide cover to, to say, oh no, these guys have it right now. This is the real MAGA and we'll provide cover. And I don't think any of it is an intentional. I think the entirety of the design of this, and it's not just the last 10 years, it's the last 50 or 60 years. So I mean, I was a very cynical interpretation and I know some of the people, please tell me why I shouldn't be cynical about that interpret please tell me why these bad faith actors are suddenly acting in good faith. You have every right to think that I don't think that there's nearly the incentive that you necessarily are, like you have people who all lost their elections and are not exactly like, well, let's say in Marjorie Taylor Greens and Thomas Massie's case, like actually lost their entire careers or Joe Kent, for example, who I know personally. I don't think they're the progenitors of it. I think Tucker is. Okay. I think he's the one who has to be, is very telling. He said, I couldn't believe how little influence I have. His whole thing is I have to be in proximity to power. I see, look, I've known Tucker for a long time. I just don't really agree with that analysis. Having spoken to him, I would say that he does feel genuinely burned by Donald Trump, not just with Iran, but actually with a lot more. I know he's skeptical. Well, he said, I mean, how do you, how are you burned by a guy that 10 years ago, you said, this man is corrupt to the core and I hate him. Sure. How are you burned by that? I mean, the vice president said that as well. Right. Change and is also a cynical, cynical person manipulating himself into the, the halls of power. You can't convince me otherwise because I've seen no evidence of it. Sure. Let's take the vice president out because you're right. He's literally the vice president. So we had something to gain. I don't see necessarily the same Tucker gain. I guess whenever it comes to the third party, or let's even take the Trump criticism, I again think it's genuine, it has lost him any like genuine friendships, cache, I think in terms of his ability to project power in a Republican party. I mean, I'm not sure if you've seen some of the approval polling on Tucker, like after Trump. Did they do it? They did. Yes, they did because they were testing this exact theory of what you're discussing, which is like, hey, does Tucker independently have juice amongst Republicans without Trump and his net negatives went much higher. Obviously, he's independent on his show, like in terms of his, like, you know, away from partisanship or his own economic situation, but. But soccer. The same could be said about Republicans who were apostate about the Iraq war. In other words, people look to the future. And he's always been a guy that has looked to what's then it. Look, explain to me a guy who says, I'm all about liberty and America and make America great again. And you know who's really a great leader, Putin. Like just, I just, there's an incoherence to this that has to be cynical because it's incoherent. I understand how you get there, but again, but it's like what, and this is kind of like we work as I work with Chris, like, I could see your brain pathways. Yes, yes, yes. And how you get there. So I'll explain the way that we would get there. And the way we would get there is like Tucker, or not even just Tucker, a lot of Maga, and you're talking about Putin. I assume in terms of like the war in Ukraine or admiration or whatever for the Russian system. Some of which, by the way, I do think goes too far, but a lot of it is about a rich, some of which, no, I'm saying in terms of like people who like or like Russia is the, you know, this pinnacle of Western greatness and it's like, well, just look at their demographics and their economy. Like, that's not exactly true. But the point that I think where it came from, again, just to try to explain this is a lot of the original 2016 energy in particular was a Bicananite rejection of globalism. And in particular, I think what people tried to see in Putin or slash like admiration or whatever of Putin or the Russian system was somebody who stands up for like the neoliberal West, right? So if I were to look at it through that frame, it's a little bit different. Like I don't think it is necessarily as incongruent as you're thinking because if you're a nationalist and you're primary, you know, view of the world is that sovereignty itself is one of the things you should promote and not just promote, but to cherish and to hold dear as much as possible. Then you're going to look at different countries, which have rejected like a Western global hegemon and say, oh, that's admirable, I guess, in a sense. Again, I'm not saying I agree with this, but I'm trying to explain how somebody would get. Well, Chris, let me let me ask you because it is, you know, this gets us into a whole other thing, but maybe this is the distinction between left wing and right wing populism, because I always think of populism through a much more economic lens, but there really is a nationalist lens that you have to look through it as well. And the thing that's interesting about the right wing populism is, and again, I view it as cynical, it's the ban in theory of power, I'm going to combine left wing economic populism because I think that gives me a large group of people to pull from, and I'm going to combine it with right wing, we must protect white Anglo-Saxon culture and Western civilization, which is there, I guess, sort of euphemism for that homogeneity. I think the second part of that, the white homogeneity is more important to them than the economic populism, and the reason that I think that is because they didn't tell their judges to be economic populists, like every Supreme Court decision that comes down basically favors corporate interest, rather than workers' interests. The economic part of it, at least putting the voters aside, but in the expression of right wing populism in Trump, and I would say other right wing populist leaders around the world, the economic part is basically fake. I mean, this has been an incredible administration for billionaires in the oligarch class. They've never made more money or had more power or been deregulated. They're getting everything they want. And that's part of why it was easier for Trump to take over the Republican Party than it has been for the left to take over the Democratic Party because the left wing populism, that class dynamic you're talking about, that is the whole thing, right? It is, in populism, you're basically doing the people versus who is the villain. For the left, the villain is the billionaires, it's the trillionaires, it's the Epstein class, it's the oligarchs. For the right, it's typically, you know, to frame it, I think you're right in your framing, there's usually a lot of, you know, scapegoating of various minority groups. And so you can use a sort of slopulous, faux populist rhetoric when it comes to the economics, but that has all been cast aside. And in Trump 1.0, it was as well. I mean, their biggest economic accomplishment was this big tax cut for the rich that was cooked up by the Heritage Foundation and Paul Ryan. So I think that is an important distinction here. And I think that's increasingly becoming clear to many Americans, which is why Trump's approval rating on the economy is in the toilet, why there is such discussed with him, why you see this real rise of left-wing populist candidates who are overcoming a lot of money and establishment rejection of them and, you know, attempts to smear and demagogue against them. But they're able to succeed anyway because the establishment has lost so much credibility with the Democratic base. And also because these economic and oligarchic forces have become so abundantly apparent to so many Americans. Yeah, John. And I think, look, again, I hear your critique. And, you know, I've had my, by the way, Saga, you really are like your way of dealing with me is exactly how now I'm going to go home and deal with people in my family. I hear what you're saying. Right. I see how you got there. I've been because I spend my time with Crystal and, you know, I've been in that way, Mo, and I understand. Yeah. It's taken you. Right. Yeah. You took one route. We're taking another. Exactly. If you were to take my route, my preferred route. So, you know, you're imputing or not imputed. You're imbuing kind of an ideology of just in your original analysis there about economics and about white identity politics. But I actually think, and I would take it further, is it's actually worse. It's really just about Trump. And I think it really took the Iran war to fully kick that in for me. Is that the voters fundamentally, they just really like Trump. And it's actually not as much about policy or any of the things that you might type of think. I really hit home for me in terms of, like when I talk to some of these people, still all on board the Trump train, especially the older voters, they really just love how he drives people like you crazy. And that's actually just all it is. Like any time like you see, that may be the saddest thing I've ever heard. But it's true. It isn't kind of empirically true is what you see is like liberal cultural rejection of Trump. He hates the right people. Or he's hated by the right people. That's actually what it's about. All right. And so that's the truth. I think at the beating heart of a lot of the remaining mega cold. So if we start to like him, they'll abandon him. I don't know about that. The damage has probably been done. But I don't know if they would cling necessarily as hard as you think. But you know, this is where though to, you know, kind of break my own analysis. The one thing that does appear to quote unquote Trump that is the economic situation, which is a validation. I think of the economic frame and go what you're talking about. For the very first time, we see Trump's not approval rating or approval rating with Republicans on the economy begin to dip down as a result, both of the, the way that the tariffs were handled and because of the Iran more and $4 gasoline. That is beginning to pierce what I would say is the cultural veneer. And it already has, you know, definitely for a lot of let's say the younger men or voters who went along with Trump in 2024. But I'd rather talk about the designers of this program than those that have to live through it. I think I'm talking more about the designers that the project 2025 designers, there is a Christian nationalist bent to it that I think is the driving force of it. And everything else is strategic and intentional about how do we get there? How do we get to the power? How do we get to control everything when our ultimate goal is that? So I actually, I think it's a much more economic. Like well, and even project 2025 itself is kind of complicated story, right? Because project 2025 was written by the Heritage Foundation. It was explicitly disavowed by Donald Trump on the campaign trail who was like, I have nothing to do with. No, I'm not saying it was real. Come on, man. I'm saying he did devout it, correct? Like he did. But cynically, he didn't disavow it. He gave it plausible deniability as he does it. That's my point is when you act like, wow, this Iran thing really caught me off guard. And then you tell me with earnestness, oh no, he disavowed 2025. He did nothing of the kind. He in no way wanted to deal with the particulars of it because he knew how politically damaging it was. Right. No, no, I'm actually, I was about to get there. So I was saying he disavowed it only then to hire many of the people who were signatories of project 2025. So there was an acknowledgement going into the campaign that this is politically damaging. This time, the product, the heritage foundation, et cetera. But then that became the general policy, at least in some areas, it's been kind of complicated because a lot of it is just Trump himself deciding what the tariff rate on China should be whenever he wakes up in the morning. I'm not joking. That's actually how it works. I liked when he did, he didn't like a conversation he had in Switzerland and he was like 50% on chocolate. Right. Yeah. 50% on chocolate and watches for the watch community that was devastating as a member of that. So like when we talk about the designers, I don't know if it's as intentional though, as you say, I do think all political coalitions have like people who are insider organizations in Washington who are jogging for power. That's literally the job of the heritage foundation or of these new conservative think tanks. So you're saying like what you're talking about, how you think the Iran war came out of nowhere. You know, that's kind of a foolish thought. But it's just really hard for somebody who lives in the town knows some of the most senior appointees or some of the people who were there who in private and in public spoke against war with Iran, make good cases against war with Iran. Why we should disengage from the Middle East to say that that was disingenuous the whole time. I'm still just having a hard time with what I'm saying is not that it was disingenuous. And I'll ask you this Crystal, the idea wasn't that they really didn't believe they were going to run. My point is that all these other policy decisions that have gone along with the intentional design of moving us more towards this intentional heritage American version, non-cretal America of a people who belong here more than other people who are more American than other people, real America. That's all been driven by a very intentional planning group that is trying to figure out ways to maximize their power. And in doing so, have created this group that is manufacturing a reality to get them to do that. Now, the Iran war, whether it fits into that framing or not, that's the reality of it. It's a cynical manipulation to get to a certain goal. And my problem is, and Crystal, I'm going to ask you this, is it your problem as well that you look at this sudden like I can't believe the tiger ate my face when the rest of us have been faced with this cynical manipulation of policy the whole time, whether it got them the results they wanted on immigration, but not the result they wanted on Iran. Yeah, I mean, at the risk of getting up on sugar, I feel like no, no, no, and by the way, and then we'll talk about how the left sucks. So, okay, we'll do that at a moment. But no, I mean, look, I look at the track record from Trump 1.0. I look at JD Vance's speech to your point about the like heritage American Christian nationalist vision for the country, his speech at the RNC where he laid out an explicitly blood and soil consumption, consumption said America's not an idea. And then you look at the, at Stephen Miller, who is so powerful that he's been called the prime minister within the administration. And this guy is a die hard ideologue who loves to Nazi post on main. You know, there is no doubt what his priorities are so, and so far as Trump even has said like, oh, this guy would like there to just be 100 million people in the country that all look like him. So it's not a secret what his priorities are. And he's been given a free hand in order to execute that sort of policy. So I think you have that strain. And then I think you have a Trump is just the most self-dealing corrupt person on the entire planet, who also has Kushner and Whitcoff and these other characters who are also focused on looting and self-dealing as the other primary impetus within the administration. And I think when you put all of that together and also Trump's desire to be this big man in history and he wants this world-changing legacy, whether that is for good or for ill, I think that's part of what explains the Ron War in particular. But when you put the ideologues together with the self-dealing together with the total lack of any guardrails on this train at this point, that's how you end up with this situation. And yes, to your point, I mean, not only was it predictable, it was predicted. Mint mobile. And it's important that you throw in the mobile there is mint. You know, we all know what that's about, but mint mobile. What we're talking about here is a phone company that's delivering you their product for less than what other phone companies are doing. Like I don't know what you want out of a phone company. What I want out of a phone company is deliver me a good product for less and don't bother me. Mint mobile plan. 15 bucks a month. 15 bucks a month. And what is it, 1992, 15 bucks a month, high speed data on limited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You want to bring your current phone and your current number, do it. 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So what is it about the way that Democrats have governed that has allowed this, in my mind, cynical and corrupt experiment, to take such hold and when will accountability come for that? Because I don't think that Trump arose for no reason. I agree. We're dissatisfied with a government that did not seem to be responsive to the needs of the people and was at a remove. Yes, I agree. And I think what we've seen at this point is a sort of limp status quo decorum obsessed liberalism is not going to be sufficient to fight what I see as rising forces of fascism in the country. They weren't historically, you know, when we had a previous rise of a fascist movement in this country, it took FDR, it took the New Deal coalition, a sort of experiment in social democracy here in the U.S. Forget about rising fascism though. How about just like rural broadband, like I'm not even talking about a party that is not up to the task of fighting the Nazis. I'm talking about a party that is not up to the task of competently governing and easing the difficulties that people are facing in their day to day lives, not being responsive to their needs. No. See, I would pick up on that. Not only not responsive to their needs, but actively gaslighting them about their needs. I mean, we could go back to, you have a financial crisis and the response to that, which was too little, where there was zero accountability to Wall Street criminals, where homeowners were completely screwed. And you can see the seeds of that dissatisfaction. And now we've got two generations, millennials and Zoomers, and soon it will be Jen Alpha as well, who are being shut down of the American dream, who can't aspire to buy a house, who see education costs, they're told to go get a college degree, that college degree is wildly expensive, they're saddled with debt, and then they can't get a good job out of it. A bunch of AI oligarchs are telling them they're going to take their jobs anyway. And there has been a wildly insufficient at best response from the Democratic Party establishment, who've been more interested in palliative care for America and the working class of America in particular, than actually- Wait, they put us in hospice. And governing pretty much and governing effectively. And so one of the things that we've seen in the small pilot experiment of Zora and Mamdani in New York City, where look here, the mayor of a city, it's a big city, but you've got limited powers, is I do think you see a different approach to governance, where there's a real commitment to, no, we're going to make promises, we're going to deliver on those promises, we're going to feel the impact of government in a positive way. I'm sure you probably saw the story. Someone posted a picture of a pothole on, I think it was Instagram. And by the end of the day, he had come and filled that pothole. It's something small, but it makes people feel like, oh, the tax dollars that I'm paying, the government that I elected, they actually are trying to make my life better in a way that materially improves my quality of life. And Democrats have become completely divorced from that. And then, you know, the other part of this, of course, hangs over all of it as money and politics. I mean, this is really the root cause of so much of it, where they are beholden to corporations, they're beholden to, beholden to special interests, whether it's APAC or big tech, et cetera, that keeps them at odds with the needs and the desires of the American people. And so that's why I've been so heartened to see this reckoning that is happening between the Democratic base and the Democratic establishment in the party. So is that, how do you see the left now? Do you buy into the frame, you know, there's a lot of talk about now they're socialists. And very rarely does anyone ever talk about what socialism is, there's, it's just a word. And no one really describes, you know, in terms of specific policy, what socialist about it, how do you see the left? What would be your, you know, greatest criticism of them? And what would be your fix to that? How, how could you see them, right, recovering from that? So I mean, look, I'm, I do not speak for the right. So I'm, I'm a very unique person. I don't really care about Hassan Piker. I did an event with him. He was fine. We were perfectly cordial. I actually think he's not nearly as radical as a lot of people think that he is. And so, and I don't know if I'm the best person to answer, but like from my perspective, here's what I would say, is that fundamentally what I think, you know, you guys talked about, you know, there's been a lot of like, oh, cultural issues and all of that are nonsense. At the end of the day, there's only one movement in recent history that one households under $100,000. That was Donald Trump in the 2024 campaign, which he won the popular vote. The DSA and leftists is predominantly a coalition of down really mobile white liberals, a lot of people who don't have a four year college degree, find the movement distasteful or distrust. And we saw that just what happened in the Abdul-El-Sahia campaign in the primary election, where you had older black voters or traditional political coast, political constituency and households that don't have four year college did not vote for him. So a lot of this still though, I mean, that was a democratic primary, but go ahead. Right. But that's emblematic also in the general election results of 2024. So if we try to transpose those two things, the most likely predictor of what your politics are in this country is whether you have four year college degree or not. And if four year college degree is also correlated highly with income, the democratic party, while may having economic positions that supposedly benefit the working class, is not convinced the working class of us. That's just empirically true. And so that's kind of like my criticism, if you will, if it's, you know, Crystal Gaver speech, so I'll give my worst case, you know, my worst faith interpretation would be its class cosplay. I mean, fundamentally, it is some cosplay of dressing up, you know, said, you know, basically woke one type policy and or rhetoric to explain that what is what is, yeah, this is a whole thing. I mean, also let's be fair. Like, I mean, Trump is the one who puts on the apron and sits in the McDonald's wingle. Like, talk about cosplay, like, you know, how many times can he hear? Depends what type of cosplay we're cosplay. He's a blue collar billionaire. And you're like, yeah, I don't think that's a thing. He's cosplaying Norman Rockwell America, obviously, which is, you know, highly effective. All right. So you have to grapple with that if you want to win in America's in an American politics today. And so, yeah, I mean, I think in the whole woke one debate in Chris Liner and tell me what you mean by that because I'm not sure I understand. AOC recently went on television and she said, quote, woke one was crazy. And it was in relation to Francesca Hong, who's a DSA candidate who was very likely to win, I think tonight was in Wisconsin in the gubernatorial election in which I don't have the exact tweet in front of me had said something along the lines of critical of Thanksgiving. She gives an interview in which they said, so do you want to cancel Thanksgiving and gives a word salad level of an answer? Okay. Might seem nonsensical. John, you and I both know that in this country that is not exactly how you're going to appeal. Quote to the very working class that we're talking about here. My favorite holiday. Yeah, it's most people's favorite holiday. It's most normal people's favorite holiday. And so that comes across as deeply disconnected and obsessed with, you know, what some activist is either going to say towards you or your genuine belief that Thanksgiving or just like white society, which she's also talked a lot about her own, like, biracial son and potentially being ashamed of that. Like that is deeply off-putting, I think, to a lot of people. And so that is where, like to the extent that I have a critique, I guess, is they're saying, oh, Woke 1 was crazy. And it's like, no, but you still believe many of the things that Woke 1 consisted of. She's still saying that now? No, no, no, no. What I'm saying is AOC had said Woke 1 was crazy. As in the rhetoric that we use, there was an overton window. Oh, okay. All right. I see what you're saying. And she made it clear that much of the rhetoric that was used from 2020 was bad, right? And I'm like, okay, that's fine. But, you know, kind of John is you're saying, if the rhetoric was bad, well, what about the idea? Like do you still believe like in deep on the police? Zoran explicitly apologized to the cops and said, no, I'm sorry, I said that, right? And so, okay, that's fine. You know, for people like me. But isn't on the flip side of that, isn't going through people's old tweets? Isn't that what the right hated about? Absolutely fair. Fair. You're right. It's part of cancel culture. And it has the the right, embrace cancel culture. - Yes. - Oh, yeah. - Especially. when it comes to anti-semitism and all of this or bud light or bud light sure but yeah I get what you're saying is so much of woke now or cancel culture or anything also just the ubiquity of social media meaning we've democratized criticism so social media makes its money on outrage conflict all those different things isn't it just a reflection of there is no such thing as non-cantial culture because everything that you say somebody will try and seek advantage of it and highlight it and amplify it to help them do that certainly and I also don't understand how you know the idea that well she said Thanksgiving should be canceled so she's crazy but he said Trump won the 2020 election but that's fine right we're all just gonna go along with it is it fine though well no but I'm saying I think I think people who say that get plenty of criticism though I don't think it's fine I don't think that's true but they get criticism but there's no accountability it's not like they don't still get confirmed by the Senate okay it's not that they get they can sit in a confirmation here for example mic Rogers is an election denier and I haven't seen all the hand ring about like oh my god is he gonna be able to win and you know win over moderate voters because he's such an extremist on this see I'm not sure that's true I see that story like two days ago what I've heard is all about how extreme Abdul is because oh my god he hung out with a son piker how dare he versus mic Rogers who actually holds these views himself and has expressed them multiple times that's not framed as being too extreme for a moderate voter but I'm sure he doesn't actually hold those views again it's cynical he doesn't actually hold them I'm sure he's not an idiot right but it doesn't really matter at the end of the day whether he believes it in his heart of hearts or whether it's a cynical posture he's going to act and behave in the same way because he's gonna be a rubber stamp for Donald Trump at the end of the day so no I think woke is you know especially the the current iteration of woke coming from the Trump administration now what's the current admit so what's if that's woke point one what's woke point two well that's I think upper debate but currently we're living through a Trump regime that wants to crush any sort of dissent the place where they've come down the hardest is on any sort of criticism of Israel which is characterized as being anti-Semitic and they've used it as an excuse to jail to crush protests to deport and you know as part of their NSPM seven project they also use that to label you as effectively a terrorist and subject to you know potential government action and surveillance so it goes far beyond some like social media cancellation campaign at this point and I think really does expose how at its core this is really about controlling the bounds of debate about scaring people into compliance you know against an unpopular policy and about maintaining power so I think that's the way that it's really been deployed by Trump is that sound like woke 2.0 to you sucker it's this is the difficulty I accept crystals entire critique as that is the definition of woke I've described the anti-Semitism you know freak out in the administration as like Ibrahim X candy's dream come true like going after you know universities and saying you're not sufficiently and not anti anti-Semitic enough I think it's outrageous so I think it's obviously a violation and all that of free speech woke 2.0 is what I think is you know for example Abdul al-Sahid the candidate in Michigan literally claimed that he'd never said defon the police he did say it he lied about that now that's an important thing and okay but but John he said it and he and he lied that he didn't say it he deleted his tweet and that's fine and that may not be objectionable to you but it's certainly is objectional we've all lived through the campaign ads of guys on the left having to like walk with police and go like it's actually they're quite nice well actually that's healthy and good yeah because it's establishes good norms in society as opposed to you know like wanting to defund and or ban police well that's I never understood why progressives reject safety public safety as a non progressive value I always look at it as don't people in the most economically devastated areas deserve the same level of law and order that people in Beverly Hills enjoy I never understood why you would agree why you would hold back on that but sucker the anti-Semitism thing is kind of interesting to me as someone who's received pretty good anti-Semitic stuff and been accused of being it myself you know if you if you look at the Twitter feed I'll always get like you're a dirty Jew along with you're a capo like you get it all I'm interested on the right this idea of you know they fight anti-Semitism when very clearly they hire people you know there's the Republican uh young Republican club in New York where they go through their chat history and it's just vile like flat out anti-Semitism or JD Vance will say look the Nazi jokes who doesn't like to have a Nazi joke I don't think we should hold that against people while basically forcing universities to pay them millions and millions of dollars it's again can you understand why the whole thing feels cynical sure yeah and you're right because it is cynical because it's not about anti-Semitism it's about Israel that's what it's about it's about the unholy alliance but can't you understand now how writ large the whole operation seems cynical uh yeah but I would say that a lot of democratic stuff is just a cynical right and so then well that but then it very well be but I you'd have to you'd have to tell me those you'd have to make those points to me as well right I could tell you what cynical and what's not but I don't I don't hear a lot of specificity in the criticism the uh hundred percent fair uh how much time do we have I think uh not much you're busy people yeah I think to your I do want to pick up on the anti-Semitism point just because I do want people to I want this to be emphasized is it does expose the lie at the heart of it as you just said that any of this is really about anti-Semitism or any genuine concern it's about Israel and it is just the pro-Israel alliance with the Trump administration and you know Chris you eloquently you know talked about woke 2.0 and how it's about power I think woke 1.0 was also about in power cultural takeover in order to defend a unpopular policy so I think they both have two things in common and in both cases I think both are genuinely not about what they allegedly were you know supposed to be anti-Semitism and or racism I think both are about cultural power who gets to have said power in our society again I would say I would never have predicted it John uh and perhaps that's the dupe uh in me but you know how can you come up with people who've been talking about free speech for 10 years only to then when they have power deport people for what they have said I would not have predicted that never in a million years and so I do have to be forced to accept some of your own criticism of what you're saying I'm just saying like Donald Trump said to Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg uh Zuckerbucks is what through the election and so if he tries that again I'm going to put him in jail I said that to Elon Musk I said but so you're you said free speech is your line you're supporting a guy who's literally threatened to jail somebody if they exercise their free speech while you're as a social media mogul doing far more direct electioneering giving away a million dollars here setting up an algorithm that favors conservative content how can you justify that and he says oh Trump is just that's just talk so I guess my point is you see the clues you want to see crystal and the same could be said from the left if somebody was saying yeah man I'm going to open all the borders and then that's what happens and you say when you say well they said it how could how can you pretend that they didn't well um yeah I mean I think to me it's not just about listening to the rhetoric it's also looking at the actions and um you know I mean look it's no secret Trump behaves like an authoritarian he does it in his business he does it did it in Trump 1.0 and you want to just shoot protesters in the knees that's hardly pro first amendment pro free speech type of activity yeah and on anti-semitism specifically I mean there's always been even at the height of oh we're pro free speech etc there's always been a carve out for Israel I mean just look at these anti-BDS laws across the country look at the number of professors who had their careers attacked by you know free speech maven Barry White says one example um so there's always been a carve out there because it's about protecting Israel and it's also about you know a lot of the uh influence they've successfully been able to wield which is not unique to the Israel lobby but is very central to the way that our politics ultimately operate I totally agree it's ogre you're going to say something I'm sorry I cut you off oh I honestly I don't even remember that's a perfect place to stop hold on John if I don't say uh that my husband Kyle Kalinsky wants you to run for president and is your biggest booster then he's gonna divorce me so I have to put that out here oh dear god don't don't let the divorce that's that uh I so want you to to work out But I don't want to so I go on the country needs you. Yeah. Do you guys talk about in your mind? Is there a leader that you think could arise? That could put behind us this weaponized environment we currently live in, run on a platform of sane policy, competently executed. Do you think they could do that? And is there someone out there that you view as having that potential? Yes, I think you could do that, John. Yes, I think you could do that. No, I was just going to say there is an agenda for the taking for someone. I don't know who that someone is. No question. Certainly on the left, it's wide open. There is an agenda for the taking that is about economic populism. Yes, it's about pushing back against the tech oligarchs, fighting back against these data centers that are taking over communities and which are hated by left, right center doesn't matter about a foreign policy, which is about investing in America, rather than fighting these horrific immoral foreign wars and backstopping agenocide. To me, there is a broad FDR style coalition that is there for the taking. If you have the right person who has credibility and expressing those values in the right way, I don't know if that I don't know about a specific person. I do have a general kind of theory. I love to read history books is that we talked about the 60s and the 70s and one of the most unique parts of Jimmy Carter's rise is that if you had gone a few years before, nobody would have predicted that somebody like him could have been elected. Now, let's ignore how he actually governed and kind of the promise of of Carter itself. There's an oil shock. Yeah, all right. Yeah, sure. It wasn't just the way. Yeah, but I do think a really interesting idea is that the Trump era began with the escalator, the celebrity politics era began with Obama that we've now lived with 20 so years of celebrity politics that an inevitable swing back would be to the type of thing you're talking about in executive and executive level of seriousness in anti charisma, a level of like nerdish, you know, nists, almost in the way that Carter's sheer moral impeachability was so important to the country in a post watergate post Nixon post LBJ environment governor of Iowa type dude exactly, but but with the right politics. So it that's the key. There's the key to those two things is many of what Crystal just said and the right ability to communicate those policies. I think there might be some people that exist without that. If you put those together, the country's desperate for genuine leadership, desperate. That's what I think. So thirsty. Final question. Trump famously chose the escalator, which to me is maybe the least authoritative mode of transportation. There is. It's literally it's gravity and you don't even have to move your legs, but just cinematic. Yeah, you just you're you're heading down. What would be that for for our next great leader? What would be the mode of conveyance that they could choose? Would it be people mover, chariot? What anything? They should announce it on breaking points. Breaking points. The segue. The majestic. Yeah. The final plug. Yeah. The final damn plug. I can't thank you guys enough. Crystal Ball and Saga and Jenny of of breaking points. Please check out the show because it is and I don't say this lightly. Good faith. Good faith conversation that you may not agree with some of it. You may have arguments, but it never feels cynical. It never feels manipulated and it never feels performative. That's extremely kind, John. And I really do appreciate that for the both of you. It's it's not an easy trick to pull. Thank you. Thank you very much. Means a lot coming from you, John. Thank you so much. My last plug. My parents adore you. I love them. I think my mom met you in an airport once and so wait for real. Yes. She said you were extremely kind to her. So thank you. And I was in the front row at the rally to restore sanity at age 18 while I was at work. But I was there. I was there. Thank you guys both for being with us. Thank you. Folks, you know, I am nothing if not a generator of ideas that may never work. Obviously we've talked a little bit on the show about the crumple, which is the portable dog bed that you throw on the ground that makes a different topographical shape. Each time you do it, think of it as the way your dog likes to sit on your coat, although officially a more dog appropriate blanket type thing hasn't come into production or fruition yet. But this Shopify thing, if you've got an idea, if you're somebody that always thinks, Oh, you know, it would be a great business. This is the thing that makes it work. It makes it ready to go from day one. And I don't know how they did it. I think with zeros and ones, I don't know how this works to be honest with you. I don't know how computers work in general or apps work zeros and ones. And then you feed it into a box where I guess eight brilliant gerbils live and they do the rest of the work. I have no idea. It's easy to design your shop. It's easy to get paid. They handle the checkout process. You might think to yourself like, Oh, how are they going to complete their purchase? The Shopify handles it. Get some to come back as repeat customers, set up and checkout or all handled. So get Shopify for God's sakes. We Shopify nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at shopify.com/tws. You can so tell Soggers parents do not agree with them, but he's learned the gentle art of accepting his parents' wrongness, but dealing with them in a kind way, like I can't tell you how many times he said to me like, I see how you got there. Well, certainly I could I can understand why you might think that, but like that is a guy trying to get through the weekend he is spending his home. I'm going to steal some of those like rhetorical flourishes. Yeah, that's him. He has a patience. First of all, it was saying like just I I it's really admirable what he does. What they both do, but what he did in this conversation because it was a bit of two on one. So shout out to you. What I did I did feel bad on that. There was a certain point, but when he would say like, it's not cynical, I'd be like, come on, God, love yourself. Yeah. How could it not be cynical? When he said they love how much it drives you crazy, that really hit me because I was like, so that's why my family behaves this way in the group chat. Really? Last week I left the group chat because the memes, the you know, the Fauci shit. Oh my god, it just like surge and I was like, I'm out. I can't. I mean, I've highly suspected for years that this was all just to own the lips and just for that to be confirmed in that moment was gratifying, but also really upsetting. Yeah. Right. But it's also in some ways, it's verified my decision to never join group chats. Oh, yeah. I do not have. There are no long strength. The largest group chat I have is literally with the guys that I play music with. Okay, that's the number. There's four of us. Yeah. And the only discussions are the discussions are always like Tuesday night. And then it's a bunch of thumbs up. What about Wednesday, right? Can't, you know, it's that there's not a lot of, you know, fuck COVID like none of that stuff. I see where you're coming from. That's that's exactly right. Brittany, what do we, what do we got on this our final episode of the summer? I know how sad. Okay. John, do you think the White House press corps is cool? It's taking a bullet or a surface to air missile for Trump. Absolutely. I of course, they would say to themselves, if we can be the decoy, if we, if sir, if killing us makes you safe. However, that would be, do you want one of us to put on the Trump wig? Do you want us to put on the red tie and do that and do like show. Jump in front of a catering cart myself. Sure. Whatever it is, you want us to do, sir. Do you want us to taste your food to make sure that it is in no way contaminated, although now with Kennedy running a HHS, you don't know if it's contaminated because of a foreign act of assassination or there's just diarrhea parasites and everything. Yeah, that was common misconception. That was a wild story. Although Kayla counts again, because Kayla counts. She does a research. She says, you know, that is not unprecedented. That a president has had to change plans based on a certain threat. And it, and it wasn't until afterwards that it was explained to the people who remained on the, you know, on the targeted conveyance. Hey, by the way, just wanted to let you guys know now that we're here safely. There were a lot of lasers being pointed and we weren't sure which one was. It's so fucking crazy. Also, the irony of it being a catering truck. It's just always in the movies too. They're like, how do we get you out of here? And then there's like a little catering cart and you're like, oh, it's perfect. Here's the question. Did he? They have to put on the cater waiter outfit. He had a disguise. He dresses a bell hop. Put on the thing. Actually, here's what they did. They brought him in on the big table, and it had the little cloche on it. And then they pulled it in. They got the table to the safe location, and then they lifted the cloche. Are you okay? Now, Mr. President, and put it back down. It's just such a screwball comedy. It's perfect. Isn't it? It's very, it's very Clousseau. I also love him saying, "If I go you go afterwards," and it's like, next, "No." Not for Kate. Actually, that was if they go, they go. Yeah. If I go, I go. You say. If I go, I go, and you don't go. You go, bye-bye. Yeah. You go, bye-bye. Yeah. That's for sure. What else they got? All right. John, who's weaves better? Trump or Federman? Oh. Who's weaves? Well, weaves? Well, yeah. Federman. Federman. No. I mean, Federman, I think, gave up on whatever hairstyle. Trump at least is experimenting. That's kind of what I dig about him. Like with Trump, you literally could imagine, like, where was he this morning? And somebody would be like, "I think the beauty parlor." Like, he's, because he's got a hairdo now, that's like, like, when my, you know, when I was younger, all the old ladies would go to this guy, Joe. Joe would, he was the beauty parlor, and Joe would be at the beauty parlor, and he would take care of the ladies. And he's got that, like, I imagine Trump sitting under that little dome after getting his thing up and just coming out and going like, "Oh, my God. Where do I play bridge?" Trump is the master of the weave because he's in control of it. Federman, unfortunately, I think, look, to be fair to him, like, he had a stroke, I do think that creates processing issues. I don't think it's a great environment for him in long form, necessarily. I don't want to lay all of it on that, because I don't think all of it should be laid on that. But I definitely think in, he may have a more thoughtful mode of communicating that we are not necessarily privy to, if that would be, is that the nicest way to say it? I would say it's too generous, in fact. I'm not suggesting that the opinions should not be criticized and looked at with astonishment because I do think they are his real opinions. I just think, I don't know if that was necessarily his best at defending them. That's all. That's all I'm saying. I haven't seen better, and I did look around quite a bit, so I haven't seen him articulate the point better than he did. All right. I think, I think, Federman is taking some of Trump's playbook where it's like when he's talking to some of the media, just like completely throwing lobs back, I think it was drop site, like caught him in the hallway, and was asking him questions about Israel, and he was like, who do you work for? That's not a real organization. All right. You know what? I'm giving him too much credit. I'm probably giving credit. But I think that's like, he's, you know, copying Trump a little bit. I see there's some tendencies there, but yeah. I think it's because in the conversation, like, I did get to a place where I felt bad. I know that's a, he's a senator. There's no amount of having that, you know, but having diminished ability, but yeah, but having power not be diminished, that's a scary place for people to be, but it's hard not to, on a human level, have a conversation at that length with somebody in that situation where you don't go like, oh, I, it's like, I have to not, let me just not be. Yeah. I think that you have to, yeah, I think it's really good to like hold space for that kind of empathy. Well, did you say, I've never used, I've never heard hold space used before in a non, but I don't, I don't know that it's warranted necessarily. Yeah. I agree. The reason why it's not warranted is the amount of power that the individual wields in the same way for Mitch McConnell, where you can go like, wow, that must suck to be informed to the point where you literally can't be filmed saying you're okay. And then also think to yourself, fuck that guy for still having that much power, 100%. All right. I feel better. Thank you for helping me work through this. I did, I had I was feeling guilty. You shouldn't. I can't. I don't know. I think that I was feeling a bit guilty. That's all right. All right. What's final? Resolved. Uh, last one. John, please settle this for me and my wife. Don. I can do that. No problem. Donald's fries or Burger King onion rings. Uh, McDonald's fries. Yeah. There. The quaint. Why would anybody even. Yeah. Why would someone throw that even into the, the Burger King onion ring is not, I don't believe is in the same weight class. That's like, you know, Manchester City or, you know, somebody, the galaxy, like it's not even. They can do it friendly every now and again, but they shouldn't be competing. Thank you, Julian. A friendly. They can, they can play and you know what? They'll even pretend that we're going to referee it, but we all know what the, the, the real situation is now, uh, uh, the McDonald's fries, I will say this, uh, my view on the size of McDonald's fry has changed over the years, uh, in the old days, if you would supersize a fry or get me, get me the largest container of fries that they will allow me to take out of the restaurant. If you have, I'm sorry, do you have bucket O fry? May I have a bucket? May I have about this? I'll hold my arms like this and you load it with fry and I will walk out with, oh, you know what? I'll have the sack O fries, like a little Santa sack filled with fries. As I have gotten older, I can, uh, actually feel the amount of salt enter my body and slowly begin to change the chemical makeup, uh, of, of what I'm experiencing and, and I can't do it. Oh, that sucks. Just a minute. That's coming. Yeah. Nothing hits. Oh, it's come. Oh, it's come. And a medium Diet Coke though. Oh, but now you say medium french fry. But as a respectable amount of fry, but the large fry, three quarters of the way through I think to myself, I believe I'm having a pulmonary embolism. I believe. I believe in a bucket of fries for the both of us, John. Yeah. Just so much. And I miss it. You know what I've taken to doing at times? You get the fries and you do this. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get the fries and I do this. Oh, no, no, no. I have to, I have to clear out whatever, whatever they put on. That's dark. Wait, have you had a Burger King onion ring? Oh, sure. Okay. Oh, I, listen, I've traveled. Is that what you're asking me? Has he traveled the world? Of course he has. Am I evolved? Am I a sophisticated? Of course I've, I've had the, and I, by the way, I've even had when they try shit, like, let's do cheesy tots. Like when they, they'll introduce new fried items or things like that. I'll try them all. - Why not? - I'll try the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Cinnabun with the little frosting in the center of it. - Yeah, fuck yeah. - Fucking Taco Bell tried to throw out a chocolate empanada for a little while. - Yeah, sort of like a choco taco. - Thank you, Jillian. - I always wondered who those advertisements were. You're looking at it. (laughs) - Me. - I'll try them all. I'll throw it, but I am always searching for the perfection of, in my old days, when I ate, breaded me, the McDonald's, cheeseburger, a large fry, Coke, and an apple pie. - Mm-hmm. - That, that was the quintessential American lab made. I'm sure it was made in a lid like the same lab that where you made creepy crawlies, where you put, you poured the stuff into the thing and then you heat it up and out came a worm. I'm sure it was the same lab. The '60s and '70s were nothing if not monosodium glutamate and whatever else they could throw in there. (laughs) - They figured it out. - So good. (laughs) - All right, well that's all for us. And this is it. The show we are done until, what, do you know what the next one is? September? - Yes, September 10th. - Thursday will be out on a Thursday that week. - Switching it up. We're switching it up September 10th to all the people that have been listening throughout the year. Thank you all so much for doing so. We're excited to come back in September and and infuriate you even further. (laughs) As always, we could not do it without our exceptional team and we have added a new team member, I would like to say. A new associate producer by the name of Rebecca Rotenberg. She'll be joining us. Doing a wonderful job. But our producer, Brittany Mimetic, our producer, Jillian Spear, our video editor and engineer, Rob Vittolo, who made a headroom call today. that I thought was well worth it. I got a little lax and I came in hot with a shit ton of headroom and Rob said, not on my watch, my friend, not gonna happen. Audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, so see producer Rebecca Rosenberg as we mentioned earlier and our executive producer is Chris McShayne and Katie Gray. Thank you guys so much and we shall see you in September. (upbeat music) - The weekly show with John Stewart is a comedy central podcast that's produced by Paramount Audio and BuzzBoy Productions. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)