Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/20/25: Dems Shatter Polling Record, Trump Prosecutor Bungles Comey Case, Zohran To Meet With Trump

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Dems shatter polling ahead of midterms, Trump prosecutor bungles Comey case, Zohran to meet with Trump in the White House.  Ross Barkan:https://x.com/RossBarkan?s=20    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's an outlier, all caveats, but this was pretty eye-opening, put deep one up on the screen. This new Marist poll has Democrats with a 14-point lead on the 2026 generic ballots. That would be equivalent to something like a 70-seat pickup and is the highest, you know, generic ballot deficit that they've registered for the Democrats in I don't know how many years. So like I said, definitely an outlier. However, if you look at the average of the generic ballot polling over the past, even just over the past month, it has shifted more and more towards the Democratic side. And, of course, we saw what happened in the off-year elections were not only in.

In Virginia, did you have insane margins for Spanberger in New Jersey, for Cheryl? You had in states like Georgia and states like Mississippi, in states like Pennsylvania, you had this huge shift towards the Democrats. And so there seems to be somewhat of a bottom falling out right now for Republicans over a whole variety of concerns. And at the same time, Trump's own approval rating has also been falling significantly, including in this recent Fox News poll. Let's go ahead and take a listen to them.

that. President Trump's approval rating falling to 38%. That is the lowest it's been in his second term. People are unhappy with Trump's handling of consumer prices, and yes, the Epstein files. Kim Strassel joining us this morning. Does this mean Trump's affordability messaging isn't working yet? Yeah, I think that's absolutely right, Stewart. And this is a huge wake-up call for Republicans. And if you actually look at Trump's approval rating, it actually has been sliding for a while. And I think what happened here is voters had a lot of optimism that he really was going to turn around the economy. And they've given him, you know, nine months now and they've been waiting. But suddenly they've been looking around and things really haven't improved to the degree that they thought they would on cost of living.

And I think there's a variety of factors that go into this. By the way, I think Epstein is part of the numbers and the, you know, sort of discussed. You've seen a decline of Trump's approval rating even among Republicans. the last people I saw had him down around 87%, which is still like, obviously, the vast majority of Republicans. But typically on that metric, he has almost universal support

within the Republican Party. So even that amount of slippage within the Republican Party is significant. But, Sagar, if you look at that first Marist poll where Democrats have such an incredible edge, they ask people, okay, well, what should the Trump administration be focused on? The number one thing that they said,

57% of voters said that the number one thing they should be concerned about is lowering prices. So I really think it's the sense of, you know, a betrayal on some promises that were made on the campaign trail about being focused on the bottom line for families, the sense groceries just this week hit another all-time high. As we head into the holiday season, we're just talking about AI and the electric bills, healthcare skyrocketing. There's not going to be any extension of the ACA subsidies. So those premiums are just absolutely going through the roof. And I think, you know,

there are a lot of things that people are dissatisfied with the Trump administration about. But if you had to pick one, this sense that I thought you would do well on the for me. And instead, you're building yourself a ballroom and you don't really seem to give a shit about the fact that I can't afford enough food to feed my family and make it to the end of the month. And by the way, you know, this whole war on food stamps, I don't think helps that whole picture as well. That would be the core of the major problems that they have right now. Yeah, that groceries, let's stick on the grocery thing. One thousand dollars a month now on groceries. So that's 12K a year after tax income. Take a look at the, you know, average salary

currently, but this is really what struck me. And this is the whole story. Grocery prices are up 37% since 2017. And this is why I got so frustrated when Biden did it, whenever he's like, well, they went down by 5%. I'm like, still up 25, dude. Same now with Trump, right? When Trump is like, oh, well, they recently did this thing with gas prices, they're like, look, gas is $3 a gallon. It's $5 lower than it was last year. I'm like, you're expecting me to celebrate here, right? Come on. You know, in terms of the promises that were made, it should be a dollar cheaper. Same thing whenever it comes to the grocery price. That is an additional $250 in monthly expenses for a family of four from 2017. Every single one of us knows it.

In fact, you know, I mean, I think the sticker shock, these, you ever walk, have you walk by the steak section in the grocery store lately? Oh my goodness. Might as well be a pass. Good luck at Christmas. You know, I mean, for real, though. This is happening, I think, and it's organic to the point where I even hear, you know, and no friends who are telling stories about going to the grocery store and just for the first time being like, nope, we're moving on, you know? We're going to the bargain bin where a lot of other people have been now for quite some time. That's not the way that we were supposed to live, and at least in my opinion. And it's one of those where it's not just the promise. It's about the focus on the other stuff. Trump is wrapped up

in himself in the ballroom. It doesn't seem like it cares enough about the everyday average person that was the same curse that doomed Biden. And that's why I think they have the identical poll numbers. It really is kind of shocking if you go back to November of this same time period four years ago. The concern was, is he cares more about foreign policy. He's not even very good at foreign policy. That's all he spends most of his time about. He's not doing anything about all of these problems that are compounding in my life. It feels like the president is, you know, out to lunch and all of these issues that a year ago we elected him or so to do so are there's no progress and you're not doing anything to fight against it. It's the same exact political circumstance.

And it's not, you know, all that, and the sad part is the party apparatus around Trump is, in my opinion, basically the same like the Democratic Party apparatus around Biden. They're all just posting about this bullshit from charts like, oh, actually the economy is good. The stock market is it record hot? It's like, you know, there's no ability to have any internal dissent. There's a little bit, Marjorie Taylor Green, a few others, but not really. And then you add the Trump kind of cult of personality on top of that. It's impossible to get away from. So they're going to sink.

They're going to sink. I don't and there's no internal mechanism until the midterms to make them shift by that time it's too late asked George W. Bush okay by that point you're a joke and then now the 2028 election has begun let's take a look at this next element this was a Marquette law school poll now on their generic congressional ballot just to again give you a sense that the other one is definitely an outlier but they have Democrats with a five point lead in the popular vote on the general on the generic ballot which also would be indicative of a significant victory for the Democrats and they have Trump's approval rating down at 43% and disapproval up at 57%.

On the individual issues here, the thing people give him the most credit for is the Israel Hamas ceasefire, which, you know, he gets a lot of credit for that one. There's still a lot of problems. There's still a lot of violence, a lot of suffering, et cetera. But people right now feel like, okay, well, at least he secured this deal. It drops pretty precipitously from there, though. Border security, he's still above water plus eight. Immigration overall, though, minus 10.

tariffs minus 26 economy minus 28 Russia Ukraine war minus 34 inflation and cost of living which again that's like the number one issue for most people minus 44 information about Jeffrey Epstein minus 48 shut down of the federal government minus 50 and the least popular issue that they tested was providing 20 to 40 billion dollars to stabilize Argentina's economy everyone hated that one at minus 58 but I mean the big the the big category here, when you're looking at inflation and cost of living, that he's underwater by 44 points, I mean, that is a devastating indictment of this administration and their lack of care for ordinary people, you know, going about their day-to-day lives and just trying to make it paycheck to paycheck.

And, you know, I just, I have to bring it back to AI as well, because as much as things are very difficult economically now and you have 70 plus percent of people that say the economy is poor, The whole goal of AI is to make that so much worse for you, is to eliminate jobs. We played Kevin Hassett talking about how it's going to be a quote-unquote quiet time in the labor market as AI improves productivity. That's their positive framing of it. What that means is layoffs. What that means is people coming out in college not being able to find work. That's what this whole policy push is aiming for.

That is the goal. The goal of their policy approach on AI is to spike unemployment, to make unemployment, to make. massively surge layoffs. So as challenging as things are now, the whole thrust of their policy agenda and their partnership with this tech oligarchs is to make things worse. There's also one more significant piece. I think Ryan and Emily touched on this yesterday about worth mentioning here as well. So Trump realized seemingly a while ago, like things were not looking super hot for the midterms. And so he decided to do this big redistricting push. Pressured a bunch of states. Some of those states, Indiana said no.

We're not going to actually do it because we put some of our seats in jeopardy and we don't really want to. Texas, however, went through with redrawing their congressional map. Well, now you have a federal judge that has come. This is the last element, guys, Politico tear sheet. You have a federal judge that came in and is saying, actually, this map is illegal. So what you could end up with, now this will go through appeals, blah, blah, blah. This isn't the final say. But you could theoretically end up with a situation where Texas's map gets blow.

And California, because they, you know, went to the voters and they go through their process, California actually goes through their redistricting. So it is actually possible at this point that the whole redistricting push from the Trump administration backfires and Democrats end up gaining ground. Now, there's a lot of caveats to that. You also have this potential Supreme Court decision, which would put a number of other seats on the table. As I said, this isn't final, et cetera. But certainly the redistricting push is not going as well at this point as Republicans and Trump had hoped that it would be at this. I know. It's the gerrymandering thing. One of the ironies I've said this, too, is I actually think that gerrymandering would backfire tremendously in Texas because it presumes that all these South Texas Latinos and other constituents voted Republican just in 2024 are going to stay Republican. Why? Like, if we lived through, which we did, 2016 to 2020, it was not uncommon to see 40 or 50 points swings. And in fact, if you factor in 2024, 2016 to 2024, literally 50 points swings from Hillary like plus 50 to Trump plus, you know, I don't even know, like Trump plus 10 or something like that. It's craziness. So why couldn't it shift back? Well, it actually did

in this election. Like you look at some of the Union City, New Jersey, for example, went from like Trump plus 10 to, I don't know, Democrats plus 40s. I mean, it was like crazy swings like that. That's fair. It was not as big of an election, right? You know, it's much lower turnout. No, you're totally right. But I'm saying not just midterms, but in general, because these districts are locked for years, right? So it would be five years. now. So in the next presidential election, in a high turnout, low propensity election, what makes you possibly think that you're going to win that? You know, you could get nuked, which I think you're on this point. I think you're on track. So they may have done

themselves a favor. Yeah, they may actually be like, you know, you're right. Yeah. No, for real, though. We should get rid of those maps because, I mean, they are definitely in danger because inherently when you redraw these maps, you make some of the districts that are still Republican districts, you make them closer. Yeah, like 5248, which is a death now. I mean, look, the Tea Party, just to give, you know, an anecdote, my congressman, his name was Chet Edwards from where I was from. He was always famous for being a Democrat who represented the most Republican district. And he won for 20-some years. And then in 2010, you know, even though he'd faced multiple election challenges, he got blown out by, I don't even remember the margin.

It was unbelievable. It didn't even have a chance. So if it's a Tea Party-style wave that's coming, I mean, these districts, it's not unheard of to see two, five, ten, 15-point swings, which is what happened in his case. This is a guy who literally survived multiple. Even in the Bush era, post-9-11, he was able to win. And then the Tea Party wave came wiped out, literally completely. Well, 2008 was like that on the Democratic side. There were all kinds of people who, like, raise no money and nobody thought would win,

and then suddenly they're like being sworn into Congress, you know? Tom Perriello, remember him? Yeah, Glennon, down in Virginia Beach. was another one of those where it was like, oh, we didn't think that was even a possibility, and now here you are. So, yeah, they are kind of playing with fire with that. And I was just thinking back, so like, you know, we started the block with the generic ballot, which is just you say, okay, if your choice is a Democrat or Republican, who do you pick for Congress? And so if we think about in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger won by like 13 points, roughly.

And Kamala Harris had won the state of Virginia by six points. So that's like a seven point Democratic improvement over Kamala Harris's performance. So, I mean, I think a Democrats with maybe a five-point generic ballot lead, like that's about where I would put it right now, and that's roughly where the averages have it. I think they have it somewhere between four and five. That other poll that I mentioned, the Marquette Law School poll has it a generic ballot plus five. That would be enough that even if they do all their gerrymandering and the Supreme Court comes in and they do whatever they're doing with the voter rolls, which is all stuff that's really happening. Like, it would still be a large enough popular vote victory that

Democrats would get control of the House. Now, they have tilted the landscape enough that it will require a significant popular vote victory from the Democrats in order to get control of the House. But I think it's, it's looking like it's going to be too big to Rick. It's at this point, given the disgust and the dissatisfaction with the Trump administration and how weak he is right now, how disgusted people are, how unhappy they are with the economy, and the fact that those trends are probably going to continue. It's looking like a pretty heavy reckoning that's headed for the Republican Party. Yeah, let me give a shout out to People's Pundit, Rich Barris.

I've talked about it before. He's like a MAGA, pundit, pollster. Honestly, it was actually pretty accurate if going back into 2020 and to 2024. But he's been on Steve Bannon's show sounding the alarm about this. So the smart MAGA set, they know. The ones who aren't complete sycophants, like they get the deal. Pressler has sound of the alarm a number of times. Has he really?

Yeah. I haven't seen it. He did leading into the off year, the, you know, this year's elections. Oh, right. In terms of registration. I mean, look, does anybody really think Pennsylvania is not going to, you know, be a massive wipeout? Like, they barely won it in 2024. And in 2016, Biden won it by like, what, a point, something like that. It's always been a, it's just a swingy state. And so, yeah, I don't know. I mean, they're going to, look, midterms, again, barring a black swan event, anything can happen. Obviously, Roe versus Wade came out of nowhere. Say the Democrats. Not saying it couldn't happen. Certainly could. But for where things are right now, it's bad. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him?

I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health, but also what our health says about us.

and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world that you, like, your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but like, you don't even know.

You don't know. You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride, so tune in. Listen to Health Stuff on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market. What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation.

What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't? CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE, index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, let's get to another one of the Trump administration's finest hours here with regard to their prosecution of Jim Comey. This is hilarious. Put the second terror sheet, guys, the New York Times tear sheet up on the screen. I'm going to read from a good bit of this. So you guys remember, okay. the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia resigned because he did not, or he was

pushed down, whatever. He did not want to charge Comey because he did not think there was enough there. So instead, they put in this total Trump loyalist hack named Lindsay Halligan, who has never tried, she's never been involved in a criminal case, okay? Never done this before. They put her in, and then she has to go present this case to a grand jury and secure an indictment like days after she's put into this office. having never done this before. So Comey, of course, has the best legal team you could possibly have. His lawyer on his side has presented over 100 different cases to the Supreme Court, you know, knowledgeable, experienced, et cetera. And they are making the case that this prosecution

of him is a vindictive prosecution to be thrown out entirely. And of course, you've got Trump's words in the past and putting this Lindsey Halligan person in and all of that. But in addition to that, we are now learning that she failed to present the whole case to the grand jury. So let me read from the courtroom exchange here just, you know, so you can get how extraordinary this is. They say Trump loyalists admits grand jury never saw final Comey indictment. A federal judge grilled the prosecutors pursuing charges against James Comey, the former FBI director on Wednesday, interrogating them with a series of questions that underscored irregularities in the case, including that the full grand jury did not see the indictment it was supposed to have approved. The questioning by the judge,

Michael Nakmanoff, took place at an excruciatingly awkward hearing in federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia that was nominally held to consider the narrow issue of whether the charges against Comey had been filed as an act of vindictive retribution by President Trump. But Judge Nachmanoff peppered prosecutors with questions on a range of topics, including Mr. Trump's own statements about wanting Comey to be indicted and an earlier decision by career members of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Alexandria to forego bringing charges. In one remarkable moment, the judge posed some of his questions directly to Lindsay Halligan, the U.S. attorney handpicked by Trump to bring the case, quizzing her on how she had presented it to the grand jury. Just this week,

that subject led another judge involved in the case to suggest she may have engaged in prosecutorial misconduct. Judge Nakmanoff's inquiries were extraordinary by almost any measure, but the answers prosecutors gave him a return were even more so. At one point, Ms. Halligan admitted she had never shown the second and final version of the Comey indictment to the full grand jury before the four-person signed the charging document. Mr. Comey's lawyers immediately seized on that irregularity, calling it another reason to dismiss the case entirely. At another point, one of Ms. Halligan's subordinates, Tyler Lemons, acknowledged that someone in the deputy attorney general's office had instructed him not to discuss in open court

whether his predecessors had or had not written a memo laying out their reasons for not bringing charges because that was privileged information. In the end, Mr. Lemons, appearing unnerved under questioning, confess that the prosecutors who had previously handled the case had indeed written a draft of a memo declining prosecution. They say the spectacle play down over 90 minutes. So, TLDR here, you've got Trump who has said plainly. We can put the next, I think this is the third element in this block, has said plainly that he wanted to see Comey prosecuted. So that's pretty indicative of vindictive retribution here. Then you have Halligan, who has no idea what she's doing, who screws up the grand jury

presentation. And effectively, Saqar, what happened here is they wanted to indict him on three charges the government did. One of those charges got rejected. So what you have to do in that case is you have to represent the indictment with just the two charges you're going forward with. She didn't do that. She just had the four person, who was just an ordinary citizen and doesn't know better, sign off on the two charges that they did accept. So she screwed up the grand jury process. And then you have also hanging over this,

these other, you know, two individuals who I think had to be sourced from other offices because you couldn't get anyone, you know, who was reasonable to go along with this, having to be forced to admit that their colleagues previously had said we shouldn't actually charge this guy, which again is indicative of this was a vindictive prosecution. It's supposedly a very high bar to meet. You have to show that there would not have been charges, that this case would not have gone forward if you didn't have this vindictive drive

from the president of the United States. But it's looking increasingly, like even that high bar, they're likely to meet. So you have the attempted authoritarian prosecution, retribution against the enemies. And then you also have just classic Trump administration clownish incompetence and buffoonish behavior where they have someone who has never been involved in a criminal case before now in this extraordinarily high pressure role and absolutely blowing it.

And they are, this is like the latest example of, you know, somebody called it, you know, the authoritarian of dunces. And I thought that was that. I actually thought that was very apt because this has now been the Halligan case against Comey. then you have previously like sandwich guy or any of these other things that have fallen apart

completely in court and judges literally laughing at them and look I mean I'm not defending James Comey I think James Comey is a sack of shit and we've covered it here before even in terms of the charges against him I'm like look I actually think

there might be something there and especially with the way that he handled himself not just with Trump with Hillary that whole thing I was there I covered it was insane the way that he handled that entire case Russia Gate as well like this is not

a man whose hands are clean. Of course, though, they go after him, you know, in the most clownish, buffoonish way possible and are now making it so that the judge very may well throw out this entire thing because of their own idiocy. And so this kind of gets to, I remember liberals would always be upset with Merrick Garland and others for incompetently pursuing those cases against Trump. This is the same. If you are upset with Comey about Russia Gate, which I am, you know, still am. I am too. It was bad. It was horrible. The Hillary thing, the emails case, I will never forget that press conference about Hillary

in October. If you're a Hillary supporter, you should be mad. I mean, by the way, she clearly was guilty as sin and the fact that that in charge her is still ridiculous. Whatever, it's been, you know, eight or so years. But the way he handled that, way he handled everything, if you're going to go after him, then you have to do it right. He's a

multi-millionaire with great lawyers and the entire liberal establishment behind him. You can't fuck things up with basic rudimentary errors which literally make it be clownish and have it so a federal judge, by the way, in Alexandria of Virginia, where already, you know, look, I literally live there, okay? None of my neighbors are voting to convict

James Comey. He could be guilty as shit. They still wouldn't convict to it. But even if, you know, so you were going up against strong headwinds anyways, and now, you know, looking at the way that this is, it probably won't even make it to trial. So, yeah, what it's looking like. And look, on the other hand, you know,

maybe they always thought that this would fail or didn't really care and just wanted to like send a signal. You know, if you are less of a media figure and less wealthy than Jim Comey. I mean, this is, I'm sure, not fun for Jim Comey either, by the way, but he's going to be fine. You know, if you're someone who is less well positioned and can't get the guy who, you know, presented over 100 cases the Supreme Court to be your lawyer, if you're not in that position, then you still see their behavior in the way, you know,

they're digging up, they're now trying to charge Eric Swalwell with this mortgage fraud stuff. And Letitia James, and obviously they already went after Comey for this thing, which by the, to be honest with you, the way this case has come out has made me feel like there was less there there with Jim Comey. Like it's making me, in my opinion, him look more innocent that he actually looked before that, before they tried to charge him and tried to indict him here. But in any case, you know, maybe the message, it's just an attempt to send a message. Maybe it's just an attempt to scare people and they didn't even really care that much, whether it succeeded at trial. They just wanted to like exact as much pain on him as they could and send a message to

their opposition. But it doesn't look like this is going to get too far. of the gates here, which is, I guess, a good thing to see. Looking bad, looking bad indeed. And it's one of those where, you know, this clownish behavior just makes it so that, I mean, first of all, you know, what about double jeopardy? These other things, you know, that you could look previously. If you actually do care about accountability for these types of individuals doing it this way, just the worst possible.

All right, we got a good guest standing by Ross Barkin. Let's get to it. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer,

the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician.

And I'm Hurricane Dibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I have scurvy at 3 a.m? On health stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health, but also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2?

Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world that you're like, your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but like you don't even know. You don't know. You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in. Listen to health stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market. What does a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House.

And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't? CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, guys, so there's a whole lot of Zoron stuff going on. He's supposed to meet with President Trump.

He's blocking endorsements, all kinds of things that are happening. Also, other New York City primary challenges coming from the left. So to break all of this down, we have the perfect person. Ross Barkin, who is an expert on all of these things and is a calmness for New York magazine. Great to see you, Ross. Good to see you, man. You're happy.

I'm excited to be on. Yeah, of course. So let's put the Trump truth up on the screen here, the announcement that he's meeting with the communist mayor of New York City, he says. Zoran Kwami Mamdani has asked for a meeting. We've agreed that this meeting will take place at the Oval Office on Friday, November 21st. That would be tomorrow. Further details to follow.

Zoran was on with Chris Hayes over on MSNBC, and he was asked about this visit. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. Ron Mamdani, nice to have you here, Mr. Mayor-elect. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. Is the Trump, is the White House meeting real? Who knows what's real these days? But do you understand it as a real thing?

We did reach out to the White House, and my team reached out because of a commitment that I made to New Yorkers that I would be willing to meet with anyone and everyone so long as it was to the benefit of the 8.5 million people who call the city home and their struggle to afford the most expensive city in the United States of America. So, Ross, what do you think about this move from Zoran? You have to do it, right? I think it makes sense. You know, he is the incoming mayor. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. And I think, you know, there are ways to deal with Trump. And I think one of the ways to do it is to really hit him head. on. I think you meet with him. You can certainly stand up to in public. I think the governor of New York, Kathy Hokels, had some success wrangling with Trump and that they talk on the phone

fairly frequently. And at least for now, there hasn't been a National Guard incursion into New York City. I mean, see they have an ice agent running around. So, you know, I think it's a natural move to make. You have the meeting. You see where it goes. You check, you check Trump's temperature. And, of course, they're going to be fights. It's going to get volatile. But I do think. you at least start off from a place of some core reality. You hope that Trump will not make your life overly difficult, though. The reality is he probably will anyway, but it doesn't hurt to take a meeting. I wonder if Hockel advised him, actually.

Yeah, I wonder about this, Ross. I feel like it'd be to his political benefit to get into a fight with Trump. I mean, he made a big portion of his campaign speech. Trump turned up the volume and all of that. Why, you know, be, you know, look what happened with Whitmer. Look what happened with all of these other politicians who have met with Trump but kind of scene as kissing his ass. I mean, going in there and, you know, quote, confronting him or making a scene would almost

certainly backfire on the city. I'm not sure I really understand this. Well, I think there's two factors of play. One hand, yes, you know, battling Trump can lift your political standing. You saw with Karen Bass in Los Angeles where her career was really resuscitated after the guards showed up there. And the same can happen for Zaraan Mamdani as well. I think at least having a meeting with the president at the outset.

before you take office is not hurtful to his brand. It's not destructive. And maybe it pays some dividends. Maybe not at all. It may pay nothing. But I think, you know, Kathy Hockel has spoken with Trump on the phone many times. She's gone to the old office. She still combats them in public.

They're not friendly. But I think it's an inside-outside strategy. I think Zeran is not going to stop being anti-Trump any means or stop calling out his many destructive policies. But I think, you know, pursuing an insider, outsider strategy is not the worst thing to do. I mean, we'll see what comes up. Yeah, I mean, Shrinebaum in Mexico is another one who's, you know, played this game and, you know, has, it seems to, as Trump seems to like her. They seem to have a good working relationship, even though, you know, she stands up for Mexico sovereignty when and how she needs to.

I also think, you know, it could be kind of a political ploy to show, look, I reached down. I was ready to work together. My bottom line is I don't care whether we're political adversaries. I'm just trying to deliver for the people of New York. So I think that may be how he's trying to play it. But it's going to be very, very interesting to see what comes out of this meeting and what impression is given by the president, what he has to say about the meeting after this. I also wanted to ask you about the latest with regard to Zoran and Chi Jose, who is,

a DSA member, although my understanding is a relatively new DSA member, who's announced a primary challenge against Hakeem Jeffries. And you might think that Zoran being the insurgent leftist would be like, let's go. And they have a, you know, a relationship as well of trust from the past to build on. But instead, not only has he not endorsed Chi's bid, but he actively went to a DSA meeting last night to speak out against DSA endorsing Chi in his bid against Hakeem Jeffrey. Zoran was asked about this recently. This was before he went to that meeting, by the way, but about why he is backing Hakeem Jeffries in this primary fight.

This is F3. Let's go ahead and listen to that. Let me talk about Hakeem Jeffries for a moment, who now may face a challenge from Chi Hosei, who is a member of the DSA. You said that there are local issues that Mr. O'Say should be focused on, maybe it should remain a councilman. Are you saying he should not run against Hakeem Jeffries? No, I'm saying that I think the focus should be right here on New York City.

I respect the work that Councilmember Osay has done. Does that mean, should he not run? I think that right now is not the time to be engaging in that kind of a primary. I think the focus should be on delivering on this affordability agenda. So tell us about this perspective, tells us about this meeting last night. Like, what the hell is going on here? I do think Zeron was being a little mealy mouth there. I'll speak in a way where I'll speak having spoken to members of DSA myself and getting a sense of how they feel long-time members.

It's that they don't feel Chiosay is a genuine member of the essay to start with. He only joined a few months ago. There's a feeling that he's somewhat, I don't want to use the word usurper, but he's someone who's glomming on very recently. You look at also the primary. Chiosay was a bit of a late backer who's or on. He actually co-endorsed with Brad Lander. You know, he hopped on the bandwagon.

That's fine. I think talking to the members I've talked to, the way they look at it is they want to focus on the state legislature. or potentially on Dan Goldman, and they feel like Hakeem Jeffries, while they would love to get rid of him, it's not really a winnable fight. It's a district where Zoran did well in the primary,

but not, he won that district, but not overwhelmingly. So there's a real strategic question of, can you defeat Hakeem Jeffries, who is not scandal scarred, right? Who does not have really, you know, true weaknesses beyond the politics themselves in a pretty diverse district where he has to work for a middle class

and working class black voters. Can you go in and beat him? There's a faction of DSA that says, yes, we have to do this. Hakeem Jeffries is against us. There's another faction that feels this isn't that strategic. And I do think Zoran is, you know, using his early clout to try to steer the DSA more strategically. I do expect him to back other insurgents,

other primary challengers. You know, the reality is he's going to be mayor of New York. Hakeem Jeffries could be Speaker of the House in 2027, sitting there in Brooklyn. And while Hakeem Jeffries doesn't share your politics, he's got to represent the entire Democratic caucus. And, you know, like a Pelosi, he can be pushed in different directions. So I get it.

I get where he's coming from. I don't think he's messaging it publicly the best way, I would say, for Zoran. But I think there's logic to dissuading OSA, or at least saying you can run, but the DSA is not going to support you. You run, let's see what happens. And the reality is he probably won't win. and Zoran needs Jeffries, he needs at least the Democratic leadership. You know, he's in a strong but also vulnerable position as a 34-year-old new mayor.

So I understand where he's coming from, but I also see why a lot on the left would question it for that way. Yeah, these are the realities of power. Yeah, I mean, I also, I understand his logic. However, I disagree with it strategically because, you know, I think we've seen some similar calculus from aOC where it's like, okay, I'm here, I'm going to play the inside game. And I don't think that that has really borne fruit. So from my perspective, you have to use the power that you have to effectively sort of like coerce and bully these people because they will stab you in the back the moment that they have the chance. Like Hakeem Jeffries did not endorse Zoron until what,

like two days before the primary. It was incredibly passive, aggressive. And so even if you think that Chiosay can't win, and we could go ahead and put F4 up on the screen, Lange did a bunch of analysis, backing up what you're saying that this would be very, very difficult in order to be able to actually pull up the upset here. But even if you think that he can't win, the fact of him being in the primary pushes Jeffries. I mean, we see the way Hockel has had to, like, sort of bend and adjust and accommodate Zoron's politics for herself in order to, you know, make sure that Antonio Delgado doesn't have a shot at taking her out in a primary. So I feel like that primary is really valuable, even if you think it's a long shot to be able to win. Yeah, I think that's a fair point. I think it's two schools of thought, right?

There's the school I just gave, which is sort of maybe the more moderate DSA members plus Zoran have. You know, you're giving the view that it's kind of the, in a way that Trump approached the Republican Party, which has largely been successful for Trump. I mean, leftists can only dream of dominating. the Democratic Party, the way MAGA still holds total sway over Republicans. So it's a fair counter-argument. I think I see it that if you run O'SA, you can really pressure Jeffreys. My sense is there's just some skepticism of O'SA himself within DSA.

It almost may even come down to that, that if Chiosay were, as they say, cadre DSA, where he's someone who like Zoran or other members who had been a. part of it for many years. They feel more enthusiastic about him. I think there's a feeling that he's a bit of a, you know, he's coming to the party very late. He doesn't really share the values of the organization. He wants the endorsement because he wants to run and he wants the attention. But I think you're also right in that OSA could be a valuable piece of leverage over someone like Jeffreys and force him to the left. And there's no doubt politicians response to power. That is true. Yeah. I'm also curious, you know, Ross, I saw a report.

that Zoran was kind of dealing with some of the anti-Zionists within DSA. I'm just curious, you know, how that's manifesting in terms of staffing. Like, what does the current selection process? This is when, you know, the nitty gritty gets real, the transition team, the staffers, who's coming into the administration? What's that looking like right now? So, so far you've seen a mix. You've seen him reappoint Jessica Tisch, who was appointed by Eric Adams and is a, at best,

a political moderate. You know, she's certainly a Zionist. And she's a billionaire. And she's very well-liked by the business community. So there you have a, you know, concession capitulation, whenever you want to call it to moderates and the business faction. At the same time, he's appointed as his chief of staff, El Bisgaard Church, who is his age,

who is his old assembly chief of staff, who is in every way cadre DSA. You know, she's a believer. He's appointed. at a first mayor in Dean Fulahan, who splits the difference, I would say, between Tish and L, where Fulahan, he was de Blasio's first deputy mayor. He also worked for the assembly speaker, Shelley Silver, for many years. He's very much a man of institutions. He's in the 70s. He has a lot of experience with budgets, but he also has a progressive streak. He's sort

of more center-left. So I think so far you're seeing a real mix. I think you're going to see members of DSA elevated in this administration that is inarguable. At the same time, going to see an administration, I do believe, of experience and competence. That is very important for a young mayor like him especially, coming off of four years of chaos and corruption with Eric Adams. You've got to run clean, good government. The left has had very few chances at executive rule, executive power. So all eyes across the country and world will be on him. So it's very important to avoid scandal to not get tripped up, to not be self-defeating like Brandon Johnson in Chicago, for example.

So I do expect a pretty strong and competent administration. And so far you've seen in his appointments a real ideological mix. The left, I'd say sort of center left and on the right with Jessica Tish. Yeah. I mean, the stakes, I'm sure he feels the stakes are very high for his political project. Because, you know, if when it's Eric Adams and he's, you know, center. right effectively, and he sucks and he fails. No one says, oh, well, centrist can't govern. But when it's the left, if they fail, and especially with Zoron being so high profile, then it's, oh, see,

you can't trust these people with power, and this is an indictment of the entire political project. So, you know, the stakes are, I think he's right to perceive the stakes here are incredibly high, not just obviously for the city of New York, but more broadly for DSA and DSA-aligned candidates. I wanted to ask you more broadly about what's going on in New York City. There's so many primary challengers that are jumping in. I'm having trouble keeping track. Richie Torres is drawn a couple of primary challengers. You have the primary challenge of Hakeem Jeffries. I saw Espayette is expected to get a challenger. I think Grace Meng is that her name has also gotten a challenger. Very likely Bradlander is going to get in against Dan Goldman. And I think Goldman will get crushed. You can tell me

if you think that I'm wrong about that. I may be missing others. But, you know, what do you make of this? This has got to be a Zoran effect in New York specifically. And we're seeing echoes of this truly across the country in so many races, again, I can't keep track of the number of people that I'm seeing who have very similar politics who are coming out of nowhere to jump into primaries and challenge power. So what do you see there in New York in terms of the energy on the ground? There's no doubt it's a czarine effect. It actually reminds me the fallout from AOC in 2018 where you saw in 2020 a lot of primary challengers and you saw even, you know, the state legislative primary candidates in 2018

get a real boost from AOC's victory over Crowley. So I think those currents are back. The challenges are a mix. I think the most viable by far is the one against Dan Goldman. I believe if Lander gets in, he will win. There is some consternation that

there could be vote splitting. If also there's a DSA City Council member, Alexa Vuelas, who is interested in running. They'll probably, my guess is Lander and her will come to an arrangement. And one of them will run because there is no ranked choice voting for congressional primaries. There will be votes wasted if you have two insurgent challengers.

So Goldman just sitting on a district that is much more progressive than he is, that's the reality of it. And I do expect Lander in the end to be his sole prominent challenger, and I do expect him to win. The others are more interesting. I mean, Richie Torres in one hand, certainly to the right of his district. His challenger, Michael Blake, has run for office many times, including a run for mayor, including a runner for that district. He's largely been unsuccessful.

So the question is, can he, you know, find momentum and win? Grace Meng is interesting out in Central Queens. Her district's actually fairly moderate. So I'm not convinced she can get beaten from the left. I don't know much about the espiot challenge yet. That's an interesting one, too. I mean, he's fairly strong in his district, and he endorsed Soron and the general. So hard to see him taking too much heat from the left.

I think the key race will be the Dan Goldman race. I think that one, there is a real pick-up opportunity for progressives. I do think it will happen. The rest are trickier and more long-shot. That's how I've described them right now. But you messed George Conway. Yeah, well, that's New York 12. That's an open one.

So that's not a challenging thing. It's a tiring seat where everyone is running, including Jack Schwarzberg. And, yeah, it's going to be a real mess. We've got a Kennedy. We've got George Conway. It's just a, you know, it's going to be a great race. Well, we actually pulled Cam Caskey, who's trying to lock down sort of like the left or progressive lane in that primary who just launched young guy activists. Let's go ahead and take a listen. This is F6. Let's go ahead and look at his launch video. My name is Cameron Caskey, and I'm running for Congress because there's no real path forward for most Americans. You and your family are working all week just to spend most of your paycheck on rent and health care. Meanwhile, the richest people in our country are telling us that we can't afford real solutions like social housing and Medicare for all. No, we can only afford genocide, Palantir mass surveillance contracts, and ICE thugs.

I'm running because we need people in Congress who are going to do something about it and work on laws that help all Americans. Isn't that crazy and radical? Turns out we actually can build a society where we're feeding children instead of tearing them away for their families, where streets are lined with federal housing and small businesses instead of the National Guard. So what do you make specifically of Cameron Caskey, but this broader, I mean, it's, I don't know how many candidates have jumped like eight different candidates have jumped in this race. And I think it is more, it's Upper West Side and Upper East Side. Am I correct about that with Jerry Nadler? Yes, plus Midtown, plus some of the village, a little bit of downtown. Yeah, it's kind of like a rectangle in the middle of Manhattan. More moderate district. Upper East Side went for Cuomo, for example. I think Zoron did win the Upper West Side if memory serves.

Yeah, he narrowly won it in the general. But in any case, I mean, Caskey's best. that seems to be that these other people are going to split the more moderate vote and I can just carve out. Maybe I can win with like 30% of the vote of more progressives in the district. How does this thing, how is this shaking out? Look, it's not a bad bet. I think the frontrunner right now for me is the Assemblyman from the Upper West Side, Michael Asher, who's grown up in the district, been there his whole life. And he's got the Nadler endorsement effectively. And he's very much center left.

He's pro-Israel. he's progressive on most other policy, but, yeah, it would be more of a conventional center-left Democrat. There's an Assemblyman Alex Borris on the Upper East Side. There's Eric Botcher, the city councilman down in the village. Caskey, Jack Schlossberg, of course, the JFK grandson is running and in many others. So, yeah, it's going to be a split field. George Conway is trying to move back into the district.

I think Caskey's challenge will be like Conway's is last. of roots in the district i mean new york now new york you can come from elsewhere and succeed bill de blasio is not from new york city michael bloomberg was not from new york city but the key is you can come from anywhere but then you've got to establish yourself in new york city and kind of spend time building yourself up in new york city so caski he's 25 he obviously uh is from florida um i don't know if he's going to have the roots in that district to succeed now we'll see in a split field you never know i think it's a fair point if you got 10 candidates and you know one candidate's coming in with you know 32 percent and they win you become the congressman my expectation for now is

lasher is the favorite with the endorsement of nadler with the west side being so vote rich and that is the highest turnout part of the district my guess is he's the favorite but look they they almost try to tear him down and that creates no big for someone else so you truly never know in these kinds of races Yeah. Democracy. Got to love it. There you go. Thanks for joining us, man. Appreciate it. Thanks, Ross. Great to see you. Having me. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. We will see you all later.

And there'll be a Friday show tomorrow. elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York

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