Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/13/26: GOP Midterm Bloodbath, Trump's Oligarch Trip To China, Prof Pape On China Advancing Rapidly

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss GOP midterm bloodbath, Trump brings oligarchs on China trip, Professor Pape says China is eating our lunch as US empire declines.   Andy Browne: https://www.semafor.com/author/andy-browne Semafor: https://www.semafor.com/vertical/china  Robert Pape: https://escalationtrap.substack.com/    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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So this is what they call the generic ballot. They say just like, okay, Democrat versus Republican, not putting specific. candidates in, who do you prefer? The Democrats are winning here by 14 and a half points on the generic ballot for the House. That is a shocking margin. You know, all these, all the concerns, justified concerns about the way maps are being redrawn, et cetera. Like you are not, if Democrats are winning the national vote by something approaching 14 points, there is no amount of map changes. There is no amount of ice at the polls that is going to. that is going to truly be too big to rig in terms of taking control of the House.

And, you know, poll after poll shows it's not that people love the Democrats. The Democrats have a lot of work to do to reclaim any sort of decent brand with the American people. It's just that they are utterly disgusted with the Republicans with Donald Trump specifically. And Sagar, it does have some credibility given the fact, not only Atlas's track record, but given what we've seen in all of these special elections, 15 points. is the average, roughly the average shift toward Democrats that we've seen in all of these seats. So, you know, that gives it some credibility.

Again, it's an outlier. I want to make that clear. But it does give those numbers some credibility, given that when people have actually gone and voted, this is roughly what we have seen. Let's start with that. So remember, special election is the most predictive of midterms. It is by far going back many, many years for what's actually going to happen. Then we can start to look at some of the polls and their past track record.

Now, you're absolutely right. 2020 and 2024. Atlas Intel was A-plus, was between 2.2 points of the general 2024 electorate. It was the most accurate of that year. However, what we also learned is what? Is that Iowa Seltzer poll, traditional track record can be wrong. So let's put all those caveats. But I think whenever you combine the two things, you could say a general trend in this direction,

And unless it's some sort of selter-esque, you know, crazy misfire. But, you know, when I take a look actually at the issue by issue, that's where I really start to see huge problems for the Republicans. Let's put D2 up there on the screen from Atlas. Now lead on every major issue. Trump's two strongest areas are D plus 9 and D plus 7. This is from immigration and for defense. But at the very, very top, this is usual environment and education and health care. Democrats usually are there.

This is where it gets interesting. Employment and job market and inflation and cost of living. Those are two areas of a very traditional Republican strongholds. You have plus 15, plus 17 Democratic preference. Trade policy and tariffs, you also have another shift towards the Democrats at plus 13. Foreign policy, immigration, taxes, even. You have a plus eight crime at plus three for Dems. So you know things are absolutely insane when Dems are getting plus three whenever it comes to crime.

Maybe a lot of people are taking in all these headlines about these white-collar pardons. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to me. True. I'm being dead serious in terms of how they're thinking about it. Honestly, the lowest number of white-collar prosecutions in history happening right now under the Trump. And there has been a massive decline in the murder rate. So if you put those two things together, you're not as worried about violence. Then you also have this white-collar prosecution.

It wouldn't shock me. But I think Reddit comes down to is a rejection at the mass level. very similar to how the public reacted after Obama was president for a year. There are a lot of reasons largely for that, but it culminated in that huge wipeout, the shalacking of 2010. And I think, well, first of all, the problem with this is it all presumes that Trump cares at all about their chances, which it just doesn't seem like they care. Like anybody who cares about their midterm election chances is not saying things

which would be let our show about. I don't care or think about American's financial situation at all. Right? So this is where I'm like, I genuinely think that they have given up entirely on the domestic front, like completely. This is the only thing that can explain the sheer obsession with Venezuela 51st state, the reflecting pool, the ballroom, Iran. That's all they really have any control over. The rest of the party has a political future. He doesn't. He doesn't care. He only cares about the future.

But he's going to drag it down with him because the one last thing that we have to be clear on. with the Republicans is while many people are fleeing the Republican Party, in particular, many of these independent or nor swing voters, not just swing, non-identified Trump voters, the actual Republican base is all in for Trump. I mean, do you remember these very recently, these Indiana Senate races that were happening where some of these Indiana Republicans cross Trump, they all lost, okay? So the actual MAGA people, they're still all in. And that's just a caveat that I want to make very, clear, like, Trump is still the chief of the declining. In fact, it might be more powerful, because at this point, if you're still all in for Trump, there's literally nothing you can do,

including shooting someone on Fifth Avenue for which they will decline. And so that actually leads a very good place, I think, for the Democratic Party. I would compare it, I'm trying to think, maybe the 1970s where, like McGovern, this is a good example. So the 1970s, the entire, you know, post-Watergate Democratic Party was having a tough time, especially after Jimmy Carter, kind of figuring out, like, what we're going to do. And what they did is it opened up this huge space for, remember the Reagan Democrat that was like a thing back in the 1980s? Really what it was was an inverse rejection of kind of the embrace of the new left and this identitarian, this, this Democratic Party which had no real identity. There was a very hardcore

base of people who supported it, but not enough to create like a majority coalition, which is really what all these people decided to do when they voted for Reagan, even if some of them even didn't even agree with their policy. I would compare it now to the other. So we have a very, very small slice of the country, which is still very much all in and believing, but it leaves all of this open, negative polarization space, which is the defining politics of our era towards the Democratic Party. They're not like them, but they don't like the Republicans at all. It kind of very similar to the 2024 dynamic. A lot of voters hated Biden.

They didn't love Trump. They didn't like a lot of things about him. He still had a negative approval rating. We're still willing to vote for him in the end. Yeah. I mean, you could also potentially compare it to, depending on how bad things get here with the Iran war and a possible global depression.

You could also compare it with Herbert Hoover. Yeah. We're not there yet. We're not there yet. But that's a possibility. It is. I mean, but that requires having that FDR-like figure who can have a really broad appeal centered around, you know, a sort of not only natural patriotism,

but also prospera, broadly shared prosperity was really the cornerstone of what he offered, obviously, within the context that there was not completely shared by black American, certainly Japanese internment can't, all the caveats, notwithstanding and very significant caveats at that. But, you know, if you had that type of figure, I do think there's a possibility for that sort of coalition coming together. You know, we get very used to this very narrow partisan victories when you have both politicians basically sort of playing to the culture wars and not really promising significant economic change in a way that's credible.

And that part, the way that's credible, is the most significant part because one of the biggest questions is whether you can get Americans to really believe in a big national project of any sort, given a level of humiliation and decline that we're suffering right now. But in any case, you know, all of this, so you've got Republicans falling apart in terms of the national standing. Certainly the Trump coalition has broken down. His hardest score supporters are always going to be there with him, but it is a minority of somewhere around a third of the population. That is obviously not nearly enough to win House elections, when, you know, even maintain control of the Senate, let alone hold on to the presidency in 2028.

this poll from Atlas Intel was also very interesting on the Democratic side and very different from what we've seen on other Democratic primary 2028 trial run. So let's put this up on the screen. This is the first one that we've seen AOC leading the field with 26% of the vote. Next in line, you've got Pete at 22, Gavin at 21, Kamala down at 13. And then everybody else is pretty far below that. Andy Bashir 4, Corey Booker, 4, none of us. the above three, Shapiro 2, Whitmer 1, Walls 1, Kana 1, Rahm Emanuel, 0.6, and Westmore, 0.4. So, look, again, it's an outlier, but it does add an interesting data point. AOC is very much seen as the, you know, the heir to Bernie Sanders.

She is the seen as the vanguard of the left of the party and the sort of inheritor of that legacy. what we've seen in primary contest around the country. And actually, if we can jump forward and put Abdul's numbers up here on the screen here, D5, is that the energy in the Democratic Party is very much with the left of the party in a way that it truly in our lifetimes has never been,

including during the times when Bernie Sanders was running where people liked Bernie, but they were worried, oh, is the electable item now? And there was kind of a limit to how far people were willing to go in terms of voting for him or voting for candidates who styled themselves in his image. That seems to be changing. We now have in the Michigan Senate race, Amdil al-Sahid is really surging here.

We've got a new poll that has him emerging as the race's clear frontrunner, 28% support ahead of Haley Stevens at 18 and State Senator Mallory McMorro at 17%. So they're basically in a tie for second. And this is really stunning. they have him getting 80% of the support of voters between the ages of 18 and 44. So Gen Z and millennials, 80% support. Stevens is getting 4% and McMorro is getting 3%. So massive, massive generational divide in terms of the view of this race.

We can also look in terms of that left energy dominating the base of the party, certainly grand platinum coming out of nowhere having never run for any. anything before and easily dispatching with the sitting governor of Maine who was backed by the establishment of the Democratic Party. So, you know, this poll showing AOC in the lead fits with that trend of voters in the base of the party looking around and going, okay, well, who is, who is aligned with that Sanders wing? Who is going to, you know, who is going to stand up to corporate interest? Who is going to be different? And, you know, I've got my concerns about AOC that I've voiced on this show previously.

But in terms of voter perception of who she is and what her branding is, I think it's very consistent with the energy that we've seen behind Abdul al-Sayed and Graham Platter. It is interesting. Yeah, I don't know. I just don't see her coming out of primary. I don't. She's not a good debater. She folded in Munich.

She doesn't really, I don't know. What was the analogy you made about how she always seems like she's studying for the test and looking for the right answer as opposed to having an answer that she already, that's really important for a politician. A lot of it right now is the idea of AOC as opposed to AOC the politician, right? Yeah, I agree with that. You can't get through a primary through something like that, especially if you're going to be challenged. You know, the one thing that I think this whole thing presumes is that Kamala's not going to run again, which I am not putting off the table. She very clearly does. They have her in there, and she's led most of the polls. She has led for Democratic primary trial runs.

That's why this one is different. But it had her at 13 percent. So still, you know, garnering some support. But, you know, I'm, look, I'm not that concerned for the same reason you're saying, like, you don't think AOC can come through a primary. I mean, I think Kamala has proven herself to not hold up well under public scrutiny. So, you know, I think even though people, she'll be able to come out and say, look, I warned you that I said this about Trump and I was right. Like, I warned you. I tried to tell you. and there is, like, there continues to be a lot of warm feelings towards her, you know, in certain parts of the party.

But I'm not personally that concerned with that translating into Kamala Harris primary victory just because I don't think she'll hold up to scrutiny once again. Yeah, the last thing on flag, because we have our guest standing by, is the primary calendar matters so much. It matters so much how that primary calendar is going to look like. And as far as I know, you can tell me, I don't think that it's yet set in stone. but if they go the traditional route, or at least the Biden route, where they wanted South Carolina and first and without any of the Rust Belt or Nevada, any of these places where Bernie did really well, remember, it can significantly skew the way things go. And I wouldn't put it past the DNC after what they've polled with his Biden autopsy and everything that they've done. And I mean,

remember, before what's her name, Mills dropped out against Platner, the Schumer and them were going all in for them. So I would not put it past them whatsoever to nominate or to rig the scales, rig the system in favor of a Gavin or a Kamala if it were somebody like that. So that's my last flag for people because it's so hard to overcome. They're going to try. I just think it's going to be difficult to do what they did in the past because just like with the Mills race, people are like, oh, you're Schumer's candidate. That means I'm definitely not voting for you. And the ability to manufacture consent with the media outlets is really severely degraded too by the rise of independent media and also by the degradation of trust in mainstream liberal outlets.

Yeah, good point. All right, I've got our guest standing by. I'm going to do this one solo because he's in studio and then Crystal's going to be back on whenever we're with Robert Pape. So we'll see you then. Experience Harry Styles live in London, England at Wembley Stadium. This is Harry Styles. IR Radio wants to send you an amazing. Across the Pond, with flights from Virgin Atlantic,

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Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite, unhumored me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that.

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I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast. Podcasts for wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of I Heart Women's Sports. Joining us now is Andy Brown. He is the semaphore China columnist, an expert who's going to join us here for the Trump.

Gee Summers, good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So we're going to start off, just as you and I are talking, President Trump, on the ground, Beijing. Let's take a look at it. He's coming in the middle of the night. You can see him there in the grand arrival ceremony, the vice president, I believe,

or is a premier of China, I forget. One of the vice somethings of China greeted him there on the red carpet, and he's got a full two days schedule ahead of him. The most interesting news, Andy, that's come out is on his way to Air Force One. President Trump actually put out a truth social post, which we will have here. I'm going to go ahead and read from some of it. CNBC incorrectly reported that the great Jensen Wang of Envidia was not invited to the incredible gathering of the world's businessmen. He is currently on Air Force One, unless I ask him to leave, which is highly unlikely. He lists the others. It is Jensen, Elon, Tim Apple, Larry Fink, Stephen Schwartzman, Kelly Ordeburg, Boeing, he lists in parentheses, Brian Sykes of Cargill, Jane Fraser of Citibank, Larry Culp, GE, Airspace, David Solomon, Goldman Sachs, Sanjay, Mahotra, Micron, Cristiano, Amon from Qualcomm, and many others, including Brett Ratner, the Hollywood director. So I have described this as some kind of 19th century trade mission, like where the Brits would come.

with the monarch and the oligarchs with the mccartney mission exactly the mccartney mission uh and so uh you you can google that if you don't know what we're talking about but what's your modal like view of how this i mean it's extraordinary you've never seen a president of the united states go with very few nSC members or any of that on the china desk and instead have half of air force one be the richest most powerful CEOs here in the united states well first of all let's hope it's not the mccartney mission. Because the end result of the McCartney mission was the Chinese emperor saying to Lord McCartney, we don't want anything that you're offering. Right, right. It's hilarious, actually. It's memes all over Chinese social media today showing Jensen in his leather jacket, racing down the runway after

Air Force One, grabbing hold of the wheels as it takes off. I mean, he's a rock star in China. I mean, of course, there was a list. They put out a list. He wasn't on the list. He wasn't on the list. I can kind of see why a Jameson Greer at USTR might not want him in the party. I mean, if you look at the composition, okay, of the companies in that delegation, you've got start off with the finance, the Wall Street guys, right? Goldman City. Goldman City, Jane Fraser. These are people that basically want to look after Chinese money, look after Chinese money. Inside China, look after Chinese money when it leaves China.

Right. For investment travel, credit card, credit card companies, they're not controversial. They're already embedded into China and really want to do more business there. You've got the agricultural people, right? So the cargels of this world, that is selling soy beans and beef to China. Unambiguously good for the US economy, good for farmers, must be there. Then you get into technology. Some parts of technology are less problematic than others.

So, you know, Tim Apple, as he's called making his iPhones in China, that's okay. There's a lot of value here in the United States on the design side, on the marketing side, and so on. Elon Musk is there. He's making EVs more problematic because actually he was the flywheel for the entire Chinese EV industry. But he's not selling them back to the United States. That's okay, 100% tariffs. Then you get into semiconductors, okay, that is the most problematic. most troublesome area of U.S. China.

That is where these two superpowers compete. It's all about AI. AI is all about compute. Compute comes from chips. It's hard to imagine anything coming out on the chip side that won't be controversial. Let's say, let's say that Xi Jinping, when he meets with Trump, says, okay, you know, we'll take NVIDIA chips.

Trump has already offered him. Yeah, he has. Right. I mean, he wants a cut, right? 25% of anything Jensen sells in China. But let's say they do a deal. Comes back to the U.S. hail of criticism. You've just given it all away.

And actually quite understandable. If, on the other hand, they don't do a deal, then this is going to overshadow the trip. Oh, Xi Jinping rejects some deal. One way or another is very difficult. Plus, this is so complicated. There's nothing that these two leaders are going to sort out over chips

and NVIDIA sitting around the tape. In two days, impossible. In two days, right? I mean, you can't do that over a cup of tea at the great whole of the people. But what you can do over a cup of tea is make an agreement on what they call the three bees, Boeing, beef and beans, right?

So what I'm really interested in is what's put E3 up here on the screen. And your colleague, Ben Smith, I was texting him this morning. I think he wrote one of the most prescient columns on China I'd seen in quite a long time. I'm curious for your own view, where he said, you know, that this, Trump is poised to end the Washington decade of the China Hawks.

And so when I see Trump, first of all, in that true social post, there was another word that he used, open up, right? Open up China. This is the president who ran against PNTR, permanent normal relations with China. This is the president who wanted to reform our trading relationship with China. This time around, you have those oligarchs who are all on board, Air Force One. You just laid out very, you know, eloquently all the various business interests. But this is one which is shaping up for. potential, what Bloomberg reports here, some sort of trillion-dollar investment deal. And if we look into Trump's psychology, this is something he needs probably more desperately now than ever, considering where the economy is. He did this with Japan. He did this with Korea. He did this

with the European Union. He needs the headline. China agrees one trillion dollar investment. So you mentioned potential deals on semiconductors. Another one I'm tracking closely is autos. That's another reason I think Elon might be there. Some sort of licensing technology scheme. curious, first of all, from that high-level view of like, this is the literal opposite of what a lot of people thought was going to happen back in 2006. Well, there's a literal opposite of what some of the people on Air Force. You're right. I mean saying their entire careers. Yes.

Not least Marco Rubio. Yeah, you're right. The Secretary of State, who was a China hawk until he joins the Trump administration. It is amazing, right? So you've got to remember Trump is the guy who really changed the game with China. Yes. So before Trump, all the way back to Nixon, you have presidents who've gone after engagement, right? We want to make the Chinese look more like us commercially.

We want them to play by the rules of the game, the rules that the United States set after World War II, integrate them into the global system. He broke that consensus in his first time. He came in, they're raping us, they're pillaging us, they're making fun of us, they're cheating, lying, and so on. It was China, China, China, right? So he puts in place a whole system of tariffs, export controls, sanctions against Chinese companies. He tries to kill Huawei, the avatar of China's technology ambitions, doesn't work. And then things go from bad to worse.

At the end of his administration, do you remember during COVID? Blame it on China. It was the lab virus. China virus. The Kung flu, as he calls it. And so, you know, he comes. into his, he comes into his second term and he starts reassembling that sort of group of China Hawks within the National Security Council, the people with a similar mindset to the

people that he'd gathered in his first administration. And he does this, he does this U-turn. And he gets rid of them all. He gets rid of all the China Hokes, marginalizes the National Security Council. And then since then, since then, he's just worked incredibly hard doing everything he can to do a deal with China, which includes, as we just mentioned, saying, okay, you know, you can have our most advanced or some of them are very advanced. Chips, National Security document. They bring that to him. It's all written out, boilerplate about how China is a threat major competitive adversary and so on. And Trump looks at this and he's around. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I want to do. Blue pencils, all this.

comes back to his desk and there's all kinds of language about how we want, you know, an honorable peace. I think Hagseth talks about everlasting peace with China. So it's all flipped. People say he is the most China-friendly member of his own administration. I think it's true. And I think what it reflects is this business instinct, especially now to dig himself out of the hole that it created, not just with tariffs, now the Iran war. I mean, you need something. I also, I'm curious for your view, how do the Chinese view it?

Because this is now, remember, this summit has been postponed as a result of the Iran war. I don't think America's ever been strategically, this is my opinion. I don't think we've ever been strategically weaker than after this conflict, not only in terms of the standoff munitions that have all been expended, but just the sheer inability of the United States Navy to even open the strait of Hormuz. If you're Xi Jinping in the PLA, you're watching this with glee. And so at a moment in the summit like this, what is China looking at? So I'd read some stories. I see China trying to, you know, they're warning meta of an acquisition. They're telling their companies, the teapot refineries, they're saying, yeah, we're not listening to this.

U.S. sanctions nonsense. All of these are signals. So what is she's objective in a summit like this? She's number one, two, and three objective is Taiwan. So he thinks that he has leverage because, as you say, he does. He does, right? That, you know, the latest peace agreement proposal is collapsed in Iraq. huge mess, straight of old moves, more or less closed.

Big pressure on the years ago. We just saw the inflation numbers out. Price is going up. A real threat in the midterms. She sees all this. So he sees that as leverage to get concessions on Taiwan. So he wants that. He wants tariff scale back.

He wants U.S. technology. He wants Chinese companies off these blacklist, Pentagon blacklist. He wants more access to U.S. technology, but Taiwan is number one. Interesting. Number one to ask. So whenever we say Taiwan, he wants, what, an end to the Taiwan consensus? Because I've seen some senators sending Trump letters, hey, you can't just stop

from Taiwan. The Taiwan's Relations Act is lock. Trump clearly, I mean, I think he's reported in 20 saying something like, there's not a fucking thing we can do about it. Are we allowed to say that on a podcast? Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, don't worry. Listen, there's no cable, no FCC. See, you can say whatever you want.

So, yeah, I mean, in terms of Trump's mindset, I don't think he particularly cares at this point. I think he's all about business. In the age of Iran, there actually is literally not a fucking thing you can do about it. So I'm curious, like, from Trump's and the defense perspective, like what, because usually a China and a U.S. summit is all about defense. Trade would be secondary. Taiwan is number one for the Chinese. Here, it seems Trump is a lot more desperate to get some sort of business accommodation

than anything having to do with defense, despite the fact that Hegset is there on the trip. Right. So the easiest way to get a business deal with Xi is to give something away on Taiwan, right? Right. I don't think there is that the Chinese expect that Trump is gonna sit there ripping up the Taiwan relation.

Now, you can't do it anyway, because it's an act of Congress. He's not gonna give away Taiwan, right? He is not gonna go down in history as the president who handed Taiwan over to authoritarian China. That's not gonna happen. and that's not what the Chinese are expecting. I think what they want out of him

is a little tweak in the language. She's going to sit down with him and he's going to explain the problem. He's just had, by the way, the head of the Guamandang, the opposition party coming over to China. Yeah, amazing, right? So, you know, he thinks he's got her in his back pocket and to an extent he has.

She's already parroting Chinese talking points, right? So that gives him some hope that there's a resolution to his Taiwan his Taiwan problem. So he wants Trump to tweak the language, right? So he wants Trump to say things like, and it doesn't actually even have to write it down. He could just say this to Xi. You know, we do not support or we are opposed to Taiwan independence. Or, yeah, we think unification of Taiwan with the mainland is a good idea. Right. Small concession, and you might argue not a big deal, it goes down like a seismic shock in Taiwan,

because what it says to the people of Taiwan is we're on the table, right? We're negotiating chip. And that is exactly what Xi Jinping wants. He wants to get inside Taiwanese heads. He wants to demoralize them. He wants to give them the sense that they don't own their future, that their future. that their future is going to be negotiated between the United States and China over their heads. Yes.

And then they run up the white flag. The signal that then sends to the rest of the region is, my God, if he's going to put Taiwan on the table, what about us? Korea, right. The Japanese, that's what I've been writing about these. The Japanese, the Koreans, they all have big problems with China. Now, look, they all trade with China and don't get me wrong. A lot, right? They want U.S. China relations broadly to be okay.

but they don't want it to be so okay that they form this kind of G2 condominium lauded over the whole world and sell out their interests. You know, China right now has sanctions on Japan. I know. 40 Japanese companies. It's intimidating. It's intimidating Japan around these disputed islands, right? Same with South Korea.

So that is what Asia-Pacific countries are looking at. What is he going to give away to get his... precious trade deals. That's my last question. Japan and South Korea, already relations are strained. The trade, it was a big problem. I wish we'd spent even more time covering it, but that really pissed a lot of people off.

The way that the tariffs and things went down caused big problems in Japan, big problems in South Korea. Then the Iran war was like gasoline, like it's literal, actually, gasoline for their economies. They, you know, their stock markets and all that have recovered, but they're furious about what's happened here. they can't really say a lot of it out loud. If we do see some movement here with China, what I am curious for your view, I think the autos would be the thing that changed everything because obviously everybody knows the Chinese auto companies are just better than ours.

It's not really a question. Like it's not even really in dispute. If we have some sort of licensing agreement of the big three and these autos, the two people it would hurt the most are the South Korean and the Japanese who have done everything hand over fist, bent over backwards, to invest and to build here in the United States. And even they, they probably wouldn't be able to compete. So how worried are they about some, not just about a deal, but specifically autos, which accounts for a lot of the trade that happens between the two? Or do you think I'm off the mark on autos?

Because I really think something's going to happen. I think something might happen. I'm not sure that it's going to happen this time. Don't forget they're going to be four times this year, right? Well, at least that's the plan. And it really is a complicated one. First off, look, I don't think this trillion dollar. I don't buy this trillion.

I mean, I was hearing that number a couple of months ago, big Chinese. First of all, a trillion dollars of investment requires a level of trust that simply does not exist, right? I mean, you're building factories. You're talking about the next 10, 20 years, right? But that wouldn't stop them from announcing it. Yeah, from a fake number, it doesn't have to be real. Well, exactly. Look, look, you talk about the Japanese and the South Koreans combined, they announced $900 billion.

of investments in the U.S. EVs is the interesting one. And, you know, the question, Trump himself has said, you know, fine. He said it in. I know. Detroit, right? Yeah, he said it. Yeah, let him in.

Let him build. Jim Farley at Ford is much less sure about this. Because as you say, these cars are much better. Politically, this is a huge problem because you're talking really now about EVs and about connected vehicles. They're connected to the Internet. And this is sort of Chinese CCP spies on wheels and so on. The question is, you know, is there a safe way to do this?

The Canadians are working on this. The Japanese themselves are working, or the Koreans are working. And don't forget, the Chinese have American EVs manufactured by Elon Musk in China. It would be an obvious one. But as you say, and at the bottom end, see, they'd come in at the bottom end of the market, right? So with kind of $15,000, $25,000 cars, which is the area that they, and they would compete in that space against Japanese and Koreans, not against Detroit. Detroit is now all about big trucks and SUVs selling for sort of 60, 70, 80,000 bucks, right? They're probably going to be okay.

Americans still love their combustion engines, although in time, if you allow the Chinese in, they're going to be going after all of those markets. But I agree with you. I think this is the big open question is what do they do on EVs. Well, Andy, I really enjoyed talking to you. It's been a great preview. Everybody go and read his columns. We'll have links down in the description. Thank you for joining us, sir.

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and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions. to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout, Kate Martin and rising hockey star, Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that.

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and that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Joining us now is our great friend Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago. It's great to see you, sir. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. All right, so, Professor, originally we're going to talk about Iran. However, you sent along some slides that you've put together from your most recent travels to China. We just spoke with the journalist about what happened, what's going to happen in this summit.

But you have a little bit more of an interesting and more in-depth view. So let's go ahead and start with some of these and put these slides up here on the screen. and you can tell us a little bit about what we're seeing. So the most important thing that's going to come out of this trip is the world is about to rediscover China in ways they are going to be blown away. And I know because I've been going to China since 1979. I've been touring economic industries since 1979. And when I went back in 2000, June last year, while we were bombing Fordo, I was touring

China's advanced industries two weeks. And China is just simply becoming an AI juggernaut. This isn't about, is one company or one software ahead of America, that's a so-destraw view of what's happening in China. The big picture, which is starting to blow away the journalists, is that China, we're beginning to confront the scale and the speed of China's already AI transformation in the economy. I don't just simply mean on the stock market. And so what China is doing is they are massively integrating AI, electrification, robotics, infrastructure in cities and manufacturing to uplift whole regions, not just simply small areas or small cities. They are producing massive products.

This is what the journalists are discovering as they drive. through Beijing, cars brand new that are seas of cars, not seas of bicycles. And these are electric vehicles you can't buy in the United States. They're beyond Tesla. They're going to see, they're going to come back and they're going to say, I want one of those. And the reason is because during COVID, what happened is we put all our money, $10 trillion plus in debt. And that was for good reason to help our people, but what China did, and China can do this as an authoritarian state, they invested, they didn't give, they invested, and what I saw in China are not just seas of cars, but I visited these advanced cities now that have been uplifted in the last five years.

Major construction that's occurring. Here's a good example. This is China. This is China. is Pittsburgh, so to speak. And in 2015, when I was last there, it looks like Pittsburgh. Now, this is like a version of, Wuhan calls it their Optics Valley after Silicon Valley. These are advanced AI-driven laser robotics that are just uplifting the entire city of 10 million people. Because it's not just about building a company, they're integrating all this city. wide, so there's massive construction going on. This is another good example. I was in Heng Chow in 1979. I was part of the trip I was on, and it was a fishing village. Today, look at this. This is a

completely different Heng Chow. There's still some fishing there, by the way, but what you see is this has been uplifted as a city. Just imagine if that was St. Louis. Imagine if that, this is Sen Chen. Here's another example of what was a fishing village, just a couple hours outside of Hong Kong on the Chinese side of the border. Also, I was there in 1979. Now

this is an industry leader. This is where BYD is, but notice the city. It's not just electric manufacturing, electric vehicle manufacturing. Look at the entire city of 10 million people, brand spanking new airports.

This is what we're missing China. It's not that China's catching up to America. It's that we now need to catch up to China. And it's not about inventing a single product. You see, I think we think that, oh, as long as we have the latest single widget, we are ahead. What China's doing is inventing new widgets and then diffusing them massively across whole sectors and regions. They've uplifted about 50 to 100. million people in the last six years, what have we done for our Rust Belt? What have we really done for Erie, Pennsylvania, where I was born, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore.

They look almost exactly the same and in many ways worse than they did six years ago. What has China done? They have invested up, and we're missing the big picture. Yeah. That's such an important point and important insight. And I wonder what you make of the fact President Trump was bragging about all. of these CEOs who made the trip with him. You've got Tim Cook, you've got Jensen Wang, you've got Elon Musk, and over 12 individual

CEOs of American companies who decided to go along with him, who he brought along with him. What do you make of that decision and what do you think that indicates about what he's hoping to get out of this trip? Well, this slide show you just showed, and I have a lot more, puts everything in a new light. Those tech bros are going because they're falling behind. They want to catch up.

Elon Musk is getting beat out by BYD. He's going to try to find how can he get in on the electric panels that are the, we need for AI, we need massive electricity. What is China doing? They are producing massive solar power. And yeah, that will help the planet. But that's not, I'm sorry, that's not why they're doing it. They're not selling it to help the planet. They're selling it to beat America and jettison above America.

And those tech bros are going because they're falling behind. They don't want to admit it. They want to pretend, just like Trump, victory talk. Same thing's been going on here. We are falling behind and COVID was the hinge. And hardly anybody has been to China since COVID. I know because when I used to go to China, I was surrounded by what? Americans.

I go last June. There's no Americans. I mean, there are a few. But you could hardly find them. What was the last time a politician went to China? Gavin Newsom went about 18 months ago for three days. Okay, he went to BYD for three days, and there's still a video of it. That's it.

And I came back. I tried to get a lot of politicians. I'm sorry to say, I tried to get journalists interested. Nobody could find the time because it wasn't on the radar. Well, Trump's trip here, this is what the journalists are all talking about. The seas of EVs, the green license plates, Brand spanking new, beautiful Porsche's EVs. This is not like Tersels.

Okay, this is the leading edge, and they have even more that I got to see, and they won't put it, the robotic assembly lines, you can't find them on Google. That's why I had to go. So they are not bragging, talking smack like we do. What they're doing is staying under the radar and just eating our lunch.

Right. You know, Professor, to link I think this a little bit to Iran. If we could put F4, for example, up here on the screen, this is from the New York Times. New classified military intelligence assessments from earlier this month show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers, underground facilities. U.S. Intel assessed as Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites. It maintains along the Straits of Hormuz, and that 90% of their Iranian underground missile sites are partially or fully operational.

We just spoke with Andy Brown from Semaphore. He made clear Xi Jinping's number one priority, one, two, and three out of this trip is something on Taiwan. Not necessarily a total change in the status quo, but trying to pierce the armor of the American view of Taiwan and his own Taiwan problem. It seems to me an American president has never met with a Chinese or even any counterparty in an instance in the midst of such a tremendous strategic defeat like what we have just suffered. and how that's going to shift the trip. I mean, I'm not exactly sure, not just because of what you're talking about about their ascendance,

but of our own weakness, of the relative weakness in a moment like this at the time of their meeting. I'm just curious for you. Let me just make two points here. Three. So first, on your show, a couple weeks ago,

I said this is going to be scary for America because he's about to go in this position of strategic defeat. She's got all the cards. He's going to want concessions on Taiwan. So this was number one. absolutely predictable. Number two, if you look at that Intel assessment,

so what has happened with America's bases, it's not that we didn't refurbish anything. Those are bases basically 30 years old, 20 years old. We're still living in the 90s, a lot of the way like we're living in the Rust Belt in the 90s. Point number three, imagine what's going to happen now with this emerging alliance. Remember I'm talking about China,

Iran emerging is the fourth center of world power. in concert with Russia and with China, start to imagine even a trickle of China's AI that we're now seeing diffusing here in the electric vehicles and robotic assemblies, any of that going to Iran. And Iran can take advantage of it here. So this is the future here that we're going to contend with. We're still basically stuck in equipment, in basing structures. There are 20 years out of date. With COVID, there was a hinge. And China used COVID to jettison ahead in AI, not inventing a single product, but in diffusing this and integrating this across whole sectors.

This could be Iran in the coming years. Yeah. Wow. That is very fascinating to think about. And Trump tried to downplay the Iran aspect of what would be discussed with China, saying, oh, I don't think that's going to be a big part of it. What do you make of China's view on our attack on Iran on the Iran war? Trump loves to point out that they get a lot more of their oil through the straight of four moves, which is true than we do. So they certainly are impacted by it.

Of course, China is a nation that does a lot of trade with the world. So anytime that trade flows are impacted, that's going to be something that they pay close attention to. So what do you think will be said and discussed with regard to the Iran war on this trip? Yeah, so a couple points. First, notice that Trump is the master of sleight of hand like a magician. That stat that you just said is not false, but it's out of the larger context. He doesn't want you to focus on like a magician. The bigger context is China has been weaning itself off of oil over the last decade.

Only 20% of its energy needs now, 20% are met with oil. and only 38% of that come from the Persian Gulf. So last summer when I was visiting those advanced industries, the business people were telling me in the dinners that, yeah, they may suffer a percent or two here or their loss of GDP. But the fact of the matter is their whole business plan is built around Asia. It's built around this will create opportunities for them to buy things and get deals on the cheap.

They're more likely to jettison a hedge. head as a result of this, well, America gets sunk here. And what you were seeing is we just keep getting spun by Trump's rhetoric here, and we're missing big pictures. Some of it's because we just don't go to China. We try to get everything from behind our computers. And I know it's ironic that here I am a professor, spend most of my life behind a computer, and I'm telling journalists and I'm telling politicians, you've got to get out and meet people and see the real world, that's what's happening. Otherwise, we're just stuck listening to President Trump's vision of the real world. Right. I think it's very important. And I do think that this is like a collision of

moments with the Iran war and this summit, because I do expect some sort of accommodation as something. In terms of trade, Taiwan, I don't know exactly what it's going to look like. It may not be immediately obvious. But in the long run, professor, how do you see this playing out? Like the Taiwan question from China's perspective, it doesn't seem to me that they would want to do a full-on military invasion. They're more recent. They would be foolish to do a full-on military invasion, even if they could succeed, because what that would do is it would take the focus off of blame of the United States.

It would push Europe away, push some of the other Asian partners away they want. So they could help us out. I say this, only half-jokingly here to my classes, the best way to bail out Trump from the Iran War would be if she would attack Thai. Taiwan because this would fundamentally help Trump. And maybe he's going to try to tickle Xi and say, don't you want to do this? Well, I'm sorry, I don't want to be too facetious, but the fact of the matter is what China has done now since the 1996 Taiwan straight crisis, think about that.

Thirty years ago they did some missile, a gunboat diplomacy, it totally backfired and failed. They haven't done that since. Now they've done some incursions. I know. I've been to Taiwan. I've had the briefings from the National Security Advisor here. So I've got some actually, I've go to Taiwan too. And what you are, what you're really seeing is China here is just getting stronger and stronger

and stronger incrementally. That's true economically. That's true militarily. And at some point, Taiwan may just fall in their lap. They may not have to actually use military force. And look at, we've run out of all of these boutique missiles. many of them, we're really hurting now in terms of supporting Taiwan. What's keeping Taiwan afloat is its actual Taiwanese military power, which is not trivial here.

They have months they could hold out against China on its own. But whether America is the cavalry that would come to the rescue after, say, four or five months of a blockade against Taiwan, that's an open question at this point, and she sees it. Yeah. And finally, we can't have you here without asking you a little bit directly about the Iran war. What's your sense of where we are and are things just sort of on pause right now while Trump makes this trip? And do you feel that the pressure is continuing to build on him to take some sort of action? Yeah, this is a while before a likely storm.

We just don't know whether that storm is going to be, you know, sort of a cloudburst or it's going to be a hail storm. And the issue here we've talked about many, many times is President Trump is going to have an incredibly difficult time, swallowing that big L on him, which will, as bad as you think his political prospects are now, he's still got a large part of MAGA behind him. And they will be even more behind him as they get into the midterms. However, if he accepts the loss and really just says, yep, you're right, I've got to stand aside, while Iran gets a nuclear weapon, think about that, because that's what the real future is here, then a lot of even MAGA is going to lose confidence in the great leader, because that great

leader isn't so great anymore. So this is where the real problem of the trap is, as bad as it might seem to go down a road of escalation, going down the other road for Trump is worse. Now, the rest of us may be perfectly happy to make the choice. We don't want casualties. We rather go down and allow Iran to emerge as the fourth center of world power. That's the choice, and we may make a different choice, but the guy in the Oval Office is President Trump, and he's in there for two and a half more years. Well, you always leave us with a lot to think about, Professor. You certainly do.

Is it an escalation trap on Substack, go subscribe, link down in the description. Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate your time. Oh, thank you. You're always ahead. You guys are always ahead and help keep my substack ahead. Good. Let's keep it up. Number one. Glad to be part of it. Let's make it number one.

Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. We will have a great break. Another breaking point show tomorrow. That's our show. All right. So things got switched up, but nobody got shorted. All right. We'll see you all then. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriters,

reader Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going?

On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them. them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Hey, everyone, it's Ryder Strong and Wilfridel from PodMeets World. And now the Pod Meets Twirled podcast. We're two men who were completely clueless to reality TV,

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