Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/19/26: Trump Panics As Bond Markets Crumble, Trump Crypto Firm To Become Bank, Kushner Bends Knee To Bibi

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Krystal and Emily discuss Trump panics as bond markets crumble, Trump crypto firm to become a bank, Kushner bends the knee to Netanyahu on Gaza.   Jeff Stein: https://x.com/jstein_notusIsrael's Lobby: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Israels-Lobby/Eli-Clifton/9781668210840   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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I saw the smile light up your face when I said that, Jeff. So happy to provide you all of your accolades. Let's go and put D1 up on the screen here. We've had a bond sell-off here for the New York Times. They say it sent the borrowing cost to the highest level since 2007 yields on the 30-year-U.S. Treasury and government bonds across the world rose. to multi-year highs as investors fret about inflation, deficits, and AI spending. Talk to us about what this article is indicating and why we should care. Yeah, it's a huge topic. The bond yield run-up. Do you want me to start on why it matters or what's going on? Why it matters? I think the why it matters is

huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, parts of the American economy are incredibly, incredibly sensitive. to this financial indicator that seems totally abstract and sort of beyond what most people understand. And basically the way this works is that borrowing prices are tied to the amount the Treasury Department pays in response to issuing debt. Basically, Treasury issues an IOU that says, I will pay you back at this rate over this amount of time if you, a private borrower, buy my debt. in exchange for immediate cash. And that percentage, that rate that Treasury pays on that IOU

is the benchmark for an impossibly large amount of borrowing in the U.S. economy, including mortgages, car loans, your credit card rates. So it really has a very sort of visceral immediate impact on millions of small businesses that might want to loan, millions of homeowners that might be trying to, you know, buy their first house, millions of students who are trying to get student loans if it's not you know if they don't have a federal benefit and and then there's sort of a second potential sort of macroeconomic impact that could impact sort of you directly and and that is the higher these yields get they're called sort of that iOU spread is the yield the higher that gets the more at risk our financial system is because our banks you know not so much the really big ones but

the medium smaller ones are really um they're market are based on expectations for what those IOUs will yield. And if we have huge fluctuations, as we're seeing in the bond market, it means that the balance sheets of these banks could be askew in ways that are really dangerous. And the last time we saw really elevated bond yields was 2023. And one of the impacts of that era was we saw Silicon Valley Bank go under. The Biden administration mobilized effective bailout. It was a very big moment for financial markets, and it could have had this sort of major ripple effect throughout the economy.

So there's the sort of immediate effect on consumer borrowing. And then there's this sort of second tier layer of sort of internal plumbing to the financial markets where if we see big shocks that we don't know where they're going, that gets really scary and gets us back to questions about 08 or maybe more like 23. But it creates this instability both for foreign governments and for banks because, these treasuries are sort of just the bedrock asset that people use to hold liquidity. And so you do not want to see major fluctuations in that. And then we can sort of get to the, why is this happening if that's all. Yeah, yeah, let's get to that because if we put this Bloomberg tear sheet up on the screen, they mentioned U.S. 10-year yields climbed to highest since 2025 as route deepens. And famously, Trump didn't waver at all, basically after Quote Liberty, Liberation Day,

until he said the bond markets were getting a little yippy, if I'm remembering correctly, Jeff. So what's happening this time around, and you know, you've covered Trump and Trump's relationship with the bond markets, Scott Besson as well, what could we expect to see from the admin? We have a, well, so I guess what's happening now is you have sort of the structural problem and the immediate problem. The structural problem is that as, you know, with the West ages, we have sort of a glut of government spending and not enough revenue coming in. And that has pushed out a huge and sort of unprecedented, you know, issuance of debt, not just in the U.S., but Germany, the UK, Japan. And what's happening is there's so much debt being issued and not enough buyers, which means that the buyers have the upper hand and they can demand a higher premium, which means that the borrowing gets more expensive for the U.S. government, which is sort of the underlying structural problem. Now, on top of that, we've had a series of, as you alluded to, really serious geopolitical developments that sort of exacerbate the sort of like the structural issue there.

And basically, when the Strait of Hormuz, you know, on off, on off with the Iran war, and the effect of that is to raise the risk of inflation. And when inflation goes up, if you have a bond, you're going to say, I need a better rate of return because the value of my bond. it's going to erode over time. So that plus a few other things, the Federal Reserve not being clear that it's going to fight inflation. The AI spending boom has really created a huge extra demand for capital.

So that's another reason that there aren't as many people and institutions buying bonds. And so that's creating all the short-term pressure on yields. What the administration is going to do about it is a great question of and trying to get the answer to. We saw a couple weeks ago Treasury Secretary Scott Besson go out of his way and move to protect the Japanese yen. The administration said this is absolutely just about protecting our allies and helping our allies, but it wasn't lost on people that treasuries are held over a trillion dollars in treasuries are held by the Japanese. They are the single biggest foreign holder of U.S. treasuries. And if their currency really is in trouble, they could mass

dump the dollars that they do own to prop up the yen. And that would be really bad for for the U.S. yields. What else the administration is going to do today, just a few hours ago, we got an announcement from the Treasury Department that they are basically changing, they're basically buying older debt and trying to issue new debt. The mechanics of this are complicated and really boring, frankly, so I don't want to waste your time on it, but it's another move aimed at basically improving liquidity in the Treasury market in the short term, but doesn't really do anything about sort of the underlying structural issue or the war, which is, you know, someone said to me, like, are we basically risking the entire U.S. economy because Israel persuaded Trump to go to war with Iran?

And there's like not not true to that, you know, there isn't a story there that has a lot of evidence to support it. Yeah, and not just the U.S. economy and say the entire global economy is being risked right now because of the choices that have been made for some series of perplexing reasons. Jeff, you're writing over at notice about how important the bond yields are, how closely Trump follows this metric. With the midterms looming, you know, is there a particular level interest rate that he's going to be looking at? Is there some sort of like catastrophic thing that could unfold that would really cause problems? Like, what are the specifics here that we should keep our eyes on? Yeah. We are approaching 5% on the 10 years. We are approaching 5% on the 10 years.

and we're at like 5.3 on the 30. If those numbers, if the 10-year rises above 5%, and the 30-year rises above 6, that's when economists have been telling me, like, we will expect to start to see real trouble in financial markets at some of the banks. And I'm pretty confident that the administration is going to be doing whatever it can to keep it below that number.

But I think, you know, Emily, you mentioned the Liberation Day tariffs, which I think is a really instructive counterpoint because that was a moment last year, you might remember. I think I was on the show a few times, when it looked like the Trump administration understood that the massive tariffs they were imposing were causing these huge problems in the bond market, and they backed off.

But the thing about that crisis was it was kind of like a switch, like a lever that was like, you know, we can pull this in one direction or the other. Like we can turn this on or off to use the switch analogy. And now I think it's pretty clear that it's a lot harder. You know, then Trump could just say, actually, no, let's not really do the tariffs. And that's kind of what they did. Can they really just say, like, the war's over and the straighter form was open and also AI spending is like the number of problems that are causing this current flare up are so much bigger and more complicated than the tariff switch that they could turn on or off last year.

So in some ways, it's more out of their hands. They have a situation that is not as easily resolved as it was last time. And I think that's going to be a real problem if they can't figure out how to get this under control quickly. Jeff, I wanted to talk to you, too, a little bit more about this Japanese yen situation that you raised. We can put D3 up on the screen. Scott Bessent is many things, but one of them is he is sort of a master at currency markets and currency manipulative. That's how he made a lot of his fortune alongside George Soros. So we can go back and take a look at that track record.

In any case, there was an extraordinary thing that unfolded where a journalist was able to capture, a photojournalist was able to capture a picture of like a grocery style to-do list. And on that to-do list was this massive intervention into the Japanese yen market to prop it up. That looks to have not really lasted, at least for the long term. Phil Pilkington says it's been 18 days since the U.S. Treasury undertook an all-hands-on-deck bailout of the yen. Intervention has now been completely wiped down. Japanese are going to start considering liquidating U.S. treasuries to get the situation under control. And my understanding, Jeff, is that this has implications not only for treasuries and banyls.

Obviously, that's really important, but also could have huge implications in terms of AI investment because of this yen carry tradeware for, the longest time, you could borrow money in Japanese yen at basically 0% and then use it to invest in things like U.S. treasuries and the AI data center bill down. That trade is no longer making the sense that it used to make. So this could have significant impact on our entire economy, it seems to me. Yeah. And you look at the mechanics of what Besson did with the first attempt to prop up the yen. And basically, you know, you would say, okay, well, if the U.S. going to buy the yen, right? If you buy the yen, it increases demand so it stops the sell-off and allows Japan to basically manage its economy without having to dump U.S. dollars. That's kind of

the – but if you're thinking this through, you're like, well, don't – doesn't that mean that the U.S. needs to sell its own treasuries to buy the yen? And what's really important and I think interesting about the way they went about this is Bessent sold the euro. So the U.S. has holdings of the euro and that's what it dumped to be able to buy the yen. So it was a move to say, okay, well, we don't want to prop up the yen to save the U.S. Treasury markets by dumping treasuries. That's like completely counterproductive. But Europe is just over there. They're mostly doing okay. Like, not really, but with the war in Ukraine. But it is someone we can kind of take a bit of a shot at their currency and not have it immediately blow back to us.

The Europeans don't have as many U.S. treasuries as Japan or even China, so it seemed like a logical place to go. The problem is, as you're saying, this intervention has not held up, and now it's like, where's the ammo going to come from? You could issue more U.S. debt to do this. You could sell U.S. treasuries, but that kind of contradicts potentially the sort of motivation of doing this in the first place. And as you're saying, it's not just U.S. treasuries that are very well integrated throughout the global economy. The Japanese yen is, you know, the Japanese, you know, there's an old saying among economists that there are four kinds of economies in the world. Developing, developed Japan and Argentina. Part of what makes Japan distinct is because they've had, you know, they've been running a debt of like 400% of the GDP, like, twice what we have.

And so their debt issuances sort of scattered throughout. the global economy. And if they have a real sudden currency shock, you could see similar sort of balance sheet problems to what we have with the sudden devaluation in U.S. Treasuries. Well, let's get to Trump's latest World Liberty financial situation. Jeff is going to stick around. So stay tuned for that. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pesto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all.

And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. On the new podcast Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is all. offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero, and I travel by myself

because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people, and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is, and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your

personality, welcome home. This is Proz Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,

nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside, compelling characters, and that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. A major development in the Trump family crypto corruption, let's put this first headline up on the screen, brazen act of self-dealing, lawmakers, watchdogs, alarmed after Trump regulators let Trump firm start a bank. Just the lead here from

CNN reports, regulators appointed by Trump are allowing the Trump family's flagship cryptocurrency venture to become a bank, a move that is alarming ethics watchdogs and some lawmakers. World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm, Trump and his sons launched in 2024, announced late Friday that it received a preliminary conditional approval from banking officials to become a trust bank. final approval hinges on a series of conditions being met. Jeff Stein, reporter at notice, is back with us. And Jeff, I'm hoping you can help us understand what the hell is going on. Because World Liberty Financial, as I just mentioned from the CNN report, it's a crypto company.

Crypto banking right now, they have their clarity act that's hanging in the balance and may or may not pass by the end of the year. But this is a really murky regulatory area. So what does this even mean? What does this approval even mean? Is it going to stand? Do you think, help us break this down? So this is a charter from the OCC, the Office of the Comptroller or the Currency. It's been approved by an official that Trump appointed to that position.

And what it effectively means is that it does not entail deposit insurance. It doesn't mean that Royal Liberty Financial has fed. backing for if they have a crisis. That is not the case, which I think is a bit of a relief to some people. But it does essentially enable them to issue their stable coin. U.S.D.1 is the name of the World Liberty Financial coin. This is the currency that they issue. And they don't have to go through an intermediary set of institutions to do that. There are a few other benefits. It gives them sort of additional federal credibility. It allows them to, a really big one is that they now sort of, sort of override state regulation. So if New York was saying, hey, Trump, you can't sell your crypto,

you know, whatever this way, New York is now not able to, you know, go after this bank because it has this sort of federal protection. But the real sort of immediate sort of short-term financial benefit for Trump's crypto company is that he will be able to issue this stable coin. And I was new to a lot of this, so I've been trying to learn a lot about exactly how this works. But essentially, this is both, the stable coin is basically something that you can buy and trade, right? Like, it's like a meme stock in a way. Like, you can buy your stable coin and then trade it.

But it also is sort of a way to transact or, you know, exchange, have a financial exchange. So if, like, you're a bank and you're trying to buy certain number of parts from a company or whatever, you can, instead of going. through a bank, you can, or going through like, you know, think about it like Venmo or PayPal. Basically, you can conduct this transaction now in USD1, which is the Trump crypto company. And this is the real thing that I think people need to know. The Trump administration, or not the Trump administration, the Trump family will get a cut. We don't know exactly what that is.

The rates vary, but it's typically between, you know, one and four percent, maybe two percent. That is the percentage that they will get on whatever transaction. let's say a bank or a private company or even an individual wants to do. And so there's no public disclosure as far as we know, according to the experts I talked to, we won't know maybe for a long time what exactly, who is doing this? So if Trump, you know, gets a call from the head of Goldman Sachs and he says, yeah, like, I might stick the DOJ on you, but can you conduct your next billion-dollar deal in my cryptocurrency, they can do that and no one would know.

So it's, I mean, the- And the Trump family would get the transaction fee. Correct. They own, there's a series of sort of holding companies that make it hard to sort of say they own this percentage because it's like Trump owns 70%, Trump personally owns 70% of the holding company that owns the other holding company that then owns the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But effectively they are the owners along with,

the emmerbodies who bought a 49%. Yeah. And then it's run by Zach Wiccoff, who of course is Steve Wiccoff's son. So you've got, you know, all kinds of family corruption going on in this administration. And for my Republican friends out there, I think a good way to visualize this would be, remember when Hunter Biden was selling his paintings? And we didn't know who was buying these paintings for prices that seemed a little bit above market price, except we're talking. talking about billions of dollars changing hands here potentially, all thoroughly without any transparency, no scrutiny. And Jeff, just help put this into some historical context because

you start to feel crazy tracking this stuff. The level of wealth, specifically through this crypto company that Trump has been able to accumulate in the second presidency, has got to be historically unprecedented, certainly for the U.S., perhaps for the entire world. Yeah, yeah, I don't know what the, you know, percentage of GDP comparisons would be with like whatever land deals George Washington made. But he made over $500 million, I think, from World Liberty Financial alone. I'm not 100% sure about that number, but I'm pretty sure that's right. Over a billion dollars from his crypto investments last year while being president.

And, you know, it's kind of like a resist lib thing when they're always like, Jimmy Carter was forced to sell his peanut farm. And I think that sometimes elides the amount of money having, you know, I'm working on a biography of Bernie Sanders and, you know, I'm reliving some of the Clinton family self-enrichment, which is astonishing in its own right. I think Hillary made like something like $2 million from Wall Street speeches or the two of them made about that much money, which is itself amazing.

But this is still, I mean, $500 million wall president in one year from one of your many crypto ventures, it is sort of beyond, I think it's safe to say anything we've seen at least in the modern era and probably longer. Which, of course, is also directly tied to the foreign policy that he's overseeing as president. Like, it's, it deals with the UAE. To your point, Jeff, about how that's the backer in this case. And that's just getting, I mean, that's like basically just scratching the surface. Jared Kushner, obviously, as well, had huge infusion of cash from the Saudi royal family. But the UAE is tied into World Liberty Financial, right?

We're just mentioning that. That's enormously significant. And there's really no direct parallel between Hunter Biden or the Clintons, obviously, who also had their own foreign dealings. But this is the sitting president with that fund. And a lot of foreign policy implications online. And we're in war in Iran. The UAE, we covered earlier in the show, says two missiles were launched at it in the last 24 hours.

Yeah, and I spent all day yesterday on the phone working on a story in this realm that I'm not going to spoil, so you guys have to have me back on to discuss that. And read notice, everyone. Thank you, guys. I hope there's a great insurance cryptocurrency at some point, maybe. Crystal coin. Oh, my God. We're not that desperate yet, Jeff. But we'll see.

We'll see how the next couple of years go. Jeff Stein, thank you so much for doing double duty today. We appreciate it. My pleasure. Happy to be on anytime. Thanks, guys. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pastos survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode eight before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and

Auto Pay Credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. On the new podcast Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people, and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is, and not the lies you're sold about it.

It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to be a moment. book your first trip. I hope you listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community

of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Jared Kushner was recently in Israel for meetings over the purported Gaza peace plan in an interview after those meetings.

He indicated that they would let Israel, quote unquote, finish the job. Let's take a listen. We're very committed to the fact that we have a plan to rebuild Gaza, but we will not allow Gaza to be rebuilt until the demilitarization occurs. Nobody wants to put more money into a place that's gone on for so long

until if it's just going to be taken over by terrorists or blown up again. We're also not going to restrict Israel's right to defend itself if there are any imminent threats. And so we had to clarify what that means. We can be seeing progress in as little as 30 days, hopefully on starting to take some of the weapons out and hopefully filling in some of the tunnels as well in the next 60 to 90 days as well.

So progress could come quite soon, but we do need cooperation from both sides. and we're going to hopefully get through, but we've made a lot of progress to get here. For Israel, we think this is a win-win situation because if Hamas actually gives over the weapons and the tunnels, you know, willingly over the next 60 to 90 days, that obviously would be the elimination of a huge security threat for Israel, almost an unthinkable achievement. And if they don't fall through now in their commitment, everyone will see that they're not genuine about peace. And then Israel will have a lot more support from the U.S. and others to go

and finish the job in the appropriate way. Those comments represent one more instance of the U.S. capitulating to Israeli demands and positioning this time with regard to potential demilitarization and de-arming of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Join us now to talk about why we seem to see this trend happening over and over again are Elii Clifton of the Quincy Institute and Ayn Lestick Political Science Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. They are also co-authors of a new book, Israel's Lobby, America in the Grip of. of a foreign power. Gentlemen, welcome to you both. Thank you for that. Yeah, of course.

So, Ian, let me go ahead and start with you. Why did you think it was important to write this book at this particular moment? There have been many books in the past about the Israel lobby. John Meersheimer and Steve Walt wrote an important book 20 years ago. But the world has changed so much and the lobby has changed with it to pose threats to America, which are much more severe than people have realized in the past. In the past, what is now a toxic special relationship with Israel cost America a great deal in its foreign relations.

Now it's not just a matter of paying a high price abroad for policies that can have no daylight between Washington and Jerusalem, but there's threats to American freedoms at home because the lobby, unable to defend Israeli policies, is resorting to suppressing American freedoms specifically punishing, prosecuting anyone who tries to seriously criticize the relationship between the United States and Israel or criticize Israeli policies, especially in Gaza and Lebanon. And, Eli, I wanted to ask about that point about the changes that have taken place just in very recent years. You get into a lot of this in the book, both the changes in Israeli politics, but also I just wanted to zero on this one point you all make you, right? The 2010 Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission, Supreme Court decision, combined with a dramatic increase in the proportion,

of national wealth, controlled by the super rich, opened the floodgates for narrow special interests to invest unlimited money in the American campaign finance economy. And could you walk us through a bit how we have seen Post Citizens United, particularly money started concentrating, start concentrating even more on this issue in particular? That's right. So to be clear, when Citizens United, when the speech now decisions first came down, the greatest fear that was being discussed was the possibility that corporate money and dark money would flood our campaigns. And they did to a degree. That was a well-placed fear.

But perhaps the thing that people hadn't anticipated is that a small group of plutocrats, of billionaire donors, would mobilize and would do so publicly stating that the reason that they were doing it was because of Israel and their desire to get politicians elected and to get policies in place that would continue that no daylight policy between Washington and Israel. And what we saw in the first post-citizens United election, which was in 2012, was suddenly Sheldon Adelson came out of the gates, giving millions and millions of dollars first to Newt Gingrich's primary campaign and then Mitt Romney's when Mitt Romney was the nominee for the Republican Party. And what was really interesting to see in that campaign was the degree of honesty and forthright

manner with which Adelson, his advisors, and Newt Gingrich talked about this new influx of money into the campaign, saying that the reason. that Adelson himself said the reason he was doing it was because of Israel. Newt Gingrich said the reason my biggest donor is doing this is because of Israel, a foreign country. And Adelson's own advisors were out there really trying to make clear that the reason this was happening was because of Israel. Now, flash forward, as we track in our book, nine billionaires gave over $1.7 billion into our campaign, into our campaign finance system to influence our elections since Citizens United. and all of those billionaires spoke about, or through their philanthropy, we can infer that the reason

that they were motivated to engage in our political process and to give such large sums of money was because of Israel. That was their central driving issue for engaging with that degree of money and wealth, seeking to determine the outcomes of elections. So I would say that it is a key element is the Citizens United decision allowed the lobby to pivot to this focus on a small group of ultra-rich individuals. even as Israel's public support for Israel within the electorate craters during this time. But it is made up for by the fact that our elections have become something that plutocrats are allowed to have an outsized say in.

And Eli, is that the only mechanism that is used here to create impact in our politics, to wield influence in our politics? And I don't mean to downplay whatsoever. We've all witnessed just in this election season alone the tens of millions of dollars that are flooding into these. some of these races, mostly to confuse and mislead voters. The ads have nothing to do whatsoever with Israel. Oftentimes, the money is funneled through a variety of different packs to try to obscure where it ultimately is coming from. So we know that that has a massive impact.

Are there other mechanisms that they use as well, though, in order to try to get the results from our elected leadership that we may not be as aware of? Well, I think that in terms of trying to control the debate, which is something that Ion referenced earlier, that these plutocrats, when you look at what the other things they advocate for, and the things that they are actually directly involved in controlling, for instance, Miriam Adelson serving as the president of the Maccabee Task Force. Maccabee Task Force is the main organization that was pushing for the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, that has been pushing for the withholding of federal funds to universities

because they've allowed criticism of Israel on their campuses. And as a result, you're seeing that there is basically a mobilization of state power to try to stifle criticism of Israel and calls for a meaningful change in policy from elected officials. Now, it really helps if you're leading that push for the weaponization of state power to stifle speech, if you happen to also have been the largest donors to the politicians who have the ability to make those decisions. I also wanted to ask, Ian, what it's like to be a researcher in the space, the writer in this space, because obviously you referenced Mir Schimer, that's been something that.

we've had him talk about on the show as well. But just talk to us a little bit about the pressure, the pushback. Maybe it's less now because of public opinion, as Crystal referenced earlier. But the headwinds, what's it been like to work on this book and to speak out on this issue? Well, I mean, I've been working in this space for over half a century. I have felt a responsibility and a fascination. I'm Jewish. I have been exposed to just about every argument.

and every smear you can imagine. But in fact, I've survived. And what I have found that has changed since the Walton Meersheimer book is that the country knows that APEC and the Israel lobby is now an issue. And although the reviewers of the Walton-Mersheimer book could smear them as anti-Semites

and then prevent people from really ever reading the book, most of those reviews never dealt with anything the book said, just talked about the authors as if they were anti-Semites, I don't think the lobby can get away with that with our book. I think they're going to have to either try to stay silent because they can't argue against us or actually engage the arguments, in which case we will have accomplished a great deal because the objective of the lobby now is to prevent discussion of Israel publicly and to control and punish those who try to raise that issue.

So things have changed. One has to have a thick skin and a sense of humor, but one also has to focus on the facts, on the analysis, not on appeals to prejudices, appeals to mysterious conspiracy theories. No, we're talking about very specific mechanisms of power, mechanisms of influence that operate in the United States and that do so legally and that do so with success because of the commitment of the people behind them and because of the structure of American politics that encourages the mobilization of special interests.

Eli, to pick up on some of that, so we've been tracking, of course, in today's show, the Florida election results on the one hand, which are highly relevant to this conversation, actually, on the one hand, you had the shock victory of Angie Nixon, who is a DSA member. She's an avowed anti-Zionist.

She opposes genocide. She introduced a resolution that got two votes in the Florida State House calling for a ceasefire in November, just a month after October 7th. Then on the Republican side, you have some, I think it's fair to say, genuine bigots running, capturing the attention of young Republicans, in particular at James Fishback, running for governor. You had Dan Balsarian running against a fellow, another bigot, Randy Fine in that primary. Both of them lost, but they both also got into double digits. And they both also did quite well, quite well among young Republicans. So I'm curious what you make of

those develop, how you make sense of those developments and how you view them and whether or not you are concerned that some of the genuine information that you reveal here could fuel some of those bigoted conspiracy theories. Well, to answer both of those questions, to address the first one, I think it's really important to zoom out from sort of the horse race political coverage. And believe me, I'm susceptible to being pulled into that as much as anyone. But I think it's really important to look at overall, what does it take for Israel's lobby to continue to be competitive within this environment, where, as we talked about earlier, they can't even talk about Israel in the ads that they are paying to put on the air. And the simple answer is that the price is

literally going up. At this point in the 26 election cycle, Israel lobby super PACs have raised around $160 million and spent around $150 of that. And that number is going to continue to tick up going into the general election. They're not raising, they're not done raising or spending. I think it's entirely plausible that they will raise and spend somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter of a billion dollars trying to influence election outcomes, both in the primaries as well as in the general election in this cycle. So the numbers are going up at a really, really rapid pace of what they have to spend. And they're getting, the short-earned, is obviously, as you alluded to, mixed success in getting the candidates elected that they would like to see.

But each win and each loss is costing a lot more money than it used to. That is very, very clear. As for whether the message and the facts that we present in our book can be misused by bigots or anti-Semites, I'm sure that some of them can. But I think it's also dangerous to abandon this space and to avoid engaging with the very, very clear reaction. that pro-Israel special interest groups and the roles that they have in our elections and in our democracy at this point. Because abandoning that space, not engaging with it because of the fact

that there might be some uncomfortable facts in there that could be misused by people who already hold anti-Semitic or conspiratorial views, effectively sort of abandons that space to those people, allowing them to sort of run roughshod with whatever theories, even if they're no longer fact-becky, in any way, shape, or form, they want to try to propagate for their own nefarious purposes.

So I think it's extremely important to present facts, to engage with this as a real phenomenon in our democracy, and to talk about it in a manner that explicitly rejects anti-Semitism and bigotry and generalizations about Jewish Americans. The lobby would like nothing more than to conflate Jewish Americans with the Israel lobby. And as we try to lay out explicitly in our book from the introduction onwards, words, that is a falsehood. That is an anti-Semitic trope, as a matter of fact. And we really need to examine the facts to understand why that is so, so wrong. And last question for me is to you, Ion, and you can certainly pick up on that last point as well. I was just going to ask, you know,

we started this segment with the Jared Kushner clip, the recent Jared Kushner clip. He's certainly been involved in these negotiations, arguably leading these negotiations in the Iran war, the Gaza conflict as well. What have we seen with the Trump administration that, takes this to a different level. Let me do it both quick. Let me follow up a bit on Eli's. Yeah. Because there's no question that the lobby is using the conflation of anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel in order, as I said, to suppress and prevent discussion of Israel and to evaluate its policies. One of the techniques they use is to call Israel the collective Jew. And once they treat Israel as the collective Jew, then any criticism of Israel can be seen as

and condemned as an attack on all Jews. This is outrageous because it forces American Jews into a position as if Israel is their homeland. It's their country. That's not true. But then the lobby goes ahead in benefits, tries to benefit from what it sees as an or codes is an upsurge in anti-Semitism. There really is a threat of anti-Semitism in the United States, and most of it is due to Israel's policies in the name of the Jewish people. So it's people like us who are focusing on the facts, not on wacky conspiracy theories or mystical ideas that can make that key distinction between criticism of Israel and normal and real anti-Semitism.

Now, look at Jared Kushner. You know, I find it a little amusing. When Jared Kushner was on CBS after the so-called success of forming the Board of Peace and ending the war, what he said was, very clearly, yes, we got the ceasefire and all this other silly stuff. We spent a lot of time on their complex issues. There's nothing's ever really going to be done about it. And so I don't take seriously all of this fluff about the Board of Peace and Reconstruction. He is shoulder to shoulder with the Israeli government. He may put a few ambiguous words around it, but you could hear in that talk that he gave that he never looks for

what the interests or the safety of Palestinians are, everything is couched as if it's all a matter of what's a win-win for Israel. This is exactly what we're talking about, this demand by the lobby that any American government, whether it's an ideological commitment as Biden had to Zionism, whether it's a purely transactional commitment, which is what the Trump administration has, but the insistence of the lobby that there be no daylight between the American government and the Israeli government, and that is costing the United States more and more and more. I and I did want to get your perspective as a political scientist on some of the election

results that we've seen specifically this Angie Nixon shock victory in Florida. She spent literally zero dollars on television, zero dollars and was able to win. And it wasn't even close. Alex Vindon, his well-known figure was, you know, the star of one of the Trump impeachments. He was running millions of dollars of TV ads across the. the state. I'm not going to pretend Israel was the only issue, but it was a very clear dividing line between these two candidates. And Angie Nixon was able to prevail against incredibly long odds here. I wonder what you make of this result. And perhaps tie it back to you started by saying,

we're at a particularly dangerous moment because of the way that the Israel lobby is trying to crack down and free speech here in the U.S. It also seems that they're at a particularly precarious and vulnerable moment, given the way that these political results have changed and given the way that public opinion has shifted so dramatically. Well, there's a complicated set of questions you're asking me, and one can't learn everything one wants to learn by the outcome of one election, one primary election in Florida. One thing that's happening is that the Democratic base has become much more critical of Israel and for the first time, motivated to vote in large measure about the Israeli situation,

plus a commitment, a commitment that are associated with alienation from capitalism. That capitalism isn't working for a lot of the people in a democratic base, and they don't think it can. But that, on the other hand, I think those who are concerned that too many candidates from that progressive DSA orientation might not be able to prevail in the general election are correct. This country is polarized. There's a very even split. And I think people can reasonably worry about that. I think one of the things is going on, which we have been tracking since Obama came to power, is the role of social media. And whether Vindman, for example, ended up spending his money very, very unwisely on conventional television commercials, whereas Nixon actually cleverly used social media, which is much more important for, at least for the Democratic-based voters in the primary.

So there's a lot that's going on on the Israeli side. Israelis are increasingly aware that their love affair with Trump has cost them enormous and their extremity of the policies that Netanyahu was engaged in, has cost them a tremendous amount of standing in the United States. They're now fighting for an Israeli position in the United States. They never had to at the public opinion level and starting at, to feel that at the level of the political class. Israel is are in an election campaign right now.

Netanyahu may or may not win return as a prime minister. My hunch is that he will not. But in Israel, there will be an attempt by the lobby to use the disappearance of Netanyahu as a new day that Israel has completely changed, but really the government that wakes in the wings, although it won't have the extremity of some of the ministers in the Netanyahu. government, they will not change Israel's policies toward Palestinians. Those policies are not going to change. The fear that I have is that American politicians will use a cosmetic change in Israeli profile, political profile, to treat it as if everything has changed. And the United States

can go back to a comfortable, special relationship with the quote-unquote only democracy in the Middle East. In my opinion, the United States really has to reorient itself toward this problem. and think about solutions in the future that are anchored in an end to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza through integration of all the people who live between the Jordan and the sea into one democratic country. It can be called Israel. It can be called Israel, Palestine, but it has to be democratic and it has to honor the collective principle of equality for everyone who lives under the same government. And Eli, one last one for you. We have seen examples, of course, in both recent and longer history of presidents that buck what Israeli leadership wants them to do. Probably the most significant example in recent years is President Obama moving forward with the JCPOA, the Iranian nuclear deal. How do you explain those instances? And is there a danger that this analysis that focuses so much on simply the interest of the Israel lobby and the impact of the, that money, denies agency to Biden and Trump for taking these, what I think most Americans would

agree, are horrific actions and enabling what most would say is a genocide. Well, I think Obama's success with the JCPOA, at least short-term success with it, since ultimately it was torn up, was that he proved that you can stare down the lobby, that you can actually mobilize your party if it becomes, if the lobby leans in and makes this a partisan issue, which they did, much by following Netanyahu's lead in mobilizing Republicans to oppose it, it turns out that most Democrats, if urged to do so by the leader of their party, when that leader is the president, will ultimately choose to stand with the Democratic Party. And I think that that's something that APEC, even going into that fight, was very concerned about

because that was a monumental shift in how the Israel lobby functions, in that they had previously held a great deal of power by only picking fights that they could generally win, but also maintaining the appearance of a bipartisan consensus around their core issues. And that was really A-PAC becoming partisan, starting to engage in partisan politics. They quickly spun up a super PAC in the wake of that,

which again engages in both primary and general elections, around the country. They entered into our electoral politics in a way that they had not done so before. Now, as for does this somehow sell short the agency of presidents? I don't think it does. Obviously, they have agency. But what we try to show in the book time and time again are the instances in which presidents really did state what it was that they wanted to do, what their top advisors

wanted them to do. We provide examples for Truman, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, certainly a, certainly an example of Obama, obviously an example of Trump, certainly Obama in his first term, incidentally, with his failed attempt to push for a two-state solution as his foreign policy priority in his first term. And time and again, what we show are the instances in which they have pretty much shown both what their top advisors

and these presidents wanted to pursue. And then we show the mechanisms through which the lobby tried to steer these presidents away from either imposing a peace on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or the ways in which they sought to shape U.S. policy regionally when it comes to issues like Iran. And what that shows isn't that these presidents didn't have agency, but that the lobby did have an enormous capacity and really a one-sided ability to bring pressure onto presidents to shape their decision-making in a manner that brought in concerns about domestic political repercussions. But in doing so, steered them away from the strategic and secure. oriented policies that they wanted to pursue. Now, again, that doesn't remove any agency from

these presidents, but it does show how a lobby that is largely aligned with a foreign country can operate when there is absolutely, at least historically, nothing to counterbalance its influence inside the hulls of power. The book is Israel's lobby could not possibly be more timely, highly recommended to everyone, go and pick it up and check it out. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us this morning and also for writing the book and helping to elucidate this dynamic for all Americans. Thank you. Well, that does it for us on today's edition of Breaking Points.

Crystal, Jeff Stein gave me a really good new idea, Crystal coin. I like this. The Crystal crypto endeavor, I think we could make a lot of money. I think you could make a lot of money. I think I could lose any shred of integrity. or self-respect I've ever had and probably lose a lot of money. What we're going to do is launch Kyle Coin. And nobody's going to tell him.

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