The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart - Making & Breaking Points with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

As populist energy continues to reshape both parties, Jon is joined by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, co-hosts of "Breaking Points." Together, they explore how both the left and right have grown disillusioned with the establishment, discuss what new media gets right that legacy outlets miss, and consider what it would take for real economic populism to break through. Plus, Jon answers listeners’ questions about Trump’s great escape, the weave, and fries or onion rings? This episode is brought to you by: GROUND NEWS - Go to https://groundnews.com/stewart to see all sides of every story. Subscribe for 40% off the Vantage Subscription only for a limited time through our link https://groundnews.com/stewart MAGIC SPOON - Get $5 off your next order at https://magicspoon.com/tws MINT MOBILE - Shop plans at https://MintMobile.com/TWS SHOPIFY - Turns out you don’t need a real job. Build your own business with a free trial at https://shopify.com/tws Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast > TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod   > BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic  Producer – Gillian Spear Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Associate Producer - Rebecca Rottenberg Music by Hansdle Hsu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You're richer than you think. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the weekly show podcast. My name is John Stewart, the final episode of the summer. We will be gone for the rest of August, and I think coming back in early September. So been a delightful year. Obviously, tonight, I think, is the Wisconsin primary. We don't know what's going to happen. We'll probably discuss it during the episode, even though we have no idea what it's going to be.

And then, you know, we'll talk about the other things. It's the dog days of summer. There's not a whole lot going on right now. It's a little bit quiet. Senate is on recess, the House on. recess. I am going to go away. I've got a lovely, like a snorkel vacation planned in this beautiful crystal clear. It's, I probably am not pronouncing this right. Hormuz, straight of Hormuz. Or we're going to see the, that's never going to fucking end. But we got a great show for today.

I wanted to bring on a couple of folks that I feel like have been doing the kind of, I'm on the left, I'm on the right discussion, I feel like they do it in a way that engenders good faith. And so I wanted to highlight them on today's program. So let me get to them right now. We'll discuss all things left, right, populist, and otherwise. Please welcome to the program, the hosts of Breaking Points. Ladies and gentlemen, here we are the final weekly show podcast before summer break. And we have the co-hosts of Breaking Points.

Crystal Ball and Sager and Jetty are joining us today to discuss all that is happening in the world. First of all, welcome Crystal, welcome Saga. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much for having us, John. I want to start by saying, I don't feel comfortable seeing you two in separate spaces. We had a debate about that, actually, but it just was a little technically easier this way. So I'm sorry that we made you uncomfortable. And same for you to see you at home in a T-shirt. It's throwing me off from my childhood. Oh, dear God. If only you, newshugger how painful it was for me to put on the suit for my for my for my one 20 minutes a day and all that that's actually why I left the show in 2015 I just decided hey man couldn't take that anymore I'm done with the

button down this is over but but we're delighted that you're both here and I want to ask you because you're both you're such an interesting dynamic as you guys have worked together Do you find that your political opinions are starting to converge? Because I think the point of it was sort of about a guy a little bit on the right. You know, Saga, you'd worked at Daily Color. You'd done something with Crystal more on the left. But as I listen to you guys, I find there is a great deal, not just of respect, but convergence. And I can't think of another show where sort of the idea is.

to get those contrasting viewpoints that has had that. Is that how you're experiencing it? I would say it depends very much on the moment of the news cycle. So if you had been watching us regularly leading up to Trump's victory or after Trump's victory when we were talking about immigration and mass deportation and SICOT or even today we had a big debate about like woke 1.0, you might get a different impression. But the concept of the show, you know, from the beginning, even predating the current iteration of breaking points was, okay, if we got the best faith interpretation of the populist right in conversation with the populace left, what would that look like? And my theory is that there would be different overlap than you might find on sort of the traditional like crossfire to name a throwback.

Oh, I just got a, something just. The typical crossfire sort of cable news dynamic. And so I think that's what you're picking up on. And certainly on the Iran war, on change in the relationship with Israel, on economic issues, there is a lot of overlap there. I think the thing you said, Crystal, that resonates the most with me is best faith, good faith. I think, and Sagar, maybe that's what I'm thinking of. It might not be a convergence of opinion. It's that it's a good faith discussion. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that we both really built our show around is like a rejection of cable news and just not only the format, but the very way in which.

they want to increase division. And we have plenty of division, which we showcase very openly and honestly, as you just pointed out, Crystal, about our woke 1.0 debate. But in it, there was a good fate. I mean, Crystal heard me out and I heard her out and we gave our counterpoints. And there was no, like, yelling or screaming at each other. I also, whenever you're talking about convergence, I think that one of the things that really comes with respect is understanding. And so we've been doing this, you know, not just this show, but our previous iteration of the show for almost like seven or eight years now. What was that one the rising? What was the first one? It was rising. That's it, rising. And one of the things that comes with that is you come to understand very deeply where other people are coming from. And it's really useful because it helps not only in your interactions politically, but like even in your everyday life, like when you hear somebody say something, you can understand where previously would have been like, what an idiot. You're like, okay, I see how you got to that conclusion because of the information you took in or your worldview is just fundamentally really different than my. worldview and there's a level of acceptance with that one of the best compliments that we both get

you know if we're in public or something is like you really help my relationship with my dad you know you just help me understand like where my dad was coming from whenever he would rant about x y and z like i understood why and then or vice versa you know like help my relationship with my kid and like my kids really into dsa and like i don't understand you know what that is but when i hear crystal talk about it it's like okay i kind of start to make sense to me and so you know in that it's really edifying and part of the reason why I love doing the show. As you've come together and now it's been, as you said, seven years or does it help you also identify the bad faith actors in our political and media hellscape?

Has there been a way for you to discern, oh, these people are performative, these people are bad faith? And do you avoid that now, avoid those folks, or do you expose? Both. It's a mix. Yeah. I mean, definitely. That is certainly the case. And look, I have become less tolerant of a lot of pundits on the right. There are very few who are actually on the right that I would work with at this point because I just think there's so much lies in propaganda there that to deal with that on a daily basis would not be productive. If you're doing a debate and you're having an engagement and you're trying to expose, that's one thing. But to work together with someone

every day, as you know, is an entirely different relationship. So, for example, in the wake of your John Federman interview, I don't think that is someone I could work with every day. I'm not sure John Federman is working with John Federman every day. Just bad faith arguments, a lack of an ability to really even grapple with the questions that you're asking, et cetera. Yeah. But what has made it work with Saeger is we've had some very heated debates, very hot, and over issues that we both care a lot about and I think are very consequential. What makes it work over the long term is that we're both capable of saying, you know what, I got it wrong there. You were right. You had a point. And I think over the long term, that's

part of what is built, the trust that enables it. I totally agree. And like, you know, Chris and vice versa, I think, you know, especially at the height of a lot of pretty crazy moments, 2020 and others. There are not a lot of people, I think, who I could have stomached. But yeah, I mean, as Crystal said, it can get hot and that's fine. I actually think it's healthy. It's normal. It's reflective of literally the nature of the country. We're literally living they're one of the most tumultuous times, I think, in modern American history, is probably akin to the 1960s in a lot of different way. Or actually, maybe the 70s is a better comparison. But here's what's sad. I think I'm the only one who's lived through both of those. So I can, if you have any questions.

That's true. I've only read about it, John. Yeah. I am happy. I'm happy to tell you about it. Right. But, I mean, John, since you were there, you know that that was a moment of very actually limited public debate. And in my opinion, one of the reasons why things went really wrong was because of the conversion. of the mass media era. Like for me, this is honestly surreal to be able to talk to you because you were so instrumental for me as a kid

who is growing up in Bush country, hearing these lies about the Iraq war, there is only one place that I could go to to expose like this level of hysteria and nonsense, which I just hear propagated all day long on all three cable networks. And that was at a time of total ubiquity in mass media, a part of the reason that we got into the war that we did. And it went as long as we did. I think that

the Iran war is, look, it's a disaster, but it is a hopeful story in that the poll numbers went south immediately. A huge amount of the American public is getting their information from sources or, you know, different from sources like us, many others who are out there who are able to expose the absolute holes in all of the propaganda that the Pentagon or the White House is able to put out. And so, look, it's a disaster that we're in this, but it's actually a whole. story that the public turned on it almost immediately. And so that we didn't have that edifice to prop it up that we did at that time. Well, let me ask you a question because it brings up sort of the incentives of those systems that created that. Because I think you're, you make a nice point

about the 60s and 70s being tumultuous in that same way. I think the Iran war has gone south in some ways because this administration doesn't respect us enough to lie to us. They kind of don't give a shit what we think. And in the 60s and 70s, the lies were, generally, you know, media has found away the incentives of it to get weaponized. Bad faith actors weaponize it. Right. The ubiquity of cable news was at first, and TV in general, in the 60s and 70s, politicians weren't quite sure what to do with TV. And you remember the debate between Kennedy and Nixon. And Kennedy went out there and he understood that television is a visual medium. And Nixon was like, I don't need makeup. I look great. And he got his ass. Right. And he got his ass kicked on the TV side. But if you listen to it on the

radio, people thought Nixon won. Do you think it's in some respects, the media has just, politics has figured out a weaponized media. Is that fair to say? Like you just talked about all these bad faith actors, right? They exist as part of a political ecosystem as a way of, you know, Roger Ailes very famously said, I want to create something so that what happened to Nixon could never happen to another Republican president. You know, sometimes we separate media and politics, but isn't it true that in a lot of ways

there's a symbiosis. A lot of it's been co-opped by politics. And I'm curious what you think of that. And we can talk a little bit about breaking down those ecosystems. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, absolutely. And the amount of propaganda, the amount of lies, you know, you go on Twitter now X and there's all these accounts that are just AI slop accounts feeding all kinds of nonsense. It makes it very difficult actually to sort out what's happening in the war, not to mention there's a total censorship lockdown. on the U.S. as part of what is happening in the region. On the flip side of it, though, there's also a hopeful story there because in its best incarnation, you know, they haven't been able to cover up the horrors in genocide. People watch that in 4K themselves. And they took their own moral opinion of what was happening there. And it went directly against what the bipartisan elite consensus had been for years and years. I think you're right that it's insulting that they didn't even bother to lie to us this time before the war. I think it also reflects the fact that Donald Trump doesn't feel that he needs to go through the mechanisms of democracy.

We just have to swallow whatever insanity he's going to do. But I also think the fact that you have so many dissenting voices in new media that were critical from the beginning and able to expose the very thin level of propaganda that had been fed to us has also been a positive point. Now, I get concerned because there are also legacy media has its advantages. There was a real tradition and a firewall between opinion and that, you know, and the journalist part and the advertising and those walls fall down in new media. But overall, I think when you look at those two stories in particular, you can see that it has

helped to create a better atmosphere for Democratic under small D democratic understanding of what these wars and what this genocide actually are. I think that's a really important point. It's a double-edged sword, as Crystal said. I compare it to the invention of the printing press. I mean, that's how the internet, seriously, that's what the internet. school. Yeah, because, I mean, what did that actually do? Is it decentralized media? We literally had something called a 100 years war, a Protestant, you know, reformation, chaos, millions of people

died. But of course, nobody would say, well, yeah, the invention of the printing press was bad. It was just unleashed a new medium of debate. Much of it was propaganda, actually pornography, one of the original inventions of the printing press of mass distribution, just like the internet. But what it demonstrated, I think, on a long enough timeline was a more informed public. And that's the thing. We're working things out, as Crystal said. And this is where I think all of us can be upfront and honest. Like, we are in a difficult position because we are people who do the news.

But Crystal and I are also business owners. We co-own our company. But we set, you know, rules at the very beginning. We do not read ads, period. Because we believe that if we did so, it could potentially compromise things in the future. Now, we know that we have sacrificed. literally like multiple zeros of income. However, what we've decided instead was to build a more anti-fragile business. For example, like we have a premium subscription program. We have YouTube

revenue. You know, we have like dynamic ads, which are not ads that we read, which we have no negotiation or interest in. But it took a level of intentionality. However, though, there's no reason that we had to do that. If we wanted to read Manscape ads, we could. We could. Exactly. And are not going to do that. And most people are not doing that and are much richer than us as a result. But we believe in the long run, it'll work out. You're starting to make me sweat, and it's why I look to quince to create a new wardrobe. Hey, folks, I know you're trying to figure out ways to skip through these little ad reads here. I get that.

I know. I know what you're doing. I know you're looking into that Spotify thing. Yeah, listen, I'm not blind, you bastards. And be honest with you, I'm not crazy about reading them in the first place, generally, except for this one. ground news you know i'm always going to go to bat for the ground news ground news because it's i hate the news i hate what it's doing to me emotionally i i hate that you don't really know where the information is coming from sometimes you don't know how it's being manipulated and it it adds to

the creeping fog of sadness that grows but i have to keep up i have to understand what's going on in the world and that's why ground news it's they've got a website it's an app it can see how how different news outlets will frame the same story. They've got a blind spot feed so you can challenge yourself about your news consumption. To get the same unlimited access to the Vantage subscription, go to groundnews.com slash steward and subscribe to get 40% off. Discount only available for a limited time. That's groundnews.com slash steward or scan the QR code on screen.

But Saugert, so this is really interesting to me because we're talking about media independence. And when you think of independence, I think writ large you think of it as media independence from corporate interest. We're not owned by Universal or GE or any of these things. But independence is also, are you independent from a political motivation? Yes. That's another form of independence, and a lot of people, I think, are captured by that. But the third avenue of independence, and I wonder about this for you, is what are your incentives to the audience? You know, when you say we have a subscription amount on all that, and do the incentives of, look, we all know in an attention economy, what sells the most is probably outrage, anger, and those,

things. So how do you and your model avoid being captured by the rage of the townspeople? You know, how do you avoid pitchforks and torches? Well, that's why we're really blessed. Honestly, it's a right-left show. So, you know, at any given time, a decent portion of the audience is mad. So that's actually built into. It works well. It works really well. We're going to be hated no matter what by some portion. We are very often hated by our own paying. We might have one of the most ignorant. nominous honors of being often hated by the people who pay us. But that's built in, as I said. So at various different times, we've gone through these types of events before. People are mad that you said, X, Y, or Z. But because of our political independence and the right-left kind of dynamic that is

baked in to the heart of the program, it means that there are always new people who also show up. That's one of the things where a lot of the, and you actually can see this. There's a lot of articles about MAGA media and how it's collapsing, as enthusiasm in MAGA and the project with Donald Trump, especially with younger men, starts to go down. People who went all in on just Trump alone or on right-wing so-called media are seeing a dramatic reduction in their overall revenue and views, because that's just not really what people want to hear right now. That is just not something that could ever happen to us, because Crystal would always represent a side of somebody who's critical of MAGA, right? I mean, even I am, obviously, as well. But vice versa, let's say,

ever Joe Biden was president. And so we're very lucky, honestly, in the way that we designed everything. But what you're laying out is a very real problem. And it explains grifterism, which is basically people who have to continue it going manufacture and create new type of controversies purely for an economic incentive, which is enough of a cancer that we have today. Yeah. I mean, audience capture is very real. You can kind of, if you're watching channels close. So you can tell who's just catering to their audience and what they think, you know, an algorithm wants them to produce. But I also want to say with regard to the fury and the pitchforks, like, I think people have good reason to be furious right now. I think both on an economic level, you know,

we've been thrust into this war that basically no one wanted that is devastating for the global economy. It's first and foremost devastating for Iranians and Iranian civilians. We have used, had our taxpayer dollars used to fund a genocide that, again, the public has, vociferously turned against. And we have a system that is rigged by an oligarch class. So I think talking about those things, the way that the AI oligarchs literally want to take everyone's jobs, yeah, people should get angry about that. Those are things that should infuriate you. And so we don't shy away from that. You know, I think to be informed right now is to be angry and furious about the state of affairs. Let me ask you because it's, you know, it's such an

interesting thing to point out how many real things there are that can shock the conscience of people. And yet, I think if I'm being fair about where the real energy of the debate is right now, it's whether or not Ennis Cantor is going to get drafted into the WNBA. Like the real outrage in this country and culture doesn't seem to be about those very real points you just articulated. Well, and to me, Sagar may have a different take on this, but to me, it's very obvious what's going on here. Trump's approval is in the toilet. His war is a disaster. The economic numbers are trash. People are furious. I think it's the greatest economy this country's ever had. Crystal. I forgot about that. Yes. According to Fox News, absolutely. And Republicans are facing what is likely to be a landslide defeat in the midterms. So what are they doing? They're going back to the culture war, a bag of tricks.

is a shiny object that I can tangle over at Fox News to get our own base back in line. But I actually don't think that that's what's driving, for example, the electoral results that we're seeing in Democratic primaries across the country and likely to see in the general election in the fall. There, to me, the number one issue is very likely the economy, but it's also horror at a foreign policy that is both expensive and deeply immoral. Yeah, John, I would push back a bit. I agree with you.

What? How dare you, sir? Well, I just think it's reflective maybe of a cable news bias, because you're right. Sure. I believe the WNBA was the second most mentioned topic on Fox News this week. And that's probably true of the 65 plus crowd if I were to go and ask them. However, the segments that perform best on our channel are things about the housing crisis, are about flock cameras, data centers, AI displacement and job loss, foreign policy.

I mean, I never thought I would have my dream job of being able to speak to guys like Professor John Mearsheimer, who was my literal idol for over like an hour and a half and have him describe like great power politics and the Iran more and watch millions of people want to engage with that type of content. And so I do think like, look, are we amusing ourselves to death? Empirically, yes. I mean, not just in terms of sports, but with gambling and many of the other vices which are exploding in our current society. However, what we always also point out on the show, that is derivative of real problems like housing, which is the one I would say we see the most consistent rage in terms of not just our audience, but in our demographic. And it is like downstream of so many of the other problems that we face like as a society. And so, yeah, go ahead. Can I also just say, John, that I think to the revelation, this will feel like a bit of a left turn, but the revelations in the epitaph.

Epstein files of the way that this powerful elite actually has this incredible class solidarity and the way that they operate. I think it's blown some of the lid off of this idea that, you know, what we should really be focused on is trans people or these culture war debates. Because we've been able to see the way the powerful actually work in the world and the view that they have of the rest of us. And so I think that that has been a very educational and illuminating experience for people as well as they process some of these, like, new red meat culture war debates that are thrown into the mix. Yeah, it's just hard to imagine, you know, when we talk about and the importance of it,

all these things that you're bringing up are truly important. And yet there's been no accountability for any of it. Correct. And it seems like what there is accountability for either legislatively or otherwise are culture war issues that like give you an example you know the save act being uh you know uh at the forefront of so much of the problems that we're going on uh in the senate right now and uh the liberals they don't want they want illegals who are voting in millions of numbers not to you know show an ID you know just utter nonsense that gets thrown out there or the the trans debate as being at the forefront of

what's in everybody's minds about the, like nuance is utterly removed through the process of our media and our politics. Yet the things that you talk about that are facing Americans or are making them question the legitimacy of our institutions are never addressed seemingly with no accountability. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the core of our show. Go ahead. Can I give you another example of that, John, which is very much top of news cycle. right now. So there's this whole controversy about Hassan Piker and whether or not candidates should associate with him. And Abdul al-Sai had a rally with him. So he's being targeted right now is like, how dare you associate with this guy who said all these terrible things? The clip that they usually

point to is where he says that we quote-unquote deserve 9-11. He's talking about the concept of blowback and for which he has since apologized. Meanwhile, Abdul-L-Syad is running against a guy who literally was in Congress after 9-11, who authorized the Iraq War, who supported mass surveillance, who defended torture, but that guy is fine. But associating with someone who said something that was edgy one time, that's what's out of bounds. That's what should be off-laws. That's not just me, but I think most people is insane. J.D. Vance's spiritual advisor, you know, the preacher that J.D. Vance considers one of his sort of spiritual advisors, talks about male dominion over women. You know, there are all kinds of extremes in terms of association. I remember with Obama, right, you know, yeah, go ahead.

Just think about, though, the contrast between Hassan Piker said a thing in response to 9-11 versus this guy actually was in power and was involved in the horrific lies leading up to the, war, the authorization of the war, the torture, the murder of Iraqi civilians. And so when you talk about accountability, where is the accountability for that? Where's the moral weight on that versus, I mean, many of these guys that were villains on your show when you were covering the Iraq war are still around today to propagandize us and push us in the Iran war. So I think that lack of accountability you point to is a big failing in our society. And in my opinion, it has to be corrected. in the next administration. People have to go to prison for the crimes that were committed, whether it's rogue ice agents,

whether it's insider trading within this regime. That has to happen for us to reestablish anything approaching a healthy society. And I will say, John, for me, I know I'm with two liberals here. So I'm trying to pick my battles. Sorry, a leftist and a liberal. A leftist and a liberal. And I'm going to have to check on that JD-Vant spiritual advisor one. HECSeth spiritual advisor.

I was going to say, I was like, I'm fairly certain that's not true. That was Hegseth, but J.D. Vance was Peter Thiel. Okay. Like, when asked by Ross Dutat, should human beings continue to exist? Long pause. For like eight seconds to be like, I don't know about humans. And like has unbelievably, you know, this, the other people that are in those words. My point being, guilt by association, which is often thrown in.

Democrats faces, whether it was Obama's spiritual advisor, can be thrown into the rights faces, but it never seems to be done in that way. What was it? Pastor. Is that right? Pastor. Now that I think about it. Yes.

It was a long time. Obama you're talking about. Yeah. God. Anyway, I think the vein I'm picking up on. Yeah. And this is where I'm, I mean, I would say this is like the great disappointment, political disappointment of my life.

As I said was I was inspired to get involved in. politics because of Iraq and watch and, you know, the entire, the centerpiece of the 2024 campaign. And it's fair for people to say that you were fooled was no more foreign wars. I mean, the vice president, as you said, wrote an op-ed endorsing Trump, Trump's best legacy, no new wars. Stephen Miller famously said, Kamala will send your sons to war. A significant contingent in the 2024 campaign was we are not going to war with Iran. And so to live in a reality where Trump dastardly and disgracefully attacks Iran under the cover of negotiations twice, kills 168 schoolgirls, you know, delivers the greatest strategic disaster to the United States, potentially either since Vietnam or eclipsing it, if you talk to one of our guests, Professor Robert Pape, to live in that reality with those people who I really did trust.

And I'm saying, I was on a personal level. I know many of them. I came up in politics, kind of in the same cohort. It has been the greatest, like, betrayal of my lifetime. And I think what's really disappointing is how much of it is clearly BS in that I believed that the voters believed that the wars were bad. And so to live in a reality where Thomas Massey, you know, loses his house primary purely because of A-PAC and pro-Israel money and a boomer, base who if you'd pull them under. Well, and that Trump, I mean, let's not deny.

Yeah, and Trump. Right. Of course. 100%. Right. Those two together. Like those two forces together. Sager, I want to ask you a question.

And I mean, this is for Crystal too. The dynamic that you're describing is a politics that distorts reality. That creates an impression and then makes policy choices to to ameliorate the damage. the damage of this false reality. And you're saying that your dividing line for that was Iraq and now Iran. I think maybe the disconnect here for whatever you would call liberals or the left or any of those things is that the entirety of Trump's operation has been that. Is a con is what you're saying. That's right.

Has been the same dynamic you're describing that has disappointed you in Iraq and Iran. I would say has disappointed me when you say the Haitian community is eating cats and dogs. Well, that's the same immigration-wise as Saddam Hussein is using these aluminum tubes to enrich uranium. And that's why we have to go in there. In other words, the reason that has been given for so many of these policy decisions that I would disagree with is also a distortion of reality. I think that's entirely fair, John. So I find it interesting that somehow Iran, it's like the whole Tucker Carlson of it. I've had enough.

Really? Because it looks to me like it's the same shit that's been happening from day one. I think that's entirely fair, again, to take a step back. And I can only from my perspective, like I would, the Haitian thing. Yeah, it was a lie. The truth is, a lot of us sat and swallowed it because we wanted less immigration. And we're like, okay, well, I mean, this highlights a topic and an issue, which we can fight on. We can put the left on the back foot because, you know, they want, you know, mass amnesty. And we

don't. And that was a tactical, political decision that people in politics make all the time. But I'm not even sure they want mass amnesty. Like, I even think that's a red herring. Fair. I don't know that they do want mass amnesty. But we don't have a politics in this country that's functional enough or literate enough to have an actual conversation about what immigration in this country should look like. I think that, again, I totally take your point. And this is where, This is the most common... Look at me. Look at me.

Yeah. Come on. My parents are loving this. My parents are loving this. Me being put in my place. But I do think, like with the Iran thing, and again, I can explain it from my perspective, which was these were people whose entire careers, literally, were kind of built on opposition to the neoconservative agenda. And did we know Trump is a liar or a con often says various different things?

Absolutely. Many of us knew that or would say it in private. What we also knew is that in his first term, he was incredibly deferential to a lot of his staff. A lot of the people we were hiring, he was hiring. I knew for a fact, you know, at the very least had a genuine belief we shouldn't go to war with Iran. But what was extremely blackpilling, to use an online term, was to see those same people have to defend the war. And in some cases, use, you know, Iraq rhetoric. I mean, I remember the vice president who I'd seen give lectures against the war with Iran or, you know, against, you know, neo-conservatism.

He was in the oval. It was in the middle of the Iran War, and he's like, it's like a suicide bomber. We're not going to wait until the suicide bomb goes off to disarm it. And I was like, oh, my God. We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. This Condoleza Rice all over again. I actually couldn't believe it. And then, you know, Mark Tison is back on my television screen.

And Ari Fleischer is back on my television screen. And the same liars, like, who are justifying this, like, and to watch that happen, like, I would say, fine, I was fooled. I didn't think it would. I thought that the lesson was learned. And there's a major mea culpa that has had and has to be had by people who thought that it would be different and said so publicly. So that's kind of where I am currently.

Chris, what do you think of that? Because it's hard for me to hear a mea culpa about an Iran war when the entire regime is that. There's an inevitability to the reality distortion field and the actions that they take based on a reality that. they are creating. Yeah. Well, this is something Sagar and I have had it out over on our show quite a lot and have sorted through in many conversations. And I've certainly had my, I told you so's. And in fairness to Sager. It's not even an I told you. I don't mean it that way. Honestly,

it's not that. No, I get what you're saying, though. And I think one of the biggest differences in my view going into Trump 2.0 and Sager's view, apart from the fact that we have different ideologies. And so we have different things that we consider to be good or bad specifically on immigration in particular. But Sager's view was that there were institutional constraints the first time and there will be some institutional constraints this time. That's true. I looked at the what had been done in the offseason, whether it was Project 2025, whether it was all of the plans to mass fire government workers, whether it was the Supreme Court taking control of the Supreme Court and then the Supreme Court giving Trump a green light to commit whatever crimes in office that

he wants to, whether it was the mass loyalty test and fealty that he demanded and demanded that people back up his 2020 election stolen lies. I looked at that and said, no, this is going to be gloves off. It is going to be a most maximalist version of what he would want to do, of what his id is. And it's going to be horrifying. Now, even I don't think could have anticipated all of the doge and secot and murdering random fishermen in the, you know, the Caribbean, I could have anticipated and did anticipate the Iran War. But those were, I think, two of the very different frames that we had coming into this. And, you know, for me, I'm very much caught between people who now are seeing some of the problems. I want to say, great,

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is actually just strategic again. What do you mean by that? So, all right, let's go to the photograph in the Cracker Barrel, the Thomas Massey, Marjorie Taylor Green, Tucker Carlson photo of the diaspora, the Republican diaspora, the those that have woken and the Iran War and now they sit in this room

and they're going to come up with the, it's not, this is the real make America great again. That was fake. That we enabled it. We worked our asses off to amplify the lying to help create a reality distortion field that has given us all of these bad outcomes from invading Iran to a shitty reflecting pool because they're all one and the same. They're part of the same process, quite frankly. It's all the same great. It's the real great replacement theory.

Let's take all the partisans and replace them with ideologs. Because partisans are part of the game. Ideologs are a whole different version. And now what they've done is they've created a little isolated group that can say, oh, no, we didn't go along with it. So whoever kind of rises up to next lead MAGA, that group can bless and provide cover to to say, oh, no, these guys have it right now. This is the real MAGA and we'll provide cover.

And I don't think any of it isn't intentional. I think the entirety of the design of this, and it's not just the last 10 years, it's the last 50 or 60 years. So, I mean, obviously, a very cynical interpretation. And I know some of the people. Please tell me why I shouldn't be cynical about that interpret. Please tell me why these bad faith actors are suddenly acting in good faith. You have every right to think that. I don't think that there's nearly the incentive that you necessarily are impute.

Like you have people who all lost their elections and are not exactly like, well, let's say Marjorie Taylor Greens and Thomas Massey's case, like actually lost their entire careers. Or Joe Kent, for example, who I know personally. I don't think they're the progenitors of it. I think Tucker is. Okay. I think he's the one who has to be, is very telling, he said, I, I, I, I, I, couldn't believe how little influence I have. His whole thing is I have to be in proximity to power.

I see, look, I've known Tucker for a long time. I just don't really agree with that analysis, having spoken to him. I would say that he does feel genuinely burned by Donald Trump, not just with Iran, but actually with a lot more. I know you're skeptical. Well, he said, I mean, how do you, how are you burned by a guy that 10 years ago, you said, this man is corrupt to the core and I hate him? Sure. How are you burned by that? I mean, the vice president said that as well. Right. I think, right, people can change.

And is also a cynical, cynical person manipulating himself into the halls of power. You can't convince me otherwise because I've seen no evidence of it. Sure. Let's take the vice president out because you're right. He's literally the vice president. So he had something to gain. I don't see necessarily the same Tucker gain. I guess whenever it comes to the third party or let's even take the Trump criticism,

I again think it's genuine. It has lost him. any like genuine friendships, cachet, I think in terms of his ability to project power in a Republican party. I mean, I'm not sure if you've seen some of the approval polling on Tucker, like after Trump attacked him. Do they do approval? They did. Yes, they did because they were testing this exact theory of what you're discussing, which is like, hey, does Tucker independently have juice amongst Republicans without Trump? And his net negatives went much higher. Obviously, he's independent on his show, like in terms of his, like, you know, away from partisanship or his own economic situation.

But, Saga, the same could be said about Republicans who were apostate about the Iraq war. In other words, people look to the future. And he's always been a guy that has looked to what's in it. Look, explain to me a guy who says, I'm all about liberty and America and make America great again. And you know who's really a great leader, Putin. Like, just, I just, there's an incoherence to this that has to be cynical because it's incoherent. I understand how you get there. But again, but it's like what, and this is kind of like we work because I work with Crystal.

Like I could see your brain pathways. Yes, yes, yes. And how you get there. So I'll explain the way that we would get there. And the way we would get there is like Tucker or not even just Tucker, a lot of MAGA. And you're talking about Putin. I assume in terms of like the war in Ukraine. or admiration or whatever for the Russian system.

Some of which, by the way, I do think goes too far. But a lot of it is about a rich... Some of which? No, I'm saying in terms of like people who like, oh, like Russia is the, you know, this pinnacle of Western greatness. And it's like, well, just look at their demographics and their economy. Like, that's not exactly true. But the point that I think where it came from, again, just to try to explain this, is a lot of the original 2016 energy, in particular, was a Bicananite rejection of globalism.

And in particular, I think what people tried to see in Putin or slash admiration or whatever of Putin or the Russian system was somebody who stands of thwart like the neoliberal West, right? So if I were to look at it through that frame, it's a little bit different. Like, I don't think it is necessarily as incongruent as you're thinking.

Because if you're a nationalist and your primary view of the world is that sovereignty itself is one of the things you should promote and not just promote, but to cherish and to hold deer as much as possible. Then you're going to look at different countries which have rejected like a Western global hegemon and say, oh, that's admirable, I guess, in a sense. Again, I'm not saying I agree with this. Sure.

But I'm trying to explain how somebody would get there. Yeah. Well, Crystal, let me ask you because it is, you know, this gets us into a whole other thing, but maybe this is distinction between left-wing and right-wing populism, because I always think of populism through a much more economic lens, but there really is a nationalist lens that you have to look through it as well. And the thing that's interesting about the right-wing populism is, and again, I view it as cynical.

It's the ban in theory of power. I'm going to combine left-wing economic populism because I think that gives me a large group of people to pull from and I'm going to combine it with right wing we must protect white anglo-saxon culture and western civilization which is there I guess sort of euphemism for that homogeneity I think the the second part of that the white homogeneity is more important to them than the economic populism. And the reason that I think that is because they didn't tell their judges to be economic populace. Like every Supreme Court decision that comes down basically favors

corporate interest rather than workers' interests. The economic part of it, at least, you know, putting the voters aside, but in the expression of right-wing populism in Trump and I would say other right-wing populist leaders around the world, the economic part is basically fake. I mean, this has been an incredible administration for billionaires in the oligarch class. They've never made more money or had more power or been deregulated. They're getting everything they want. And that's part of why it was easier for Trump to take over the Republican Party than it has been for the left to take over the Democratic Party.

Because the left wing populism, that class dynamic you're talking about, that is the whole thing, right? It is in populism you're basically doing the people versus who is the villain. For the left, the villain is the billioners, it's the trillioners, it's the Epstein class, it's the oligarchs. For the right, it's typically, you know, to frame it, I think you're right and you're framing. There's usually a lot of scapegoating of various minority groups. And so you can use a sort of sloppulous, faux populist rhetoric when it comes to the economics, but that has all been cast aside.

And in Trump 1.0, it was as well. I mean, their biggest economic accomplishment was this big tax cut for the rich that was cooked up by the Heritage Foundation and Paul Ryan. So I think that is an important distinction here. And I think that's increasingly becoming clear to many Americans, which is why Trump's approval rating on the economy is in the toilet, why there is such disgust with him, why you see this real rise of left-wing populist candidates who are overcoming a lot of money and establishment, rejection of them and, you know, attempts to smear and demagogue against them. but they're able to succeed anyway because the establishment has lost so much credibility with the Democratic base and also because these economic and oligarchic forces have become so abundantly apparent to so many Americans.

Yeah, John, and I think, look, again, I hear your critique. And, you know, I've had my main. By the way, Saga, you really are. Like, your way of dealing with me is exactly how now I'm going to go home and deal with people in my family. I hear what you're saying. Right. I see how you got there. I see how you got there.

I mean, because I spend my time with Crystal and, you know. I've been in that way, Mo. And I understand it's taking you. Right. You took one route. We're taking another. Exactly. If you were to take my route, my preferred route.

So, you know, you're impugning or not impuging, you're imbueing kind of an ideology of just in your original analysis there about economics and about white identity politics. But I actually think, and I would take it further. is it's actually worse. It's really just about Trump. And I think it really took the Iran war to fully kick that in for me, is that the voters fundamentally, they just really like Trump. And it's actually not as much about policy or any of the things that you might type of thing.

I really hit home for me in terms of, like when I talk to some of these people still all on board the Trump train, especially the older voters, they really just love how it drives people like you crazy. And that's actually just all it is. Like any time, like you see. That may be the saddest thing I've ever heard. But it's true. It is kind of empirically true. Is what you see is like liberal, cultural rejection of Trump.

He hates the right people. Or, no, he's hated by the right people. That's actually what it's about. All right. And so that's a truth. I think at the beating heart of a lot of the remaining Maga Coalition. So if we start to like him, they'll abandon him. I don't know about that.

The damage is probably been done. But I don't know if they would cling necessarily as hard as you think. But, you know, this is where, though, to, you know, kind of break my own analysis, the one thing that does appear to, quote, unquote, Trump that is the economic situation, which is a validation, I think, of the economic framework or what you're talking about. For the very first time, we see Trump's net approval rating or approval rating with Republicans on the economy began to dip down. As a result, both the way that the tariffs were handled and because of the Iran war and $4.

gasoline. That is beginning to pierce what I would say is the cultural veneer. And it already has, you know, definitely for a lot of, let's say, the younger men or voters who went along with Trump in 2024. But I'd rather talk about the designers of this program than those that have to live through it. I think I'm talking more about the designers that the project 2025 designers, there is a Christian nationalist bent to it that I think is the driving force of it and everything else is strategic and intentional about how do we get there? How do we get to the power? How do we get to control everything when our ultimate goal is that? So I actually see, I think it's much more economic.

And even Project 2025 itself is kind of complicated story, right? Because Project 2025 was written by the Heritage Foundation. It was explicitly disavowed by Donald Trump on the campaign trail who was like, I have nothing to do. Oh, oh. No, I'm not saying it was real. Come on, man. I'm saying he did devout it, correct? Like he did.

But cynically, he didn't disavow it. He gave it plausible deniability. As he does it, that's my point. Okay. is when you act like, wow, this Iran thing really caught me off guard. And then you tell me with earnestness, oh, no, he disavowed 2025. He did nothing of the kind. He in no way wanted to deal with the particulars of it because he knew how politically

damaging it was. Right. No, no, I'm actually, I'm, I was about to get there. So I was saying he disavowed it only then to hire many of the people who were signatories of Project 22, 2005. So there wasn't an acknowledgement going into the campaign that this is politically damaging, this type of product, the Heritage Foundation, et cetera. But then that became the general policy, at least in some areas. It's been kind of complicated because a lot of it is just Trump himself deciding what the tariff rate on China should be whenever he wakes up in the morning.

I'm not joking. That's actually how it works. I liked when he did, he didn't like a conversation he had in Switzerland. And he was like 50% on chocolate. Right. Yeah, 50% on chocolate and watches. For the watch community, that was definitely. devastating as a member of that. So, like, when we talk about the designers, I don't know if it's as

intentional, though, as you say, I do think all political coalitions have, like, people who are insider organizations in Washington or jockeying for power. That's literally the job of the Heritage Foundation or of these neoconservative think tanks. So you're saying, like, what you're talking about, how you think the Iran War came out of nowhere, you know, that's kind of a foolish thought. But it's just really hard for somebody who lives in the town, knows some of the most senior appointees or some of the people who were there, who in private and in public spoke against war with Iran, made good cases against war with Iran, why we should disengage from the Middle East, to say that that was disingenuous the whole time, I'm still just having a hard time

with that. No, what I'm saying is not that it was disingenuous. And I'll ask you this, Crystal, the idea wasn't that they really. didn't believe they would go in Iran. My point is that all these other policy decisions that have gone along with the intentional design of moving us more towards this intentional heritage American version, non-credal America, of a people who belong here more than other people, who are more American than other people, real America. That's all been driven by a very intense, intentional planning group that is trying to figure out ways to maximize their power.

And in doing so, have created this group that is manufacturing a reality to get them to do that. Now, the Iran War, whether it fits into that framing or not, that's the reality of it. It's a cynical manipulation to get to a certain goal. and my problem is, and Crystal, I'm going to ask you this, is it your problem as well that you look at this sudden like, I can't believe the tiger ate my face when the rest of us have been faced with this cynical manipulation of policy the whole time? Yeah. Whether it got them the results they wanted on immigration,

but not the result they wanted on Iran. Yeah, I mean, at the risk of getting up on soccer. I feel very similarly to you. And by the way, and then we'll talk about how the left sucks. So okay, we'll do that at a moment. But no, I mean, look, I look at the track record from Trump 1.0. I look at J.D. Vance's speech to your point about the like heritage American Christian nationalist vision for the country. His speech at the R&C where he lay down an explicitly blood and soil conception said America is not an idea. And then you look at the, at Stephen Miller, who is so powerful that he's been called. prime minister within the administration. And this guy is a diehard ideologue who loves to

Nazi post on Maine. You know, there is no doubt what his priorities are. So far, as Trump even has said, like, oh, this guy would like there to just be 100 million people in the country that all look like him. So it's not a secret what his priorities are. And he's been given a free hand in order to execute that sort of policy. So I think you have that strain. And then I think you have a Trump is just the most self-dealing corrupt person on the entire planet, who also has Kushner and Witkoff and these other characters who are also focused on looting and self-dealing as the other primary impetus within the administration. And I think when you put all of that together, and also Trump's desire to be this big man in history and he wants this world-changing legacy,

whether that is for good or for ill, I think that's part of what explains the Iran war in particular. But when you put the ideologues together with the self-dealing together with the total lack of any guardrails on this train at this point, that's how you end up with this situation. And yes, to your point, I mean, not only was it predictable, it was predicted. Mint mobile. And it's important that you throw in the mobile there. There's mint, you know, we all know what that's about. But mint mobile, what we're talking about here is a phone company that's delivering you their product. for less than what other phone companies are doing.

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and I think that's a summation that I would not disagree with, why is it that the Democrats are having such a difficult time? They don't control anything. They don't control the Senate. They don't control the Congress. They don't control the court. They don't control the White House. So what is it about the way that Democrats have governed that has allowed this, in my mind,

cynical and corrupt experiment to take such hold? And when will accountability come for that? because I don't think that Trump arose for no reason. Agreed. I think people were dissatisfied with a government that did not seem to be responsive to the needs of the people and was at a remove. Yes, I agree. And I think what we've seen at this point is a sort of limp status quo decorum obsessed liberalism is not going to be sufficient to fight what I see as rising forces of fascism in the country. They weren't historically, you know, when we had a previous rise of a fascist movement in this country.

It took FDR. It took the New Deal coalition, a sort of experiment in social democracy here in the U.S. Forget about rising fascism, though. How about just like rural broadband? Like I'm not even talking about a party that is not up to the task of fighting the Nazis. I'm talking about a party that is not up to the task of competently governing and, and, and easing the difficulties that people are facing in their day-to-day lives, not being responsive to their needs.

No. See, I would pick up on that. Not only not responsive to their needs, but actively gaslighting them about their needs. I mean, we could go back to, you know, the financial crisis and the response to that, which was too little, where there was zero accountability to Wall Street criminals, where homeowners were completely screwed. And you can see the seeds. of that dissatisfaction. And now we've got two generations, millennials and zoomers, and soon it will be

Gen Alpha as well, who are being shut down of the American dream, who can't aspire to buy a house, who see education costs, you know, they're told to go get a college degree. That college degree is wildly expensive. They're saddled with debt, and then they can't get a good job out of it. A bunch of AI oligarchs are telling them they're going to take their jobs anyway. And there has been a wildly insufficient at best response from the Democratic Party establishment. who have been more interested in palliative care for America and the working class of America in particular than actually solving problems. And governing pretty much and governing effectively. And so, you know, one of the things that we've seen in the small pilot experiment of Zoran Mamdani in New York City where, look, you're the mayor of a city, it's a big city, but you've got limited powers, is I do think you see a different approach to governance where there's a real commitment to, no, we're going to make promises.

we're going to deliver on those promises. People are going to feel the impact of government in a positive way. I'm sure you probably saw the story. Someone posted a picture of a pothole on, I think it was Instagram, and by the end of the day, he had come and filled that pothole. It's something small, but it makes people feel like, oh, the tax dollars that I'm paying, the government that I elected, they actually are trying to make my life better in a way that materially improves my quality of life. And Democrats have become completely divorced from that. And then, you know, the other part of this, of course, hangs over all of it is money in politics. this is really the root cause of so much of it, where they are beholden to corporations,

they're beholden to special interests, whether it's APEC or big tech, et cetera, that keeps them at odds with the needs and the desires of the American people. And so that's why I've been so heartened to see this reckoning that is happening between the Democratic base and the democratic establishment in the party. Sager, is that, how do you see the left now? Do you buy into the framing? You know, there's a lot of talk about now there's. socialist and very rarely does anyone ever talk about what socialism is there's it's just a word and no one really describes you know in terms of specific policy what socialist about it how do you see the left what would be your you know greatest criticism of them and and what would be your fix to that how

could you see them right recovering from that so i mean look i'm i do not speak for the right So I'm a very unique person. I don't really care about Hassan Piker. I did an event with him. He was fine. We were perfectly cordial. I actually think he's not nearly as radical as a lot of people think that he is. And so I don't know if I'm the best person to answer.

But like from my perspective, here's what I would say is that fundamentally what I think, you know, you guys talked about, you know, there's been a lot of like, oh, cultural issues and all of that are nonsense. At the end of the day, there's only one movement in recent history that one households under $100,000. That was Donald Trump in the 2024 campaign, which he won the popular vote. The DSA and leftists is predominantly a coalition of downwardly mobile white liberals. A lot of people who don't have a four-year college degree find the movement distasteful or distrust them. We saw that just what happened in the Abdul al-Siyahed campaign in the primary election, where you had older black voters or traditional political constituency and households that don't have four-year college did not vote for him. So a lot of this.

Still vote. I mean, that was a Democratic primary, but go ahead. Right. But that's emblematic also in the general election results of 2024. So if we try to transpose those two things, the most likely predictor of what your politics are in this country is whether you have four-year college degree or not. And if four-year college degree is also correlated highly with income, the Democratic Party, while may having economic positions that supposedly benefit the working class is not convinced the working class of that. That's just empirically true. And so that's kind of like my criticism, if you will, if it's, you know, Chrysle gave her speech.

So I'll give my worst case. You know, my worst faith interpretation would be it's class cosplay. I mean, fundamentally, it is some cosplay of dressing up, you know, said, you know, basically woke one type policy and or rhetoric. To explain that. What is. What is. Yeah, this is a whole thing, right? I mean, also let's be fair.

like, I mean, Trump is the one who puts on the apron and sits in the McDonald's winkle. Like, talk about cosplay. Fair. You know, how many times can you hear? Depends what type of cosplay we're cosplay. He's a blue collar billionaire. And you're like, yeah, I don't think that's a thing. He's cosplaying Norman Rockwell America, obviously, which is, you know, highly effective.

All right. So you have to grapple with that if you want to win in America's, in American politics today. And so, yeah, I mean, I think, and we're talking to the whole woke one debate. Yeah, what, tell me what you mean by that because I'm not sure I understand. AOC recently went on television and she said, quote, woke one was crazy. And it was in relation to Francesca Hong, who was a DSA candidate who is very likely to win, I think tonight in the primary in Wisconsin in the gubernatorial election in which I don't have the exact tweet in front of me, had said something along the lines of critical of Thanksgiving. She gives an interview in which they said, so do you want to cancel Thanksgiving and gives a word salad level of an answer? Okay, might seem nonsensical. John, you and I both know that in this country, that is not exactly how you're going to appeal, quote, unquote, to the very working class that we're talking about here. My favorite holiday. Yeah, it's most people's favorite holiday.

It's most normal people's favorite holiday. And so that comes across as deeply disconnected and obsessed with, you know, what some activist is either going to say towards you or your genuine belief that Thanksgiving or just like white society, which she's also talked a lot about her own like biracial son and potentially being ashamed of that. Like, that is deeply off-putting, I think, to a lot of people. And so that is where, like, to the extent that I have a critique, I guess, is they're saying, oh, woke one was crazy. And it's like, no, but you still believe many of the things that woke one consisted of. She's still saying that now? No, no, no. What I'm saying is AOC had said woke one was crazy.

As in the rhetoric that we used, there was an Overton window. Oh, okay. All right. I see what you're saying. And she made it clear that much of the rhetoric that was used from 2020, was bad, right? And I'm like, okay, that's fine. But, you know, kind of John, as you're saying, if the rhetoric was bad, well, what about the idea? Like, do you still believe, like in defund the police? Zoran had explicitly apologized to the cops and said, no, I'm sorry I said that. Right? And so,

okay, that's fine, you know, for people like me. But isn't on the flip side of that, isn't going through people's old tweets? Isn't that what the right hated about? Absolutely fair. Fair. You're right. It's part of cancel culture. And it has the right embrace cancel. Cancell culture, yes, especially whenever it comes to anti-Semitism and all of this. Or Bud Light. Or Bud Light, sure. But yeah, I get what you're saying. Is so much of woke now or cancel culture or anything also just the ubiquity of social media, meaning we've democratized criticism.

So social media makes its money on outrage, conflict, all those different. different things. Isn't it just a reflection of there is no such thing as non-cancel culture because everything that you say, somebody will try and seek advantage of it and highlight it and amplify it to help them do that. Certainly. And I also don't understand how, you know, the idea that, well, she said Thanksgiving should be canceled.

So she's crazy. But he said Trump won the 2020. election, that's fine. Right. We're all just going to go along with it. Is it fine, though? Well, no, but I'm saying. I think people who say that get plenty of criticism, though. I don't think it's fine. I don't think that's true. But they get criticism, but there's no accountability. It's not like they don't still get confirmed by the Senate. Okay. It's not that they can sit in a confirmation here. For example, Mike Rogers is an election denier. Right. And I haven't seen all the hand ring about like, oh, my God, is he going to be able to win and, you know, win over moderate voters because he's such an

extremist on this. See, I'm not sure that's true. I see that story like two days ago. What I've heard is all about how extreme Abdul is because, oh, my God, he hung out with Hassan Piker, how dare he, versus Mike Rogers, who actually holds these views himself and has expressed them multiple times. That's not framed as being too extreme for a moderate voter. But I'm sure he doesn't actually hold those views. Again, it's cynical.

He doesn't actually hold them. I'm sure he's not an idiot. Right. But it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, whether he believes it in his heart of hearts or whether it's a cynical posture, he's going to act and behave in the same way because he's going to be a rubber stamp for Donald Trump at the end of the day. So, no, I think woke is, you know, and especially the current iteration of woke coming from the Trump administration. Now, what's the current admin? So what's, if that's woke point one, what's woke point two?

Well, that's, I think, upper debate. But currently we're living through a Trump regime that wants to crush any sort of dissent. The place where they've come down the hardest is on any sort of criticism of Israel, which is characterized as being anti-Semitic, and they've used it as an excuse to jail, to crush protests, to deport. And, you know, as part of their NSPM 7 project, they also use that to label you as effectively a terrorist and subject to, you know, potential government action and surveillance. So it goes far beyond some like social media cancellation campaign at this point. And I think really does expose how at its core, this is really about controlling the bounds of debate about scaring people into compliance, you know, against an

unpopular policy and about maintaining power. So I think that's the way that it's really been deployed by Trump. Is that sound like Woke 2.0 to you, Sagar? This is the difficulty. I accept Crystal's entire critique as that is the definition of Woke. I've described the anti-Semitism, you know, freak out in the administration as like Abraham X Kennedy's dream come true, like going after, you know, universities and saying you're not sufficiently and not anti-Semitic enough. I think it's outrageous. I think it's obviously a violation and all of that of free speech. Woke 2.0 is what I think is, you know, for example, Abdul al-Siyadh, the candidate in Michigan, literally claimed that he'd never said defund the police.

He did say it. He lied about that. Now, that's an important thing. And okay, but John, he said it. And he lied that he didn't say it. He deleted his tweet and that's fine. And that may not be objectionable to you, but it certainly is objectionable. We've all lived through the campaign ads of guys on the left having to like walk with police and go like, it's actually, they're quite nice. Well, I actually think that's healthy and good because it establishes good norms in society as opposed to, you know, like wanting to defund and or ban police. Well, that's, I never understood why progressives reject safety, public safety, as a non-progressive. value. I always look at it as don't people in the most economically devastated areas deserve the

same level of law and order that people in Beverly Hills enjoy? I never understood why you would hold back on that. But, Sucker, the anti-Semitism thing is kind of interesting to me as someone who's received pretty good anti-Semitic stuff and been accused of being it myself. You know, if you look at the Twitter feed, I'll always get, like, you're a dirty Jew along with, you're a capo. Like, you get it all. I'm interested on the right, this idea of, you know, they fight anti-Semitism when very clearly they hire people. You know, there's the Republican, young Republican club in New York, where they go through their chat history. And it's just vile, like flat out anti-Semitism. Or J.D. Vance will say, look, the Nazi jokes, who doesn't like to have a Nazi joke? I don't think we should

hold that against people while basically forcing universities to pay them millions and millions of dollars. It's, again, can you understand why the whole thing feels cynical? Sure. Yeah. And you're right, because it is cynical because it's not about anti-Semitism. It's about Israel. That's what it's about. It's about the unholy alliance. But can't you understand now how writ large, the whole operation seems cynical. Yeah, but I would say that a lot of Democratic stuff is just as cynical, right? And so then, well, but then it- Very well be, but you'd have to, you'd have to tell me those, you'd have to make those points to me as well.

Right. I could tell you what's cynical and what's not, but I don't, I don't hear a lot of specificity in the criticism. A hundred percent fair. How much time do we have? I think, uh, not much. You're busy people. Yeah, I think to your, I do want to pick up on the anti-Semitism point. Sure. Just because I do want people to, I want this to be emphasized, is it does expose the lie at the heart of it, as you just said, that any of this is really about anti-Semitism or any genuine concern. It's about Israel. And it is just the pro-Israel alliance with the Trump administration. And, you know, Crystal, you eloquently, you know, talked about Woke 2.0 and how it's about power. I think Woke 1.0 was also about in power, cultural takeover in order to defend a.

unpopular policy. So I think they both have two things in common. And in both cases, I think both are genuinely not about what they allegedly were, you know, supposed to be anti-Semitism and or racism. I think both are about cultural power. Who gets to have said power in our society? Again, I would say, I would never have predicted it, John. And perhaps that's the dupe in me. But, you know, how can you come up with people who've been talking about free speech for 10 years only to then when they have power deport people for what they have said? I would not have predicted that. in a million years. And so I do have to be forced to accept some of your own criticism of what you're saying. I'm just saying, like Donald Trump said to Zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerberg,

Zuckerberg is what through the election. And so if he tries that again, I'm going to put him in jail. I said that to Elon Musk. I said, so you said free speech is your line. You're supporting a guy who's literally threatened to jail somebody if they exercise their free speech while you're as a social media mogul doing far more direct electioneering giving away a million dollars here setting up an algorithm that favors conservative content how can you justify that and he says oh trump is just that's just talk so i guess my point is you see the clues you want to see, Crystal, and the same could be said from the left. If somebody was saying, yeah, man, I'm going to open all the borders. And then that's what happens. And you say, wouldn't you say,

well, they said it? How could, how can you pretend that they didn't? Well, yeah. I mean, I think to me, it's not just about listening to the rhetoric. It's also looking at the actions. And, you know, I mean, look, it's no secret. Trump behaves like an authoritarian. He does it in his business. He does did it in Trump 1.0 and you want to just shoot protesters in the knees. That's hardly pro-first amendment, pro-free speech type of activity. And on anti-Semitism specifically, I mean, there's always been, even at the height of, oh, we're pro-free speech, et cetera, there's always been a carve out for Israel. I mean, just look at these anti-BDS laws across the country. Look at the number of professors who had their careers attacked by, you know, free speech maven. Barry

White says one example. So there's always been a carve out there because it's about protecting Israel and it's also about, you know, a lot of the influence they've successfully been able to wield, which is not unique to the Israel lobby, but is very central to the way that our politics ultimately operate. I totally agree. Zagar, you were going to say something. I'm sorry, I cut you off. Oh, I honestly, I don't even remember. That's a perfect place to stop. Hold on, John. If I don't say that my husband, Kyle Kalinsky, wants you to run. for president and is your biggest booster, then he's going to divorce me. So I have to put that out there. Oh, dear God. Don't let the divorce. That's that, oh, I so want you two to work out,

but I don't want to. Sager, come on. The country needs you, John. Who are you? Have, do you guys talk about in your mind? Is there a leader that you think could arise that could put behind us this weaponized environment we currently live in? run on a platform of sane policy competently executed. Do you think they could do that? And is there someone out there that you view as having that potential? Yes, I think you could do that, John. Yes, I think you could do that.

Well, no, I was just going to say, there is an agenda for the taking for someone. I don't know who that someone is. No question. Certainly on the left, it's wide open. There is an agenda for the taking that is about economic populism. Yes, it's about pushing back against the tech oligarchs, fighting back against these data centers that are taking over communities and which are hated by left, right center, doesn't matter about a foreign policy, which is about investing in America rather than fighting these horrific, immoral foreign wars and backstopping a genocide. To me, there is a broad FDR-style coalition that is there for the taking if you have the right person who has credibility and expression. those values in the right way. Sager?

I don't know if that, I don't know about a specific person. I do have a general kind of theory. I love to read history books is that we talked about the 60s and the 70s. And one of the most unique parts of Jimmy Carter's rise is that if you had gone a few years before, nobody would have predicted that somebody like him could have been elected. Now, let's ignore how he actually governed and kind of the promise of Carter itself. It was an oil shock. Sager, come on, man.

All right. Yeah, sure. It wasn't just oil. No. But I do think a really interesting idea is that the Trump era began with the escalator, the celebrity politics era began with Obama, that we've now lived with 20 so years of celebrity politics, that an inevitable swing back would be to the type of thing you're talking about. An executive. An executive, a level of seriousness, in anti-charisma, a level of like nerdishness, almost in the way that Carter's sheer moral. impeachability was so important to the country in a post-watergate, that's right, post-Nixon, post-LBJ environment. Governor of Iowa type dude.

Exactly. But with the right politics. So that's the key. There's the key to those two things is many of what Crystal just said. And the right ability to communicate those politics. I think there might be some people that exist without that. If you put those together, the country is desperate for genuine leadership. Desperate.

That's what I think. So thirsty. Final question. Trump famously chose the escalator, which to me is maybe the least authoritative mode of transportation. There is. It's literally, it's gravity, and you don't even have to move your legs. But it's cinematic. Yeah. You just, you're heading down. What would be that for our next great leader, what would be the mode of conveyance that they could choose? Would it be people mover?

Chariot. What? Anything? They should announce it on breaking points. Breaking points. The segue. Yeah. Majestic.

The final plug. The final damn plug. I can't thank you guys enough. Crystal Ball and Saga and Jetty of breaking points. Please check out the show because it is. And I don't say this lightly. Good faith. Good faith conversation.

that you may not agree with some of it. You may have arguments, but it never feels cynical, it never feels manipulated, and it never feels performative. That's extremely kind, John. And I really do appreciate that for the both of you. It's not an easy trick to pull. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Means a lot coming from you, John. Thank you so much. My last plug, my parents adore you. I love them. I think my mom met you in an airport once. And so... Wait, for real? Yes.

She said you were. extremely kind to her. So thank you. And I was in the front row at the rally to restore sanity at age 18 while I was in. Did it work? Did we restore sanity, John? But I was there. I was there. Thank you guys both for being with us. Yeah. Thank you. Folks, you know, I am nothing, if not a generator of ideas that may never work. Obviously, we've talked a little bit on the show about the crumple, which is the portable dog bed that you throw on the ground that makes a different topographical shape each time you do it. Think of it as the way your dog

likes to sit on your coat, although officially a more dog appropriate blanket type thing hasn't come into production or fruition yet. But this Shopify thing, if you've got an idea, if you're somebody that always thinks, oh, you know, it would be a great business.

This is the thing that makes it work. It makes it ready to go from day one. And I don't know how they did it. I think with zeros and ones, I don't know how this works, to be honest with you. I don't know how computers work in general. or apps work.

Zero's and ones and then you feed it into a box where I guess eight brilliant gerbils live and they do the rest of the work. I have no idea. It's easy to design your shop. It's easy to get paid. They handle the checkout process. You might think to yourself like, oh, how are they going to complete their purchase? Shopify handles it.

Gets them to come back as repeat customers. Set up and checkout are all handled. So get Shopify for God's sakes. With Shopify, nothing stands between your identity. and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash TWS. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash TWS.

You can so tell Sager's parents do not agree with them, but he's learned the gentle art of accepting his parents wrongness, but dealing with them in a kind way. Like, I can't tell you how many times he said to me, like, I see how you got there. Well, certainly I could, I can understand why you might think that. But like, that is a guy trying to get through the weekend he is spending it home. I'm going to steal some of those like rhetorical flourishes.

Yeah, that's, he has a patience, first of all, it was saying, like just I, I, I. It's really admirable what he does. What they both do, but what he did in this conversation because it was a bit of two-on-one. So shout out to Sager. I did feel bad on that. There was a certain point. But when he would say, like, it's not cynical. And I'd be like, come on.

God, Sager. Help yourself. Yeah. How can it not be cynical? When he said they love how much it drives you crazy, that really hit me because I was like, so that's why my family behaves this way in the group chat. Really? Last week, I left the group chat.

Because the memes, the, you know, the Fauci shit. Oh, my God. It just like surge. And I was like, I'm out. I can't. Right. I mean, I've highly suspected for years that this was all just to own the libs. And just for that to be confirmed in that moment was gratifying, but also really upsetting.

Yeah. Right. But it's also in some ways, it's verified my decision to never join group chats. Oh, yeah. I do not have. There are no long, strain. The largest group chat I have is literally with the guys that I play music with. Okay.

That's a reasonable number. There's four of us. Yeah. And the only discussions are, the discussions are always like Tuesday night. And then it's a bunch of thumbs ups. What about Wednesday? Right. Can't.

You know, it's that. There's not a lot of, you know, fuck COVID. Like none of that stuff. I see where you're coming from. That's exactly right. Brittany, what do we, what do we got on this, our final episode of the summer? I know how sad. Okay.

John, do you think the White House press court is cool with taking a bullet or a surface to air missile for Trump? Absolutely. Of course they would say to themselves, if we can be the decoy, if we, if sir, if killing us makes you safe, however that would be, do you want one of us to put on the Trump wig? Do you want us to put on the red tie and do that? And like show shadows. I'll jump in front of the catering cart myself.

Sure. Whatever it is you want us to do, sir. Do you want us to taste your food to make sure that it is in no way contaminated? Although now with Kennedy running HHS, you don't know if it's contaminated because of a foreign act of assassination or there's just diarrhea parasites and everything. Yeah, that was. Common misconception. That was a wild story. Although Caitlin counts again, because Caitlin Collins.

She does a research. She says, you know, that is not unprecedented that a president has had to change plans based on a certain threat. And it wasn't until afterwards that it was explained to the people who remained on the targeted conveyance. Hey, by the way, just wanted to let you guys know now that we're here safely. There were a lot of lasers being pointed and we weren't sure which one was. It's so fucking crazy.

Also, the irony of it being a catering truck. It's just like what's always in the movies, too. They're like, how do we get you out of here? And then there's like a little catering cart. And you're like, oh, it's perfect. Here's the question. Did he have to put on the cater waiter outfit? He had a disguise.

He dressed as a bellhop. Put on the thing. Actually, here's what they did. They brought him in on the big table and it had the little cloche on it. And then they pulled it in. They got the table to the safe location. And then they lifted the clothes. Are you okay now, Mr. President?

And put it back down and then it's just such a screwball comedy. It's perfect. Isn't it? It's very, it's very clusoe. I also love him saying, if I go, you go afterwards. And it's like, actually not the case. Actually, that was if they go, they go. If I go, I go, you say.

Right. If I go, I go, I go. And you don't go. You go bye-bye. Yeah, you go bye-bye. That's for sure. What else they got? All right.

John, whose weave is better, Trump or Federman? Oh, whose weaves? Well, weave. Well, yeah, I was going to say. Federman, no. I mean, Federman, I think, gave up on whatever hairstyle. Trump, at least, is experimenting. That's kind of what I dig about him.

Like, with Trump, you literally could imagine, like, where was he this morning? And somebody would be like, I think the beauty parlor. Like he's because he's got a hairdo now that's like like when my you know when I was younger all the old ladies would go to this guy Joe Joe would he it was the beauty parlor and Joe would be at the beauty parlor and he would take care of the ladies and he's got that like I imagine Trump sitting under that little dome after getting his thing up and just coming out and going like oh my God way till I play bridge uh Trump is the master. of the weave because he's in control of it. Fetterman, unfortunately, I think, look, to be fair to him, like, he had a stroke. I do think that creates processing issues. I don't think it's a great environment for him in long form necessarily. I don't want to lay all of it on that because I don't think all of it should be laid on that.

But I definitely think in, he may have a more thoughtful mode of communicating that we are not necessarily privy to, if that would be, is that the nicest way to say, fairest way to say? I would say it's too generous, is that. I'm not suggesting that the opinions should not be criticized and looked at with astonishment, because I do think they are his real opinions. I just think, I don't know if that was necessarily his best at defending them. That's all.

That's all I'm saying. I haven't seen better. I did look around quite a bit. So I haven't seen him articulate the point better than he did. I actually think he's taking, I think Federman is taking like some of Trump's playbook where it's like when he's talking to some of the media just like completely throwing lobs back. Like when I think it was drop site like caught him in the hallway and was asking him questions about Israel and he was like, who do you work for?

Like that's not a real organization. Oh, right. You know what? I'm giving him too much credit. I'm probably, I am giving him to a trip. But I think that's like he's, you know, copying Trump a little bit. Like I see there's some tendencies there. Right.

But yeah. I think it's because in the conversation, like I did get to a place where I felt bad. I know that's that. He's a senator. I should there's no amount of having that, you know, but having diminished ability. Yeah. But having power not be diminished. That's a scary place for people to be.

but it's hard not to, on a human level, have a conversation at that length with somebody in that situation where you don't go like, oh, it's like, I have to not, let me just not be. Yeah. I think that you have to, yeah, I think it's really good to like hold space for that kind of empathy. Whoa.

Did you say holds? I've never used, I've never heard hold space used before in a non. But. But I don't know that it's warranted necessarily. I agree. And the reason why it's not warranted is the amount of power that the individual wields. Exactly. In the same way for Mitch McConnell.

Yeah. Where you can go like, wow, that must suck to be infirmed to the point where you literally can't be filmed saying you're okay. And then also think to yourself, fuck that guy for still having that much power. 100%. I feel better. Thank you for helping me work through this.

I was feeling guilty. You shouldn't. I can't not think that I was feeling a bit guilty. That's all. No. All right. What's final? Resolved.

Last one, John. Please settle this for me and my wife. Done. I can do that. No problem. McDonald's fries or Burger King onion rings. McDonald's fries? Yeah.

They're the quintet. Why would anybody even? Yeah. Why would someone throw that even into the, the Burger King onion ring is not, I don't believe is in the same weight class. That's like, you know, Manchester City or, you know, somebody, the galaxy. Like, it's not even. They can do a friendly every now and again, but they shouldn't be competing. Thank you, Gillian.

A friendly. They can play. And you know what? even pretend that we're going to referee it. But we all know what the real situation is. Now, the McDonald's fry, I will say this. My view on the size of McDonald's fry has changed over the years. In the old days, if you would supersize a fry or get me the largest container of fries

that they will allow me to take out of the restaurant. Do you have, I'm sorry, do you have bucket O'Fri? May I have a bucket? How about this? I'll hold my arms like this, and you load it with fry. And I will walk out with, oh, you know what, I'll have the sack oh fries, like a little Santa sack filled with fries.

As I have gotten older, I can actually feel the amount of salt enter my body and slowly begin to change the chemical makeup of what I'm experiencing and I can't do it. Oh, that sucks

just to know that that's coming. Yeah, nothing hits like a medium french fry and a medium diet Coke though. Oh, but now you say medium French fry, that is a respectable amount of fry. But the large fry, three quarters of the way through, I think

to myself, I believe I'm having a pulmonary embolism. I'll eat a bucket of fries for the both of us, John. Yeah. And I miss it. You know what I've taken to doing at times? You get the fries and you do this. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I get the fries and I do this. Oh, no, no, no. I have to clear out whatever, whatever they put on that. That's dark. Wait, have you had a Burger King onion ring? Oh, sure. Okay. Oh, listen, I've traveled.

Is that what you're asking me? Has he traveled the world? Of course he has. Am I a Bon Vivant? Am I a sophisticated? Of course I've had the, and I've, by the way, I've even had when they try shit like, let's do cheesy tots, like when they'll introduce new fried items or things like that.

I'll try them all. Why not? I'll try the synabon with the little frosting in the center of it. Yeah. Fuck yeah. fucking Taco Bell tried to throw out a chocolate empanata for a little while. Yeah. Sort of like a chaco taco.

Thank you, Julie. I always wondered who those advertisements worked on. You're looking at him. Me. I'll try them all. I'll throw it. But I am always searching for the perfection of, in my old days, when I ate breadmeat, the McDonald's cheeseburger, a large fry, Coke. and an apple pie.

Ooh. That was the quintessential American lab made. I'm sure it was made in a lid, like the same lab that where you made creepy crawlies, where you poured the stuff into the thing and then you heated it up and out came a worm. I'm sure it was the same lab. The 60s and 70s were nothing, if not, monosodium, glutamate and whatever else they could throw in there. They figured it out.

So good. All right. Well, that's all for us. And this is it. The show, we are done until, what? Do you know when the next one is? September? September 10th.

Thursday. We'll be out on a Thursday that week. Switching it up. We're switching it up, September 10th. To all the people that have been listening throughout the year, thank you all so much for doing so. We're excited to come back in September. and infuriate you even further.

As always, we could not do it without our exceptional team. And we have added a new team member, I would like to say. A new associate producer by the name of Rebecca Rotenberg, she'll be joining us doing a wonderful job. But our producer, Brittany Mehmedevick, our producer, Jillion Spear, our video editor and engineer Rob Vatolo, who made a headroom call today that I thought was well worth. I got a little lax, and I came in hot with a shit ton of headroom.

And Rob said, not on my watch, my friend. Not going to happen. Audio editor and engineer, Nicole Boyce, associate producer Rebecca Rodenberg, as we mentioned earlier, and our executive producer is Chris McShane and Katie Gray. Thank you guys so much, and we shall see you in September. The weekly show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bus Boy Productions.

Podcasts. Thank you.