11/3/25: Kash Defends Private Jet Use, Israel Explodes Over Prisoner Abuse, GOP Civil War Erupts

15:02Krystal Ball:and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope.

15:10Saagar Enjeti:We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated.

15:23Krystal Ball:Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

15:44Saagar Enjeti:Let's get to Israel, our great ally. Let me give you some of the backstory here for you guys who don't recall. We can put these images up on the screen. A horrific video leaked a while back showing the abuse, including sexual abuse, of this Palestinian hostage. You can see the way that the IDF there, and this was in this notorious Siditayman prison facility. And so once this comes out and they go to actually arrest these men who were involved in this abuse and this rape, What you saw there was a riot broke out, a right to rape riot broke out in Israel, including some politicians from the governing coalition and the ruling party who were involved in this, who were not upset about the abuse.

16:31Saagar Enjeti:No, of course, they weren't upset about that. They were upset that there might be any sort of charges and accountability, even some sort of bogus sham investigation, which is what it has totally turned out to be. They were horrified that there would be any recriminations against anyone that was involved with the literal sexual abuse of a Palestinian prisoner that they were holding there. By the way, this was not a one-off. This was not a one-off. We've seen numerous reports from international organizations, testimony from people who have come out of this facility in particular, but others as well.

17:06Saagar Enjeti:We've seen New York Times reporting about the systematic rape and sexual abuse of Palestinians being held by the IDF. So what happened here, apparently, is, you know, if you want to avoid getting the ICC involved as a country, you have to show that you are taking seriously the allegations against your own people, any sort of like war crime allegations against your own people. So Israel will occasionally do these like sham investigations effectively to try to keep their image of, oh, no, we're the you know, we're democracy in the Middle East. We anything that goes wrong. We have accountability, et cetera, et cetera.

17:42Saagar Enjeti:So this was so bad that the video was leaked and they did this sham investigation. By the way, all of these guys continue to be free, et cetera. Okay. So what has happened since then? Let's put D3 up on the screen next to give you the backstory here. So it has been revealed who it was, this IDF legal chief who ended up leaking the video. So first, her name is Military Advocate General Yafat Tomer Yerushalmi. So first, she resigns. Then she actually disappears, and they found what appeared to be a potential suicide note in her car because there is this mass backlash in Israeli society, not, again, over the abuse of these prisoners, but of the fact that she leaked this video so that the world could see what was actually going on.

18:35Saagar Enjeti:So the headline here, IDF legal chief avoided probes into the Gaza war crime, citing right-wing backlash, sources say, amid resignation. So just so you understand who this lady is, this is not some, you know, lefty, liberal person. This is someone who avoided in significant instances, including the strike on the World Central Kitchen workers, workers, including on multiple hospital strikes that killed civilians, including reporters. This is someone who buried all of that and refused to investigate all of those things. Why? Because she was worried about right wing backlash. So now that we have the information that she was the one who leaked this video, they are calling for her head.

19:18Saagar Enjeti:And I mean, literally all the way up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself. Let's go ahead and show D2. So Bibi is saying here that the rape of the Israeli soldiers, the Palestinian prisoners in Sidi Teman, caused enormous damage to the image of the state of Israel and the Israeli army and our soldiers. This may be, he says, the most difficult propaganda attack that the state of Israel has faced since its establishment. I don't recall an incident centered with this degree of force. This requires an independent investigation not affiliated with any party, and I expect such an investigation to be conducted.

19:52Saagar Enjeti:And then at bottom, you see the image of the rapist. This is them publishing a photo boasting while masked after a press conference so as not to be identified and prosecuted judicially abroad. And the most important thing this person says is that in all of Israel, no one is talking about the heinousness of the rape, but rather the anger is focused only on the leak of the videos that expose the crime. And this is what really bothers them. I mean, just what a twisted, what a twisted society that there's no ups. I mean, listen, we got it. We criticize this country all the time. You know, when the Abu Ghraib photos came out, that was a genuine scandal.

20:30Saagar Enjeti:Right. Oh, people were horrified by it. OK, now you have this come out. This isn't a scandal that these soldiers were raping Palestinians. The scandal is that the information came out and they are calling for literal lynch mobs against this woman. and she's going to be charged. And, you know, has already had to resign, is like threatening suicide because she's so, you know, terrified of what they're going to do to her societally. Completely insane story.

20:55Krystal Ball:Most Americans are good people. During Abu Ghraib, even, you know, Iraq, invade Iraq, war, you know, chest beating warrior people were all still horrified by the video. And there were bipartisan outrage over what happened. And, I mean, I remember even the names of some of those interrogators. Those were household names here in the United States. Over there, yeah, not so much because they want to protect them, I guess. The whole thing is just so crazy. And it's just so funny from Netanyahu to be like, this is one of the worst things that's ever happened in the history of the state of Israel. The leak of the video, again, to be clear.

21:33Saagar Enjeti:Which she, it's not like she put it out because she was really like concerned about what was going on there. she was worried about the ICC getting involved. That's what all of this was meant to forestall. Like the video was out there. The abuse was undeniable. And so this was an attempt to, you know, be able to, okay, we'll do our investigation. Don't worry. We care about these. We totally care about these things. And so that was the course that she ultimately took. And then, as I said before, you know, the reporting from Haratz was that she passed on a bunch of investigations. And her whole thing was to bury things, to cover them up, to delay, to push them off.

22:11Saagar Enjeti:Even things like, you guys remember all of the tumult over the World Central Kitchen strike.

22:16Krystal Ball:Yeah, it was huge.

22:16Saagar Enjeti:Because it was huge news, Jose Andres involved. You know, there was, the Biden administration was concerned, like, because people knew this guy. And the Israelis promised there would be this investigation. This is the lady that buried all of that. So that's who we're talking about. And even that is not enough, because she didn't just completely cover up and bury every single instance of Israeli war crimes.

22:37Krystal Ball:It's literally like a mob that's running the show over there. It's crazy. It's just so crazy. And at the very same time, there's like this whole fight over here about pro-Israel support, and it's a Western country, and it's Nord. They're just like us. They're actually better than us. They have a better military. They're safer. They conduct things in a more humane and humanitarian way. Again, I don't know how you can look at this. There's only one case for Israel now at this point, which is like the uber hawk like Zionist case where they're like, yeah, they do whatever they want to do. It's like a right wing authoritarian ish type government.

23:13Krystal Ball:And they back us up. So we should back them up. It's like the same argument you would make on Saudi Arabia. I can accept that. I don't like I don't believe it. I think it's wrong. And I think that costs us much more. There's no liberal Zionist case anymore for this country, in my opinion. Like it's dead. It's over. not just in terms of the war, but also in terms of the way that their entire society is structured. And clearly the democratic out, that's another thing. How can we just deny it at this point? These Israeli people very clearly had no issue with the war in Gaza. They just like really didn't care.

23:43Krystal Ball:We need to accept that. That's just, that's just reality.

23:46Saagar Enjeti:They had differences opinion on how to handle the hostage. That's it. Yeah.

23:50Krystal Ball:Like that's basically it. So be it. I mean, again, I can kind of understand where they're, how they got there, just given their history and their media environment. I don't agree with it, but whatever. We need to accept that that is genuinely the democratic direction of the Israeli government. But now here you see a literal breakdown in the thing that they sell to us about why they're so different than the rest of the people in the Middle East. I've said this now for several months. I think they're all pretty much exactly the same. They're the same. And so don't be coming to me talking about barbarism and all that stuff elsewhere.

24:21Krystal Ball:We're the children of the light.

24:22Saagar Enjeti:I'm just like, okay, listen. The children of the Right, or the ones having right to grape riots.

24:27Krystal Ball:I would happily just deal with you in the same way that we deal with all other Middle Eastern countries. What's in it for us and what's not. And right now, the fact that an entire axis of U.S. politics is literally determined to protect this country from its own mistakes and to give them shelter at the ICC, the international core, to take over their problems in Gaza, to spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the last several decades to justify and contort our own moral image and political rhetoric, to justify the bombing, the deaths of tens of thousands of women and children for purposes that, again, remain complete.

25:03Krystal Ball:completely mysterious in terms of any beneficial to us, not to mention, you know, the horrific scenes that we all see. I just, it's, there's no words for this. And the only word is to ignore it, which is what the entire Western press is doing about this. There's not a word. No. Okay. Not one word about any of this stuff. You wouldn't even know. Ask your average Zio supporter. Do you know about this rape case in America? They won't know anything. Yeah. Literally. There's more controversy in Israel than there is here. Yeah, it's crazy.

25:33Saagar Enjeti:True. And to your point about the liberal Zionist case being dead, which I think is reflected in the Democratic Party base and how much they have just completely they're like, this is disgusting. It's a genocide. We don't want anything to do with this country. Here's, you know, an instance for D5 up on the screen here. This is Ben Kavir. And you can see him, you know, pointing at these hostages, Palestinian hostages who are there handcuffed, zip tied, you know, on the floor face down. And what he says here is, do you see them? This is how they are now. But one thing remains to be done, and that is to execute them.

26:12Saagar Enjeti:OK, those are our great allies, the great Western style democracy in the Middle East. So, you know, don't don't kid yourself about what this government is. And don't kid yourself about what the society supports at this point, because this is this is the reality that we're dealing with.

26:28Krystal Ball:Yeah, I don't even know. No words for it. Seriously. Absolutely none. Whatever.

26:33Saagar Enjeti:Hi, this is Joe Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver.

26:44Krystal Ball:The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men.

26:50Saagar Enjeti:Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving, and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership.

27:10Krystal Ball:He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms on different houses in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all.

27:18Saagar Enjeti:If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

27:54Saagar Enjeti:I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain.

28:15Krystal Ball:It's about engineering consciousness.

28:16Saagar Enjeti:Mind Games is the story of NLP. its crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

28:44Saagar Enjeti:What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul. A place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life. Celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks.

29:02Krystal Ball:And we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope.

29:09Saagar Enjeti:We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated.

29:22Krystal Ball:Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

29:43Krystal Ball:Speaking of Israel, it is now destroying the Republican Party much in the same way that it absolutely destroyed the Democratic Party. And it's exposing a schism between the party elites, the people in power, the old guard and the younger generation, which is increasingly going in two dramatically different directions. And there is a full blown campaign right now amongst Republican Party elites to cancel Tucker Carlson and really also to just silence any critics of Israel. Let's get specifically to the recent Republican Jewish coalition meeting here in Washington, where multiple speakers took the podium to denounce Tucker Carlson to justify support for Israel.

30:20Krystal Ball:Let's take a listen first to Randy Fine. Today, Tucker Carlson is the most dangerous anti-Semite in America. Multiple speakers have talked about the rise of anti-Semitism on the right. But it is not enough to speak in platitudes or generalities about the fight. We must call evil by its name. It's chosen to take on the mantle of leader of a modern day Hitler youth, to broadcast and feature those who celebrate the Nazis, those who call for the extermination of Israel, to defend Hamas, to even criticize President Trump for stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions. Yes, how dare you criticize President Trump for stopping.

31:04Saagar Enjeti:Anyway, that was they had Tucker is not maggot signs printed up.

31:09Krystal Ball:Right. Not an op whatsoever. Right. Clearly not designed to Kinko's in a room of 150 people there, by the way, did not just was it just the self-described Hebrew hammer of Senate of Republican Randy Fine. We also had Mark Levin, a very vocal supporter of Israel, openly supporting cancellation, deplatforming. Let's take a listen. Hitler admires, Stalin admires, Jew haters, American haters, Churchill haters. You're damn right we're going to cancel them and deplatform them. It's called the market system. They don't have a lifetime job like a bureaucrat who we're going to protect. And if they're your friend, there's something wrong with you.

31:50Krystal Ball:No Hitler admirer, Holocaust denier, platformer should be anybody's friend, as a matter of fact. You don't get to wrap your psychotic, mental, unhinged, Nazi, Klan, jihadist bullshit around American patriotism.

32:19Krystal Ball:You don't get to claim your MAGA and America First when you're lining up with the Marxists and the Islamists and Hamas and the terrorists. That's not America First. That's sick. We're going to cancel. We're going to deplatform them. And then finally, my personal favorite pitch from Lindsey Graham about what MAGA really is all about. Take a listen in his own words. I feel good about the Republican Party.

32:44Saagar Enjeti:I feel good about where we're going as a nation. We're killing all the right people and we're cutting your taxes. So to those who worry about these stupid interviews and far off places, don't worry. The Republican Party has figured it out when it comes to Israel. We understand that Israel is a friend of America to the bitter end.

33:09Krystal Ball:We are cutting your taxes and we are killing all the right people. That is now Lindsey Graham's pitch for what MAGA is all about. And all of this is in the context, the fallout of the Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes interview, which has caused like massive consternation here in Washington. Let's go and put this up here from Heritage Foundation, which previously put out a video, which you guys covered on Friday, in defense of Tucker Carlson, but also saying I disagree with Nick Fuentes. Here's like a long, tortured statement from Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage, saying yesterday I said I abhorred views by Nick Fuentes and a long thing about racism and anti-Semitism are not relics of the past.

33:52Krystal Ball:Actually, anti-Semitism and all that is a huge problem. Let me just zoom out and kind of give my general take about what's happening here. This is the same thing that happened in the Democratic Party. Israel has been ripping apart the coalition from the beginning, which is young people who are skeptical of war, who are also deeply concerned about the financial system and the traditional three-legged stool party elites. Trump was a Band-Aid during the campaign, which could somehow convince an RFK Tulsi supporter to vote for him in addition to the Republican Jewish coalition and others who say he's the most pro-Israel president of all time.

34:26Krystal Ball:Why did that fall apart? Because like Biden, you're not just in the campaign anymore. You have power. When you have power, you make discrete choices. You made a discrete choice to support Israel. In the vacuum of that, what the Republican Party elites did is throughout the entire Biden administration and the early Trump administration, any critic of the government of Israel and of U.S. support for Israel was branded anti-Semitic from the beginning. There was a concerted effort to make sure any critique of Donald Trump on the state of Israel was entirely anti-Semitic. So what happened with a significant portion of young podcast, curious young dudes who were pro-Trump and who were anti-war?

35:06Krystal Ball:Where do you think that they started to seek out some of their Israel and Trump criticism? That's kind of a secondary part. And this is a sickness that is currently in MAGA media. Nobody is ever able, who is quote unquote pro-Trump or who is not a leftist, to just say basic critiques about Trump administration. And so there is also a huge appetite for people who are critical of Trump, not even just say from the right, but who are not leftists. That's what a lot of people who voted for Trump and who disagree with what they say want to hear. That is the vacuum through which Mr. Fuentes has been able to resuscitate much of his image.

35:40Krystal Ball:Let's all remember where Nick Fuentes is before October 7th. He was working on the Kanye campaign doing screeds about, you know, whatever, black IQ or whatever on his show. OK, that's where he was. And yes, he was canceled to within an inch of his life. He was off Twitter. Elon unbanned him. There's a perfect circumstance that led to October 7th and the re-rise, let's say, on Twitter. But though, this is what drives me crazy about the whole thing. They act like it came out of a vacuum. It is a creation of the unending cancellation rhetoric from the Zionist right that has now pervaded all of politics for the last two years, which has pushed people to the point where any criticism of the state of Israel is conflated with anti-Semitism.

36:27Krystal Ball:The definition itself no longer means almost anything to anyone, and they don't want to hear it anymore. And then finally, this kind of gets to the whole rhetoric thing. I saw this from Dave Smith. How can I be lectured about racial politics and divisive language after watching these people cheer on the deaths of starving children over the last two? So you're going to lecture me about morality and about race politics when you support an explicitly racially aligned state in the Middle East and you create your whole identity around this? You have no moral authority over me to lecture me about how my country should act in relation to this other.

37:09Krystal Ball:That is the vacuum through which this has all been created. And there's so many, I know so many young people. They're not leftists. And yes, even with Israel, they're not, you know, genocide posters or keffi-awareers at protests. They're just disgusted this is being done, both in our name and that we're paying for it, and of the obsession of foreign politicians while they have an inability to succeed financially in this country. That's the entire thing that is about it. So that's the schism. Charlie Kirk was doing his best, by the way, to try to maintain this. And his loss, really, what has erupted, you know, I think, shows how frankly valuable he was to the state of Israel, I think in his ability to try and to square the circle.

37:48Krystal Ball:But this conflict was inevitable because of the situation that they created. And so, I don't know. I just, I can't stand like so many of this Randy, I mean, think about the things Randy Fine, Randy Fine said he wants to nuke Gaza. You're going to lecture me about morality? He called for them all to be starved. He called for them to be starved. And you're going to lecture me about Hitlerism and about racism and morality police? It's like, fuck you, you know? And this is a long way before, because this is what I want to make sure. I'm not saying I'm no fan of Mr. Fuente, who probably thinks I should be denaturalized and deported and that my interracial marriage is horrible, right?

38:32Krystal Ball:But, you know, I can also sociologically understand why so many people would find that type of rhetoric very convincing and entertaining, frankly. Who else? I mean, me, a few others who can criticize Trump. There's not very many of us out there who can say it legitimately. And there's a massive appetite for it. Look at Theo. Look at Andrew Schultz. Look at Tim Dillon. You know, all of these guys who were Trump curious and are now very critical. There's a massive audience for it. And then finally, people are blaming Fuentes Tucker and others. That is not why kids in MAGA hats at Ole Miss are showing up to TPUSA events asking about Israel.

39:12Krystal Ball:It's not. You can convince yourself all day long that that's the case. You could literally deplatform Fuentes and that he would never have a platform ever again. Those kids would still be showing up there. You have a reality problem in this entire thing. And this is an unsquarable circle right now in the current, in current politics. It just does not, it's not capable, frankly, of being squared with the current Republican Party elites, which are in power.

39:35Saagar Enjeti:I mean, I think the cat is out of the bag. And in terms of, you know, your assertion that these young guys would still be showing up and asking questions about Israel, whatever. But I also think a lot of those guys are Fuentes fans and they are Grovers. And he is incredibly he is incredibly influential among young Republicans and young Republican men specifically. I think the point that you're making is that effectively Republican elites have lost the moral standing to gatekeep in any way. So even when it comes to a literal Nazi, which Nick Fuentes is, I mean, he is a Holocaust denier. He does love Hitler.

40:10Saagar Enjeti:Like, you know, back in Kanye, as he said, I love it, all that. Right. He is those things. And yet, because, number one, they have the elites of the party have supported an outright genocide that's happening in our timelines. Number two, because they've tried to conflate any criticism whatsoever of our foreign policy vis-a-vis Israel as anti-Semitism, they have lost any moral standing to gatekeep and say this is the bounds of acceptable discourse within the Republican Party. I think that's a problem because I actually do think that you should keep Nazis out of your coalition. I actually do think that that should be a line that you can draw.

40:46Saagar Enjeti:And obviously, like they have completely failed through their abuse of the term anti-Semitism to maintain any sort of moral legitimacy. And not just through the use of the term, but also through their own actions. I mean, you point to Randy Fine. You can look at what this administration is doing. you have lost any ability to tell people this is where the line is and this is what is acceptable and I think it's a real problem because you know that Tucker that Tucker Fuentes interview first of all Tucker before he interviewed Nick was going very hard in the paint saying he's a gay loser who lives in his mom's basement then when they're face to face very patty cakes you know I would just explain to me in your own words not bringing up any of the specific things that he said for him to have to grapple with.

41:34Saagar Enjeti:And Fuentes realizes he's got this opening because guess what? If your narrative of the world is like the Jews are the problem for everything, you know, the fact that the state of Israel and their defenders have done their damnedest to conflate every Jew in the world with their genocidal actions is doing half of the propaganda battle for Nick Fuentes. they are doing that. So then he can say, I agree. I agree that Israel is equivalent to the Jews and just look at what they're doing and look at how our politicians are acting. So through our complicity in this genocide and through our pushing of the propaganda that yes, every Jew has to be conflated with the horrors that are being done in their name, that also helped to solidify the opening for Nick Fuentes.

42:23Saagar Enjeti:And here's the other dynamic in politics. Like Tucker will, you know, Tucker, especially when he was on Fox, I don't know how much he does it now, but especially when he was on Fox, he talked all about the great replacement theory, saying replacement, replacement, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He does enough to give himself plausible deniability because the grander part of that conspiracy is that it is Jews leading the great replacement theory to replace whites.

42:46Krystal Ball:He did not say that. No, Sagar, let me finish my point.

42:49Saagar Enjeti:He doesn't say that part, Right. He uses you know, it keeps it on the like, oh, it's a political project of the elites. Maybe it says like the global elites, but he maintains this plausible deniability. Guess what? The person who actually comes in and says the frickin thing. And that's Nick Fuentes, who says it's the Jews who are coming in to replace the white people. The person who actually says the thing out loud, they are going to be the ones who win that rhetorical debate. This is what Trump seized on in 2015, 2016 with his rise. the things that Fox News would dog whistle and hint at, he would come out and say.

43:23Saagar Enjeti:So that's the dynamic that's going on right now with Tucker and Fuentes and Candace. And that's why, you know, I think Hanania and his assertion that like this is the direction of the Republican Party. I think he's right because what you think Mark Levin is going to be able to pull this back? You feel like who's going to be the person that's going to say, no, this is too far. We don't want to be an actual Nazi party.

43:43Krystal Ball:Let's talk about why he's why I think that Hanania is right in a sense. I think what he's right in a sense is that the Republican Party establishment doesn't have legitimacy for a significant portion of young people. Not everyone are a bunch of leftists. OK, many of us have like very I mean, you know, even the framing, frankly, about immigration that you just gave. Like there is a legitimate case to be made about immigration apportionment and the census. That's not a grand Jewish conspiracy. It's reality in terms of the way that the demographic change of our population happened under the Biden administration.

44:12Krystal Ball:We've had endless arguments about that. But there's a non-racial case, which I believe most people who voted for Trump on immigration actually do believe whenever they want to control of our border and particularly to want to know that and think that that's an insane system. Now, however, what has happened is that under the Trump administration, with their flagrant basically conflation of Jewish identity with the state of Israel, which, by the way, Trump says himself all the time, oh, these Jews don't even support me, even though I'm so pro-Israel. I was like, bro, what?

44:42Saagar Enjeti:Maybe there's more to that than just Israel support.

44:45Krystal Ball:But also, the Israel supporters do it themselves. John Putheritz, who is from Nepo Baby commentary writer, literally tweeted that Trump can say Shylock all he wants because he bombed Iran. So Trump can say the word Shylock, which according to him is an anti-Jewish slur, because he did a foreign policy action which is beneficial to the state of Israel. So you're the ones who created this reality. So to the extent then that the whole Republican Party is going in this direction. Again, why is that? Because young people, particularly a lot of young men, are deeply angry at the state of the country.

45:23Krystal Ball:They feel as if they cannot advance. The reason that they cannot advance is because of a bipartisan establishment elite. They also do not feel that they will ever be able to make enough money to support themselves and get married, even though they want to. A lot of these guys desperately want to get married. Many of them, by the way. Let's even look at the entire phenomenon of spending all your time online getting into racial politics. That is loser behavior. And it is downstream of gaming, pornography, marijuana, spending all your time by yourself. Why do you think I rage against all this stuff?

45:55Krystal Ball:Because it creates these maladjusted, so antisocial freaks who, by the way, in all of society, when you have underemployed, angry young men, what direction does politics go? This is not to excuse it. This is simply to show you where things are headed. This is why I rail against degenerate libertine society because I understand the consequences of it. And we've seen it dramatically throughout history. And then finally to like the conservative point about why did Kevin Roberts, why is TPUSA having these issues? Why? Because it's a bottom-up phenomenon. I can't tell you from my criticism of the state of Israel and more.

46:34Krystal Ball:I get more private support than probably on any other issue. I agree with you. I agree. But they can't say it because their jobs depend on it. That's not an anti-Jewish conspiracy. That's reality, is that even if you are an econ staffer at a conservative think tank, if you have a dissident's view of Israel, you're dead, okay? You're not getting a job. You're not going to get a job in the Trump administration. You're never going to work again in this town. That's a reality they created. That's not an anti-Semitic point. That's just simply, again, a statement of fact. And that is slowly bubbling up.

47:04Krystal Ball:And then let's take Tucker on top of all of this. Tucker, who is the most, in my opinion, influential. I mean, look, actually just go look at the download charts. Number one conservative podcast in the entire country. Far outpaces everyone else. In the conversation with Fuentes, I personally would have liked to see him more critical. I'll say it. And Tucker is a great friend and I support him. I liked being on his show and I hope to be back on again. I wish he had been a little bit more critical of him. Because I know he can do it. Look at the Ted Cruz stuff, right? He's a master in a phenomenal person.

47:33Saagar Enjeti:If he wants to be.

47:34Krystal Ball:The thing that comes down to it is that the friend-enemy distinction is becoming much more difficult because you have to also consider the way that they have tried to destroy his own life. They literally, with Tucker, I mean there was recently this Daily Mail piece where they said Tucker Carlson, quote, needs to be neutralized. That's the type of rhetoric that is now coming from the more Zionist right wing. They're calling him Hitler Youth. They're saying the most dangerous anti-Semite in the country. Genuinely like an all-out campaign to destroy his business, to destroy his personal life, to destroy anybody who's associated with him.

48:10Krystal Ball:That mentally, I'm saying because I suffer from this too. For me, man, it is like whenever they want me to cancel somebody else, especially for the whole Israel thing, I have a lot of difficulty with it. I really do because of the level of vitriol that I have gotten. I can't even criticize the Barry Weiss deal without being bombarded with you're a Jew hater, right? As if I care that Barry Weiss is Jewish, that it has anything to do with it. No, it's only about Israel. I don't care about any of that. And so I'm saying from my own personal experience, the level of personal vitriol that you get as somebody who is in any way more on the right wing end of the spectrum, critical of Israel, I think it might be 10 times worse than from the Democratic side.

48:51Krystal Ball:Like the level of money, the amount of personal just nastiness that comes away times me by 100. And that's where Tucker Carlson is currently sitting. That's, you know, this is why it is just like these people deserve everything that's coming to them. They created this reality. And then there's also politics on top of this, which is somebody who tries to run on the mantle of Trump again in 2028 and who especially wants to win back these young people. I think this is a nonstarter. I really do. Because the Israel question, if you cannot answer independently and honestly, you can still be pro-Israel, but you have to be able to admit certain things.

49:28Krystal Ball:Like that kid said, ethnic cleansing. If you can't say those types of words and you just, you know, little Washington platitudes, that is a message that you are either controlled, part of the system, and we can't have that anymore when we're young. Not when my health insurance is going up by 20%. And I'm 99 % sure that if you get elected and you talk that way, that you're going to be shipping bombs there and there's not a dollar coming my way or anybody else. That's why it's not just about Israel. It's about control. The Democrats are figuring this out right now. And I think the Republicans, they're in for a rude awakening.

50:01Krystal Ball:And if you don't give an inch, then yes, Fuentes will be more popular than ever. It's not an inevitability. That's the irony of it. I just said pre-October 7th, you're working for Kanye. You're doing nothing, all right? But the reality of Israel criticism being slowly pushed out, How else do you think Myron Gaines and Nick Fuentes and Dan Bilzerian? I mean, Bilzerian, nobody even heard of the guy for five, six years before that. He was selling vapes with girls in bikinis. Now he's literally doing nothing, playing poker, I guess, whatever it is he does. Now, all of a sudden, Israel comes out of nowhere.

50:37Krystal Ball:This was the back, the niche that they were able to fill because of the reality that they created. And then for many people who are not racist, anti-Semitic or anything, for many of us, I mean, the personal vitriol smear campaign and as you and I know privately, public or private campaign as well in terms of what has been used against us. It's one of those where, you know, I talked about this in my interview with Tucker. You have to fight every day not to become the thing that they want you to be. They want you to hate Jews. They want you to fulfill their conspiracy. They want me to give a diatribe about global Jewry or anything.

51:17Krystal Ball:And I'm not going to do it. You know, I don't believe it. I think it's ridiculous. But they want us to become the mirror image of what they are.

51:25Saagar Enjeti:Well, because it proves their point. And this point Ryan's made, which I think is true and also is something that has been true since the foundation of the state of Israel. The state of Israel and the government benefits from a rise in genuine anti-Semitism because then they're propaganda. about we have to have a safe space for Jews, like that has more credibility. If you see, you know, Myron Gaines, when the like Nazi posting or I guess internal group chat of the quote unquote young Republicans came out, he was like, we're done with this. Yeah, we like Hitler now. We're gonna say it. Like, that's who we're talking about.

51:59Saagar Enjeti:I mean, just so you guys know, we're not just casually throwing around the tantrum antisemitism. These are people who genuinely are like, Hitler was based. We like Hitler. We support him. Talk about the global Jewry, Like, you know, really like go full out with the great replacement theory is led by Jews. I mean, all in the most anti-Semitic shit you could possibly imagine. That's what we're talking about here. And so, yeah, I mean, on the Democratic side, you've had effectively the Israelis have kind of like given up on Democrats. You know, the base of the Democratic Party is 90 percent against Israel at this point.

52:37Saagar Enjeti:80 percent say it's a genocide. side, like there's a huge disconnect between the leadership, the elite electeds of the Democratic Party and the base that is being sorted out right now as we speak. And the writing is on the wall. Yeah. The part of the reason why in the Republican side, it's so incredibly fierce and contested right now is number one, because Trump's in power. So he's the one who's actually like doing the stuff. But number two, because you do still have a majority of Republicans who are very Israel supportive. You know, if you are over the age of, let's say, 40 in the Republican Party, you still have that very like they're our ally sort of Cold War mentality.

53:13Saagar Enjeti:We're with them no matter what. You buy the propaganda. You probably haven't really thought about it all that much. Right. It just yes, we support Israel, period, end of story. And certainly the you know, the elites in the Republican Party are almost all lockstep on board with Israel no matter what. And like when the Democratic Party, a lot of the donors are very committed to Israel and that's their view as well. So that's why this is, I think, so like hot and fiercely contested within the Republican Party right now is because you do have even among the base, you have a genuine divide. We're still the majority is very pro-Israel.

53:53Saagar Enjeti:It's very generational, but the majority is still very pro-Israel. So that reckoning is going to take a long time to come.

53:59Krystal Ball:And it is all generational. And I mean, let's also just consider like some like they literally support Israel, many of these people for religious reasons. And then they get mad when Tucker was like, I think it's heresy to purport your dispensationalist view of the Bible to say that the political state of Israel is described there. And that's why we must support that, as he showed with Ted Cruz. Why is that an anti-Semitic? point. Why is that even an anti-Christian talking point? You're not allowed, Tucker is not allowed to debate Christian questions of theology. That's the reality. I mean, this is what they're creating.

54:34Krystal Ball:They're doing all of the, you know, the cancel culture, de-platforming discourse from Mark Levin and others. They are no different, you know, than any of the woke left was on the issue of race at the height of 2020. And that's also, I think that's another thing that really gets a lot of us is if you don't religiously care about Israel, you can't help but look at the same tactics by so many of the pro-Israel supporters to the same woke leftists on the issue of race who we despise.

55:06Saagar Enjeti:And here we're not talking about trying to cancel Nick Fuentes. We're talking about trying to cancel Dave Smith. Yes! People who just have a legitimate critique of Israel or yourself or myself or whatever, where it's like you can't even say these things because I think there's a case for canceling Nick Fuentes. I think there's a case for like it actually did work better when he was deplatformed. He had a lot less power. Now, the moment is different, et cetera. But, you know, I do think that there are lines that should be appropriate to draw on society. And maybe being an overt Nazi is one that we could talk about.

55:35Saagar Enjeti:It's difficult. But with what your point is, is that they drew the line at you literally cannot you cannot protest Israel. You can't write an op ed about Israel. You can't talk about it at all. If you do, you're Hamas. You know, everybody's Hamas. Everything that is negative about Israel is Hamas, etc. And if you're going to try to draw the line there, then, yeah, people are going to say, and again, this is not defending because, again, we're talking earlier about personal responsibility, like these people are responsible for their stupid, hateful Nazi views. But if you're going to try to draw the line there, yeah, people are going to say your anti-Semitic smear doesn't work.

56:09Saagar Enjeti:And by the way, you're like actually low-key convincing me of the most extreme position, the actual hateful position on this issue.

56:16Krystal Ball:Absolutely. And look, the cancellation thing, like we talked about Charlie Kirk. I mean, everybody does believe in a little bit of cancel culture. And if we're all being honest, the question I also think comes back to political effectiveness. And I can't just help but point to the pre-October 7th consensus of where things were. That is the reality is different. And that's, again, I just want to bring it back to Dave, who recently had a debate with somebody. And they were like, oh, Nick Fuentes said that. And he was just like, again, what is more damaging to society, to norms, is edgy, trolling, and in some cases genuine racism and overt pro-Naziism?

56:53Krystal Ball:Or cheering on and politically supporting the slaughter of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, and using our money and perverting our political system on that question? It's pretty obvious to me which one that is. This is not a defense. Again, these people hate my guts. They think I'm some, you know, they'll call me a jeet. They'll call me, you know, whatever. My child, they'll say, is a mongrel, okay? So fuck them, all right? I have no, you know, political ground or any of that to be made whenever it comes. But, you know, the question comes back to - They're also not murdering babies.

57:29Krystal Ball:Bingo, right? So, yeah, where's your moral high ground? And unlike them, you know what I think? We still have to live together. We all need to live together in this country. and, you know, to borrow an AOC-type leftist talking point in many respects, if you hold those views, I feel bad for you. I pity you. I genuinely think most of the time you are that way because you got dealt a very shit hand in life. And yes, you have absolute and personal agency for the horrific things that you believe. And yes, on a personal level, if you ever said that to my face, I would probably beat the shit out of you if I could.

58:03Krystal Ball:But at a major sociological view, I can and do understand how people with views like that, first of all, should be overtly condemned on a personal level. And we should do everything we possibly can to prevent it. And I can understand how with our libertine, disgusting, degenerate society of gambling and all the other things, that we will create 10 times more of people who hold those types of views. Which is why I go to war with it.

58:28Saagar Enjeti:Well, my analysis leads to a different layer, which is that you have to deal with the material condition. Like people have to feel like they have a stake in society, like they're going to be able to succeed, like there's a path. Well, it's just not just success, but some sort of meaning, some sort of purpose. Right. Because if you don't have that, then it's going to you know, then, yeah, you're going to spend your life, you know, traveling, whatever, using whatever opiate your society has available to you at this moment. And the one thing our society is fantastic at generating right at this moment is high-octane opiates to all of us, you know, to get addicted to and colonize our minds and distract us and preoccupy us so we can get our minds off the fact for, you know, a lot of individuals that life looks very bleak.

59:15Saagar Enjeti:if you don't deal with that, then you are going to have ugly, hateful politics. And that's what we're seeing right now. And so especially, you know, if you have young people who come from middle class upbringings who, you know, were sold the you go to college and do the thing and take on all the debt and you're going to be able to get a good job. And then, oh, whoops, we created some AI and there are no jobs anymore. Like, how do you think this is going to go? so you know you have to on the one hand like abhor certainly the influencers the nick fuentes of the world who actually have power um you have to abhor that and i do think that you know i am more open to some like level of gatekeeping when it comes to and cancellation when it comes to overt nazis but i also understand you're not going to cancel your way out of this problem that's see that's

1:00:06Krystal Ball:why when people say cancellation i'm like listen you know what oh you literally here have an indian guy trying to make the case here for why that's not going to solve your issue. Why are we here? Like you, you can't ignore that. We have to live in this heterogeneous multicultural society, which was created. We have a lot of differing views about how to get there, but we have to live together. You can't actually cancel your way out of it. It's impossible. If we could have, it would have worked. Seriously. It absolutely would have worked.

1:00:34Saagar Enjeti:I will, I will maintain though that when Fuentes was canceled, he had a lot less power and he's, and I do think he, look, he's, he's like funny he's talented you know he has a hold on he has power i mean that's part of why you see so many right now on the right like you know having him on and having a little patty case they're afraid because he has a he not only has a significant audience but he has a lot of clout and sway with that audience and so if you're in the camp that has been israel critical you likely share a lot of fans with Nick Fuentes and you're a little nervous. I mean, these are the incentives and people can talk themselves into a lot of things, but your incentive is, let me be a little kid gloves here.

1:01:19Saagar Enjeti:Let me not piss off my own fan base. Let me, you know, let me not look like I'm some like loser, woke, scold, cuck, cringe, whatever. And so, you know, that's, that's part of what's going on here too. And Fuentes realizes he has this moment and he's trying to moderate, you know, with Tucker, he was, Oh no, I don't hate anybody, blah, blah, blah. It's like, Which is why you have to go back, okay, well, why did you say this about you? Why did you say this about black people? Why did you say they're all criminals? They should all be locked up, right? So he's trying to mainstream himself right now, and it's working.

1:01:49Saagar Enjeti:It's working.

1:01:49Krystal Ball:To the extent of the influencer point, you're definitely correct. But I actually really think a lot of this is friend-enemy. I think that's what it mostly is about. But, you know, I mean, this is something you all have to be careful of, is you all fall, you know, a lot of people fall for the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That's just not always the case, okay? Like sometimes you have to have a lot of personal agency to make sure you don't go down that hole. And that's why, you know, on a personal level, I really detest a lot of these people. And they've said some horrible, horrible things about me.

1:02:18Krystal Ball:But I can see it literally, like me personally, but also, you know, anybody who is Indian American. But the point I always come back to is I'm like, okay, this is really bad. And we need to make sure that this doesn't become like a bigger thing. Now, how do we make sure that that's become a bigger thing? Well, we take a look at why anybody would potentially even be influenced by this in the first place. Because you can't cancel your way out of this, especially now. It's out in the open. The gatekeeping shit, it doesn't work anymore. We literally live in the age of the printing press where anybody with a voice and a megaphone can get a voice at any time.

1:02:57Krystal Ball:Yes, perhaps there's some downsides to that, but there's a lot of benefits to it as well. And to the whole original point around free speech and you're talking about material conditions, I don't think that it's all that ultimately difficult to make sure that things don't go down this dark direction. You just have to have democratic legitimacy with the people. That's true. That is why there is so much despondency. When we think back to the early days of fascism in the 1930s and with Mussolini, you have to understand that the Weimar Republic was doing okay prior to the Great Depression. And it was a multifactorial decision ultimately to pursue the path of Nazism and of fascism in Italy.

1:03:43Krystal Ball:Most of it came back to the failure of the Treaty of Versailles. So a lack of faith in the political elite, the stab in the back theory that gains legitimacy, a lack of faith in the economic institutions, and a fundamental belief that this previous way of doing business was not a way to solve our problems and make it so that we can have any sort of legitimate say in our affairs, which is why people went down that road. You can go and read Richard Evans, the Richard Evans series on the Third Reich. It's one of the best series of books I've ever read. And when you read it, you will not justify it, but you will understand.

1:04:19Krystal Ball:And I think that that's what more people need to understand. I'm not, I don't, by the way, I don't think we're anywhere close to that, but I'm only, I'm only saying though, that to demographically try to understand and save your own country, you have to make sure that you don't create the same way that they tried to at that time of, oh, well, you know, they tried to solve it through violence or as you said, cancellation, right? Outlawing literal political party. They, they believe that that was a way that you could pursue your own ends. It wasn't true ultimately. So you have to learn from a lot of those things, You know, finally.

1:04:51Saagar Enjeti:And we have a successful example here.

1:04:52Krystal Ball:I was going to say, I have that Freedom from Fear book right behind me. And the reason I do is because that book is about how FDR saved America from a communist or a fascism, a fascist revolution. We were going down that road. I really believe that. In the 30s, we had an actual choice. Or if FDR had died in 1934, like in some sort of alternate history, things would have gone in a very bad direction. Yeah. But that's a real example, by the way, of how, you know, you can solve a lot of that. And there were serious similar problems at that time. What, you think anti-Semitism is a problem now? Go back to the 1930s.

1:05:28Krystal Ball:You think racism is a problem now? Listen, man, you have no idea what you're talking about from the rise of the KKK and all that at that time. Go take a look at any Confederate statue on any battlefield. It'll all say built in 1933. It's not an accident for why all of that came to be. So yes, study your own history and examples and see how you don't have to go down that direction. Do I have faith that any of our political leaders will go down that or take us out of this?

1:05:54Saagar Enjeti:No, I actually don't. These are the choices that are on the table. If anything, I don't know.

1:05:57Krystal Ball:Maybe this is like a live narration of our own downfall, but there you go. Dark sometimes. Okay, we'll see you later.

1:06:17Saagar Enjeti:Hi, it's Joe Interstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend, Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible. Dance with the change, dance with the breakdowns. The embodiment of Pisces intuition with Capricorn power moves. So I'm like delusionally proud of my chart. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

1:06:51Krystal Ball:This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Adventures of Curiosity Cove podcast, when peanut butter disappears from school, Ella, Scout, and Layla launch a full detective mission.

1:07:30Saagar Enjeti:Their search leads them back in time to meet a brilliant inventor whose curiosity changed the world. In this Black History Month adventure, asking questions, thinking creatively, can lead to amazing discoveries. Listen to Adventures of Curiosity Cove every Monday from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.