In short
Podcast Notes: Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Episode 12/4/25
Episode Overview Hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti discuss three main topics:
- A controversial conference regarding Israel featuring notable political figures.
- CNN's partnership with prediction market Kalshi.
- The legality and implications of naval strikes on drug boats.
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Segment 1
Israeli Conference Off The Rails
Key Highlights
- The hosts discuss a conference in Israel featuring Hillary Clinton and various political leaders, including John Fetterman and Eric Adams.
- Hillary Clinton's Comments:
- Criticizes young people's understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict, attributing it to reliance on social media, particularly TikTok.
- Claims that students lack historical context about the conflict and are influenced by biased narratives.
Discussion Points
- Generational Divide:
- Hosts argue that young people's perspectives on Israel are shifting due to increased access to information and social media.
- More young people are becoming educated on the conflict, often leading to a negative perception of Israeli actions.
- Critique of Liberal Zionism:
- Saagar emphasizes that the current narrative has shifted to recognizing the injustices faced by Palestinians.
- The hosts highlight the disconnect between established political figures and younger voters who are experiencing cognitive dissonance regarding US support for Israel.
Key Takeaway The ongoing violence and humanitarian crisis in Gaza has changed the discourse surrounding Israel, causing younger generations to re-evaluate their stance significantly.
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Segment 2
CNN Partners with Kalshi
Overview
- CNN's partnership with Kalshi, a prediction market, raises concerns about the implications of betting on news events.
Discussion Points
- Potential for Corruption:
- The hosts express concern that financializing opinions and events may distort truth and lead to manipulation.
- Krystal highlights how the sports betting model has already impacted the integrity of sports and could do the same for news.
Key Concepts
- Dangers of Prediction Markets:
- The potential to incentivize misinformation and deepen societal polarization.
- Creates a scenario where individuals are financially invested in the outcome of opinions rather than seeking truthful information.
Key Takeaway The partnership signifies a troubling trend where news and betting intersect, leading to ethical concerns regarding the integrity of journalism.
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Segment 3
Hegseth and Boat Strikes
Main Points
- Discussion on the legality of naval strikes targeting alleged drug boats and the implications of such actions under international law.
Key Highlights
- Admiral Alvin Halsey's Resignation:
- Halsey questioned the legality of the strikes and subsequently resigned, indicating internal discord within the Pentagon.
- Political and Legal Consequences:
- Calls for a bipartisan investigation into the legality of the strikes, with various political figures expressing dissent against Hegseth's actions.
Discussion Points
- Critique of Military Actions:
- The hosts emphasize the absurdity of focusing on drug boats while the real issues concerning drug trafficking and border security remain unaddressed.
- Public Perception:
- The general public appears to disapprove of the strikes, recognizing them as ineffective and morally questionable.
Key Takeaway The naval strikes represent a significant misallocation of resources and a failure to effectively address the root causes of drug trafficking while also raising legal and ethical questions.
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Conclusion The episode encapsulates the shifting landscape of political discourse, media ethics, and military action in the context of pressing social issues. Krystal and Saagar challenge the narratives upheld by mainstream political figures, advocating for a more informed and critical perspective among the public.
Closing Thoughts
- The hosts encourage viewers to remain vigilant and question the narratives presented by both media and political leaders, especially as significant events unfold globally.
- Their discussions reflect a broader concern for ethical standards in journalism and the consequences of militaristic actions in foreign policy.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:31of Independent News Media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com.
0:38Let's get to Israel. I know Ryan and Emily covered this, but we wanted to. I think it's worth playing twice here. We had Hillary Clinton at this event for Israel Haim. It's Israel's most read newspaper. I'm reading from Prem Talker here, run by Israeli-American billionaire and Trump donor Miriam Adelson, joined by John Fetterman, Eric Adams, Trump UN ambassador, Mike Waltz, Biden official Amos Hochstein, and various Israeli officials. So quite a lineup at this event. And she had some very noteworthy things to say about what she thinks is going on and why people's views on Israel have changed. Let's take a listen to that.
1:11That our students, smart, well-educated young people from our own country, from around the world, where were they getting their information? They were getting their information from social media, particularly TikTok. That is where they were learning about what happened on October 7th, what happened in the days, weeks, and months to follow. That's a serious problem. It's a serious problem for democracy, whether it's Israel or the United States, and it's a serious problem for our young people. And it was frankly shocking to me how little the students we were encountering, not only in this class we teach, which is a very large class, international relations about crisis decision making, but students more generally.
2:00And that's why I mentioned the social media piece of it, because when you would try to talk to them to engage in some kind of reasonable discussion, it was very difficult because they did not know history. They had very little context. And what they were being told on social media was not just one sided. it was pure propaganda. And so when you think about how to tell Israel's story, and it's important, it's not just looking internally, it's looking externally, and particularly looking at young people, because, you know, it's not just the usual suspects, it is a lot of young Jewish Americans who don't know the history and don't understand.
2:48Eric, I was talking to Condi Rice, and you know, she said in an interview that I did after the 20-point plan came out, she and I were on CBS, and she said, you know, when people were chanting from the river to the sea, she would ask the students, what river, what sea, they didn't know. I had the same experience. A lot of the challenge is with younger people. More than 50 % of young people in America get their news from social media. So just pause on that for a second. They are seeing short form videos, some of them totally made up. In case you had any doubt about why they had to take over TikTok and make it much more censorious, this is why.
3:41But just imagine thinking that the problem here for Israel isn't the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands. I mean, we have to be real about the actual death toll here of Palestinians and seeing in your feed every day the worst atrocities you could possibly imagine. starving an entire population, turning all of the Gaza Strip into rubble, attacking hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, everything you can think of. No, that's not the problem. They just don't understand the history saga. They just don't get it. And I mean, this is the, this is like the peak liberal Zionist view that worked for so long to keep people shut up, which was, yes, it looks bad, but you, you know, there's lots of complicated.
4:30It's complicated. You know, you just don't understand. Like, do you know what happened in this summit or that summit? Do you understand the details of when Clinton was negotiating that you just don't understand enough? And this has been so horrific that people looked at this and said, you know what? I don't need to understand every little nuance and detail to know that this is wrong, to know that it is disgusting, that my tax dollars are going to fund this, that my government is going to support this, that Democrats like Joe Biden are running cover for it and have embraced Bibi Netanyahu and are letting him do whatever he wants.
5:08It did not take an understanding of history to know that this was wrong. But guess what? Also, many, many young people have actually become quite educated about this conflict and what led up to it. And let me tell you, the more they learn, the worse the Israeli side looks. That's the bottom line. And it is so wild to me that people like her still truly believe that the real problem here is a failure of Israeli propaganda and the quote unquote propaganda that young people are getting on TikTok and not the reality of the genocide that Israel has actually been committing. I just think it's pretty, I mean, I think that argument worked because there was kind of something to it.
5:52I'm not saying there wasn't a lot of injustice and all of that, but like this mass slaughter live had not happened, correct? And I would say their most like barbaric actions fully had not taken over. And, you know, even in times of their society, most of the like truly heinous rhetoric, they would say it in Hebrew. It wasn't as publicized. It also wasn't as powerful and didn't enact into actual government policy. But when the Genvengavirs and the Smotrichs of the world and the West Bank all combines with Gaza, people are like, yeah, I'm done learning about Camp David or anything and thinking that there's some problem here, right?
6:27Like at the end of the day, we're funding this, we're propping it up. And it's also causing us all kinds of problems, like not even in terms of domestic, but we're spending billions and billions of dollars and our own domestic politics are revolving around this and our government is actively, you know, deporting people who are against it. You're like, whoa, whoa. Right. It's like, that's what takes it to a whole other level. And that's where, look, I mean, I'll just say, thank God she lost. Okay. I mean, this woman from every time that we put her back on the screen, it's been almost 10 years. She was horrible, like truly.
6:59And that mindset, by the way, it's still pretty prevalent in permanent Washington today, like in the elite Democratic Party circles, you're not that far off. Maybe the voters may be different, but we also wanted to give voice to some of the other people at this conference. By the way, why is it even important to play this conference? It's like, not only is it the large newspaper, but this is Miriam Adelson, who is one of the biggest donors to Donald Trump and one of the most powerful mega donors in the Republican Party, who, by the way, according to Donald Trump. At one point he asked whether she loves Israel or America more and quote, she didn't answer and he suspected that it was Israel.
7:39According to him, not me. So just to clear all that up. So let's take a listen. Our producers have put together a mashup from the conference. Let me be as clear as I can be. When someone chants from the river to the sea, they are calling for the elimination of the Jewish state. when people have no right to safety, no right to sovereignty, no right to exist. History tells us exactly what happens. Just to pick up on that, what I'll tell everybody is skip Miami. If you're leaving New York, just come straight to Israel. There's no reason to make a stop in Florida before you need to come. And you can decide.
8:20You can stay here in New York in a declining empire, or you can come to Israel, which is part of the rising middle of the world, which is moving south and east. That's what I encourage you to do. I did it. Do to our enemies here what Israel did to its enemies there and on that the IAC is focused. The challenge for us here is to leverage Israel's successes into our successes. Israel's weakness is ours and Israel's strength is ours. Our job in the diaspora is to leverage those wins and win here. 40 % of New York Jews voted for Mamdani. Large parts of our community have lost their, I'll just say it, tribal instinct, their Jewish solidarity instinct, in a way that allowed them to vote for us.
9:12Open enemy of Israel, in my opinion, the Jews. It's a great honor to have you here on the stage. On behalf of myself and the entire team of Israel IOM, it's a great honor again to have you here. I think if I speak for many of us here, if Dr. Adelson reaches out, then we figure out a way to get here. Great.
9:36She reaches out, just got to figure out how to get here. I mean, every one of those clips is like a conspiracy theory come true for real, though. I need them to keep having these conferences and keep talking. Just keep telling us exactly what you think. The problem is they've lost their tribal instinct. Isn't that a positive thing? Yes. That they evaluate like, OK, I'm voting for mayor of New York and let me evaluate the various candidates on how it's going to affect my life here. And oh, by the way, as an added bonus, this guy actually supports equal rights for everyone. That seems like something I might be on board with.
10:16Like losing the tribal instinct is a positive. And then the guy who was like, we need to do to our enemies here what we did to them in Gaza. Like you're you're threatening us with genocide now. Like that's that's where we're at. Like openly on this conference to applause. It's backed by one of Trump's largest donors. That is wild. Well, let's take the tribal thing, right? Like what's the whole critique around this whole Somali fraud story in Minnesota that Ryan and Emily covered yesterday? It's like, oh, well, they're barbaric, ethnic, tribal, and they defraud the government. You're like, say that again?
10:49What? So they're acting tribally and leaving. They refuse to leave behind the values of the old world. And you're like, well, the problem here in America is that people are acting more like individuals. I mean, that stuff really offends me also because I get this sometimes from the Indian diaspora, particularly people in India. They'll be like, Sagar, some politician in California, it's something very mean about India. I go, oh, why should I give a fuck? I'm not from India, okay? Fuck off, that's your problem. It's one of those where they try to claim you because your parents happen to be from somewhere.
11:23I mean, look, if it's interesting from an American perspective, yeah, maybe I'll pay attention, but they're like, oh, this is very, sometimes they even try and drag me into cast fights. They're like, did you see what so-and-so said about it? I go, yo, we live in America. We don't have caste here, okay? And by the way, according to your own laws, you're not supposed to have them either. I don't care. And so, but they're literally trying to cling to that. I mean, the most offensive one was the guy that clearly, I'm presuming who grew up in America, is he was like, you can't succeed here. Don't make a pit stop in Miami.
11:54It's like, that's like an anti-Semitic conspiracy is that you can never truly be American, right? That's what he's saying. He's literally saying that. That's literally the shit that neo-Nazis say. They're like, yeah, they're always loyal to Israel. I'm like, dude, I mean, you know, you can't just say stuff like this out in the, or I guess you can, but, you know, it's going to come with blowback. So it's just, I don't know. For me, like at the very same time, this Randy finds on TV, he's like, every Somali should be deported. And I was like, dude, you're exactly the same. Like you're actually, you're actually, look, I mean, I don't know a lot.
12:27I read the New York Times story, obviously bad and all that for the whole Somalian thing. But you're like, you are the mirror image of what you're critiquing. You're like saying you came to our country or literally using your citizenship and your power in order to try and exercise our government on behalf of a foreign power. Like that's as clear cut as it gets. Yeah. In terms of treason, conspiracy, tribal, whatever. And I don't believe that about all Jews, obviously. I don't think anybody should believe that because I don't think it's true as they are saying themselves. Yeah. Clearly they're very upset that it's not true.
12:58Yeah. I mean they're – Yeah, they want it to be true, which is crazy. Like that's the part which drives me nuts. Right. And, you know, one of the people who I think has been a thoughtful writer and thinker on the increasing divide in Jewish community around sentiment around Israel is Peter Beinart. He's talking about how. They hate him, though. Oh, absolutely they hate him. No doubt about it. But, you know, he he he really took a major risk, like personal political risk when he came out a while ago and said, you know what, this two state stuff, this is bullshit. Like it's got to like we're past that.
13:33They've annexed so much of the territory. There is no realistic solution. That's not a one state with equal rights. And that's what we should be getting behind. And, you know, he's been, I think, a very courageous voice in a lot of ways on this issue. But, you know, he really amplifies how support for Israel was just sort of taken as this article of faith in the, you know, in the broader Jewish community. And, you know, you grow up learning about it and thinking about it. It's very tied into all of your religious school. and, you know, it's just taken for granted. And this genocide has broken that.
14:07And you're not putting it back together. You know, the majority of young Jews see this very differently. They're disgusted to be, you know, it's like not in my name. They're disgusted that they would be implicated in what this state is doing. So you have the double, you know, insult of not only are my taxpayer dollars, here's an American going to that, but now you're wanting to make me complicit in these crimes and say that this is somehow being done on my behalf. Like, no, absolutely not. So there is this, you know, major reckoning and split that is happening in the Jewish community that has been very significant.
14:41And so Zoran's election obviously is incredibly emblematic of that because here he is now mayor elect of the most Jewish city in America, one of the most Jewish cities in the entire world. And as an avowed anti-Zionist, that is an earth shattering event. It also completely reshapes our politics. because it changes what, you know, most of these politicians are sitting called political calculation. It changes what they understand the political landscape to be, which is also why it's so consequential. But yeah, I fully support them doing these conferences on camera. Put it on Twitter. Just keep talking, guys.
15:18Keep telling us all your thoughts about this because it is very educational to hear from you about the way that you are seeing the world. And wanted to get into a couple of very significant news pieces as well, just as a reminder of, you know, the genocide is not over. The ceasefire, you know, continues to be broken by Israel. And we now have new shenanigans which are being played here. I can put this up on the screen. Israel is saying they're going to. So they agreed in the ceasefire deal. They're going to open this crossing, the Rafa crossing at the border with Gaza and Egypt. That was one of the provisions of the ceasefire deal.
15:56Now Israel is saying, well, we're going to reopen it, but only to allow people to leave. So obviously Israel, their longtime goal led by Netanyahu, but this is, you know, pretty society wide is how many Palestinians can we get out of this area? Because they are so fixated on their quote unquote demographic problem. And so the more Palestinians that are there, the more of a risk they are to being, you know, Palestinians, if you look at all of Israel and Palestine and the majority of the population. So they want people to be forced to leave and to put pressure on them, make life so miserable that they want to leave and not allow them back in.
16:34And what Israel is claiming is they're saying, oh, well, you didn't give us all the bodies of the dead hostages. Of course, this was also contemplated in that cease fire jail that this would be very difficult. Why? Because many are buried and many people are buried under the rubble. Israel's made it very difficult to even bring in the earth moving equipment that would be acquired, et cetera. So in any case, they're using this as an excuse to keep that border for re-entry closed. Egypt is objecting to this, so this is an unsettled, we'll see what happens with all of this. And then I also wanted to put up on the screen this reporting, which confirms what we, you know, very, which there was already some reporting to this effect, but, you know, it's always significant when the mainstream media catches on to things that we've been talking about for a while here.
17:16This was an in-depth report about the way that Israel killed, murdered aid seekers and then would just bulldoze over their bodies and leave them in these mass, shallow, unmarked graves. So this was an important piece of reporting here from CNN. They used eyewitness testimony. They used on the ground video and they used satellite imagery to see. And, you know, I was talking earlier about the death toll, like these people who were murdered seeking aid and then had their bodies just left there and bulldozed over, they're not counted in the official death toll. You know, officially they're still just, they're still missing.
17:59And many of them, their families are still holding onto hope that they exist somewhere. Maybe they were detained by Israel. Maybe they're in some prison camp. Maybe they're in some other part of Gaza that we can't get to. And communications are very limited. Like they're still holding onto hope. And the reality is because of this indiscriminate killing. And this was all around, by the way, GHF sites is where this mass slaughter was occurring by and large and where CNN focused their investigation. But just the most grisly details imaginable here. And I also want to say some of the reporting comes directly from IDF soldiers who are turned whistleblowers and have been in contact with this Israeli nonprofit organization that serves as a sort of nexus for IDF soldiers who can come forward and, you know, report on these war crimes that occurred.
18:49But they said, you know, there was no process or procedure for dealing with the dead. We just bulldozed them over and left them there and kept going. So just so disgusting. And there's still no real media in there, right? That's right. So like that, remember that. And I've said that before. I go when someday, eventually, I don't know maybe a year two years somebody's actually gonna go in there like tens of thousands of people and who even knows and then hillary clinton has the goal to say the problem is tick tock yeah unreal unreal let's get to cnn shall we welcome to the a building i'm hans charles i'm menelik lamoba it's 1969 malcolm x and martin luther king jr have both been assassinated and black america is at a breaking point rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest.
19:42It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution, I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning now to CNN. Genuinely, what is one of the grimmest developments in news that I have ever seen?
20:29Something literally to the stuff of my nightmares. They have announced a partnership with Kalshi, a prediction market, much like Polymarket, where they will be officially collaborating together to promote Kalshi betting odds and others in CNN or incorporate it into their live coverage. Just to give you a taste of Kalshi, what is it? Here is their co-founder, Tariq Mansoor, talking about his vision for the betting platform. Let's take a listen. You've mentioned multiple times that you think prediction markets will be bigger than the stock market. What is it going to take to become a trillion dollar asset class?
21:05It's pretty much already like close to 100 billion a year of asset class, right? Like it's pretty easy to imagine a 10x from here. Like we haven't even started. It's been a year. I think a very large number of people care, much larger than traditional markets. And I think retail as a pie has just been growing in the U.S. and I think it's going to keep growing. It's growing in the stock market, it's growing outside of the stock market. The long-term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion. And I think if you do build a general purpose exchange that can resolve differences of opinions on anything, like the TAM is quite massive, quite a bit bigger than the current TAM of the stock market.
21:43I think putting aside sort of the retail trading and the institutional trading product, like there's sort of this separate product, which is like, we are living in a world where like we have an abundance of information, but there's a lot of noise and like we don't really understand what's real from what's not. And prediction markets are an antidote to that. They do a very, very good job at distilling information and surfacing truth to people. And you're seeing this sort of massive shift where people are using them whenever they think about questions about the future, whenever they're debating about anything.
22:10And I think that trajectory is going to keep going. That's a new consumer habit that I don't think is going to be undone. If you missed that in the middle of, TAM, by the way, is total addressable market, for those of you who don't speak bullshit. But Kalshi, if you missed this quote, The long-term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion. So that means anytime we disagree, anything may happen, that that can turn into a commercially tradable asset that anybody across the world can just simply place minor bets on. Now, I could just never imagine a world where this might corrupt said news influence or influence outcomes or not highly regulated.
22:52or, you know, I mean, this idea where you want to turn literally everything from sports to entertainment to news to, I mean, he literally said everything. We're going to get to this later in 60 minutes. You have amateur bettors out there trading on whether Taylor Swift is going to be pregnant in the year 2020. And he goes, oh, this better. He's like, oh, that would never happen. He's like, I've analyzed her character. I mean, that's sick. Okay. It's sick that that is even, I'm not talking about defending her integrity or whatever. It's like people should not be betting on that. Period. Okay. That is a total violation of the social contract.
23:28We already know what this looks like because of sports. Yes. I mean, we know what it looks like. It has deeply compromised the integrity of sports. And not that sport has ever been perfect, blah, blah, blah. But now it's like, okay, who's on the take, right? Is it the referees? What player's on the take? You know, these individual one-off bets. they're going to make this many points or this many free throws or this many rebounds or whatever. Those are so easy to rig, which is why players increasingly are getting caught up in these scandals where, lo and behold, they are on the take and it is corrupt.
24:01And so your whole sense of what is going on in the sport gets completely undermined, where no longer do you feel like, oh, you know, there's some cheating occasionally around the margin. But by and large, it's a contest of merit and what i'm seeing is real no increasingly your sense is this is more like wwe this is more like fake and rigged and everybody's in on it and if you're not in on it you're a sucker or you have a situation you can see this with news as well how this you could see very easily how this would happen you know you could bet on what color dildo is going to get thrown at a wnba game it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone could you You know, bet on it being a purple dildo.
24:41And then throw it. Blow in the hole, show up the game with the purple dildo and throw the freaking dildo. I mean, it's just so disgusting. And then broadening out here even further, I thought Arnaud, who's very thoughtful and insightful on these things, had a great post thinking about the bigger meta implications here. He says, I cannot think of a single way in which this makes society better. You're now going to have people financially on top of emotionally invested in their opinions, which can only create further polarization. Societies need consensus. Hard to see how you help achieve this when compromises become financial losses.
Read the full transcript
25:16So if I'm betting on my opinion, now not only am I like emotionally like I want to be right, but now I also have money writing on whether or not this is correct or not. You can see how this would spin out of control. He goes on to say, also, it literally disincentivizes truth seeking. Markets work based on anticipating what others will believe, not on discovering what is actually true. It's the meme stock phenomenon. Those stocks don't rise because the company is valuable. They rise because enough people believe others will keep buying. You'll have the same thing with opinions. People are rewarded not for being correct, but for anticipating what others will believe and incentivize, literally financially incentivized, to manipulate narratives so that their bets pay off.
26:00Truth becomes not only irrelevant, but in many cases will be actively fought against because it becomes a direct financial threat. Like if this is not the end, end, end, end, end stage of capitalism, I don't know what is. It is so incredibly dystopian. We have got to revolt against this complete financialization and the absolute takeover of every aspect of our lives by these bottom-feeding financial, these, you know, gambling. These guys are billionaires, by the way. I mean, it's disgusting. I know. Just so you know, they're literally billionaires. And not only do you have the first level of like, okay, people placing bets, you also have an increasing ecosystem being funded of startups around this that will then take those bets and bundle them and package them as securities and you can borrow against them.
26:49And the whole disgusting ecosystem of our like casino capitalism that we have is also being built up to create these bets into separate markets that can be traded secondarily as well. Just putting this whole thing, like absolute predation on the people who are at the bottom and putting this throughout our entire economy at every level. Yeah, let's put F2 up on the screen. This is about CNN and their data partnership. Basically what they're saying is they'll only use CalShe data and they'll be the exclusive prediction data. And I have been thinking about this in the context of our own coverage because it's tough, right?
27:27It is newsworthy to cover the poly market odds on a race that had a decent track record in 2024. But to me, there is just something fundamentally different about either money exchanging hands like in the way of a sponsorship like with ESPN, right, when they had ESPN bet. They actively were making money from sports betting and then covering sports. There has to be a literal firewall. Or here, in this case, they say that there's no money exchanging hands. I don't know. I find that hard to believe. But more importantly, it's like an actual endorsement. So you and I talking, it's just different to me.
28:03And maybe that's semantics. But it is fundamentally different. Saying, look, we don't take money from these people. We don't want any money from these people. I think these are degenerate. They're bad. And I would ban them if they could. While they exist, I will talk about it. But that's not the same as a flat-out endorsement. And saying that this is an official thing that will be incorporated. And again, the ability for manipulation and for insider trading and just like for the – show people how easily this can all happen. Can we put F6 on the screen? I checked. This is a real market, by the way, that happened yesterday.
28:40F6, what will Anderson Cooper say during his show? Anderson Cooper is a CNN host. So you have people who are live betting the individual words that he might say. This was an$80 ,000 market with huge odds, 1%, right? I mean, the payout on that is massive. Well, if you're a producer at CNN, a low-level producer, there's probably, I don't know, how many would you say? 50 people who work on the Anderson Cooper show? Sounds like that. Roughly, right? And you're a guy pulling 33 ,000. He might be the sound guy. You might literally just be a contractor. but you happen to be in the editorial meeting, just power it up, hit something like this because you know it's coming, get a nice 66 to one payout.
29:21Is that technically fraud? I don't know. I mean, is there any governing authority over that? If you can do this all in - I mean, if there is, the Trump administration certainly doesn't give a shit. But not even that, Crystal. If this is all in crypto, then you don't even know, right? If this is not even in the US dollar market, then nobody knows anything. And look, does that really matter? Not really, but let's make that bigger. pardon power. Let's say you're a lawyer and you happen to bet on a pardon market. I mean, think about it. Taylor Swift, people are gambling on whether she's going to get pregnant.
29:52Honestly, if I were her, if you're trying to conceive, I would bet it and then I would go do it. I mean, look, that's sick. It's crazy. And I've been trying to warn about this with sports. Everybody says you're a prude. Sports betting has been around forever, Sagar. No, prop bets like this have never been around. And actually, especially at a widespread market, why do you know how many of my friends know the over under on fucking AJ Brown's number of yards in the next game? This, this is not a thing. All right. This never existed. And this is that that's like one minor one or, Oh, the defense to score a touchdown.
30:26Now imagine that at every asset facet of our lives, what you and I are going to do our next monologue on or the topic. And that's just you or me, CNN, Trump, the words out of his mouth, the federal reserve, they're doing already derivative contracts and futures contracts in cryptocurrencies in various different ones, who the next Pope is going to be, who the next James Bond is going to be. I mean, same thing on the James Bond question. If you are a executive at, I forget the estate of who owns the James Bond, the Fleming, right? If you're a Fleming person and you have influence over that, you could easily be doing that.
30:59Is this technically corruption? Again, I mean, to what extent? But the point is not even about regulation. The point is this, is this financialization, betting, we had longstanding taboos on this for a reason. We understood that betting and gambling is the most, literally one of the most degenerate and horrible activities that you can be into. It has one of the highest suicide rates of any addiction. Very addictive. And when it consumes people, people think I'm a prude. It's because I see the results. I mean, seriously, and this is why I'm not even saying it should be totally illegal. Regulate it to the casino.
31:37I really believe people should be required to go to a casino. When you see somebody with fucking emphysema smoking cigarettes, sitting there blowing their life savings away on a slot machine, you're going to go, yo, this shit is evil. And you need to see that stuff like for your own eyes behind a screen and all that. You don't, it doesn't seep into you. Like you need to see the type of people who you were around. And I've seen people break down and cry at casinos, like cry, tears, slam. You know how many people commit suicides in Las Vegas? They literally cover them up. It's the reason why you should see that is because you need to understand the socialization of what it means for this shit to be legal.
32:17But whenever it's all behind a screen, you can be sitting there and just gamble your life savings away. And I've covered those stories. Remember my monologue about that guy? He literally never placed a bet in 2021, gambled away millions of dollars, gambled away his children's christening funds. Like, it's sick. And of course, DraftKings allegedly violated their own internal policy according to their lawsuit. They deny all wrongdoing. But this could happen at the highest level across all society. And that's why the CNN, for me, I mean, according to them, the most trusted name in news. No, ridiculous.
32:50But the point is, this is a major fucking brand. And also, turning the news, I've watched this happen with sports, is so many people only pay for sports media now for gambling stuff. The reason that the Adam Schefters and all these other people have so many followers and they make so much money, especially now these days, is because they're the first to report injuries or insights. Well, what do you think is going to affect the Vegas odds, right? If so-and-so is injured, that means the line can move. That's why these people all pay attention. Even NFL Sunday ticket, like the ability to watch all the games.
33:26The only reason that people are paying their subscriptions have massive gone up. You know why? Because people are gambling on more games. They don't give a shit about the Los Angeles Rams or the Titans if they live in Philadelphia. They're betting. That's what it's all about. So that's what the news would turn into. I mean, I guess maybe it would be good for us, right? But I'm speaking purely of societal interest. Is that I don't want people to want to be more informed because they're gambling on everything. If anything, it'll distort all of the outcomes. So, look, long-winded rant, but, I mean, I've been trying to warn about this, and I can see it coming from a mile away.
33:58It's getting so much worse. F5, please, just so we all know, is that the prediction markets, Fanatics, if you know what that is, Fanatics is the fan company. I think Tom Brady and all those people are involved with it, and Polymarket are set to go live early this week. This is F5, please, are set to go live as early as this week with FanDuel later in the month and DraftKings by January. Fanatics, FanDuel, and DraftKings are launching in states where they don't even offer mobile sportsbooks. So this is also, by the way, a de facto way to legalize sports betting in the entire nation. That's what this whole thing is about.
34:31Look, it's all 50. Just so everybody understands, like when I rant and rave, the sports betting companies are now bigger than Hollywood. They make more money than the box office of the entire United States theater industry. That is how big an overnight thing happened. Nobody consented to it. The Ohio governor, Mike DeWine, very recently said that if he could go back, because he signed the bill legalizing sports betting, he said if I could go back, I would never do it. He's like, it was one of the biggest mistakes that I ever made. And look, I mean, we have the power if we want to, but how many people are we going to watch people's lives get destroyed in the interim?
35:08We're going to have millions of gambling addicts. In the next five years, millions and millions of people. You make this successful to everybody, people are going to blow tons of money. And yeah, these people are all just going to get filthy rich. But the two people on that stage, they're already billionaires. They're already touting the woman. They're like, she's the youngest self-made woman billionaire ever. More than, oh, great. What a fucking accomplishment. Thank you for showing that women can also be, you know, can also become very rich by exploiting degenerate impulses. Yeah. No, it's overall, it's degrading to society.
35:42It's just, it's wrong. I mean, there's no other way to put it. It's just wrong. It degrades society. It creates a level of artifice around absolutely everything. It creates increased polarization. It's disgusting. And the vast majority of people are going to lose. Like when you bet, you are much more likely to lose your money and end up much more in the hole. And guess what? That's more and more riches flowing to the top, flowing to those people that were there on that stage saying they want to financialize absolutely everything. Very disturbing. And I think it's disgusting CNN is doing this. I think people should revolt against it.
36:16don't watch CNN, let them know what you think. Yes, I agree. I mean, yeah, there's the answer. Don't watch any product that's brought to you by these people or that endorses any of these products. I mean, it's going to be tough. I like Harry Enten, right? It's incredibly degrading. We use his clips. We just covered Jeremy Diamond's report on the bulldozing of the corpse. Right. Yeah. I mean, I don't take it out on these guys personally. I understand the utility of the data while it is legal, but that's kind of more of a meta point is when the executives themselves are like, hey, let's, and then again, look at the sports.
36:50Sports is bigger than NFL. 57 million people watched the Chiefs-Cowboys game on Thanksgiving. It's the most watched regular season NFL game in history. I am absolutely convinced it's because of gambling. I'm telling you, like 100%. If you go on TikTok and all these other places, all of the memes are about like trying to hold it together with my family while my Thanksgiving parlay falls apart. It's like part of the culture at this point. This is all going to happen now with the news. I guarantee you, next election, the number of people who are going to be betting on the next election, it's going to be crazy.
37:27And Robin Hood and all these other people, it's going to be fully normalized. And I mean, just think, there's going to, how many, if you thought voter fraud, if you're one of those election fraudsters from 2020, how many people are going to be trying to influence the events of the votes? especially when it comes down to the states. Right. Like in Pennsylvania, right? I mean, what would you do for millions of dollars? People will do a lot of shit. Look at the federal prison system. So think about it. If you're going to place a bet, I'm going to bet that J.D. Vance is going to lose Arizona. It's like, well, then what do you think people in Arizona?
37:59Yeah, what are you willing to do to make that happen? What are you willing to do? Let's say you are a low-level county secretary of state pulling 25 Gs a year in Yuma, Arizona or someplace like that. You're not going to fudge things a little bit? You know? Who wouldn't? So you could see exactly how this could, there's so much potential for fraud and whatever. I mean, I already know. It's going to, we are going to find out the hardest way possible. Yeah. It's very unfortunate. It's so many, it's like so many things in our, like, you know, it's one thing when you have to go to the casino and there's like a physical action.
38:33Okay. Yes, this is, this is the thing we do. It's not exactly like it's sort of frowned upon in society, but it's there, you know, and you can have access to and you're an adult and okay you got to go there and do the thing and still it was bad for some number of people but yes there was some it was sort of walled off and now it's just shot throughout our entire lives and i feel like that with technology too of course like it was one thing when you had the flip phone and you know you could text on it and you could you know you could have it with you and coordinate and that was great right and then it was kind of cool when you got your first smartphone and now it's just like you know it's just taking They've colonized our entire lives.
39:10They've colonized our entire brains. You know, what was good in a small dose is now incredibly damaging and deleterious. So anyway, that's where we are. That's where we live now. Yep. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated. And Black America was at a breaking point. Rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr.
39:48and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution, I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We wanted to give some updates here, and probably we'll cover this more on the Friday show, but there are some developments with regard to these boat strikes and the illegality of them.
40:35And some breaking news, the Wall Street Journal, with this scoop, confirming what we already, of course, very strongly suspected. You remember that top admiral who resigned around the time that the boat strikes were starting? Well, it turns out that this was pretty directly related to him questioning the legality of the boat strikes overall. And I'm not just talking about the second, the double tap. I'm talking about the overall program. So this says Hegseth asked top admiral to resign after months of discord. I think that's sort of soft peddling, actually, the claims in the article, which seemed to indicate it was directly as a result of his questioning of the legality here.
41:16It says Hegseth's move, which has been previously reported, sheds new light on a brewing controversy over the legality of the military's campaign. Hegseth has dismissed a number of high-ranking military leaders since taking over the Pentagon. Having Halsey leave at this particular moment at the height of what the Pentagon considers to be the central action, our hemisphere is just shocking, says Todd Robinson, who served as assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs until January. They say, according to two Pentagon officials, Hegseth asked Admiral Alvin Halsey to step down.
41:49A de facto ouster that was the culmination of months of discord began days after Trump's inauguration intensified months later when Halsey had initial concerns about the legality of lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, according to former officials. So already not on Hegseth's good side. And then he questions the legality. And that's when he is asked to leave. So, again, confirmation of what we all very much strongly suspected and consistent with other concerns from whistleblowers about the I mean, this is just like claiming that we're at war with these drug boats and then that we can, you know, randomly kill them.
42:26And there's no author of war authorization from Congress. All of this is, you know, it's brazenly illegal. And clearly there are concerns internally. And if you had those concerns, you were pushed out. Let me go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen, which is just a good article from The Washington Post about the way that they have changed their responses on all of this from the beginning. And they just go sort of blow by blow here of what this administration has said and when. So first, Trump says military literally shot out a boat from Venezuela. That was the initial reaction. Then Hegseth says that he watched it live, which would come to be very significant, you know, about what he ordered and what he knew about it.
43:08A Pentagon spokesman, after the initial reporting for The Washington Post, came out saying that there was a double tap strike and that Hegseth had given the kill order. Pentagon spokesman said that, quote, this entire narrative is completely false. So seeming to indicate that even the details of it being a double tap strike was incorrect. Then Trump says Hegseth told him he did not give a spoken order. Then Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes, according to White House press secretary. So they're saying first Trump is like, well, I don't think he gave the spoken order.
43:43Then they're saying, OK, well, he did. But he authorized Admiral Bradley then to conduct these lethal kinetic strikes. Then Hegseth says, I watched that first strike live, but he didn't stick around for the second strike. So clarification, I guess, on the original claim that he had watched the whole thing live. And then Trump says, I support the decision to knock out whoever is piloting those boats, which is different from his original reaction, which is that he did not like the idea that there was a second strike. So they've been kind of all over the place. And the overall thrust at this point is to claim, well, this was totally legal.
44:19And here's why. And their claim now is that, well, the two people who had survived, one of them was trying to call for help. We took that as them still being combatants. And that's why it was legal to do the second strike. But also, by the way, Hexeth had nothing to do with it. And it was all Admiral Bradley here. Let me put the next one up on the screen. This is some some new details from The New York Times. This is effectively what I was just saying, like their U.S. military's boat strikes planning takes on new significance. They talk here about how in advance they had planned contingencies for if there were survivors.
44:57So trying to make this seem like there was more sort of official decision making as well. And then put G4 up on the screen. We've got more Republicans who are concerned and voicing dissent over what was done here and starting to assert some power. And Sagar, this reminds me, the sort of political reaction here reminds me of what we were talking about earlier with Elise Stefanik and how she's now decided to go aggressively after Mike Johnson. She's not going to go after Trump, but she wants to separate herself from the Republican Party overall. And so she's chosen as her target. Mike Johnson seems to me like Pete Hegseth is filling that role for a number of Republicans as well.
45:42Their Admiral Bradley is here on the Hill today taking questions from Congress. They've launched investigations, bipartisan investigations in both the House and the Senate. You've had a number of members. Rand Paul has been very aggressive talking about how basically they've been lying. And, you know, he's been concerned from the beginning about the illegality here. And so his rhetoric has been pretty forceful. But others as well, not just Rand Paul, who is, you know, more sort of principled on these things in general. So, you know, I think I think Hegseth is genuinely in a bit of a Emily thinks that they feel like they've sort of nailed it and they're good and they're in the clear.
46:15I don't know that I'm convinced about that because he is such an incompetent person to begin with and not really loved and has made all sorts of enemies in the time period that he's been there. It seems to me like he could be a convenient scapegoat for these people. Oh, Hexath? Yeah, I mean, I could see that. But the thing is that I was talking to you about this before the show. This whole thing drives me nuts. Well, you know, trying to litigate the specifics of naval law about a second strike is ridiculous. The whole point is that this is fucking stupid. Striking drug boats while pardoning the Honduran president who was a narco trafficker.
46:53Also, you remember Yon Grillo who we've had on the show? I mean, he made this great point. If you are a chapito, the son, you just got a sweetheart deal because you kidnapped El Mayo and brought him to America. The Wall Street Journal just did this long story about all of these narco traffickers who were cutting deals with. I'm talking about real narco traffickers, not guys on some fucking boats. Not some poor fisherman who's desperate. See, this is another thing that drives me crazy. Not just cocaine, fentanyl. Like the Mexican drug cartels who are 90 % of the fentanyl that enter the United States are the people who put it in the cocaine and then bring it here to stretch their own profits.
47:30We're cutting deals with those guys. Like very good deals. So what's the – And those deals we did with Bukele so that we could put random innocent Venezuelans in Seacott. We handed over some drug traffickers, gang leaders to him because he didn't want them testifying about whatever his deals that he had cut with them as well. I'm not even against doing deals with whatever in order to lock up more narco traffickers. I'm not even saying that. But I'm saying if you do that at the same time that you're saying that we need to kill these guys on boats who, again, allegedly have cocaine, not even fentanyl, almost certainly not fentanyl, because especially the ones in the Caribbean, not fentanyl.
48:08Sorry. I can say that. And if you believe that, release the evidence or prosecute them. I'd be happy to say I'm wrong. I'm talking about purely your own DEA report, which says no fentanyl. You guys said that, not me. Trump's own DEA, April 2025. I tweeted out the report. You can go read it. It's public if you want to. The point that remains around this whole thing is that Washington seems to be consumed with this whole second strike on the boat. And it's like, no, the strikes are dumb. Now, in a liberal internationalist framework, you can talk about international law and all that. As you guys know, not my thing.
48:39I'm just like, why are we even entertaining this? Like, this is a bad idea. They just can't. And by the way, America agrees with me. There was this theory that these would be massively popular. They're not. Trump is very underwater on the strikes. They're not buying this bullshit. No, they're not. And they shouldn't. Because in your lifetime, have you ever heard about Venezuelan fentanyl before this? Nobody. Everybody knows where the fentanyl comes from. Everyone. If you're striking Mexico, it actually could be a different story. But again, the geopolitical implications of that would be so insane considering our trading relationship.
49:13This is an ideological war. Their pretext is just like WMD. It was never about WMD at the time. It was about regime change. This time fentanyl is irrelevant. If it wasn't fentanyl, they would make up some other shit. And it's even, oh my God, even with cocaine. It's like we're talking about 10 % of the cocaine. So that's instead of 90%, that's not the place that you would go if you really were concerned. about doing something. So my only saving grace, most Americans think this is total bullshit. Yeah. But then in the conduct of the Pentagon, it is so disgraceful the way that Pegseth has threw this guy under the bus.
49:49I mean, I don't know. I feel for the Admiral. It's like, you know, Pegseth gives him this order. The South Com commander goes. He's a SEAL team guy. Long history of these counter-terror missions. I don't know how closely he looked at the legality. And now all these guys, I mean, look, for this admiral, like, you need to lawyer up. You're already before Congress. Dude, I mean, when the Democrats win, you're going to be testifying at the very least in private in a classified setting. You could be testified publicly. Oh, I don't even think it's going to have to be until the Democrats, because there's already a bipartisan investigation, both the House and the Senate.
50:25So I think it's coming before even Democrats take control of anything. And then the drone operator, right? I mean, that guy's going to have to get a lawyer. Like, you know, you're talking about the individual soldier service members. I think, yeah, sorry, Navy. So individual sailors who are all involved in this. It's like, what, they're put in an impossible position. Because Hegseth is telling them, you're gone if you're, you know, you're gone if you disobey orders. Literally fired the South Camp commander. I mean, think of what this does within the military, where I think previously there had just been sort of an assumption like, oh, if I'm being asked to do something.
50:57Right, exactly. It's been run through the proper channels, whatever. And now not only are you like, no, it's not. Number one, they're inventing fake secret memos. They're firing or pushing out anybody who disagrees. And by the way, if there are questions about this and it becomes hot, they will happily throw your ass under the bus. So you need to be thinking of anytime you get an order now, you better be consulting a lawyer, talking to one of these outside organizations and thinking hard about what is this going to mean for me and what kind of jeopardy this puts me in for the future. That is a very different mentality than is typical in these situations.
51:32And to your point about how just preposterously, insultingly stupid all of this is, take a listen to Kristi Noem talking about how Trump is saving millions of lives with these boat strikes. This is G5. You've saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you've blown up in the Caribbean. I'm sorry, hundreds of millions of lives. Can you tell me again what the population of America is? 330 million. He's saved all, literally all, we would all be dead of fentanyl overdose if it wasn't for these boats. I mean, it's so stupid. It's so embarrassing. Pam Bondi has said similar things previously.
52:12Trump says similar things all the time. Do you know what the impact on drug trafficking will be of these boat strikes? Zero. It will be literally zero. Everyone knows this. Some of these people, one of the people they murdered, by the way, their family is like he was literally just an innocent fisherman is now going to court over this. So, yes, on every level, it's disgusting. It's immoral. It's murder. It's wrong. It's outrageous. and it does literally, it accomplishes literally nothing other than helping Marco Rubio in his like undying quest to, you know, to overturn. To fulfill his father's dream.
52:50To fulfill his dreams, yes. Yeah, no, his father's dream was to free Cuba. They think, it's like domino theory. These people are fucking crazy. Like I, he writes about it in his own book. I'm not making this up. He literally wrote it in his book that that was one of his father's wishes, okay? You can go read it for yourself if you want to. I, yeah, I mean, look, I'll tell you, I said this on Twitter. I was like, look, I can forgive people who fell for WMD. Not forgive. I can understand people who fell for WMD in the wake of 9-11. It was scary, mainstream media. But man, like. Literally, we had just been attacked.
53:22We'd just been attacked. You know, I mean, it's more, I didn't fall for it. Right, yeah, exactly. It's more understandable, okay? I can understand, not forgive. I can understand how a lot of people fell for that. But Venezuelan fentanyl, you're an idiot. You're an imbecile. And yeah, that makes me question like faith in democracy and all. If that's going to be a real thing. So we'll see. I hope the people are at least paying attention and are listening. And actually my greatest hope would be an ignition of a real anti-war movement that used to exist in the Iraq days. because what the blob has long found out is that as long as not that many Americans die, most people will just tolerate stuff.
54:04But I do think Israel actually ignited a big anti-war sentiment in a lot of people, even though we weren't the ones directly involved, we were funding it. But if we start to, you know, some sort of Libya type campaign, again, yes, even if hundreds of Americans don't die and it's only special operators and only special operators and CIA and only Air Force drones and all that. It's like the point should be we should not be involved on this under false pretenses. It's ridiculous. It's counter to our own interests. So I do hope that it becomes, I don't know, I hope it ignites some sort of public consciousness.
54:38Yeah. Because that's something that we really lost from the 2000s. You know, the anti-war right was a real thing. The American conservative, the Pat Buchanan, you know, riding and railing against the Iraq war, the anti-war left was huge. I mean, it was a potent force. And it really died sometime around 2016, which is really, I mean, it's tragic. And Trump obviously hijacked it for his own purposes and betrayed it simultaneously. So I do want it to come back. I really do. Last thing I want to give, Glenn Greenwald made a good point here that I think is worth reading out as our last item here. He says, there's been valid attention paid to how many Americans indoctrinated from birth to love Israel want the U.S.
55:13to serve Israel. There are also people from Latin America or its immigrant communities who want the U.S. military used to change that region's governments that they dislike. I grew up in South Florida. Many Cubans did not learn English despite being given U.S. citizenship because they believed it was the U.S. government's duty to remove Castro, then Chavez, so they could go back. Both Rubio and Congresswoman Salazar, whose comments we played here before, come from that milieu. And I think that is an important thing to keep in mind, is that these people who have very powerful government positions, Marco Rubio is one of the most powerful actors in our government right now, deeply ideological and committed to this ideological goal that has nothing to do with benefiting America overall.
55:54And so there is a commonality between the, you know, how perplexed we all are and disgusted with the commitment to Israel over and above, you know, what's good for the world, certainly not what's good for Palestinians, let alone what's good for America, and the ideological direction and content of the the boat bombings and the potential regime change in Venezuela. It's not a bad point. Yeah. All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. Appreciate it. Friday show tomorrow. We'll see you all then.
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Krystal and Saagar discuss Israeli conference off the rails, CNN partners with Kalshi, Hegseth flails on boat strikes.
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