3/11/26: Jake Tapper Crashes Out On Ryan, Americans Says War Is For Epstein & Israel, Bill Maher Praises Iran War

13:54Bill Maher:With a high-profile Palestinian activist detained and released by ICE, the mayor writes, quote, we marked the one-year anniversary of detention. Rama and I were honored to welcome Mahmoud, meaning Mahmoud Khalil, Noor and their son Dean to Gracie Mansion to break our fast together. It is Ramadan. Mahmoud is a New Yorker and he belongs in New York City, unquote. Now, you might remember Mahmoud Khalil as the anti-Israel protester from Columbia University, to say the least. I get the talking point. Part of my problem is that we live in a culture now that the second you're discriminated against or face state action because of your First Amendment right exercises, it makes you a martyr, makes you kind of a hero.

14:33Bill Maher:This guy's not a hero. He's a putz. The organization that he was part of just got into trouble at the beginning of this war by tweeting out death to America. The organization was pro-Hamas. He and the organization defended the 10-7 attacks in pretty explicit terms. And this comes on the heel of this other controversy of Zora Mandami's wife being revealed to have liked a whole bunch of social media posts saying that the mass rapes were all a hoax and that Hamas was justified and all that kind of stuff. The Klan marching in Skokie weren't heroes. We didn't treat them as heroes for doing that.

15:11Jake Tapper:You're right. I don't disagree. We're there. Mayor Mondani is a very smart guy. And he had to have known that having Mahmoud Khalil, not because of the First Amendment issue, which I think we all probably agree with, like, you know, people have the First Amendment rights in this country. But the other issue of what he and his group did at Columbia University, what they stand for now, he had to have known it would upset people.

15:34Saagar Enjeti:Well, and I think that this is the other piece, just speaking politically again. And given that, you're exactly right. And it plays into the fears that people had before he was elected.

15:44Jake Tapper:And there you have it. He had to have known it would upset people. Like, that is Jake Tapper's objection here.

15:51Krystal Ball:I mean, listen, that's what a protest is. At least I was under that impression. He invited Mahmoud Khalil to dinner, even though he knew it would upset Jake Tapper.

16:01Jake Tapper:That, like, also, so the smears against Mahmoud Khalil in there, he's like the sweetest, most nonviolent guy. He's not affiliated with this group anymore. And whatever affiliation he had, that he's saying, like said, death to America or whatever, he's not affiliated with that group. All they can do is like find some group that's affiliated with a group that he was affiliated with and at one point said something on Instagram that was like some leftist over the top thing. Like that's all they've got. And the reason that he was chosen as the mediator is that he's the kind of guy that everybody respects.

16:38Jake Tapper:And that there are a lot of people that are much further to his left.

16:42Krystal Ball:And the Trump administration was making a very different argument from what Jonah Goldberg and Jake Tapper were making in that segment. The Trump administration was making the argument that he's not a U.S. citizen. And if you have a visa to study in the United States, they were making this argument. You are undermining. It's a ridiculous argument. But you're undermining U.S. foreign policy as a non-citizen by agitating against, in an academic setting, against U.S. foreign policy. They were making a more charitable version of that argument as well, which would be if you're coming in the U.S. on a visa and what you're spending your time doing, this is how Marco Rubio would describe it, is protesting against the United States, bad, deported.

17:22Krystal Ball:They're making a different argument, though. They're making an argument that it's not just as though he must be deported because he's undermining U.S. foreign policy by being anti-American. They're making this argument that Mahmoud Khalil is a hate figure. and that's actually different from what the trumpet i mean of course there was overlap at

17:40Jake Tapper:one point jonah goldberg called him an outright apologist for terrorism just like just not like that is not true about makmoud khalil unless you have a very broad definition of what counts as being an apologist for terrorism right they keep getting mad at him because i think on ezra klein um he said that you know something like october 7th was bound to happen if you continue to oppress people for many decades. And somehow that is like considered to be a beyond the pale thing to say. It's like, even though it's like, it's just a basic statement about the fundamental nature of humanity and the drive for liberation and opposition to oppression.

18:19Jake Tapper:It's like, that shouldn't be remotely surprising. Um, and so, uh, so they also, so the New York Times, of course has to get in on this action. So let's start with D6 here, actually, because this is absolutely, completely insane. So an article by Dana Rubenstein here, who covers the mayor. She writes, this is the lead of the article. In the days after a homemade bomb laced with metal was hurled into a highly charged protest near his official residence in Manhattan, Mayor Zoran Mamdani did not turn to his typical means of communication. There were no short-form videos posted to social media about the attacks in front of Gracie Mansion, where Mr.

19:07Jake Tapper:Mamdani lives with his wife, Rama Duwaji. There were no impassioned speeches. Mr. Mamdani chose an alternative path, two deliberate written statements. So the criticism here is that Mamdani, after people saw this news, after there was an IED thrown in front of Gracie Manchin at a protest by two ISIS-inspired terrorists, he did not do a TikTok. That he didn't do a short-form flashy video like he used to do for the campaign. Since he's become mayor, I think he's done three of those videos total. Because he is a normal human being, when something tragic happens, he's not going to do a flashy TikTok about it.

19:56Jake Tapper:Now, I had to read that a couple of times before.

19:58Krystal Ball:I thought his response kind of sucked, but it was, you know.

20:01Jake Tapper:Should he have done a TikTok?

20:02Krystal Ball:No, he shouldn't have done a TikTok, but.

20:04Jake Tapper:I had to read that a couple of times. You notice, you can put it back up again real quickly if you have it. Notice that in the second sentence, notice who they mention here. in front of Gracie Mansion where Mr. Mamdani lives with his wife, Rama Duwaji. This is the New York Times desperately wanting a piece. That is weird. Of the story. We don't need you to tell us that he lives with his wife. Yeah. We know he lives with his wife. Secondly, what does it matter what her name is even? Let's say that the normal New York Times reader is so stupid that they don't know that a husband lives with their wife in the same home.

20:46Jake Tapper:Let's say they don't know that and they need to be told that in the second freaking sentence of the article. Do they also need to know what her name is? Clearly what's happening here is this is the New York Times. They want a piece of this Instagram likes action, but they know it would debase the paper too much to put Instagram likes in a headline. Like Jewish Insider, Free Press, they don't mind putting the phrase Instagram likes in a headline. Breaking points? We have no pride. We'll do it. But like the New York Times, they have some like some version of self-respect.

21:24Krystal Ball:Well, you know what this is? I mean, here's inside baseball. When you're I'm sure they have some type of version of WordPress. That is the New York Times back end. And it will SEO optimize like the AI will SEO optimize.

21:36Jake Tapper:That's funny. Well, I think that was it, though.

21:38Krystal Ball:I mean, because you guys use Substack, so you probably don't use WordPress, but it will automatically do it.

21:43Jake Tapper:Like, how do we hook this into the story? There's like a red light, yellow light, green light.

21:46Krystal Ball:And so if you know that people are Googling Rama Dwaji, or even if you don't, the AI knows it. And so you can like keep adding keywords and stuff to, and if you put her name in, you can get in the SEO when Google News is aggregating and people are Googling Rama Dwaji. Because people are Googling and seeing it on Instagram, then they can click on the New York Times story. That's my conspiracy theory.

22:07Jake Tapper:For sure. They clearly want to get in that stream.

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24:54Jake Tapper:Now, you might disagree about this, but I'm curious. So we'll see. So this same reporter then shows up at a press conference and asks Mamdani what his message is to potential ISIS terrorists. Let's roll D5 here. Hi.

25:14Jeremy Scahill:Hi. So given that both of the alleged attackers at Gracie said they were inspired by ISIS and given New York City's sort of perennial status as a soft target, I was wondering if you had any words of advice to any young people who might find themselves being drawn to that particular ideology.

25:32Bill Maher:I think first and foremost, just to make it clear to everyone that extremism and hatred of any kind will not be tolerated in our city. And that is regardless of whatever ideology motivates any person to commit an act of violence, there is no tolerance for it here. What we want to deliver to New Yorkers is a city that is safe, is a city that believes in the values where everyone who calls it home is considered to be a part of it. There is no tolerance for any kind of violence within that vision of our city or the way in which we lead this city.

26:09Jake Tapper:All right, Emily, to me, that New York Times, same New York Times reporter that did that piece saying, why didn't he do a TikTok? Implying that, like, I don't know what she's trying to imply.

26:22Jake Tapper:Saying, what are your words of advice for young men attracted to ISIS? Like, to me, that's like, what? Like, you think that a young man who is attracted to ISIS, I don't know how to tell her this, is not listening to Mamdani at that point. No. They are so far gone from that. They think Mamdani is heretic at that point.

26:46Krystal Ball:Of course.

26:50Jake Tapper:Like, the only way you can, from my perspective, have that view is that, oh, well, ISIS is Muslim. Mamdani's Muslim it's all basically the same yeah yeah no they do it with like I'm sure I would have

27:07Krystal Ball:to go back and look but they do it with like right quote unquote white right wing like white nationalist extremist Christian whatever all the time too uh and it's the media trying to shoehorn some type of story into like tying someone together to the narrative the big story of the day And no, I think it's stupid. It's completely like the idea that those radical, apparently ISIS followers who are throwing explosive devices outside Gracie Mansion at what seem to be like fringe right wing protesters were doing it on behalf of Zohra Mamdani is bizarre. The predicate of the question is so weird. And I think you're right.

27:50Krystal Ball:It reflects this very legacy media, corporate media, cartoonish understanding of how extremism works.

28:00Jake Tapper:Yeah.

28:01Krystal Ball:No, I agree with you.

28:01Jake Tapper:And so Jake Tapper, so there is a war on, like the U.S. and Israel are at war with Iran right now. So he dedicated one segment to Mahmoud Khalil having dinner and the wife's Instagram posts. He then did a separate segment. This is the same day that he decided to call, share a post calling drop site news propaganda and fake news. he invited on an Israeli analyst who proudly talks about her links to Israeli intelligence to ask them, you know what, I don't want to spoil it for you. Here, let's roll a little bit of D8 here.

28:43Bill Maher:Emily, you've been talking to Iranians on the ground about the strikes and about Iranian leadership going forward. How do the Iranians you're talking to, how do they see the future unfolding in Iran?

28:56Saagar Enjeti:Of course, there's a lot of uncertainty and there's a lot of problems with the Internet still being shut off, although there is some limited use with Starlink and limited other options. But by and large, the responses from Iranians that I've spoken to has been overwhelmingly in favor of the United States and Israeli action on the ground. They're very happy that regime targets, many of them, the centers of suppression of the Iranian people, many of these besiege IRGC bases and forces are in fact being targeted. So they're happy about that. The main complaint that I'm hearing right now on the ground is that they're witnessing, personally witnessing, IRGC troops moving into schools and mosques.

29:36Saagar Enjeti:I've received a plethora of photos from Iranians on the ground of exactly that, moving both the force, the manpower, and weapons and equipment into school areas. So this is something very concerning. It's not new. It is a tactic of the Islamic regime and their proxy forces, but it's definitely concerning for the future. And of course, there is some questioning about what President Trump does intend for the leadership. The united call from the Iranian people on the ground is that they want the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to lead a transition government. After that, go to a national referendum where they will choose the system of government.

30:11Saagar Enjeti:But it's not clear yet where Trump stands on that issue. And we heard it in his press conference as well. He prefers someone inside. The problem is it isn't Venezuela. It's not the same system. And you have to deconstruct that system, the IRGC, in order to have genuine change and stability.

30:28Jake Tapper:Interesting stuff. So, Emily, can you imagine if Iranian state TV brought on an Iranian analyst who said he had ties to Iranian intelligence? and they asked him, how are the Israelis feeling about the Iranian bombing campaign on Israel? First of all, you'd be like, okay, this is amazing. I'm just going to watch to see what the guy says at this point. And let's say the guy says, all the Israelis that I'm talking to, they're so grateful for the Iranian bombing. They hate Netanyahu. They hate Likud. They look forward to liberation. And they have told us that the IDF is now hiding in synagogues and in schools and in hospitals.

31:20Jake Tapper:So if you start to see news that the Iranians are bombing the civilian infrastructure, just know that our sources in Israel have told us that the IDF is hiding in the schools and synagogues and the hospitals. And so, because that's what they do. They hide among the civilian population. They have their, as we know, we have their headquarters in Tel Aviv well underground. Can you imagine like a state, like I don't, I think Iranian state TV would not even think to run a segment like that.

31:48Krystal Ball:I don't know.

31:49Jake Tapper:To have an Iranian spy say that the Israelis love getting bombed. Maybe they would. Maybe they would try that.

31:59Krystal Ball:It is creative. You'd have to give them that.

32:02Jake Tapper:So yeah. So according to this Israeli intel-linked analyst uh the iranians are very happy it's crazy how the same playbook just gets

32:16Krystal Ball:reused over and over again i mean we were like this is what was happening in the lead up to the iraq war it was over a longer period of time but it was like and it has real consequences because Because when you talk to people on the right now, specifically on the right, how many times you hear people citing information like that as one of the reasons that makes them more comfortable?

32:40Jake Tapper:Right. Right.

32:40Krystal Ball:Like it's very real world, very real world consequences. And it's kind of gross, too, because in a sense, it's exploiting the goodwill of a lot of Americans who, whatever you think of, you know, the leaders' decisions, the decisions leaders have made over the last 20 or so years, there are a lot of normal Americans who do want to be like, quote, liberators, who have a good reason for wanting to see people free, whatever, whatever. again you and I look at that much more cynically than a lot of normal people do and do just want to see like people around the world be free and happy and whatever you and I are cynical about that for good reasons many people are cynical about that for good reasons but it makes it even grosser to me because it feels exploitive of this like instinct among normal Americans to see people be freed from oppression.

33:40Jake Tapper:Yeah.

33:41Krystal Ball:It's gross.

33:41Jake Tapper:Oh, by the way, the New York Times responded, you put up D7, speaking of debasing themselves, they were in my replies here on Twitter, saying, they said, this is in response to the Dana Rubenstein article criticizing Mamdani for not doing a TikTok. The Times report, quote, the Times reporting covered the mayor's comments and their careful measured nature, fairly and accurately, including the departure from his more direct and engaged messaging strategy during his election campaign to which I'd say like okay do you think that a election campaign and a terrorist attack are the same thing do you think campaigning and governing are the same thing if you think that those if you think campaigning and a terrorist attack are different things why would it be notable for a politician to have different responses to different things.

34:36Jake Tapper:I think the Times is very, very confused. So anyway, that's... And this kind of all kicked off, and we don't need to really get into this. Tapper was coming after us because...

34:52Krystal Ball:Tapper and lots of others.

34:54Jake Tapper:Tapper and lots of others.

34:54Krystal Ball:It was a pile-on.

34:56Jake Tapper:Yeah, saying over the October 7th sexual assault stuff.

35:01Krystal Ball:Yeah. Which is starting to feel like kind of a lab leak moment in some quarters. And what I mean by that is that the mainstream media has never basically acknowledged that COVID came out of the Wuhan.

35:19Jake Tapper:there have been some articles that have gotten kind of close to it but in general the kind of mainstream media's uh they've left it at it's probably probably that uh the bad suit that they were slinging in that wet market yeah um the pangolins yeah well whatever it was some kind of weird animals that those you know crazy hicks out in wuhan eat um so yet if you do a survey huge majorities say no no it came out of the wuhan coronavirus lab like we're not stupid like that's where we think it came out of i feel like this is becoming a a similar thing now there are huge swaths of the public that don't have that have not studied this question and have not looked closely at it and they're going to believe oh the the guardian and the new york times have said there was systemic sexual assault.

36:15Jake Tapper:So there was. But a massive number of people have actually looked at it, have read the actual reports, and have noticed that there are not any victims who have said that it happened to them. That all of the claims that there was forensic evidence and video evidence and photographs that were made at the beginning, those all those never materialized. None of that actually has emerged. You're left with this United Nations, Pramila Patton report that says that there are reasonable grounds to believe that it happened. That's true.

36:58Krystal Ball:Which you've agreed with. I've been here next to you for years. You've always agreed with that.

37:03Jake Tapper:Chaos and violence, of course. That alone is reasonable grounds to believe that something may have happened. That is different than saying this happened. Now, what people will say is, well, it's, it's, it's conflict and like people, some people, some of the victims were killed perhaps, so they can't testify.

37:22Krystal Ball:And Jewish burial, burial customs and the like. Yes.

37:25Jake Tapper:Real challenges. Which is, which conflicts with the earlier claims that there was, you know, forensic evidence collected. Right. Um, but if you, if you look at all of the other conflicts where there has been systemic sexual assault, whether it's Rwanda or Myanmar or Sudan, there are so many named victims and so much evidence. This would be the first case of systemic sexual assault carried out in a conflict zone that left no evidence to support it. I mean, there can always be a first, but this would be the only time that's ever happened. Every time it has happened before, there are people who credibly witnessed it, and there are people who were survivors of it, who talk about it, and whose names you can find, and who speak to human rights groups, etc.

38:28Jake Tapper:We just, we don't have that here. And so they also point to this thing called the Dina Project Report, which is jointly a UK and Israel project. Go look at the Dina Project Report. It spends most of its time arguing that the previous evidentiary standards that have been applied to these types of situations should be thrown out in this case. and that eyewitness testimony, forensic evidence, etc. shouldn't be needed. And instead, I know this is hard to believe, but go read the report because people link to it all the time. Look at the Dena Project report. This makes our case. Go look at the actual Dena Project report.

39:11Jake Tapper:What they argue is that you should be able to use deduction and circumstantial evidence to make your case. So according to the Dena Project report, which is the thing constantly being cited by people to establish that it definitively happened, they're basing their claims on deduction and circumstantial evidence. Maybe they're correct. That is different than what they're claiming. So that's the point.

39:40Krystal Ball:People, I mean, again, there's this giant straw man that's out there. are denying any possibility that any of this happened. It's just never been true at all. You've been patiently going through the evidence as it was presented.

39:57Jake Tapper:Just want some evidence. Yeah.

39:59Krystal Ball:So.

40:00Jake Tapper:And so the public is not, I think, the public that has paid attention to this, I think, at this point gets it. That massive claims were made that were not supported at the time and haven't been supported since. And those claims were used to launch a campaign of violence that killed at least 70 ,000 people and has a miserated population of 2 million in pursuit of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Like that's what happened.

40:31Krystal Ball:Well, on this point about the public and what people believe, how they've reacted the last several years, you all at DropSite and have partnered with Zeteo to produce new polling information that should give us some insight into how people are reacting in the first couple of weeks of this war with Iran.

40:48Jake Tapper:Yeah, this is really interesting.

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43:35Jake Tapper:So yeah, let's get to some of that polling. So DropSight and Zateo sponsored a poll that was done for Data for Progress. So it was out in the field from March 6th to March 8th. and it interviewed more than 1 ,200 likely voters. So, you know, just standard normal poll that the mainstream media likes to conduct. The difference is we ask some of the same questions that the mainstream media asks, like, you know, do you support or oppose the war in Iran? But then we also kind of went deeper into, you know, how people think about Trump's motivations for the war, what role Israel played, but also what role Epstein might have played.

44:16Jake Tapper:So we asked, so the question we asked was, when it comes to U.S. military action against Iran, which of the following statements regarding President Trump's personal motivations comes closer to your view, if neither is right? So let's put up E5. And so basically the question is, was Trump motivated at least in part to attack Iran to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal? overall by a 52 to 40 margin the american people said yes epstein was uh at least in part motivating trump to attack iran now independence mirrored that precisely there's a question nobody else is going to ask that's right nobody else is going to ask that question but it's it turns out a majority of the public agrees with it and pollsters would never have asked this if we asked them to.

45:09So independents completely mirrored the public.

45:16Jake Tapper:So by a 52 to 40 margin, independents who really swung the election for Trump, they believe that Trump was motivated, at least in part, to attack Iran, to distract from Epstein. Now, Republicans, as you'll see in this chart here, were the least likely to believe that. That's not surprising. But still, a quarter of Republicans said, yeah, okay. Oh, I'll acknowledge that it had something to do with Epstein. For Democrats, it's basically an article of faith. Uh, so yeah, well, of course, uh, Democrats are 81 % to 14 % believe, um, that Epstein, uh, at least in part, uh, played a role in driving his decision-making.

45:56Jake Tapper:Uh, for Emily, how would you have answered that question? And And were you are you surprised that a solid majority, 52 to 40, that's we're a pretty divided country. That's. And there's still division there, but like at least among independents and Democrats, there's not like. People are like, yeah, it was Epstein played a role.

46:18Krystal Ball:I'm not surprised at all, but I also would have, I'm like one of the few people that just doesn't think this had anything to do with it because I think the administration really wanted to attack Iran. I think they really wanted to do it. I think Israel gave them a kind of predicate or a precipitating moment, like a kick that allowed them to do it. But yes, I think maybe not J.D. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard, but I do think Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and others in the administration, you know, even though they were getting counseled by Dan Cain, maybe not a good idea. But there are people for whom this is a generational project and Israel saying they're going to make a move.

47:01Krystal Ball:I just think that gave Republicans an easy excuse. And that's what had everything to do with it. It's like this culmination of a generational project since 1979 to get back at Iran. So that's where I'm skeptical of it. That said, it's possible that there are layers of blackmail we won't learn about for decades that had something to do with it, that actually Trump really didn't want to do it. He knew that it was against what he had said about not starting new wars. Dan Cain was telling him it's a bad idea. So it's possible. It's possible. There is some mystery to why it happened now. But my strong inclination is that many people have wanted to do this for a long, long time.

47:40Krystal Ball:And they got an excuse via Israel. So that's how I would have answered. But it's a great question.

47:44Jake Tapper:I think the lack of any coherent rationale. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think fuels people's willingness to believe anything else.

47:52Krystal Ball:Yep.

47:52Jake Tapper:Because like, give me something and I'll believe it. But if you don't give me anything, I'm going to go looking for answers. I think you're probably right that absent Epstein, that Trump does this anyway. Yeah. I also think that in his mind, as he was thinking about whether or not to do it or when to do it, I bet part of it was like, well, it sure will be nice to not have to think about Epstein anymore every single day, all day long. Whether or not that drove the decision making. So that's why I think like at least in part, like, yeah, OK, at least in part. Now, according to The Washington Post and the Anti-Defamation League, this is an anti-Semitic view.

48:31Jake Tapper:We can put up the first element from this segment. It says, The conflict has also sparked a sharp rise in anti-Semitic content, according to researchers from the ADL, a Jewish civil rights organization. Some of it seeking to link Epstein, who was Jewish, to the conflict, reports The Washington Post. And then they quote Oren Siegel, who's the ADL's, quote, senior vice president of counter-extremism and intelligence, saying, quote, Pretty quickly after the conflict began, this conspiratorial rebranding of Operation Epic Fury into Operation Epstein Fury started circulating on social media platforms.

49:13Jake Tapper:Max Blumenthal, by the way, has said that he was the first to float that. I don't have any evidence to the contrary.

49:18Krystal Ball:All right.

49:19Jake Tapper:An ADL, and then the Washington Post writes, an ADL report found that the phrase, quote, Epstein Fury was mentioned more than 90 ,000 times by some 60 ,000 different accounts on X within the conflict's first three days. uh the the same post article says that uh iran has been pushing this uh and and that the people who believe this are kind of victims of iranian an iranian mis or disinformation campaign i don't know which one it is but it's some iranian styop if that's the case i mean the iranians have been

49:59Krystal Ball:intentionally in their propaganda pushing this line over and over again that it's what did the

50:04Jake Tapper:Epstein class. Yeah.

50:06Krystal Ball:And the Ayatollah was talking about the island before he was killed. The Ayatollah was like, more will be exposed.

50:12Jake Tapper:This disgusting island or a pedophile island or whatever he called it.

50:15Krystal Ball:And it is like a lot of the Epstein emails that DropSite has been reporting on were likely linked to an Iranian hacking operation. It's definitely part of the Iranian propaganda strategy to. And hey, we gave them that one on a silver platter.

50:31Jake Tapper:Yeah. Yes.

50:32Krystal Ball:People of the United States.

50:33Jake Tapper:Yes, the hacker outfit Handala, which is said to be linked to Iran, we can't confirm it, but we suspect that that's the case, is the one that released Ehud Barak's emails, which kicked off a lot of this stuff. So that's an actual thing. So let's run through some more of the polling here. So let's do E2. Do you approve of the Trump administration's military action in Iran? Disapprove Democrats, shockingly. not, you know, 92 to 6 against. Super divided here. Republicans, 79-19 support. Independence against it, 60 to 36. So 19 % of Republicans, I think people hopeful for a kind of unified cross-party opposition to war are sad to see just 19%.

51:32Jake Tapper:What do you make of that?

51:34Krystal Ball:Well, I'm glad that it's not less. That's true.

51:36Jake Tapper:19 is not nothing. I'm glad it's not less.

51:39Krystal Ball:Right. But among independents, that's a brutal number for the administration. That's true. 60 % disapproval. At the beginning of the war, too.

51:47Jake Tapper:Yes. This is when you're supposed to be a riding high.

51:49Krystal Ball:Great point. And one of the big questions is how much people care. Right? This is something that animates people, politically at least, to go to the polls or to be pissed at Trump. Is it something that they're like, eh, I think this is pretty clearly the, like, this is something that people will care about. Absolutely. The other thing that jumps out to me is that number of Democrats, only 6 % approval. I wish we could do a poll of Senate Democrats. I always wish we could do that. A secret poll. Yes.

52:23Jake Tapper:It's anonymous.

52:24Krystal Ball:Yes, a secret poll of Senate Democrats. It's the same thing with Senate Republicans in Ukraine. Right. Like if you could pull Republican voters and then pull Republican senators, you could pull Democratic voters and then pull Democratic senators. I would love to see the discrepancy.

52:39Jake Tapper:Other than Fetterman, they won't admit it.

52:41Krystal Ball:Right.

52:42Jake Tapper:But yes. So let's do E3. This is the punishment that candidates would take if they supported it. So are you more or less likely to vote for a 2028 presidential candidate who supports war with Iran? Um, if you're a Democratic primary voters said 83 % less likely independence said 61 % less likely to vote for somebody who supports the war with Iran. Um, whereas Republicans 59 % more likely now Democrats, there basically aren't any that are other than Fetterman and like four goons over in the house who are publicly, uh, supporting the war. but it's a spectrum you know there's a lot of a lot of democrats are like they're leading with iran can never never have a nuclear program and then they're saying and we need hearings to be to to have the rationale like explained to us and we need to investigate all of these things it's like well wait a minute let's end the war first yeah like there aren't there aren't a whole lot of democrats who are just like it's time to end the war like immediately the war is bad stop it we can do hearings and investigations later that's great but for now we need to stop the killing and stop the disruption of the like entire global economy um how's that going to affect though republican primaries well

54:02Krystal Ball:so that's a a really good question to ask in the poll because it does get to what we were just talking about how much does this matter right is it one of those things where it's like i disagree with Trump or I disagree with the Republican Party, but I don't really, it's not at the high end of my priority list. And I think this shows that for a lot of people, it does actually affect voting patterns. 20 % for Republicans, so similar to the 19 % in the prior question about disagreeing or disagreeing. Trump, what we've seen, has record high levels of support from Republican voters, but they're down from his previous records.

54:38Krystal Ball:So hemorrhaging some like, I think it's around 10%, Harry Anton has gone through these numbers over the last year. That's actually interesting because that's a question of whether the MAGA core of strong, strong supporters, enthusiastic supporters are disappointed by the president. And that gets to whether people are in the county Republican office phone banking, putting up signs, small dollar donors, these types of things. So the 20 % number, it actually really isn't nothing. It's a clear majority, as is the case with most of what Trump does. But it's not nothing in terms of like the political ramifications.

55:20Krystal Ball:I bet if you asked that question among Republicans about George W. Bush in April 2003, wherever, this would have been higher support among Republicans. I bet that number wouldn't have been 20%. I bet it would have been like Democrats being against and for. So not nothing, but a good gauge of how much this matters for independents and Democrats.

55:45Jake Tapper:Now, E4 is a very interesting question.

55:51Jake Tapper:When it comes to U.S. military action against Iran, which of the following statements regarding President Trump's personal motivations comes closer to your view, even if neither is exactly right. So we asked, is Trump pursuing this war more for American interests or Israeli interests? I guess it looks like we don't have the overall on there, but the overall was 50 % said American interests, 41 % said Israeli interests. So a majority, we'll give them that. Now among independents, 50 % said it was Israeli interests and just 44 % said American interests. So two points to this. We'll give them this.

56:39Jake Tapper:A majority of the public thinks that Trump went to war for American interests, but just 50%. There has never in American history been a war of any size, let alone this size, that a president went into and 41 % of the public thinks he did it for a foreign country. That has never happened. Like, never. Like, not even close. Like, Iraq War, people thought that was for oil companies. Yeah. Maybe you could get 40 % saying oil companies.

57:17Krystal Ball:Well, like five years in, people, or two years in is probably more accurate. It was becoming hot.

57:22Jake Tapper:Yeah, exactly. Vietnam, American interests, rolling back communism. Like for or against the war, you didn't think that we were doing it for like Sri Lanka.

57:33Krystal Ball:No, we were the country that was pushing proxies into these types of wars.

57:38Jake Tapper:Yeah. And so.

57:40Krystal Ball:Which, by the way, I just, this is my position. Like I actually, again, on this question would have disagreed with the line that it was primarily Israeli interest. because my point is there are a lot of people in the American government who are saying Israeli interests and American interests are absolutely intertwined. It's the Lindsey Graham line. And the Lindsey Grahams won this argument. The Mike Huckabees won this argument that the American and Israeli interests are one and the same. Or they'll say it's American interests vis-a-vis China. And they really convinced themselves. They really believe that at the end of the day, they just wanted to bomb Iran.

58:19Krystal Ball:That's what they wanted to do.

58:21Jake Tapper:So we put up E5. This is a related question. I was curious how much people were hearing about the attack on the Iran girls' school that happened at the very early hours of the war.

58:36Krystal Ball:So the question here is, have you read, seen, or heard about the attacks on a girls' school in Iran last weekend? Democrats came in at 77 % yes. Republicans, 60 % yes. Independents, 66 % yes. So across the board, most people in those three cohorts have heard about the attack on the girls school in Iran last weekend. Only, yeah, so only a quarter of Democrats hadn't 40 percent of Republicans, 34 percent of independents. This was a super smart question to ask, Ryan, because it gets to the media silos that people are in. And no matter what media silo you were in, on average, you had heard about this.

59:15It probably gets to why Senator John Kennedy on Fox News yesterday came out and said it was horrible.

59:22Krystal Ball:And the right thing to do is, if it was the United States, say it was horrible.

59:25Jake Tapper:You know, I think that this poll wrapped up on Sunday night. So and there's been a lot more news. Yes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this strike. So the number might go up. But 32 percent did say they'd heard nothing at all about it. So that's so at least one in three people. and then if you combine nothing at all or a little then that got you to 55 percent. So then we asked and so again this is through Sunday night this is before a lot of the reporting emerged that has basically definitively concluded that it was the United States that did this. We asked if you have heard about it who do you think was responsible for this either the U.S.

1:00:07the U.S.

1:00:08Jake Tapper:and Israel combined Israel or was it Iran? And 24 percent of people thought it was Iran. The rest basically said it was either U.S. and Israel together or Israel or or the United States by itself. Republicans were the only ones kind of divided on this question. So 45 % of Republicans said it was Iran that attacked its own girls' school, which is an idea that has been pushed kind of without evidence. But at least when I see stuff like that, I'm like, well, at least they're not defending attacking the girls' school. They're at least saying it wasn't our fault. Somebody else said it, yeah. They're lying about it.

1:00:56Jake Tapper:And I think some people honestly believe it. uh so 45 said that it was iran another 45 said it was the u.s and or israel and then 10 of republicans said they didn't know everybody else by an overwhelming majority thinks it was the u.s and or uh and or israel and that's before we got footage of the tomahawk missile like hitting an irgc base next to it and you can see the school smoking so like to to see that footage you'd have to believe that Iran hit the school and then moments later a U.S. Tomahawk missile hit the base right next to it and then the school was hit again. Completely implausible.

1:01:44Jake Tapper:Also if you look at the timeline this is immediately as the war started and Iran took a little while to respond. Iran wasn't even shooting yet so just on a just logical basis It's like that who hit it? Well, the people who were shooting.

1:01:57Krystal Ball:It's a great question to ask. I mean, this is why independent media is important. Polling is one of those. Polling is one of the biggest, I think, places in news gathering where just having this idea of neutrality that is actually a bias in one direction or the other. or having the pretense of neutrality creates conventional wisdom. Like it's about the manufacturing of conventional wisdom. Polling so often just builds and builds in one direction. And if you don't ask other questions, you don't get answers to those types of questions. You don't test, you don't gauge the public on conversations the public may be having that you're not having in your newsroom or that you think are crazy and not worth asking about.

1:02:43Krystal Ball:So this was a great, great poll.

1:02:45Jake Tapper:And there's one other that we could talk about because this didn't all, this wasn't all designed just to like flatter my own preconceived notions. You know, we're genuinely curious about this stuff. And so we asked a question about ballistic missiles because ballistic, Iran's ballistic missile stockpile has become like the new rationale that we're, that the U.S. and Israel are using for why this war needs to be carried on. I think I messed up the wording of this a little bit and I'll tell you why. So they say, how important is it to you that Iran be prevented from possessing ballistic missiles, which are long range missiles capable of reaching countries like Israel?

1:03:23Jake Tapper:So that's how we phrase the question. I think prevented. Was the wrong word to use there, I should have said, how important is it to you that the that the U.S. and Israel dismantle Iran's missile program? But because of the way we word it, you get just a kind of neutral perspective from the American people about whether or not they want Iran to be able to possess ballistic missiles. And they absolutely do not. And so for 54 percent of all Americans, it's very important that Iran be prevented from having ballistic missiles. Yeah. Which maybe if Trump, if you're watching this, just say you blew up the ballistic missile program and call it a day.

1:04:12Jake Tapper:Right. Another 29 percent say it's somewhat important. So that means by an 83 to 13 margin, the American people think it's important that Iran be prevented from possessing ballistic missiles. Now, because I get to write the poll, I put in a question that said Iran should be allowed to have ballistic missiles because countries have a right to defend themselves. Give people that option. Only 13 percent picked that. This is so that's 14 percent said it's not a concern of the United States. Two thirds in the separate question said they should be prevented.

1:04:48Krystal Ball:That's really, really, really interesting because it shows consistency among the people who are responding to the questions. And it shows that Trump had or should have some built in consistency or built in sympathy here among the public if he made a coherent, logical, honest case for war or for a deal that disarmed Iran. I'm not saying that's possible, but you don't only have to disarm people of their ballistic missiles through military action. Hypothetically, of course, I think that would probably 100 % be the case with Iran. You have to do it by force. That shows, though, Trump has friendly sentiments among a big chunk of the public that still overall is unhappy with what's happened over the last 10 days.

1:05:32Krystal Ball:So that's a I think it's a very for the administration's purposes, for the political purposes and for the moral purposes of people making these decisions. that's a very, I think, interesting contrast between the question of people agreeing with what's happened and people wanting Iran to have ballistic missiles.

1:05:49Jake Tapper:Yeah. One other interesting detail, when we added in Netanyahu, the numbers got even worse for Trump rather than just saying Israel. So we said, when it comes to U.S. military action against Iran, which of the following statements regarding Trump's personal motivations comes closer to your view? One, Trump is more responsive to the interests of the American people than any foreign interests like those of Israel, or two, President Trump is more responsive to the interests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than the interests of the American people. That completely split public. So whereas it was 50-41 on the earlier one that we were talking about, this was 47-46.

1:06:28Jake Tapper:So 46 % of the public said Trump is more responsive to Netanyahu than to the American people. Whereas 47 % said, no, no, no, Trump's more America first than he is Netanyahu. 17 % of Republicans said he's more responsive to Netanyahu. Independence, it was 50-44. So among independents, which swung the election for Trump, they feel like he's more responsive to Netanyahu than he is to the American public.

1:07:03Krystal Ball:Fascinating.

1:07:04Jake Tapper:It's crazy. Yeah. Get yourself together, guys.

1:07:07Krystal Ball:Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Well, great poll. That's such a good idea.

1:07:12Jake Tapper:Yeah.

1:07:12Krystal Ball:I love it when indie outlets do polling.

1:07:15Jake Tapper:And BreakingPoint should do some of that. If you want, you know, become a premium subscriber so we get the money to do it.

1:07:20Krystal Ball:Yeah, polling is shockingly expensive.

1:07:22Jake Tapper:But we can put some polls out in the field, too. BPfree26, breakingpoints.com. Is the one month free if you want to support the show so that we can put our own polls out there? And also you can also then suggest questions. Like if you have any questions that you should poll, put them down in the comment section. And, you know, we're looking for ideas.

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1:10:32Krystal Ball:Let's move on to the focus group in podcast space or media space because, of course, Bill Maher and Joe Rogan have weighed in. So let's get to it, Ryan. Let's start now with this clip. of Joe Rogan on a recent show. He was actually with Michael Schellenberger in conversation. This just dropped yesterday, reacting to the war in Iran, F1.

1:10:58Bill Maher:Which just seems so insane based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on no more wars and these stupid, senseless wars. And then we have one that we can't even really clearly define why we did it. Well, but he said he's against endless wars. Well, they're all – listen, man. They're all endless. Did you ever hear Rumsfeld talk about Iraq when it first happened? Tell me. They were talking about like six weeks. Six weeks. Oh, yeah. Six weeks. Yeah. But they put – that was ground force and I know that they've not ruled that out. For me, that would be – They have?

1:11:35Bill Maher:They have not. Oh, no. My understanding is that you have not. I thought you said and now. Yeah. No. This guy is just acting. He says he's not getting where they want to get in the negotiations with the Iranians. And so he says, we have some leverage over you and we're going to use it. Clearly, Israel wanted this. Israel has its own motivations, I think. Yeah. But I don't think I think it's not quite accurate to say that. I just don't think I think all the evidence shows that Trump is his own man and he is the president. And like literally he couldn't even give back. He couldn't even give Elon the battery subsidy that he wanted.

1:12:06Bill Maher:You know, it's like I get that. I've never seen a Paul. I mean, I've never seen a politician act that independently. That's I mean, a president act that independently. So I'm skeptical of – I mean I think that Rubio was sort of like, well, they were going to attack and so we had to – there's some of that. But I just think Trump is doing what he wants to do and we should – You really think it's that simple? Trump is doing what he wants to do. That's it? Yes. You don't think people are influencing him? Because there's a lot of war hawks around him, right? There's a lot of people that want this and have for a long time.

1:12:37Bill Maher:I mean Netanyahu is in there but then Tucker was in there a bunch. But do you think Tucker has the kind of influence that Netanyahu has? Well, I mean, I guess if you just base it on the outcome, then the answer is no. But that's what I'm saying. I just think he listens to everybody, but I just don't think it's Russians aren't behind him. I mean, Trump is look what he's been through.

1:12:57Krystal Ball:For the record, Tucker has said in his conversations with Trump, I think he said this in his recent episode with Sagar, that he believes Trump did not want to do this. Or, I mean, the alternative to that, Tucker knows Donald Trump much better than I do. but it's possible Trump when he's in conversations with people is one of those guys who's seeing it I mean he's a business dude he's pragmatist more than he's an ideologue and he's he sort of makes you feel like he agrees with you so there there are different ways to really that's not the impression I get I don't believe that right I don't believe that Trump was worried about bombing Iran.

1:13:35Krystal Ball:I mean, I believe that Tucker is accurately representing their conversations that he, Trump was indicating he did not want to be dragged into the war. But I don't know that I necessarily agree that he was hesitant to strike.

1:13:51Jake Tapper:We, as we talked about in the last segment, the public disagrees with that idea. The public thinks that he is heavily influenced by Israel and particularly by Netanyahu. So maybe they're wrong. Maybe he is just doing whatever he wants to do. Rogan, correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't follow this space just closely as some people do. He's kind of held on to Trump a little longer than the rest of the podcast bros. Is that right?

1:14:17Krystal Ball:No, I don't think so. I feel like he was pretty early to, but he's friendly with Elon. So the Doge stuff didn't dissuade him. But around summertime, I think he was pretty openly starting to question the immigration stuff.

1:14:31Jake Tapper:Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, because he was like, this is not how I envisioned this happening. Right. Right.

1:14:38Krystal Ball:And he's friendly with Bobby Kennedy. So he's been, I think Kenny was just back on the show. Elon was, they've both been on the show in the last couple of months. So I guess he's hung on to it in that sense. I'm sure back in June he was critical of what happened in Iran too. So I think he's clung on maybe with some things or he's hung on some things for a while. But overall, he's definitely been willing to be a bit critical. from probably the, I don't know, last summer, starting on would be my guess. But, you know, he's going to, I'm sure he's going to support Kennedy for the most part and some of those other agenda items in the administration.

1:15:18Krystal Ball:Bill Maher is the guy who's apparently on the left, not even like in the pod bro world. He's all in. That doesn't really surprise anyone, I bet. But let's roll F2 here.

1:15:31Bill Maher:Also, this week, war. Did you hear about that thing? We bombed Iran and it's going on. Now, have you expected me to say I hate it? I don't. Sorry. When he puts boots on the ground? Yeah, then I'll hate it. Now, I know too many happy Iranian Americans. Sorry.

1:15:54Bill Maher:And you cannot name one horrible thing that has happened in the Middle East in the last 50 years and not connected to this fascist theocracy. They're like six degrees of they don't eat bacon. And it's popular. I mean, Iranians all over the world are doing the Trump dance. Have you seen that? I just want to reiterate what I said in the monologue. I'm cautiously optimistic of Musseys puts boots on the ground. Then he's going to lose me. We'll see for now. I just don't get what liberals don't get about liberation. I see so much happiness. I see it in Venezuela. I see it here in Iran. Could we skip the part where we talk about, oh, they had so many different reasons for going to war, regime change, and we got to get rid of the nukes, and they were supporters of terrorism?

1:16:39Bill Maher:It's all of it. How about this? This was a fascist theocracy, and nothing in the Middle East was ever going to get better while they were still there fucking everything up.

1:16:49Krystal Ball:The liberation from Mossadegh. What do liberals not get about that, Ryan?

1:16:54Jake Tapper:Didn't Bill Maher lose his show for criticizing the invasion of Iraq? politically incorrect. I thought so.

1:17:03Krystal Ball:Yeah, that's my impression.

1:17:04Jake Tapper:So what did he not get about liberation then? Like, what's going on with this guy?

1:17:10Krystal Ball:Well, he's saying ground troops, I guess, is his red line.

1:17:13Jake Tapper:So, okay. So what he was saying is George W. Bush should have just done shock and awe for months and bombed the hell out of Iraq, and then he would have been fine with it? And then, And then like Uday Hussein or Qusay Hussein, I guess, whichever one rises to the top becomes president of Iraq. And he's cool with that.

1:17:32Krystal Ball:You just keep mowing the lawn.

1:17:33Jake Tapper:And then, yeah, as they did in the 90s.

1:17:35Krystal Ball:And as they're talking about maybe the strategy going forward with Iran now. I don't know.

1:17:41Jake Tapper:Which, clearly. I mean, the guy just, he hates religion. He hates Islam in particular. He hates all religion, but Islam in particular. and he sees them as a way to, sees them going after Iran as like fulfilling that itch that he's got.

1:17:59Krystal Ball:This was the Ammar comment. This was in, looks like September 2001. Oh, that's right. Like six days after. He said, quote, we have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles. This was to D'Souza, lobbing cruise missiles from 2000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it. It's not cowardly. That is one of the most famous moments in Bill Maher's career, as my memory is being jogged.

1:18:25Jake Tapper:That's what he got fired for, that's right.

1:18:26Krystal Ball:Well, it was canceled, like, months later, and he assumed that it was pegged to that incident, which is probably a fair assumption. I remember that.

1:18:33Jake Tapper:It's hard to describe what the, like, feeling in the air was at that time in late 2001, early 2002, that you could not say anything like that. even though you look back now, you're like, well, that's just a, that's just a normal, that's a logical thing to say. Like you can disagree with what they did, but when it comes to physical courage, like, well, duh, obviously it takes physical courage to carry out any physical attack.

1:19:07Krystal Ball:Yeah. You can say that, but you don't also have to.

1:19:09Jake Tapper:Yeah. And I think people confuse the word courage with valor and, and like morality. Yeah. That if, if you say something is courageous that it's necessarily good but you can be courageous and terrible yeah i think he

1:19:21Krystal Ball:would have gotten canceled no matter what but i don't think he necessarily needed to say that the u.s was cowardly six days after 9-11 that probably is not uh you know it's true you can say it's it's courageous for like terrorists physically courageous to your point ryan um but if you couple that with the u.s is cowardly that's six days after 9-11 where there was an enormous amount

1:19:44Jake Tapper:of bravery right but he's talking about the people that i know his missiles from 2 000 miles away i

1:19:49Krystal Ball:know but it's tonally that's difficult for people who are grieving he wasn't reading the room really wasn't reading the room room was very very uh rough at that moment yeah yeah um and again like we probably disagree on this i don't think that's necessarily unreasonable when you had american bravery on full display people killed yeah right and american bravery on full display in New York City and, you know, the Flight 93 around the country. Yeah. So anyway, that's Bill Maher now, 2026. Bill Maher saying, I'm seeing too many happy Iranians feeling liberated. And I don't understand why the left doesn't support that.

1:20:30Jake Tapper:The Shots of Sunset are very excited.

1:20:32Krystal Ball:Yes, we discussed this. You haven't watched Shots of Sunset in years, nor have I. But they are. I did see Reza from Shots of Sunset was excited. Least shocking thing ever. Yeah. that'll do it for us on today's edition. But of course, we're ending on a Bravo note. I don't know what else we would do. Today's edition of Breaking Points. Remember this year, last week, to get in on that free trial, promo code BPFREE26. That is a free month of the show. You get the show the way that we think it's really meant to be watched, which is in one fell swoop, one chunk, no commercial breaks, right in your inbox, nice and early.

1:21:08Krystal Ball:The clips come out, of course, later, but you also get the second half of the Friday show. every week. That is totally paywall. That's where we do AMAs and do get access to more AMAs and the like. So please do go ahead, support the journalism that we're doing here at Breaking Points. Get a free month trial. If you like it, stick around. We're so excited to have so many new folks because this is an important time for independent media.

1:21:31Jake Tapper:Yes, indeed. All right. We'll see you soon. Sounds good.

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