9/29/25: Eric Adams Drops Out, Trump Calls For Portland Invasion, Shane Gillis Calls Out Riyadh Comedy Festival

15:18Krystal Ball:Every Jew supports this. Every Jew wants this done. It's insane to me, completely insane.

15:25Saagar Enjeti:Well, I mean, some would say maybe the ADL's entire point was to increase anti-Semitism at a certain point because it's like they want it to go up so that they can fight back against it. I've always thought about that with the ACL or the human rights campaign or any of these other people. Like I remember thinking about them and you know, when gay marriage got legalized, they have this huge building here in DC. It's like, oh shit, now what do we do? And so, you know, they created all these new campaigns or whatever. You could say they're legitimate. I think most of them are bullshit. But my major point is without the opposition, what do you do now?

15:56Saagar Enjeti:And actually we saw the collapse of this in 2022 where a lot of the pro-life groups didn't come out to vote Republican because like, hey, we got what we wanted. You know, I've always thought about that with sometimes you need the issue to be live. And in some cases you want it to be worse in order to increase your funding and keep it circular.

16:12Krystal Ball:Well, and even when you consider the ADL being so tied in with the state of Israel, Ryan was making this point, you know, nothing benefits Netanyahu and his political project and the state of Israel more broadly than when there is this sense of rising anti-Semitism around the world, because this is why we need the safe haven for Jews. And that has been true from the beginning, from before the founding of the state of Israel in terms of, you know, even some early Zionists, like they did not want the U.S. and the U.K. to take in Jewish refugees because they thought that that would undermine the case that they were trying to make for this, you know, Jewish national project.

16:48Krystal Ball:So even on a bigger level outside of just like interest group politics, since he's so tied in with the state of Israel and the Zionist project is, you know, clearly an ideological like a touchstone for him. Like that's what drives all of his views. The sense that antisemitism is rising. He and Netanyahu feel benefits the state of Israel and creates more urgency around the project that they believe in. That's right.

17:12Saagar Enjeti:All right. Hey, we've got Ken Klippenstein standing by. So let's get to him.

17:17Krystal Ball:This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I almost famous podcast. iVeam is built for losing weight and moving forward. iVeam is built for feeling your best and seeing real results. iVeam is a medical weight loss program built for you. Their approach is individualized, virtual, integrative medicine. 99.2 % of patients who've completed the iVeam weight loss protocol achieved meaningful change, dropping an average of 45 pounds. iVeam, built for your wellness journey. iVeam, built for real life. When you sign up right now, you can get a one-month free trial. Start your personalized plan in minutes by visiting IVIMHealth.com.

18:05Krystal Ball:That is IVIMHealth.com. Subscription required, medication, labs, and supplements not included. Results based on patients who completed the full iVeam protocol over 68 weeks. Individual results may vary. Not all patients are eligible. Prescription medication may carry risks and should be used only as directed by your provider.

18:27Shane Gillis:Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20 % year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S &P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks.

19:00Shane Gillis:Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities. Completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1 % bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.

19:28Shane Gillis:Virgin Voyages presents With Love from Bermuda.

19:32Krystal Ball:We didn't Uber to the airport. We didn't take our shoes off for security. We just sailed from New York. Now it's cocktails on deck, adults only everything, And waking up in warm pink sand paradise without flying there. No TSA, no chaos, just an epic winter escape.

19:49Shane Gillis:Award-winning kid-free cruises from Virgin Voyages. Now sailing from New York to Bermuda and beyond. Explore sailings at virginvoyages.com.

19:59Krystal Ball:So President Trump has announced full force, if necessary, to the city of Portland, Oregon, to break down that and also a lot else that's going on in the national security world. We are joined by Ken Klippenstein. Fantastic. independent journalist over on Substack who gets all the scoops. Great to see you, my friend.

20:15Saagar Enjeti:Good to see you again. Hey, guys.

20:17Krystal Ball:All right. So let me first get you, before we get to your reporting, let me get you to react to this Trump truth about Portland. We can put this up on the screen. Pretty wild that he puts this out. And he says, at the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I'm directing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to provide all necessary troops to protect war-ravaged Portland and any of our ICE facilities under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists. I'm also authorizing full force if necessary. Thank you for your attention to this matter. So what did you make of this? What are we likely to see, Ken?

20:49Shane Gillis:Well, it's striking how many times he's done this in states in which the governors don't actually want the support. The mayors of these major cities don't want the support. And so what you really have here is federal government pitted against states, but the president has the power to federalize these guard forces and do these kind of things. So seeing his account of what he sees is going on in Portland. And then the locals, it's sort of surreal how different what the two groups see is.

21:18Saagar Enjeti:Yeah. Ken, I know this fits into some of your reporting. So why don't we just go and get to it? We'll put this up here on the screen about the National Security Memorandum here, NSPM 7 by administration insiders. For those who are not familiar, national security memorandums are often a statement of administration policy previously used by the Obama administration, Biden administration, et cetera, to kind of set the scope for terrorism and or general policy of how all governments should flow. So here you say it, quote, NSPM 7 labels common beliefs as, quote, terrorism indicators. Can you just tell us a little bit about what you found in that and what the broader implications are of the memorandum?

21:56Shane Gillis:Yeah. Yeah. So what NSPM 7 does, unfortunately, no, because NSPM 6 is classified, as are many of the national security presidential memoranda. This is completely separate from the executive orders of which we've seen over 200. And I think that might be part of why people missed it. I think the major media got it mixed up with the designation of the presidential executive order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. This is completely separate from that. And these national security memoranda are kind of big picture strategic realignments around whatever it is that they articulate.

22:32Shane Gillis:So in my view, they're much more significant than executive orders. But what this does is it basically authorizes what are called joint terrorism task forces. These were mostly established after and in response to 9-11. that is thousands of troops or sorry, thousands of FBI agents and local police who can be deputized into these joint terrorism task forces. It's kind of similar to the deployment of the National Guard in that you are kind of federalizing what would be local and state troops and assets. And what's interesting is this can be done even without the knowledge and in some cases consent of the state legislature and the state governor.

23:18Shane Gillis:So what this does is it sets them on this target, which in this case is domestic, the phrase used repeatedly is radical left extremism and terrorism. And throughout the document, it says, oh, we're just focused on instances of violence. But what it does when you adopt a counter-terror approach, what you're essentially doing is you're getting into pre-crime because what you're trying to do is you're trying to preempt the next big attack. And if that, in the case of a biological weapons attack or a, you know, nuclear attack, that might make sense. But short of that, what you're doing is you're trying to preempt things that might not be necessary to do so.

23:58Shane Gillis:And when you want to preempt something, you have to try to predict that it's going to happen. And the way you do that is by looking at speech. And so it has this list of different, you know, ideas that they consider, indicia is the word they use. It's like Latin for indicators that are supposed to tell you that one of these attacks might happen. And when you look at them, these are huge groups of people, anti-Christianity, anti-family, anti-government.

24:22Krystal Ball:Let me read the list because I have it in front of me so you don't have to remember all like 12 things or whatever. So this is their definition of when they say, oh, this is radical left extremist terrorists. This is their definition of what they're talking about and appears basically to be anyone who has been critical of Donald Trump, period. So they're looking at these indicators, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, support for the overthrow of the U.S. government, extremism on migration, extremism on race, extremism on gender, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.

25:02Krystal Ball:What's more, you talk about the fact that the Trump administration, it's not like they're only targeting organizations or groups. They're also targeting individuals and quote-unquote entities that can be identified with any of those ideologies, which, as I just read off, are extremely broad and vague.

25:19Shane Gillis:Yeah, exactly. And it's important when you talk about individuals because ordinarily when you approach counterterrorism, the idea, at least post-9-11, is you're supposed to map out these organizational structures like al-Qaeda or ISIS, which really do have resources and really do have funding to be able to do operational things. But the fact that they say individuals and entities I thought was a little bit chilling. Because, again, the whole point of the counterterrorism approach is you're supposed to be responding to something that poses a profound threat to the stability of the state. If it's just an individual and if it's this whole list of different ideologies, is that really something that can carry something out like 9-11?

25:53Shane Gillis:I don't think so. And so I think the response is wildly out of proportion.

25:57Krystal Ball:What is the entity's piece? What does that bring to mind for you? Why is that a particular sort of red flag for you?

26:03Shane Gillis:Well, if you look at the domestic terrorist organization executive order last week targeting Antifa, that rightly caused a lot of concern because, you know, you're supposed to – foreign terrorist organizations are supposed to be what's designated. because it's understood that when you treat something as terrorism, that is a direct threat to the First Amendment. Because again, you're getting into this business of how can we use ideology and belief systems to try to anticipate and monitor an attack that might happen. So it's supposed to be treated with a lot of caution. So they're completely throwing out the idea of the organization.

26:40Shane Gillis:That's not even necessary anymore. In the case of Antifa, there was this whole debate about, well, does it even exist as a coherent, organized entity? Now they're just done with that. And they're like, well, now there's individuals. And it's like, how much threat does one individual pose? Like, do they have the operational capacity of Al-Qaeda to be able – I mean, we just saw on 9-11 some more records got released. We were looking at the amount of coordination that had to happen between the different cells. It's not trivial to carry out something big enough that can create a mass casualty event like that.

27:09Shane Gillis:And now it's like even that standard is starting out the window.

27:11Saagar Enjeti:Well, let's push a little bit here, Ken. I think we all agree here. Antifa is not an organized force. and I'm not some, you know, left-wing organizations or whatever are the ones behind this. I largely think it's kind of bottom-up very relative to the, let's say, the terrorism craze of the late 2010s, so-called lone wolf terrorists, people like the San Bernardino pulse shooter, right? These are people who were living normal lives, started getting into Al-Qaeda propaganda, went mentally ill and killed a lot of people. And so I think most people would say, yeah, I mean, there should be some sort of federal government type response to it.

27:45Saagar Enjeti:I think you're basically saying it should be a local matter. I'm not sure I'm entirely there, although I am very uncomfortable with the way that a lot of the 9-11 post-terrorism state was used because for all of the pulse in San Bernardino stuff that they could point to, there were myriad cases, many of which we covered here on the show, which were basically entrapment. Like not legally entrapment, but basically entrapment. entrapment. Although at that time they had a material support for terrorism charge very easily at their disposal, I don't see how practically they could go down that road. So I threw a lot at you, but how do you grapple with that?

28:21Shane Gillis:Yeah, I would say that if you wanted to respond to it using the counterterrorism apparatus, a more effective way would be to have more focused indicia or indicators than anti-capitalism. That's huge. That's got to be millions and millions So even just from the perspective of efficacy, that's going to lead you down some paths that are probably not going to turn up much in terms of actionable leads.

28:47Krystal Ball:Yeah. I mean some 30-plus percent of Americans I just saw a poll identify as democratic socialists at this point. Right. They all, you know, anti-cap. And, you know, they use an example in the Antifa executive order of anybody who quote-unquote celebrated the killing of the health care CEO by Luigi Mangione. So I think that's the other important piece to get is what is material support for terrorism? because this administration is really pushed to make it so that even just speech, even just rhetorical support for things that they find to be terroristic could constitute material support for terror.

29:26Shane Gillis:Right. And on this point, I guess I should acknowledge, you're right. My general view is that it's preferable to accept some amount of tragedies happening in exchange for the First Amendment. And that's not a very popular position, but I guess I should be honest and transparent about that is my position. Because in this case -

29:46Saagar Enjeti:I largely share that about the second amendment. I think it's important to say stuff like that.

29:50Shane Gillis:Yeah. And in this case, I've already spoke, I'm gonna have a story shortly based on lawyers and legal experts who are now working with nonprofit organizations and they're already hearing that they're gonna start curtailing stuff they're saying out of fear of the implementation of this order. So the chilling effect on speech is already happening. And to me, that is something that should be of paramount concern to people. But if you look at the media coverage, on some level I understand it because in the case of Charlie Kirk and these shootings, it's horrifying. And I understand that people want some sort of response to happen so that those things don't happen again.

30:29Shane Gillis:But I guess my view is that we should just proceed with caution about how you go about doing that because this memorandum in particular, it just feels like this sledgehammer approach to the problem. When you look at the language, I mean, it is so broad. It's crazy to me. But that's my yeah, that's essentially my position.

30:45Krystal Ball:I mean, it's also just very much aimed at whoever is their political opponents. You know, I mean, it's, you know, using using this moment of heightened public anxiety and concern about left wing violence to, you know, further try to crush their political opponents and paint them all as terrorists. And you had Stephen Miller can put this tweet up on the screen saying we're witnessing domestic terrorist sedition against the federal government. The JTTF, Joint Terrorism Task Force, has been dispatched by the attorney general pursuant to, and he name checks this memorandum, NSPM 7, all necessary resources will be utilized.

31:24Krystal Ball:And so when I first saw this, I was like, what the fuck is NSPM 7? And then I saw your reporting and I was like, thank you, Ken. Now I understand. But, you know, just can you sort of sketch this out? Like they're already putting this into effect. They're already, he says, all necessary resources will be utilized. Like what does this actually look like and mean in society? Or do we know actually at this point how it will be really used?

31:44Shane Gillis:Well, in regards to the intelligence collection and the monitoring of those indicators that we were describing, a lot of that will happen on the intelligence side. And so we won't see that. What we will see is the tapping of these JTTFs, the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which I think is going to be a kind of more extreme example of the deployment of the National Guard. Because in the case of the National Guard, and I said in the story, I really don't want to sound like I'm being hyperbolic or overstating things. But this really is what some of the more exaggerated reporting on the National Guard has been because the National Guard, the military can't engage in law enforcement.

32:19Shane Gillis:They don't actually have the authority to do that. When you talk to the troops, as I have in both L.A. and D.C., they're under strict rules of engagement orders. That's not to say that I think it's good that we're deploying it. I don't think it's healthy for society to have troops stomping around even if they're limited in what they can do. That being said, they're quite restricted in what they can do. A lot of the National Guard are just regular guys, locals that are integrated in the community. And so I think some of the reporting around the idea that they're just going to open fire on people, I don't think that's really, you know, I don't think that's the concern.

32:51Shane Gillis:I think the concern should be more what is the effect on the democratic culture. But in the case of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, they can engage in law enforcement directly, and they can be federalized by the president without the support of the state legislature and the governor. So I really think that this should be something that a lot of the critique that has been leveled at the National Guard should be focused on.

33:12Saagar Enjeti:To cope a little bit maybe here, Ken, material support for terrorism was a real thing because ISIS was a foreign terrorist organization. Even this whole Antifa – Trump said he was going to designate Antifa in the first term. It didn't happen because you actually can't designate a, quote, domestic terrorist organization. You can't – supporting the Open Societies Foundation is just like not – is not material support for terror. Now, I mean, you could use tax rod or you could say, you know, some sort of other weaponization of government for sure. But does that allay any of your concern? More just about how much of this is just for show?

33:43Saagar Enjeti:How much of this is just to placate a lot of right-wing influencers on Twitter who are calling for blood when in reality, like, U.S. jurisprudence is, like, pretty clear about what actual terrorism means. Now, you can employ a lot of other types of laws to make their life hell. I'm not disputing that whatsoever. but how much of this is for theater?

34:04Shane Gillis:I would say that, you know, I'm on record saying that a lot of the National Guard deployments were theater, creating these images of guys stomping around. And then you actually watch the videos and they're picking up trash and things, you know, because of that ROE that I was just talking about. They really are limited in what they can actually do. In this case, you know, charges that they levy are going to have to stand up in court. And so that's an important form of oversight that is not changed by the executive order. That said, I'm more concerned about the subtle effects on speech that I was just describing, which is not NGOs and organizations and groups saying, you know, maybe we wanted to say this thing, but with all this heat in the form of the memorandum and not just the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, but the IRS auditing these organizations and trying to find things to say that they're supporting whatever.

34:51Shane Gillis:Maybe we're not going to go ahead with this project or say this controversial thing. so that's kind of a more nuanced concern i guess than like the black helicopter sort of thing um but but it's a real one that we're already seeing in the case of how the jtts are going to be deployed to make cases against people that has yet to be seen and i don't know the answer to that yet but but steven miller's comment i was amazed by how quickly he said we are activating them and that says to me that um that they're taking that part of the memorandum uh more seriously than one might expect. And lastly, just in reporting all this, I was curious myself, do they really believe this stuff?

35:26Shane Gillis:Not just this specific thing, but like the kind of general approach to stuff as terrorism thing. And I've been struck by how much, and to some extent, I feel some empathy. I think something traumatic, a friend of theirs got killed and they're responding to it. And what I found is like, in large part, they really do think that there's some network orchestrating these things and that we're going to find the network. So it struck me is pretty sincere, a lot of it, where I expected it to be more along the lines of political signaling in theater.

35:55Krystal Ball:Yeah. I mean, last thing from me, just in terms of its implementation and reading the tea leaves and whatever, I mean, you have this back and forth with Gavin Newsom and Stephen Miller, where Newsom calls Stephen Miller a fascist. And then you have people who are saying this is incitement to violence, right? Effectively, like this speech is out of bounds and it's incitement and it should be criminalized. You had Pam Bondi saying this thing about like, there's a difference between free speech and hate speech. She sort of backed that up, like walked that back because there was a backlash. And then Trump comes out and says basically the same thing.

36:30Krystal Ball:So this is their view, is that this sort of speech should be out of bounds. It should be criminal. It should be, you should be viewed as a terrorist if you say these sorts of things. And we know the way that the, you know, this government has worked to make that reality. We saw first and foremost with student visa holders in particular and the crushing dissent of them for it's crushing of their dissent for things like writing op eds, et cetera. But, you know, it seems like this is an attempt to expand that to also direct those powers at American citizens. And the last thing to get from you, Ken, is this is something you've said to me before.

37:06Krystal Ball:It's like, you know, part of why we're in a more dangerous era than post-2001 is because the technology is much more effective. Palantir is a thing now. Like, the ability to—you don't have to have individual FBI agents, like, searching up people's social media history. You can have AI troll through everything all of us are saying anywhere online and flag who's saying something anti-capital, who celebrated Luigi, who said something untoward about Charlie Kirk. And that can be done automatically in a way that requires almost no human beings to be involved. So I think that's part of how people need to process this dystopian moment is that the technology has progressed much further.

37:53Krystal Ball:So it's much easier for the federal government to act in authoritarian ways. Yeah, totally.

38:00Shane Gillis:I mean, we're in a position where because of large language models and things like that, the state is able to process things on a scale that we couldn't even imagine 15 years ago. And so this historical protection that we had against government incursion and interference into, you know, like Fourth Amendment rights, you know, unreasonable search and seizure, which is that the NSA can collect everything, but good luck going through all of it, that is increasingly melting away. They will be able and increasingly are able to go through all these things. And what we need to have is an attendant response by the Congress, by the legislature to try to enshrine those rights in a way that they're protected from these breakthroughs in technology.

38:49Shane Gillis:And I've seen nothing of the sort in the last couple of years. So that's really going to be the challenge of the next decade or so, I think.

38:54Saagar Enjeti:I totally agree. The AI question powered with government is really scary. It also is one where is anybody in the future going to give it up? No. These contracts are all going to stay for the power. So I really appreciate your answer earlier about chilling. I think that is very poignant. And one that is the cleanest and easiest hit is that government action, which does chill speech, even for people, it's like with the FCC thing. They were arguing, oh, we didn't directly get involved. It's like, yeah, but at the end of the day, everybody's going to think about it. You're on network TV. I think that's very well said.

39:28Saagar Enjeti:And I think that, you know, I'm sitting with that. I really am.

39:32Krystal Ball:Ken, can you tell people where to support your work? You've been doing an incredible job lately. And not just lately.

39:38Saagar Enjeti:Yeah, I run a newsletter at kenklippenstein.com. You can find me there. Nice. Next time, we're going to fight about your trans piece, but we didn't have time today, okay? All right. All right. We'll get to Riyadh. Let's brain check.

39:49Krystal Ball:All right. Thanks, Ken.

39:50Saagar Enjeti:All right. Bye, guys.

39:53Krystal Ball:This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. iVeam is built for losing weight and moving forward. iVeam is built for feeling your best and seeing real results. iVeam is a medical weight loss program built for you. Their approach is individualized, virtual, integrative medicine. 99.2 % of patients who've completed the iVeam weight loss protocol achieved meaningful change, dropping an average of 45 pounds. iVeam, built for your wellness journey. iVeam, built for real life. When you sign up right now, you can get a one month free trial. Start your personalized plan in minutes by visiting IVIMHealth.com.

40:41Krystal Ball:That is IVIMHealth.com. Subscription required, medication, labs, and supplements not included. Results based on patients who completed the full iVeam protocol over 68 weeks. Individual results may vary. Not all patients are eligible. Prescription medication may carry risks and should be used only as directed by your provider.

41:03Shane Gillis:Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20 % year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S &P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks.

41:36Shane Gillis:Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities. Completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1 % bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC registered advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.

42:04Shane Gillis:Virgin Voyages presents With Love from Bermuda.

42:08Krystal Ball:We didn't Uber to the airport. We didn't take our shoes off for security. We just sailed from New York. Now it's cocktails on deck, adults only everything, And waking up in warm pink sand paradise without flying there. No TSA, no chaos, just an epic winter escape.

42:25Shane Gillis:Award-winning kid-free cruises from Virgin Voyages. Now sailing from New York to Bermuda and beyond. Explore sailings at virginvoyages.com.

42:35Saagar Enjeti:All right, let's get to Riyadh. There was a great con fab currently taking place, the Riyadh Comedy Festival, made famous to much of the internet by Tim Dillon, which we'll get to here in a little bit. But nonetheless, many of America's best and brightest flew to Riyadh, accepted large checks for their comedy festival. And we have a little bit of a preview of what we can show everybody. Let's go ahead and put it up here on the screen. What do we have exactly? We've got probably the best stand-up comedian in the world, Dave Chappelle, who joined the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Chris DiStefano, much of the biggest comedy influencers, I guess you could say, who joined over there.

43:14Saagar Enjeti:not a particularly big audience, but you had Kevin Hart rocking his whoop strap just like I am. So shout out to Kevin, who also, by the way, appears in a lot of DraftKings commercials. I've certainly noticed that. But the point being, broadly, that many of the biggest comedy stars of the U.S. decided to go over there. And why I think it's interesting from a broad question of culture is how much can money buy? in terms of your ability to say what you want. Because the thing is, is I think if you would put some of these people together, many would be, I think, quite critical of the Saudi government.

43:52Saagar Enjeti:Now, the Saudi government realizes that, which is why a literal kingdom monarchy is holding a, quote, comedy festival to try and whitewash their image, just like they do with Live Golf and all that. Some people in America are like, hey, who cares? I'm like, well, you know, 9-11, but whatever. I guess we're going to move past that. But the point about their snowflakery remains very important. Let's put this up here on the screen. And you'll recall Tim Dillon famously was like, hey, I took the bag. I made$300 ,000 for Saudi Arabia from Saudi Arabia to go and speak at this comedy festival. And then he told jokes where he said, quote, they heard you said about them having slaves.

44:27Saagar Enjeti:Dillon recalled his manager telling him in a previous conversation they didn't like that. Quote, I addressed it in a funny way and they fired me. I certainly was going to show up in your country and insult the people that are paying me the money. But, I mean, he was doing it certainly on his podcast. But it does kind of make you think here about, well, what is the price of all this Saudi money? And what is the purpose that they're doing it? And should we want our best and brightest in comedy or whatever to be involved? Shout out to Shane Gillis. He's a history guy. So here's what he had to say.

45:00Saagar Enjeti:Let's put it up here on the screen. He said, quote, I took a principal stand. You don't 9-11 your friends after he turned down, quote, a significant bag for an appearance. You know, nice that Shane actually has read a book here and obviously knows what he's talking about. But yeah, I just, I don't know. For me, it's like the live golf thing. By the way, I had friends, you know, at the comedy festival. I guess I don't begrudge people taking money. But what it is for me is you got to look at the purpose of, like, why they're doing this. And they want, you know, they want to basically use their billions to make the entire country forget about 9-11.

45:37Saagar Enjeti:And by the way, it's working because there's only one or two people who basically decided not to do it on those purposes. You can go back to the days after 9-11 where the Bush administration stepped in to try and protect the government of Saudi Arabia from pushback. There's all these articles from The New York Times and others. I encourage people to go and read about the amount of money that the Saudis spent on a PR campaign to make Americans forget about 9-11. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11 and we invaded who? Right. Iraq. And so it's one of those where at the end of the day, they won from LiveGolf to Uber.

46:09Saagar Enjeti:I mean, their money is so – it's so ever-present in venture capital, in Silicon Valley. You'd be – people talk about silent speech on Israel. People – I mean, you'd be hard-pressed to find one or two venture capitalists who run big funds who would say something about Saudi Arabia. Uber CEO, right, for example. Huge amounts of Saudi money involved. Twitter previously. Facebook. I mean, many of these companies have huge amounts of Saudi money influence that they, it's like a convenient cash cow, not to mention politically. Think about Jared Kushner, who went to the Saudi royal family for their sovereign wealth fund whenever he was raising money.

46:47Saagar Enjeti:And internal documents later came out that MBS personally greenlit the investment, even though the Saudi managers were like, hey, this is, he's not going to give us a good return. He's like, oh, it's not about that. He's like, this is about politics, right? This is what we're paying for. So I look at within that and it's scary because you watch how easy the money is able to penetrate now from Live Golf, UFC, right, with all the emirates and all these golf monarchies. They have endless amounts of cash. And I think they've read us very carefully, which is if you throw money at these people, eventually they will forget and we'll all just move on.

47:21Saagar Enjeti:And yeah, it's been 24 years and they won.

47:23Krystal Ball:So for the Saudi side, I mean, 9-11 is one thing. You also have, obviously, the murder and chopping up with a bone saw of Jamal Khashoggi, who was a journalist, wrote for The Washington Post, columns that the Crown Prince didn't like. And so that was the fate that he was met with. Widespread human rights and labor abuses. Mass crackdown on free speech. And that may be the – and, of course, the enforced famine in what many call a genocide in Yemen. But the free speech one is worth pausing and sitting with here for a moment. Comedians should be and have been at the vanguard of standing up for freedom of expression and free speech.

48:04Krystal Ball:This regime is the polar opposite. And that even bleeds into what these comedians had to agree to as a condition of their employment here. We can put F5 up on the screen. So this is from a comedian who was offered, you know, given an offer to attend this Riyadh Comedy Festival. Some significant amount of money was ultimately offered. And they published some of the restrictions that artists were required to adhere to. So it says content restrictions.

49:01Krystal Ball:So they all, every one of them, including the, you know, ones who code more left-wing like a Bill Burr, they all accepted this set of criteria and curtailed their own freedom of speech in exchange for money. And you're right, Sogger, like this is, these comedians are not the only one. There are Mariah Carey's performed there, Justin Bieber's performed there, and in every, there's, they put their money into golf, they put their money into tennis, they put their money into race car driving, into e-car driving, like electric sports racing, on and on and on, hosted these major entertainment festivals, major artist fairs to bring in the top artists from around the world, et cetera.

49:42Krystal Ball:And the hope is that people will forget about all of that other stuff. And that's actually Tim Dillon. I did a monologue on this. You guys can go back and watch. When he originally accepted the cash and did his bit that ends up getting him fired, the whole shtick was, you're paying me enough to look the other way. And that's it. And that is the deal that these comedians have accepted. That is the deal that's being offered by Saudi Arabia is basically we're going to pay you more than anyone else would pay you. I mean, these are big paydays, especially for certain of these comedians. We will pay you more than you're actually worth.

50:14Krystal Ball:And in exchange, you're not going you are going to look the other way. You're not going to say any of the things we don't want you to say. And you are going to help us launder our reputation. And the sad this is actually the biggest backlash that I've seen to one of these things. I hope the sad truth is that in every instance, as artists have weighed this deal, like, is it worth it? Will the backlash to my reputation? Will I be stained with this in a way that is more consequential than the payday I'm getting on the other side? In every case, the answer has been no. The answer has been in favor of taking the blood money and doing the performance.

50:50Krystal Ball:And in Tim Dillon's words, look in the other way.

50:53Saagar Enjeti:Yeah, I know. Well, you know, at the very least, he said what he thought and they fired him for it.

50:56Krystal Ball:I mean, he ends up, because apparently he got to keep some of the money. Oh, really? And then they have to perform. So, and I want to say, too, I think it was, so Rogan also said no. And I think it was Tim Dillon that he had on that he was kind of ridden. They talked about it. It was before Dillon had been canceled from it. And he was giving him a hard time about, like, taking this money.

51:16Saagar Enjeti:Yeah, I hadn't listened to the full thing. Look, my problem was, I don't know why, but somehow in this country, we all just started giving people a pass. I remember the live golf thing. Our position was so unpopular in the golf. I don't watch golf. I'm not a golf guy. I'm more just saying, though, from what I understand in the golf fandom community, they're like, hey, brothers, get your bag. And I was like, oh, really? Like, what, you're making hundreds of millions of dollars? And it's like now you have to make$500 million or whatever. And we all just get to look the other way because you're accepting this for open, like naked interference in American culture.

51:52Saagar Enjeti:and we're not supposed to have a take because we're all just supposed to sit and worship at the altar of golf so that you can make as much money as possible. I'm like, no, that's not the deal I signed up for. But I think this is a broad kind of problem is we don't hold, look, if we hold American comedy, Hollywood, and all of that to a high standard, which I think we should, especially in terms of the effects of globalization, it's kind of analogous to what's going on right now with the NFL. But the NFL right now this year is playing a number of international games. And that's because for them, they've hit the ceiling in America.

52:28Saagar Enjeti:Football is the most American sport. Of the top 100 broadcasts, 93 out of the 100 are NFL games. Like it's ridiculously dominant. So do you know what they do? They're like, well, we can't make more money. This thing needs to grow, grow, grow. So let's play in Brazil. Let's play in Dublin like they just did. Let's play in London, in Spain. And because they want to grow the fan base and make it more international so they can make more money. But part of that is that what they're trying to do is use, like, globalization kind of in the same way that the Saudis are to make American culture not beholden to American standards.

53:03Saagar Enjeti:And I think that's one of those where we really should hold these higher echelons of culture to the same standard that I think some people held, the Riyadh Comedy Festival. And it's important. It's important to say, no, like, that's not happening. You don't just get to, you know, use the country as a springboard, as a cash cow or an ATM. Same with the Saudis. You don't just get unlimited access to our capital markets. And yeah, I just think broadly, like we've lost, everything is degenerate and it's just all about the bottom line. And at a certain point, like people need to stand up and be like, no, we're not doing this anymore.

53:34Krystal Ball:Yeah. I mean, that was Dylan's thing was like, the world is ending. So get your back.

53:37Saagar Enjeti:Yeah.

53:37Krystal Ball:And I feel like that is a disgusting view, but I also feel like that is a very prevalent view. People feel like the collective project is kind of failing. So you just got to get yours. I mean, at the national, federal level, Naomi Klein talks about, like, she calls them sort of like, I can't remember, end times preppers. But at the national level, she has a great, I'm blanking on, like, the phrase she uses. But basically, like, we're going to suck up all the resources, whether it's the energy, whether it's the water. Like, it's a free-for-all, a smash and grab. And that's at the, like, national level.

54:16Krystal Ball:and then individually with each of these creators, influencers, comedians, people in their daily lives, like that's the message that's being sent. It's just, you got like, forget about the collective. You got to get yours. And this is an expression of that. You know, with the live golf thing, I will say there's one slight silver lining. Kyle could update on whether this is still holding true. But because the level of golf, for the guys that took the bag and went to live golf, the level of golf is not quite the same as the PGA Tour. and the length of the tournaments is shorter. So they have been struggling at like the major events because they're not used to the level comes and they're not used to the length of play.

54:55Krystal Ball:So there's been some backsliding for some of them at least in terms of the level of their play, which is a little bit of like a nice, like a little bit of calm for the guys who sold out and took the bag out. Like I said, I had to check with Kyle whether that's still the case. But there's also a whole separate storyline we could talk about too about the Ryder Cup over the weekend, the Americans and the Europeans. and how that all went down. Who lost? America? Yeah.

55:16Saagar Enjeti:Okay.

55:17Krystal Ball:Yeah, and Trump went and made a visit. The American fans were absolutely outrageous assholes, like in a way that was actually unacceptable. Oh, no, no. So a lot of Americans were - No, I like that. I like that. You can't be screaming. Troll them. Screw them. You can't be screaming and yelling on the backswing. Like, okay, some level of ribbing or whatever. He's Irish, right? He's Irish, yeah.

55:33Saagar Enjeti:Yeah, or famously, the most, the famously a fan base, which would never troll or yell at anybody. Come on.

55:39Krystal Ball:Listen. Get over yourselves. Everyone, including Americans, were acknowledging this was like of a different level than what has been seen before. So even a lot of Americans were like cheering for the Europeans because the American fan base were such incredible assholes. And you had Trump make a visit as well, which made it like instantly partisan. In any case, I do want to get to Marc Maron circling back to Riyadh and what he had to say about all of this. I mean, he's funny and self-deprecating because he's like, look, I didn't get invited. It's very easy for me to be moral on this issue, but let's go ahead and take a listen to what he had to say.

56:09Shane Gillis:Riyadh Comedy Festival. I don't know if you heard about that. This is true. There's a Riyadh Saudi Arabia comedy festival. I mean, how do you even promote that? You know, like, from the folks that brought you 9-11,

56:27Shane Gillis:two weeks of laughter in the desert. Don't miss it! I mean, the same guy that's going to pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to Bonesaw Jamal Khashoggi and put him in a fucking suitcase. but don't let that stop the yucks. It's going to be a good time.

56:43Krystal Ball:So there you go. Him weighing in. So in any case. I do wonder

56:48Saagar Enjeti:because Mark, for people who don't follow all this, Mark has famous beef, I think with many comedians. Mark is, look, I mean, I think Mark, I don't think he would dispute this. He's woke. He's like a woke comic. Oh yeah, he would definitely accept that. Yeah, I think he would probably accept that label. All right. So Mark Maron is woke and he hates the quote anti-woke comedians. And so, look, I don't know. I think a lot of it was personal for him, too. He's also famously a personal prick. So how much of that is motivated? But at the very least, he wasn't wrong in his set. So that's what we can say.

57:19Saagar Enjeti:I will say to Marc Maron, he was the OG, or at least one of the OGs on podcasting. And apparently he is retiring, which is kind of sad. I remember listening to his interview with Louis C.K. where they made up, I mean, this has got to be more than 10 years ago. And that's when I really got turned into the podcast medium. So I do want to give him his due. He did a lot of this.

57:37Krystal Ball:He's coming out with a bang, man. He's been throwing bombs. He's been getting attention, like gaining. I feel like he's having a late career resurgence in terms of his relevance. He's just a shitlib.

57:49Saagar Enjeti:And he's just like voicing the same shitlib stuff that he always has. It's just that shitlibs are very angry.

57:54Krystal Ball:I mean, so much of comedy has become more right-coded. That for him to, a lot of it has.

58:00Saagar Enjeti:It's only right-coded to you because you don't agree with it. I mean, it's just one of those where like. I mean, they all supported Trump's.

58:05Krystal Ball:They all supported Trump's. Yes. That's what I'm talking about. Okay, but. I would consider that to be right wing.

58:10Saagar Enjeti:But that's my point, is that it's more about countercultural. And the culture for the last 15 years has been explicitly left wing.

58:17Krystal Ball:So let me finish my thought here. So, I mean, you had a bunch of comedians support Trump, right? And endorse him and go to Zanagari, all that crap, right? And then, so Maren now coming out and being very vocal against them, like one of the few has, of course, gotten him a lot of, you know, a lot of attention and a lot more than, you know, he had been in recent years. So it's almost like the culture now has shifted, the vibe shifted the right. And now he's the one who's sort of like more countercultural and being a critic. Oh, I agree with that.

58:47Saagar Enjeti:I agree. I would, I would, that's my take with Marin is that he's basically the exact same kind of extremist shit lib that he's always been. Look, it's not denigrating. I appreciate some of the guy's podcasts. He gets some good interviews and all of that. But it's now that what's happened is that because the country is explicitly run by the Republicans and there's been effectively like a total or at least 2024 post vibes was like total decimation. Cultural victory in every way. Now it is like vaguely countercultural. I saw a funny tweet that the most countercultural thing someone in Silicon Valley could do would be just be anti-Trump and put pronouns in their bio.

59:27Saagar Enjeti:And you're like, wow, five years ago, that was literally the dominant culture. So, yeah, it is actually interesting from like a kind of counterculture point of view. And I do think he's got some clean hits in some ways where he's like, you guys won, so why are you still telling the jokes about the counterculture as if things have not changed a little bit? and I think he is correct in that way. And so I'm curious to see where, you know, kind of where the wind blows and who gets elevated with some of the new comedy. But anyway, that's just me. I don't know anything, all right? So that's my take broadly on the whole Riyadh situation.

1:00:02Saagar Enjeti:We will see you guys tomorrow for our Tuesday show and we're about to do our AMA. So there you go.

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