In short
The episode discusses Donald Trump’s behavior during King Charles’s U.S. visit, media “sane-washing” of Trump’s age/inebriation claims, corporate/regime-controlled media editing of Trump’s 60 Minutes interview, and Trump’s White House “ballroom” project (including DOJ court filings and taxpayer funding). It also argues that U.S. support for Israel is increasingly untenable, with Wendy Sherman calling Gaza a genocide, and it criticizes ADL/Elon Musk disputes.
Guests
Krystal Ball (co-host of Breaking Points; political commentator).
Key claims
Trump is unfit and should resign; corporate media and DOJ protect him; Fox/CBS edited coverage despite prior lawsuits; the ballroom is a $400M taxpayer gift to elites; rule of law is collapsing; Israel is committing genocide; Democrats are shifting on Israel; ADL is Israel-focused rather than universal anti-bigotry.
Notable examples
Trump/King Charles remarks; edited 60 Minutes footage (40 minutes to 13 minutes); DOJ “Trump derangement syndrome” motion; ballroom funding/no-bid fountain contract; Wendy Sherman’s “genocide in Gaza” quote; Elon Musk retweeting Stephen Miller about ADL.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOTrump's Royal Delusions
0:46 to 2:29
The hosts explore Trump's claims of being related to King Charles and the absurdities of his statements.
“You know, I think he needs to go and take up his royal responsibilities.”
Media Double Standards
2:30 to 4:49
A discussion on the media's coverage of Trump compared to Biden and the implications of this disparity.
“In a few hours, his majesty will stand in the heart of the United States Capitol as the very first British king ever to address a joint session of - All right.”
Corporate Media's Complicity
4:50 to 6:36
The hosts examine the collusion between corporate media and Trump, including editing practices.
“Of course, naturally, Trump comes out of that more laser focused than ever on his ballroom.”
Trump's Ballroom Controversy
6:37 to 10:08
A deep dive into Trump's plans for the White House ballroom and the political ramifications.
“And then you've got to polish Trump up to make him look as good as you possibly can.”
Dismantling the Rule of Law
10:09 to 12:39
Discussion on how Trump's administration is undermining the rule of law and its consequences.
“That's how much they have undermined the rule of law, where their entire administration is run around theft, around bribery, around corruption.”
A Shift in Public Opinion
12:40 to 14:02
Krystal shares insights on the electorate's changing views, particularly regarding Israel.
“The huge lie, decades, you know, on and on.”
Political Shifts in the Democratic Party
14:02 to 15:39
Discussion on the dramatic political shifts within the Democratic Party regarding key issues.
“You know, I mean, on the one hand, it's shocking to me that anyone still can buy this garbage about the most moral army and the only democracy in the Middle East, blah, and our great allies, blah, blah, blah.”
Acknowledging Genocide: The Case of Israel
15:39 to 16:16
Analyzing a statement by Wendy Sherman on Israel's actions and the implications of calling it genocide.
“party could go in and what that's going to look like in 2028.”
The Dilemma of Liberal Zionism
16:16 to 18:49
Exploring the contradictions faced by liberal Zionists in acknowledging atrocities while maintaining support for Israel.
“To your point, here's Joe Biden's deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman.”
The ADL and Its Controversial Position
18:49 to 22:50
Criticism of the Anti-Defamation League's actions and its stance on anti-Semitism and bigotry.
“But it is also obviously remarkable that she even acknowledges that it's genocide.”
Show all 11 chapters
Elon Musk's Critique of the ADL
22:50 to 24:43
Discussion on Elon Musk's remarks about the ADL and the implications of his comments.
“So for him to pull this out of three years ago and posture like they're left winger, I mean, it's just insane.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:04All right, joining me today on iHIP News is the co-host of Breaking Points and my good friend, Krystal Ball. Krystal, the King Charles is here in the United States. And Trump has rolling out a new delusion at the arrival of the King. Pop this up. So somebody post revealed how the mail traced Trump's family tree and found out he's the king's cousin. And then Trump responds, wow, that's nice. I've always wanted to live in Buckingham Palace. I'll talk to the king and queen about this in a few minutes. Oh my God. BJT. You know, I think he needs to go and take up his royal responsibilities. and he needs to resign from the presidency.
0:56Go take up your royal responsibilities. Indulge that delusion until the end of days, please, and leave all of us alone. I love this direction for him personally. I do too. I was telling before you came on, I was telling our producers, I don't really like King Charles. I think, you know, the monarchy, all that's kind of stupid, whatever. But it would take, I would say, here's the deal, UK, you're getting Trump. You're going to have to take him. You're going to have to see him through. you're going to have to let him live in Buckingham Palace. You've got to do it for the team. We'll take King Charles because I think King Charles, who is unqualified to do hardly anything except for being a rich guy, I'd take him in a heartbeat because I don't think he's a sociopath like Trump is.
1:36Well, to be honest with you, I know almost literally nothing about King Charles, but if I just opened the phone book to any random page and picked a name, I will take that over what we've got right now. I mean, it's hard to imagine, and not only with Trump, but the cast of characters that he's put around himself. I mean, just a unique combination of both buffoonish and evil. It seems hard. It seems unlikely we would do worse than that if we just like randomly swapped any other world leader effectively, other than Netanyahu. Israel can keep him. Exactly. We're good there. We've already basically got him as a leader of our country anyway.
2:12Exactly. I mean, the way he comes over here and gets like standing ovations is so nauseating. All right, here is Trump on the White House lawn with the king. He sounds drunk, but we all know he's a famous teetotaler. So I don't know if this is late state dementia, what it is. Play the clip. In a few hours, his majesty will stand in the heart of the United States Capitol as the very first British king ever to address a joint session of - All right. Address. Yeah. And this is not a one-off. Here's the thing that really pisses me off. I think if you run for president, if you're Joe Biden, Barack Obama, you better know the press is going to come for you.
3:02Every step, every trip, every cough, every sniffle, you're in the big boy chair and you're going to get the big boy spotlight. And so when Joe Biden was old, shuffling his feet around all of that, I'm like, I mean, the report, he looks pretty old. I mean, that's just, it is what it is. The fact that this MF-er falls asleep and sounds like he's intoxicated all the time and it never gets any media coverage or they sane wash it makes me crazy. What is your take on the corporate media's role in the collaboration with this fascist takeover that's going on. Yeah. And it's not just that. I mean, that is a one striking indicator because we just had the example of Biden, although I would say up to a point, they didn't want to say much about his clear decline either.
3:47But, you know, just think about what Trump was tweeting out just a couple of weeks ago, where he threatened to end the entire civilization of Iran. And this is just covered as like another random news item. This is covered as Trump being Trump. It's cliche at this point to say, can you imagine if Joe Biden did this? Can you imagine if Barack Obama said that? But the reality is the bar has been lowered for him to this astonishing degree where he can threaten genocide against an entire nation of people. And it barely registers as a blip, let alone. Yeah, I mean, clearly this is an old man. He's declining and can barely stay awake for any event, you know, let alone formulate coherent sentences.
4:29Of course, he's never been great about that, which is part of why I think they're able to cover for him, because he's always been somewhat verbally incoherent. So you can just chalk up the additional levels of incoherence to the fact that he's never made any sense. That's a really good point. OK, so we had the situation, the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Of course, naturally, Trump comes out of that more laser focused than ever on his ballroom. I mean, he is laser focused on the ballroom. Lindsey Graham put the bubble wand down. He's all chips in on the ballroom.
5:05And now they want the public to pay for it. After he said, oh, I'm getting private donations. And I would assume, I think a lot of these people, these kiss-ass billionaires probably wrote checks for that. And we'll have to deal with where all that went another date. But this is pretty fascinating. Pop this up, Kylie. So decoding Fox News, I don't know if you follow her. She does the Lord's work. She watches Fox News and just like covers all the hypocrisy and stuff. Anyway, the Hollywood Reporter said Trump's 60 minutes interview was heavily edited, edited despite previously suing CBS over deceptive editing.
5:40And my gal over at Decoding Fox News, she went through the entire thing, the entire interview, comparing the 40 minutes of footage to the 13 minute edit that aired. In many cases, they cut Trump off mid-sentence and took a four minute answer and turned it into a 20 second clip. What's your take on that? I mean, the level of hypocrisy is absolutely stunning. The amount of regime controlled media that we now have to deal with is extraordinary. It's going to take years to undo the damage just to get corporate media back to the pathetic place that it was prior to this Trump administration. So much of it, too, does have to do with just like silencing critique of Israel.
6:23You have not only Trump sycophants, but dyed-in-the-wool Zionists who believe anything that Israel does is always justified. And they can see the way public opinion is turning. So they had to engage in all of these over-the-top tactics, buy this outlet, buy that outlet, et cetera. And then you've got to polish Trump up to make him look as good as you possibly can. And within that interview, one of the parts that I thought was most embarrassing is Nora O'Donnell, the interviewer. even after Trump is aggressively going after her and being so mean and nasty to her, she still feels the need to do this like ass kissing moment of, you know, how incredible, how much she appreciates him standing up for the press and how courageous he was on the fire, et cetera, under fire, et cetera, et cetera.
7:07So they're just, it's very embarrassing at this point, but they so want the access to him and his administration that they're willing to, I guess, humiliate themselves in this manner. It's so humiliating. And I'm so embarrassed by so many people in the press that have taken part in sane washing or lying to him and telling him he's good at this or he did it. You were a good boy at that. It's just it's just such bullshit lies. But last night, Trump's DOJ, the same DOJ that's covering up the child rape case that Donald Trump's mentioned it over a million times, just in case that DOJ filed a motion about Trump's ballroom.
7:49And it was, it is bananas. Pop this up. So overnight, Trump admin files latest court motion in support of White House ballroom. It reads like a Trump social, truth social post with random capitalization accusations. The plaintiffs are quote, very bad for our country and suffer from Trump derangement syndrome, the DOJ. Crystal, here's another part of it. Because it is Donald J. Trump, a highly successful real estate developer who has abilities that others don't, especially those who assume the office of the president, this frivolous and meritless lawsuit was filed again it's called trump derangement syndrome on top of everything else this project is a gift to our country from the president and other donors it is free of charge to the american taxpayer who could ever object to that meanwhile the same day that this goes mainstream this embarrassing talk about embarrassing what about the lawyers and judges Anyway, now all of his sycophants are saying, we need to fund the ballroom,$400 million.
9:05So they can't even stay on message. But as we talk about all the things he's dismantled, Crystal, you're talking about the press and how embarrassing that is. Think about where the really core thing is, this rule of law. How much he's dismantled the rule of law and all of these, I'm a fiscal conservative. I vote for my pocketbook. I'm a fiscal conservative. If you dismantle the rule of law, you don't have a court to take a contract in and you don't have business anymore. You have like a Putin's, you know, kleptocracy. I was just looking at an article that white collar crime prosecutions are at all time lows, meaning that if you're a white collar criminal, you just can get away with anything right now, especially if you're a white collar criminal that has any connection to the Trump family or is willing to bribe them or has donated to the Trump campaign or whatever.
9:57There just is no law that really is being enforced against you at this point, to the point that white-collar defense attorneys are like, we don't have any clients because there's no work to do here. That's how much they have undermined the rule of law, where their entire administration is run around theft, around bribery, around corruption. Even with this ballroom thing, I don't know if you saw this article, the company that is building the ballroom was given a no-bid contract on this other unrelated park that happens to be close to the White House to, like, rehab the fountains. When, under the Biden administration, they estimated that this rehab project would cost about$3 million.
10:39Already seems like a lot for a couple of fountains, but okay, this stuff costs money, I guess. All right. Now they have pushed this cost up to twenty one million dollars and handed that contract to this now like Trump aligned construction company that is building out his ballroom to his specifications. So this is just how they operate all the time. And on the ballroom piece, it is so I never would have imagined when I was seeing the news alerts about a shooter at the White House correspondence dinner that not only Trump, but everybody else would instantly be like, this is why we need that. We told you we need that ballroom and that they would go out at a time when inflation is up.
11:21Gas prices are at, you know, years long highs. When the we're in this horrific war, people feel terrible about the country. And they're going to be like, we're going to prioritize$400 million in taxpayer funding to a ballroom for gilded elites and the president of this criminal syndicate. Like it's utter insanity, but he is truly obsessed with this thing. And it makes you ask the question, like, why is it just his ego? Is there something else going on? Why is he so obsessed with this freaking ballroom? I mean, laser, laser focused. I mean, I just, I think that's where he he's building. We had a scholar on the other day said that's like he's building a safe space.
12:01You know, all of this bravado that people are, oh, Trump and the MAGA are such alpha males. These guys are such titty babies. They're so thin skin. The ballroom is his safe space. He wants a safe space. But I want to talk to you about what I think is really important to dive into right now. I think that the Republican Party was now MAGA. They're interchangeable, in my opinion. And a lot of their lies and propaganda have been exposed. And this is an opportunity for all of us, particularly progressive Democrats, to jump on. This notion that Republicans are good with the economy and they're fiscally conservative is a lie.
12:42Wealth trickles down. The huge lie, decades, you know, on and on. Another lie that we've been told all the time is that Israel is, you know, this great democracy in the Middle East. I believed that because I was just like, that's what I was told. I was like, okay, yeah, that's great. Cultural default. You know, whatevs. You know, I've got other shit going on over here. And now that's exposed as really not being true, that it's an apartheid state and that this apartheid state has a fascist leader, far right fascist leader who is a maniacal, homicidal, child killing dictator, war criminal. And then we have a bunch of politicians that go along with all of that.
13:30And so as we shift into these midterms, and I know you've been on this beat for a very long time, whistleblowing about Israel. Tell my listener, because a lot of people are like me, they're newly awakened to a lot of this stuff. But where do you see the electorate? How has it been being where you're sitting and as the electorate has kind of caught up with you? And where do you see this coalition going? And what's that been like for you kind of being out on the sidelines by yourself? Then all of a sudden you've got 80 % of the Democratic Party believes we agrees with you 80%. Yeah. It's still pretty shocking to me.
14:09You know, I mean, on the one hand, it's shocking to me that anyone still can buy this garbage about the most moral army and the only democracy in the Middle East, blah, and our great allies, blah, blah, blah. But on the other hand, just in terms of dramatic political shifts, it is unlike almost anything I've seen in my life. I'd actually liken it to the political shift that happened in a very short period of time around gay marriage, where there was, you know, all of this opposite. So when I ran in 2010 for Congress, I was in favor of gay marriage. And that was considered this like, oh, wow, that's incredible that you're taking that stand because it was such a sort of minority position.
14:45Even Barack Obama didn't run for reelection on support of gay marriage. And that really completely shifted in a very short period of time. And you see a similar dramatic shift. It's one of the things that does make me hopeful about the future, because you have this huge gulf. The Republican Party is, you know, obviously they're like lost cause, a bunch of fascists. You still have you have some shifting there, too, although a lot of it is like people who are blatantly anti-Semitic and don't like Israel for that reason. But we'll put that aside. Focusing within the Democratic Party, you just can't sustain the gap between where Democratic leaders are and elected officials are and the base.
15:24And so that gives me hope that not just on Israel, but on standing up to capital, on taxing the rich, on really being a representative democratic, like small D democratic party that represents the will of the people, that there's a lot of hope for the direction that the party could go in and what that's going to look like in 2028. Now we have to be able to get there. And God knows Donald Trump is trying every day to make it so that the world doesn't make it to that, let alone having free and fair elections. But it is one of the things that makes me really hopeful, even in spite of all of the overwhelming propaganda efforts, which are just I'm reading Adam Johnson's book, How to Sell a Genocide, which I recommend.
16:00I mean, every network from MSNBC to CNN and Lord knows Fox News just doing everything they can to whitewash this thing. And in spite of that propaganda effort, people saw the truth. And to me, that's an incredibly hopeful story and something to build on for the future. To your point, here's Joe Biden's deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman. And she did an interview yesterday and said this about Israel. Play the clip. It's critical that Israel remain an ally of the United States and that we protect the right of a Jewish state. But I also believe that the prime minister has led us down a road and we have been part of it.
16:46That has, in essence, created a genocide in Gaza. That has destabilized the Middle East. This is interesting to me because she keeps the first part of it all together. All of the stuff that we're supposed to do. And then she acknowledged, like they moved the goalposts. And now she's saying it's a genocide, which there are people in the Democratic Party that will go out of their way to say atrocities and it's unfortunate and mass murder, but they will not say genocide. So this is a both sides in here that I haven't seen, but the move towards acknowledging as a genocide kind of took my breath away.
17:32So she's admitting it's a genocide, but also saying we need to continue to fund Israel. Yeah. I mean, it shows you how untenable the quote unquote liberal Zionist position is because you can't hold true, like traditional liberal values and support the state. You can't consider them an ally, et cetera. So she's been forced to the point where, okay, I have to acknowledge what basically every scholar worth note around the world has acknowledged that this is and was a genocide that Israel was committing, that we were deeply involved in and could not have happened without our lockstep support. But she wants to sell to people that we still should be besties with Israel.
18:17I mean, that's just no one is going to accept that. No one. And they shouldn't. I mean, the idea that we should, as a country, continue to support a state that would commit the most heinous acts you can possibly imagine, you know, that goes directly against the most, you know, idealized visions of what America could be, what America should be. It goes against the storyline that's been sold to Americans about what this country really is at its core. So it's a fundamentally insane and untenable position. But it is also obviously remarkable that she even acknowledges that it's genocide. I think it shows you because this would be the last thing that someone like this would want to acknowledge.
18:57It just shows you how compelling the evidence is and how much public pressure there is now just to acknowledge the undeniable reality. Yeah. And obviously, you know, the Anti-Defamation League, which I think just does horrible, horrible work. When they ran cover for Elon Musk with his back-to-back Sig Hiles, I just thought, what a disgrace. What an absolute disgrace that you're parading around as though we want to stamp out bigotry. And, you know, they came for all of that stuff. You know, everybody needs to remember all of these things, blah, blah. And I just think the work they do is so diabolical and manipulative.
19:39And when they defended Elon Musk, I just thought, what a disgusting organization. Well, guess what happens when you defend Nazis? They pick you up and throw you under the bus. So Elon Musk has been throwing the ADL under the bus this week. And he's really spiraling right now, Elon. He's going, unlike white supremacist tears which i know that's like a tuesday in america but it's like worse it's like worse than it's than than normal so um let's pop this up so he retweets a couple of days ago you guys stephen miller in 2023 post speaking as a jew adl is not a jewish organization it is an ultra left activist org that pushes radical transgenderism border erasure police dismantlement and the demolition of free speech, deploying rank, slander, bullying, and character assassination to achieve its aims.
20:38Okay. Three years later, Elon Musk on some ketamine bender retweets this three year old tweet and puts exactly. And so here's my, here's my final question. This desire of a lot of these Zionists under the guise of we have to fight anti-Semitism, which anti-Semitism is a problem. Islamophobia is a problem. Transphobia, as evidenced right there in Stephen Miller's tweet. They go to these people, and I know Stephen miller's jewish but in my opinion that's an irrelevant point to stephen miller stephen miller is fundamentally a fascist and a nazi who happens to be jewish right and uh they go to these people the fascists for protection not ever thinking they're going to get thrown under the bus i mean elon digging out a three-year-old tweet to dunk on the adl after they lied for him and tried to whitewashes Nazi salutes.
21:46Precipitate this? Like where did this come from? He's okay. So I went on his tweets and he's really wound up about the Southern Poverty Law Center. Okay. Yes. And I don't know what happened with the ADL because you know, they run so much cover for Trump. Um, uh, but I don't, I don't know. He's just, he's really spiraling. I don't know if it's more increased ketamine. I don't know if it's just like, you know, like I am a Nazi. I don't know what his point is. Reveal his true colors. Do not defend me, ADL. I guess, maybe that's it. Yeah, he doesn't want, next time I do the SIG HAL, I want people to know what was meant there.
22:26So come after me. It is bizarre. I mean, the idea at this point that the ADL is a radical left activist organization is so insane. I mean, all they do is attack the left as evidenced by the fact that, and by the left, I mean, anyone who speaks out for Palestinian human rights, whether they're a Jew or not, by the way, I mean, they are happy to go after anyone who's Jewish if they're not towing the line on Israel. They really have nothing to do with anti-Semitism except for the fact that they stoke it by associating, demanding that all Jews be associated with the horrific genocidal acts of this rogue state.
23:02So for him to pull this out of three years ago and posture like they're left winger, I mean, it's just insane. there's a very revealing comment from Jonathan Greenblatt, who's just a monstrous person. I agree. Disgusting ideology as well. I mean, he also has his own, I think, Nazi racist ideology, ethnosupremacist ideology. But in any case, he got asked about the way that the ADL has operated post October 7. And he said, like, look, listen, the ADL for years, our view has been that if we fight bigotry for everyone, that will help keep Jews safe. And I'm paraphrasing here. So people should look at the exact language.
23:38It's like, we no longer really think that. We're not about some universalist principle because we don't believe that's the case anymore. We're just about Jewish people and just about antisemitism. We don't really care about other forms of bigotry was the subtext of what he's saying. But even in that revelation, that is not truly what they're doing. It really has nothing to do with Judaism and everything to do with Israel. So if you're a Christian Zionist, that's all good. If you're part of Jewish Voices for Peace, and you're arguing that Palestinians deserve basic human rights, well, no, you're not going to be okay with the ADL, and they're going to argue that you're actually anti-Semitic in spite of the fact that you are yourself Jewish.
24:19So what a weird, twisted arc for Elon, who they've run cover for, to now come after them. Like, good luck to all involved. That's all I can say. No shit. Enjoy that whole world. Congratulations. I'm with you on Greenblatt. I think he is just such an obscene, horrific person. He ran cover for Elon, who's an obscene, horrific person. And now they're fighting. It's just like when, you know, I still, I still to this day, one of my favorite tweets is Elon, the reason why Trump won't release the Epstein files is because he's in them. Have a good day. You know, this is just at the end of the day. These are little toddlers that want to bully on the playground.
24:59and sadly they have really serious jobs as very unserious people and a lot of people are getting killed and injured and harmed and it's just horrible but crystal thank you so much for coming on i thought it had been too long and i needed to have you back on all right all right have a good day always a pleasure good to see you dear
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Trump fumbles speech in front of UK royalty and claims he's related to them with Krystal Ball.
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