#1668 - Krystal Ball & Saagar Enjeti

So guys, have a new show.

Hey, Joe, what's up?

I just want to say, I told you I knew it was going to work.

Yeah.

Would never, would have happened without you.

I knew it was to work. I was like, why are you trapped?

I mean, it really is actually true. We've been thinking about going independent for a while because it's just more consistent with our values. The hill takes money from all kinds of people that are very contrary to the things that we've been talking about. But it's scary. I got kids, I got bills, all the health insurance, all this stuff. And so I think especially during COVID when we couldn't actually directly interact with the audience in person, it's hard to know how real it is. So when we talked to you and we were like, we're thinking about it, we're kind of nervous. And you weren't just like, maybe you were like, yes, do this. It actually really did help us to make the move. So thank you.

No question.

Terrible person to take advice like that from because I'm always like, jump. Fucking jump.

Well, in this, it was the right call. So broken block or whatever.

It's really scary. And it's one of those things where we were telling you this before where you're like, you don't know if you're like, am I going to miss this? You have these guys.

You have the support.

I don't have to deal with all this administrative stuff and set design and upload. But honestly, we love it so much. We wrapped, I think, our second show. So we finally had got. And I texted her. I was like, this is amazing. We're free. We do it the way that we want, we produce it the way that we want. And just having all the big stuff out of your mind in terms of the pressures of corporate media, because to be clear, the hill never directly censored us. Right? And you've talked about this. It's about these outside interests. Like, there's interests that their company has that have nothing to do with us but could impact their interest based upon what I say. And I've told this story publicly now about what happened. But we were doing a segment, this basic segment. I want to be very charitable. And once again, to be clear, the Hill never said anything. They said, don't say this or whatever, but we're talking about the seniority system for Democrats in Congress. And I was like, this creates really perverse incentives because you have all these really old people who run Congress, like Maxine Waters, who's like 80 years old. Here's all I said. Maxine Waters will be chairwoman of the financial services committee till the day she dies. That's it. So I later find out her fucking press secretary called someone at the Hill and said, saga is issuing a death threat against Maxine Waters.

Sager's issuing.

And what do I want to say? I want to say, go fuck yourself. I'd be like, literally, put me on the phone with them. Go fuck yourself. But here's the problem. And once again, the hill didn't say anything. But I have to know this in the back of my mind. Hill reporters have to go and talk to Maxine Waters. That's literally part of their job. Like, she's chairman of the financial services committee. She has a lot of access, one of the most powerful people in Washington. She does other shit with the Hill. And so in the back of my mind, I'm like, can I say whatever the fuck I want about Maxine Waters? I mean, they didn't tell me to say, but even if it's the back of my mind, I would be lying if I wasn't saying that. That wasn't with me a little bit. Right? Like, you're always thinking.

You're like, man, you're a human being.

They're not going to fuck with me. They're going to try and fuck with your boss.

But they're putting it out there in the air, though. So they're making you think about it. Yeah. That's the whole purpose of it.

That's exactly right. And there were things, too, like, I didn't even want. Because the whole ethos of our show is we're independent minded, right? We're not carrying water for anyone. We have our views. We're very upfront about those views. But we're not doing partisan cheerleading here. We're not carrying water for any corporation or entity or anything like that. And so even the appearance of the hill is a corporate entity, and they're taking money from these various places. That's their right. To do even the appearance that would affect our coverage really, really bothered me. And so I'll give you a perfect example. I don't know if you do you know about this case of Stephen Donziger. It's a crazy thing. He's a lawyer who won a massive lawsuit against Chevron for the horrific things that they did in Ecuador and basically destroyed the whole area. And he wins a $9 billion, I think it was suit against them, largest in history. They hit him. They're trying to fight back against him. They hit him with a contempt of court charge, which is a misdemeanor, which is nothing. He's been under house arrest for now, two years. Completely unprecedented show trial. It's an insane situation. And we were working on getting him booked to talk about this. And meanwhile, I'm seeing tweets that are saying crystal and Saga aren't covering this because the hill's taking money from the American Petroleum Institute. Now, that wasn't true at all. We talked to him. We talked to other people about the case. We covered the case. But I hated that that was even a legitimate, by the way, question in people's minds. So it's things like that. And I have to say, like Sagar, I was worried there would be things that I really missed about having the corporate structure, like, just that support system around. We feel so free. Doing the show is just an absolute pleasure. We feel unencumbered. It's actually even more of a relief. And the audience has showed up for us even more than we ever could have expected.

It was, know, Maxine, you can't control me. Got. You got nothing on me.

The thing is, what they did by saying that you issued a death threat against them is literally, that is everything that's wrong with politics and everything that's right about your show is that you guys are just present and honest and you see things and you talk about those things without biases. And you have perspectives, but you don't have biases. And the problem with these people is, it's all bullshit. And so by saying that, they know you didn't really issue a death threat.

Of course, when he opened his mouth, the crazy thing is, but they're playing a game. This happened twice, so this happened to another time. So I was doing a lot of reporting around TikTok, and I was noticing all of these former republican lawmaker lobbyists are working now for TikTok because I heard they were paying top dollar rates. So I do some investigation. This is basic Google. I went on Google, and I was looking at who TikTok has been hiring. And one of them, I'm not kidding you, is the former head or a part of the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity division who is now working for TikTok, the chinese government. Okay. For a chinese controlled app. All right? So I put that on the show. I did a whole monologue about all these people who worked in know I was like, you want to see the revolving door? This is it. These people are complete murderer for hires. In terms of mercenaries, they're mercenaries. They don't give a shit about you. They don't give a shit about America, any of this stuff. The former cybersecurity lady is now working for TikTok, all right? And it's public. And so I put it on the show. What do you think happens? TikTok calls somebody over at the hill and says, sagar is threatening the lives of the people at TikTok. And I'm like, fuck, yeah. Once again, fuck you.

Very dangerous man.

Yeah, I'm a dangerous man. I'm a string dangerous man left and right.

You're very brave for inviting him in here.

Thank you, Joe. I know you're MMA trained, but apparently, yeah, I'm issuing death threats like left and right. But again, now, once I have to think about this, I'm like, this is crazy. And here's the other problem. The hill was taking ad dollars at the time from Huawei. So Huawei, which is the chinese telecom company. And I was thinking in the back of my mind, man, if TikTok was real smart, they'd buy some advertising at the hill, because then I'd really have.

To be like, why was the hill taking money from? What was this after the ban?

Look, I don't know.

Once again, they can do whatever they want.

It's not on ice.

Everyone takes money from New York Times.

Everybody takes money from whoever they can. I mean, the media business, in some ways, it was really know back from the dead by Trump because he increased traffic so much and subscriber numbers so much for the New York Times and Washington. I mean, that's the irony of his whole attack on the media was the best thing that ever happened to the media. But the overall model is in freefall, and people are revolting. I mean, that's really with the success of your show, with what has happened, with breaking points. Our new show that has been totally wild is people don't want this spoon fed narrative. They don't want to have to think about, like, why is this paper covering these politicians in this incredibly fluffy way? Because they're more interested in maintaining their access and maintaining their social status within that club than they are in actually getting the facts right in a way that can require sometimes courage, that can be uncomfortable sometimes with your social set. And so I really do see it as kind of a watershed moment where some of the old models are dying and people are sick and tired of having their attention. Monetized or sick and tired of being fed whatever the safe mainstream narrative is. And all they want is just someone who. Look, may get it wrong sometimes, but is really just trying to figure out what the truth of the matter is.

Yeah, it's actually a viable strategy to tell the truth. Now as far as, like, a marketing truly.

Do you remember that clip of the Amy Roebach and Epstein where the Disney. And she laid it all out there. She didn't even know. But this is what I'm talking about. She was like, oh, the palace got involved. And they started calling this. And then will and Kate's wet. That's it. That's all. A little peek behind the curtain, and it repeats that.

That lady, her doing that in front of the camera, just not knowing that they were even filming. And then someone takes it and releases it. Everybody gets a chance to see.

So what do they say? Not on camera.

Well, there's a few of these things that are happening, right? Like, how about the John Cena one?

Oh, yeah.

Wake up call for America. Because all these fucking pro wrestling fans are like, wait a minute, he's speaking Chinese. Like, this is real. Yeah, this shit is real.

Yeah.

John Cena speaking Mandarin. He's apologizing for calling Taiwan