Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
1/26/26: Gov Shutdown Imminent, Revolt After ICE Shooting, Chinese General Purged
26 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: What is the current status of the government shutdown?
Like this means every Democrat on the committee gets five minutes to question you under oath. It's a disaster. It's not good whenever you're in power.
That's right. And if anybody thinks that, oh, well, maybe this is just routine and it's a coincidence. Nope. You're not sending a letter like this out on a Saturday.
Exactly.
And it begins by, you know, they sort of try to suggest that there's some routine nature to it. The letter begins on January 15th. you know, committee staff invited you to testify. But then he says, today, I am formally memorializing the previous invitation. And to drop that on a Saturday right after the killing is sending a very clear message. And it's, yes.
So to your point, what this, and he gives them a bunch of different dates. the latest one being March 18th. So he's kind of allowing them to at least push it out a significant amount of time. But that March 18th is going to be here before you know it. And God only knows what's going to happen in cities between now and then. And you're right.
This this gives every member of that committee, Democrat and Republican and Republicans, I think, are feeling the pressure to that.
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Chapter 3: How did the ICE shooting impact political dynamics?
You're going to I think you'll see some adversarial questions from Republicans by then. And then that creates tension.
Well, and then midterms, all of remember, all these people are going to have to go back to their district pretty soon. And, you know, they have to do those mandatory meetings. It's not going to be good, folks. I mean, I'm telling you right now, it is not going to be good.
Every Republican on Capitol Hill, Ryan, as you and I know, even when they're in session, they're all going to have mics stuck in their face. What do you think about what happened here? And even a single misstep, you're going viral. Congratulations. Next one. This one. This seems very significant. I'd like for you to explain it to me. So this is a ranking committee chairman, Benny Thompson.
Sorry, ranking Democrat on the committee. Guys, let's put D4 up on the screen. He is saying that the Senate must vote against funding. So that's already there. But he also says the House must take immediate steps to impeach Kirstie Noem. So, again, Benny Thompson, not a household name, not really somebody who we would all know.
Is is the top Democrat on the committee is like, no, we're going to impeach Kirstie. No. Remember, they impeached Mayorkas. The Republicans did under the Trump under the Biden administration. I could easily see this become a rallying cry if Democrats were to take control of the midterm. So could you explain the significance of this?
Yeah, well-respected veteran Democrat, somebody that the party establishment, you know, he's a member, you know, in good standing of the party establishment. This is not somebody who's like some rock thrower from the sidelines. And the reporting that we're seeing this morning is that, you know, Trump himself is quite upset.
With the way that DHS has handled this and in particular own goals like Kristi Noem going out and saying this is a guy who was trying to massacre people. He's a domestic terrorist. He brandished his his weapon when. Everybody can see that none of that happened.
And so it goes to the credibility of the administration, the seriousness of it, and this would then put Republicans in the position of defending her.
when if anybody's and also she's also been an advocate her and she and her ally Corey Lewandowski an advocate for this you know very aggressive kind of public show of force not just in Minneapolis but elsewhere where they've where they've tried to deploy it that their argument has been this is you know, let's bring a very loud hammer to make the point against some of the administration.
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Chapter 4: What strategies are being proposed to avoid a government shutdown?
But I think most importantly for what the future looks like, we'll have to keep laser focus on the ground because look, I mean, At this very same time, there are internecine civil wars inside the government. All of this kind of belies the point that there's going to be a shutdown here. And I think it's going to go on for a long time. I'm curious for your view.
I do not see how they could possibly break.
And the key detail here is what the Democratic demands are going to be when it comes to the reform of DHS and reforms within ICE and CBP. Obviously- They can't demand at this moment to abolish ICE. They need to take power if they're going to abolish ICE or reform CBP. But they can get reformed now through this moment that they have leveraged. And the thing that...
I'm hearing they're going to be demanding will be, and I think the most important thing they're demanding is get rid of these daily quotas. It is this quota that Stephen Miller has insisted on putting on the federal government, both DHS and CBP, for X number of deportations every day.
And if you know how bureaucracy works, if there is a kind of accountability in that bureaucracy for a number, like you have to hit this number or you're not getting your promotions, you're going to be fired. That bureaucracy will then push aside all of its other rules, like protecting civil liberties and making sure you're only targeting people who are not citizens, for instance.
And instead, we'll just start sweeping up as many as they possibly can and then deal with the fallout of that later because they've got a number to hit. And so Democrats are saying, get that number out. Just go after violent criminals. Forget the numbers. They're also going to demand that they no longer be masked up.
And I think some of the other demands are still being worked out among the caucus about what they think is, you know, a combination of like achievable and also to the public feels reasonable. To put Republicans in a position of saying, no, we're shutting the government down to make sure that these guys can still wear masks and that they have to hit their quotas. Right.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, honestly, that'd be smart. Mass alone would be a massive victory if they could even extract that. And I could see a world. Look, Trump. Here's the thing. Here's the funniest thing about Trump. Trump yesterday did a Wall Street Journal interview.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the recent killing in Minneapolis?
He didn't even defend the IC or the CB. He was like, I don't know. I don't like this. He goes, we'll see. You know, there'll be an investigation. So, like, he is the one most out of step with his own government, which is, of course, like part of the madness. Right. Of the entire thing.
But just to show everybody like he may be willing to cut a deal very different than some of the other people in the administration might be willing and able to. So we'll see. I think this is going to be a long his opening bit.
His opening bid seems to be he wants, as you were mentioning earlier, he wants sanctuary laws banned. Right.
Fine, we can do that through Congress.
Go ahead. Kristi Noem sent some weird letter to Minnesota where she said, I'll leave if you give me access to voter rolls.
Oh, you're talking about Pam Bondi. Yeah, that was a very strange letter. I did read through. It was like a three-ring thing. It was like, end sanctuary policies, cooperate with us, and also something about, like, we need to evaluate your voter database to ensure there hasn't been election fraud. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Democrats are like, no. Yeah.
Yeah, well, that's not happening, obviously. And so that is, I don't know. I'm curious. I'm really curious to see how the administration so far already they're showing signs of weakness. Tom Homan being sent over. I mean, clearly it's like a message of like, OK, we're sending somebody new. So that's interesting in and of itself. But with the shutdown, they have to make an explicit choice over.
They want the entire government to shut down over ice at a moment of incredible public outrage and whether they'll be able to stomach that. you know, supposedly standing up against the Democrats on something like that for a prolonged period of time. I suspect that they would lose that battle personally.
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