Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
2/23/26: Mexico Cartel Violence Explodes, Big Tech Freaks Over Data Center Backlash
23 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people because of what happened in Alabama? This Black History Month, the podcast Selective Ignorance with Mandy B unpacks black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo.
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Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
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Chapter 2: What recent event triggered violence in Mexico's cartel landscape?
Right. And, you know, I think that's One of the reasons they also acted yesterday is that there's very small windows of opportunity. These are wily actors. I mean, how many times did El Chapo escape from custody, right?
It's only because he's been extradited and it's more difficult for him to be able to kind of engage in the bribery that it takes to be able to get free that he's still in custody today. And so I think that window, they saw it as a good one to act. And yes, cognizant of the consequences in terms of what will happen next. The case of Cartel Jalisco Nueva GeneraciĆ³n is curious, too, because
You know, for example, with the, you know, the ex, I don't know what to call it, because he wasn't extradited, the kidnapping of El Mayo, you know, that created a lot of unrest as well. But I think that's because there was already kind of a dispute internally between rival factions inside of that cartel, where you had the Chapitos and the Mayitos.
And so that's part of why we saw so much more violence. And this one, it doesn't look like there's a natural successor. A lot of his closest associates and Mitchell's closest associates are either dead or in jail. And so, you know, his son is already detained. His daughters are not that active. So it's not clear who will take over.
There's likely going to be a lot of internal power disputes and they're going to do it through violence. And so there it's important to see in terms of what's the actual capacity of the Mexican National Guard, the Mexican Armed Forces to ensure security, particularly in these kinds of hot spots where they are most active. That really is the major challenge today.
Jose, how does the Mexican government deal with the it's kind of a maybe too broad of a question, but with U.S. security. So like, for example, you've had the U.S. intelligence sharing that happened that led to this threat.
But we also saw earlier there was an incident maybe you can tell us about where a drug dealer, international fugitive was seized by the United States and Kash Patel took credit for it. But the Mexicans were like, hey, man, you weren't supposed to talk about that. Like, we don't like to acknowledge how much we share back and forth. How does the Mexican government handle that domestically?
Like, why are they so reticent to admit U.S. cooperation to the Mexican public? Is there a political dynamic I'm missing? How does that work?
Yeah. So the case you're referring to is this Canadian, apparently an Olympic athlete who was accused of being, you know, well positioned, an important player in organized crime. And yeah, it's still actually not clear exactly whether or not he turned himself in, whether it was an operation. Was it done by Mexican forces? Did the FBI participate directly? That would be extraordinarily unusual.
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Chapter 3: How did the capture of El Mencho impact Mexico's security situation?
Under the previous administration of Lopez Obrador, there was a pretty major shift in the security strategy, where they went from an all-out war, you know, they stopped talking about war, they stopped talking about, you know, the war against the cartels, and instead started focusing more on investigation, prevention, above all, this philosophy of investing in communities and in young people to try to dissuade them from organized crime groups.
And I think in a lot of ways it was effective. But we're also dealing with really violent, heavily armed, and extremely well-funded organizations where social investment is not going to be enough, right? And I do think that with Claudia Scheinbaum, and she probably wouldn't say as much so as to not seem as if she's disagreeing with her predecessor because of the
important place he occupies in the kind of political imaginary in this country, but I do think has taken a far more aggressive approach of wanting to go after these major figures. I think part of it is naturally due to the pressure of the United States to kind of, you know, have more things to show off in terms of successes.
But I do think that a lot of people are feeling reassured, you know, feeling like, you know, actions are being done and that steps are being taken to attend to the kind of quality of life things. You know, organized crime groups have been active here in this country for decades, right?
But it's sort of their interventions, the way that they actually affect the day-to-day of people that really kind of undermines their confidence in the ability of the state to handle this, right?
So the kidnappings, the extortion, all of that actually under her security chief, Omar Garcia Harfuch, who incidentally was once a target of the very man who was killed yesterday, has been far more on investigation and actually going after the money that provides them the ability to engage in all of this.
And we're seeing a very slight increase, I think, in the approval ratings when it comes to security here in Mexico because of that small shift, but important shift in her security strategy. So interesting.
One more question I have for you on a somewhat separate note, and I ask the same question of Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who we had on a bit earlier. And this is with regard to Cuba. I'm sure you saw the Supreme Court struck down Trump's ability to levy tariffs unilaterally using the IEPA authority.
He had used this to threaten Mexico and to threaten Scheinbaum to try to enforce this illegal oil embargo with Cuba. Do you think that that decision changes the calculus at all for the Scheinbaum government?
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Chapter 4: What strategies do cartels use to maintain power after a leader's capture?
At the end of the day, I wanted our city council to remember this moment next time a data center is proposed. And they'll just say no because they understand that the people don't want it, at least not here in our city.
And, yeah, I think, you know, Food and Water Watch is right to support a moratorium on this stuff because otherwise we're going to be making decisions that we're going to be locked into and we're going to come to regret.
Yeah.
Let's put E4 up on the screen here because your movement is part of a rising push, rising local grassroots push against these data centers. This was a heat map report from last month, which said amid rising local pushback, U.S. data center cancellations surged in 2025. A heat map pro review of public records shows 25 data centers scrubbed last year after local pushback.
That was four times as many as 2024 cancellations. You know, I live in a rural community in Virginia. Virginia has really been the, you know, the epicenter of these data center locations. And I've seen the way that the awareness and the activism around these data centers has shifted just in the past couple of years here as well. Why do you think that your success here
you know, really sort of tapped into a zeitgeist why it was so important, why people found it so important. What do you think the issues are that you're touching on that are resonating really in a cross-partisan and cross-ideological way as well?
Yeah, I mean, in New Brunswick, we have a lot of development and redevelopment going on, so I know there's a lot of frustration over it. But it's often, you know, some people love it and some people don't love it. In this case, this is a piece of land that had been completely vacant for years.
The developer kicked out small businesses to, you know, supposedly had big plans and never delivered on them. So I knew the local people were not going to support a plan that was going to ā basically change what was supposed to be a park to a big data center.
I also knew that more broadly, people are very frustrated with artificial intelligence and the impact it's having, how we're seeing so much misinformation and slop in our feeds that we didn't see just a few years ago, and how it's ultimately a big moneymaker for the extremely wealthy, And virtually nothing is trickling down to regular folks.
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Chapter 5: How does the Mexican government decide to conduct raids on cartel leaders?
So let's go ahead and take a listen to Sam Altman comparing the energy needs of AI to the energy needs of human beings.
One of the things that is always unfair in this comparison is people talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model. relative to how much it costs a human to do one inference query. But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart.
And not only that, it took like the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever to produce you. And then you took whatever you took. So the fair comparison is,
If you ask ChatGPT a question, how much energy does it take once its model is trained to answer that question versus a human? And probably AI has already caught up on an energy efficiency basis measured that way.
So what do you make of those comments comparing the, you know, the value and the energy needs of, you know, babies up through adult humans versus robots?
Yeah, it's certainly interesting. I think that folks who think of it in those terms are demonstrating the coldness that they have towards society as we know it. And innovation can and is a great thing, but we have to stay true to what we are as human beings, as a society that you know, loves and cares for one another.
You know, we can't just throw it all away and change our physical environment to facilitate technology growth over our own sustainability as a species. And of course, you know, at the end of the day, it's about money, right? These folks are going to make a And they don't want to share the wealth.
They want to control everything, including information, including money, including water, including our, you know, electricity. And, you know, we can't stand for that. You know, it's a power grab. That's awesome.
Yeah. All while promising to eliminate all or most white collar jobs. I mean, that's the thing that to me just continues to honestly astonish me is they have the nerve to say, how dare you stand against a data center in your community? When the quote unquote deal that they're threatening us with is we want to use up all the power.
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Chapter 6: What role does U.S. intelligence play in Mexico's cartel operations?
And they are not making that case. Totally agree.
Charlie, they call you an enemy. I call you hero number one. Thank you very much for joining us, sir. I genuinely inspired by what you guys were able to do. Thank you for joining our show. We appreciate it.
Thank you. My pleasure. Keep up the good work.
All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. We should be back in studio tomorrow as long as all the roads, electricity and all of that cooperates. And of course, we're going to have our great State of the Union live stream. So we'll see you all then.
Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by Black people because of what happened in Alabama? This Black History Month, the podcast Selective Ignorance with Mandi B unpacks Black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo.
The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis.
And at Morehouse College, the students make their move.
These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protest and rebellion in Black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can scroll the headlines all day and still feel empty. I'm Ben Higgins, and If You Can Hear Me is where culture meets the soul.
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