Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
2/24/26: Trump Polling Freefall, Dire Warning On Iran, Lord Mandelson Arrested
24 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of Trump's declining approval ratings?
You had Tulsi Gabbard, who defenstrated herself in public. Now she has to turn herself in to stop the steal, you know, the czar or whatever, just to be able to walk into the Oval Office.
Yeah.
You've got people like Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth for them. Again, you know, listen, I was part of this. I go, hey, let's try. Let's blow this shit up. Let's see how we now work. Now we see how it works out.
It works out with Pete, you know, just gallivanting around the world doing his bench press and Kash Patel chugging beers with Team USA Hockey doing podcasts with his girlfriend is a 44 year old man. And with. With Dan Bontino. And with Dan Bontino, who left, and then Epstein's, right, we had high hopes for Epstein and stuff, remember?
So, like, I really do, like, the past is a different world in a lot of ways from where we are today. I haven't even talked about ice and all the other shit that's going on. I do think it's important for people to remember, like, where they were floating on up high and then where we are about a year ago. And, yeah, I mean, it's just been... A dramatic change compared to Biden.
Biden also came in with high hopes.
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Chapter 3: How are military tensions with Iran affecting U.S. strategy?
He could have had a 70% approval rating. You know, they had the CARES Act and all of a sudden they were like, oh, we're going to change everything. He's going to be in the new FDR. And then boom, what happens? You have, I mean, did they invade? Yeah. So we're around February 24th. We had an invasion of Ukraine. We had the collapse in Afghanistan. Inflation was a disaster.
Gas prices, very similar dynamic. And I think at that time, that's right around not only when Biden's approval went negative, just like with Trump, but that's when a lot of people were like, oh, there's no saving this. There's no saving whatever the hell comes out from this. I feel like that way with Trump.
Chapter 4: What recent developments surround Lord Mandelson's arrest?
Yeah, it's honestly really pretty hard for me to remember not only my sense at the beginning of the Biden presidency, which was probably not the same as the sense of the American people, but more importantly, like what the general feeling was.
I know for the core like base of the Democratic Party, I don't know if there was like Biden was just like, OK, it's fine, you know, and we're going to try to put some of the pieces back together. I feel like there was more like change. real excitement in the MAGA base and with the MAGA coalition for this second Trump term.
And so I went back and I was looking at the speech from last year and it was kind of incredible to me just how different the moment was. You know, it was the anti-woke stuff. We're, you know, getting the boys out of girls' sports. And he's calling Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas and talking about DEI and saying, you know, oh, we're only going to have merit-based selection in the government.
Yeah, we see how meritorious these various clowns and fools are in terms of this government. Obviously, you had Doge. You had promises about we're going to end the Ukraine war. You know, promises about at that point, I don't remember where we were with the, you know, potential Gaza peace deal.
We were in the ceasefire. We actually were in the ceasefire at this time.
That's right, because it started right at the beginning. It was a big hope. So there was a sense of like, okay, you know, not like, obviously, I've been very negative about them from the beginning, but that's why you saw the approval rating basically at 50-50, a place where he'd never been before, as people were like, okay, maybe this will be genuinely different.
Maybe there are going to be some things here. Maybe he's going to be a great businessman. Maybe he is going to, you know, I think people sort of bought into the rhetoric about the government efficiency and doge, blah, blah, blah. Maybe he is going to cut the fat in government. Maybe this is going to all work out. And now a year later,
just thinking about all that we've lived through and all of the various catastrophic, you know, mistakes and the ugliness in the country and all of that, whatever hope existed among your sort of like independent swing voter has definitely been crushed. And I think the two biggest things are really the economy. And I would say Epstein, genuinely, because
His whole brand of being the outsider that was going to come in and slay the sacred cows and sort of like right the previous wrongs and upend the apple cart, do the difficult things that previous elites were unwilling to do because he was this different kind of guy. Like, you know, many of us saw through that brand, but that was the brand. And once you have the Epstein Files cover up,
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Chapter 5: How do historical polling trends compare for Trump?
That was eight months ago.
Yeah, that's how long ago. And now there's obviously been a rapprochement. Elon's not backing the administration, but he's funding Republicans again. He is, you know, shut up about Trump being in the Epstein files, especially now that he's been revealed to also be significantly in the Epstein files.
So even just with that one relationship, you can see how this year has been really been quite a journey.
It's been something else, hasn't it? I actually think the war stuff is important as well because as we're on the brink of the potential war with Iran, you know, we're going to talk about this with Ro Khanna. There were, and remember our interviews with some of those AOC Trump voters in the Bronx?
So I'm not going to sit here and claim it was everybody, but there was genuine, not just promise, but hope that this person actually meant it. on the war in Ukraine. Well, here Trump is a year ago. By the way, it's the four-year anniversary since Russia invaded Ukraine. It's been a year now since Donald Trump spoke, and here he is promising to end the war in Ukraine, and nothing has been ended.
Let's take a listen.
I'm also working tirelessly to end the savage conflict in Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians and Russians have been needlessly killed. or wounded in this horrific and brutal conflict. With no end in sight, the United States has sent hundreds of billions of dollars to support Ukraine's defense. With no security, with no anything.
So, yeah, where are we now? And it's actually really interesting, you know, even to think. Again, I never believed we will solve it before I even get into office. I think I genuinely did underestimate. There are people who do believe stuff like that. You know, whenever I think back to the election, I have met like five people who actually believed that the IVF thing was going to happen.
And I'm like, come on, man. You know, like, what are we doing here? But they bought it. So, I mean, apparently, even in the year 2024, there were a number of voters who were like, oh, okay, I believe you whenever you say X, Y, and Z. Now, again, you know, I don't think that that was realistic, but-
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Chapter 6: How does the Epstein case impact political accountability?
The Ukraine one is the one I actually did think was more realistic because it wasn't ā so I cannot recall a single hawkish thing Trump said on the campaign trail. One of those most viral moments, what was it, 2023, November, whenever he did the CNN town hall? with Caitlin Collins, and he's like, I want to stop everything. Pick J.D. as his vice president. I mean, it was a believable thing.
Now, again, I've always been clear, and even was at the time, if you thought that the Israel stuff wasn't going, maybe not as much like it has, but it was obviously always going to be pro-Israel. But on Ukraine, I think there really was hope. It has been a disaster. I mean, we have had the failed summit, remember, in Anchorage, in Alaska, and then Zelensky, what, it was about a year ago, right?
He was in the Oval, and they got into a fight, and then he came back, and now they're friends, and now it's like business as usual. We had all the European leaders here. Nothing has changed. The entire thing, it's like Afghanistan. It just keeps going on and on and on and on, and it'll never end. It's been four years to the day. It'll just keep going.
Putin and them are like, as I said at the time, They don't care. They're like, look, we're happy to keep this war going all day long. Fine. No problem. You know, for us, we'll talk about this soon with Iran. One of the reasons the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says, hey, by the way, it's a bit of a problem if we do a war with Iran. We gave it all to Ukraine and Israel. Shocker.
Only been saying that over here for the last four years. So a year is a long time. It also, you know, it's not that long, but it does feel like an eternity, I think, since Donald Trump. And I do think this speech is will be much more of a salesman speech about trying to bring people back into the fold.
We saw Obama give many of these State of the Unions when I remember 2011, right after Obamacare, where his approval rating was very low and he kept trying to sell people a dream to keep it going. Trump is not running for reelection. It's also a very different moment. But Trump has not been in this type of position for a long time. And, you know, he also famously likes to go off prompter.
So we'll see how that works out. There potentially could be some interruptions from Epstein, you know, related stuff in the gallery. So who knows what how that will be.
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Chapter 7: How does the episode reflect on the current state of U.S. politics?
So there's, you know, look, all the norms around politics, like when Joe Wilson shouted at Obama, like this stuff is gone. Right. So we're living in a different universe. It's very 1890s in here.
Even though the Supreme Court justices, like Trump is pissed at them right now, even some of the ones that he put on the bench. So, you know.
What did he say? He was like, he's like, they're barely invited. Yeah. And only nerds like me are like, um, sir, actually the House of Representatives invites the guests. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not really your decision. It's actually not your decision. You're technically invited by the State of the Union, by Congress, because we have co-equal branches of government.
But again, only idiots like me.
Yeah, co-equal branches of government, LOL. Yeah, one other on the sort of like broken promises list. Remember in the campaign, and then even after the campaign, he had claimed he wanted to cap credit card interest rates. And this was one of the populist promises. Right.
And there are a few Democrats like on the progressive side, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren in particular, who are like, OK, but let's do it. Trump even called Elizabeth Warren at one point because she was like, listen, I'll work with you on this.
She just came out and said, you know, after that, nothing totally ghosted, you know, any efforts to put together some sort of bipartisan proposal, all dead and gone. So, you know, some of those like sort of sexy populist promises. And that would be a significant one. I've just completely fallen by the wayside as one example of how things have shifted over the year.
But it'll be interesting to see what he what he tries to persuade people of tonight. And I know he's going to brag about all of this supposed investment in the U.S., which is just like the number is just completely invented. I think there'll be a lot of gaslighting about probably a lot of tariff talk if I had to guess.
There'll be a lot of gaslighting about how great America's back and how great the economy is. And people are not going to believe that because as we've said many times in the past, you have your own personal experience of the economy. So you know whether it's going well for you and your family and prospects for your kids or not.
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Chapter 8: What are the potential risks of war with Iran?
Quote, I would rather have a deal than not. But if we don't make a deal, it is a very bad day for that country. And very sadly, it's people because they are great and wonderful. And something like this should never have happened to them. So this followed an extraordinary amount of leaks that came out of the Pentagon. Let's go and put these up here on the screen.
I want to kind of Washington explain. You hear one story, that's one thing. When you have Axios, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal all write this headline. Trump's top general warns of Iran strike. Trump's top general foresees acute risks in his attack on Iran. Pentagon flags risk of a major operation against Iran. Here is what is happening.
These are authorized leaks from the very, very top of the Pentagon. What they want is to get on the record as close as they can without going outside the chain of command to say, this is a really, really bad idea. And if you actually read all of their warnings, if you've been watching this show or if you've been paying attention to the news, none of this will be a shocker to you.
They say, we have a limited amount of air interceptors. We use 25% in the 12-day war. The Houthis were a huge problem. Because of our four-year support now of Israel and of Ukraine, we are dramatically low on munitions. They point to a CSIS war game from 2023 saying,
which said that the United States would last one week in terms of munitions if we were ever to get into a war with China against Taiwan. Yeah, you think I'm joking. This is 2023. The situation's gotten worse. We've actually given more to Israel and Ukraine since that time period, and the amount of spin-up in our defense industrial base has actually gone down. So you can see that for them,
They know, look, we can kidnap Maduro all day long. We can midnight hammer six B-2s with a place with no real aerial defense or any of that, whatever. But a real war, like ballistic missiles flying around, which we saw in the 12-day war, that alone drained 25% of our THAAD interceptors. The Pentagon is doing everything they can to try and have their Eric Shinseki moment. And look, bear with me.
It's a little bit of a trip down memory lane. But back in 2003, February 2003, the Army Chief of Staff, Eric Shinseki, was forced to testify before Congress, before the invasion of Iraq. And the Army Chief of Staff stunned America and the world. when he said it would take several hundred thousand troops to invade Iraq successfully.
The neocons like Mark Levin and Bill Kristol and the Bush administration said he's a raving lunatic, it's an absolute lie, and they fired him. They forced him out of office. He was the army chief of staff, but he was trying To warn all of us, and there were multiple other top generals internally, some even who resigned, people who told the president to his face, this is a bad idea.
They leaked as much as they could, but our media was very propagandistic, just as it is right now. They were trying their best to do something like this. The professionals, and remember, these are not bleeding heart liberals. They're not anti-war like me. Dan Cain was one of the foremost proponents of the Maduro raid. He knows the capabilities of the US military.
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