Krystal Kyle & Friends

For Episode 273 of KK&F we’re talking to reporter Murtaza Hussain from Drop Site News to talk about the latest juncture of America’s war in Iran. Today, Iran officials join the U.S. for peace talks in Islamabad. Iran has submitted a ten-point plan to establish peace in the region, and it remains to be seen what Trump is willing to accept. He’s pretending that working to prevent future Israeli bombings in Lebanon was never part of the deal, part of his erratic and profoundly untrustworthy strategy. No matter what, knowing our president, he’ll find a way to tout the outcome of his disaster of a war as a win. But the plan proposed by Iran requires major concessions from the U.S., which, in its hubris, has previously made clear that it expects absolute capitulation from Iran. At the same time, all is not lost — Trump has accepted the framing of the talks Iran has provided, and made it clear that he’s desperate for some resolution. What remains to be seen is just how much he can swallow given the weak negotiation position the US enters with.We cover a lot more in this episode, from the conflict’s economic ramifications to Europe’s reaction, Israel’s role in and perspective on the war, and much more. We’re grateful to Murtaza for joining us for this conversation, and we hope you enjoy. Thank you for keeping us ad-free! You can listen to this episode on major streaming platforms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

She proudly owns the title of “the biggest pain in Ron DeSantis’s ass” — so you know Angie Nixon, candidate for Senate in Florida, is doing something right! Angie’s status as probably the most vocal and involved state legislator comes from her background as a union organizer, as well as an organizer for other grassroots causes. Angie is fighting for these causes in a state run by some of MAGA’s biggest names, whose victories have been supported by massive, craven rollbacks of voting rights.As Angie puts it, there’s “more of us than there are of them.” Though Trump and the Mar-a-Lago set have sought to create the Sunshine State in their own image, we have cause to believe that coalition can’t hold, and Angie’s potential win in the Senate race would be a major sea change. As she points out, Trump has a Democratic representative! And hey, he voted by mail. Krystal and Angie have a lively conversation about Angie’s grassroots, pro-union and progressive campaign, what it means for the state of Florida, and what her path to the seat is.Thanks for listening. You can listen to this podcast on major streaming platforms, like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, and more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

Episode 271 with Luke Thomas lets us talk to a wide-ranging political commentator, someone who’s covered everything from the MMA world to (most recently on Luke Thomas Gets Political) lefty politics and current events. We really enjoyed getting political with Luke to talk about the war in Iran, Trump’s larger litany of blunders and if/how/when it’s going to catch up with him.America is making worse than a fool of itself in Iran, as weeks of casualties and destruction have piled up and Trump’s war (co-fought with Israel, of course) is losing him major support. As we watch gas prices go up, we also watch Trump continue to lock in on his senseless war, and it’s becoming clearer and clearer every day that not only do our elected officials have anything but our best interests in mind, but they also just can’t govern to begin with. This belongs to a larger international context, from the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to Trump’s squeezing of the Cuban government and people to pursue his own economic and political agenda there. Trump should be scrambling to save face with his base. And he’s pursued a pretty shoddy, patchwork half-plan to make “peace” in Iran, but that hasn’t worked either! Meanwhile, what remains to be seen is also how he continues to try and cover up his (extensive) presence in the Epstein files. We talk about the unraveling regime, Trump’s own view of his image and legacy, and the role progressive politicians have to play here to help take down our tyrant.Thanks for joining us for another week of KK&F! You can listen to this episode as a podcast on major streaming platforms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

In Episode 270 of KK&F, we sit down with Josh Citarella to talk about our blackmailing president, his Epstein links, and his inane, catastrophic World War III in the works. There should be absolutely no getting around it, but Trump and his people, while they continue to wage an absolutely senseless war in Iran, have done everything they can to distract from this low point in American politics. AOC has called out what seems so obvious to the part of the American public that refuses to be deceived: it seems very likely that Trump was involved with blackmail, and it seems clear to her (and to us) that Trump is a central member of the Epstein Class. What’s more, the files suggest Epstein and his affiliates were central to the development of online right wing culture factoring into everything from Gamergate to Pizzagate to Qanon. It’s not a pretty picture of the darkest corners of the internet, but it’s a necessary and detailed one, and we hope our conversation serves as a provocation to acknowledge and challenge that increasingly influential part of our culture. You can listen to this episode on major streaming platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, and more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

On Episode 269 of KK&F, featuring Vaush and Guy Christensen, we’re having a necessary conversation about the dead-end politics of the Democratic Party and what’s holding us back from organizing collectively at the grassroots level as the American public. The major setback, perhaps, is that the center-left and left lack a cohesive vision to move forward. Bernie ‘16 and ‘20 gave people something to rally behind, acknowledging what makes life in America so unbearable and unsustainable for working- and middle-class people, and de-emphasizing dead-end identity politics without denying the major effects of race- and gender-based discrimination on economic stability and social life. We arrive at the realization that moving beyond electoral politics as a limiting framework (but, to be clear, without abandoning it, and while continuing to see it as a primary site of class struggle) is the only thing that will allow us to collectively think beyond the day-by-day horrors Trump and his cronies foist upon us to keep our heads down and our noses to the grindstone.Thanks for joining us for this conversation. And thank you for keeping us ad-free! You can listen to this podcast tomorrow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and other major streaming platforms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

We have the fabulous Breaking Points producer Griffin Davis joining us on the show this week, Besides the possibility of a successful left-wing Tea Party, the continuing urgency of abolishing ICE, we also on the absolutely essential historical context missing from Camila Cabelo’s recent comments on the suffering in Cuba. In fact, hearing that someone had made such a comment, you might be inclined to assume that they had the decades-long US embargo of Cuba front of mind. It’s isolated Cuba and deprived it of essential resources, and, maintained by Democratic and Republican presidents, it stems from ongoing Cold War red-scaring and the usual US extractionist imperialism. But no! Cabelo’s criticism was for the Castro government and its inheritors, and we talk about what’s wrong with this picture.AI regulation is more of an imperative than ever, and the discussion of the threat of automation taking jobs from workers in a country without UBI came well before AI. But the advent of ever more sophisticated forms of AI has moved its reach into the white-collar workforce, and as it strengthens its stranglehold on increasingly vast swaths of American industry, the time is now to protect jobs and legislate against economic monopoly. We talk about all of this and more. Thanks for tuning in! You can listen to this podcast on major streaming platforms, like Spotify, Pandora, Apple Podcasts, and more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

We’re keeping it Krystal & Kyle this week to discuss the beginning of arrests related to the revelations of the Epstein files (with the high-profile arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor). Plus, more on Zohran Mamdani’s political bind and strategic compromises, the life sentence given to former South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, and more.A lot has been made on the American left about Zohran Mamdani’s endorsement of Kathy Hochul for re-election as New York governor. The move struck some as a surprise. After all, Hochul is very much a mainstream Democrat. She endorsed Mamdani, but she does not belong to the tradition of class-struggle politics that elevated Zohran to an incredible upset in the mayoral race. Now Mamdani has returned the endorsement, and the distance between his own political commitments and his endorsee’s has caused friction among some of his supporters. Our discussion of this topic focuses on the thin line Zohran is walking when it comes to sticking to his principles and actually making sure that they are realized in successful policy. We also talk about how the bombshell of the Epstein files release (with much more to come, if the government is actually held to the law) is revealing a shadow government of moneyed interests at the helm of American politics. Billionaires guilty of the most heinous and brutal crimes have yet to face real repercussions. Now, the arrest of disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor shows that the shock of the information unearthed in the Epstein files may actually cause some political consequences. We fit this discussion into the context of class warfare, contextualizing it with considerations of how those implicated by the Epstein files’ release have the power to scapegoat and attack immigrants, trans people, and other civilians they designate as “political enemies” to distract from their behavior.Thanks for tuning in to KK&F. You can listen to this episode this evening on major streaming platforms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

Even Tim Pool is distancing himself from Trump, and that’s how you know it’s REALLY not good. PrettyBadLefty, or Brandon, is the host of The Discourse with Brandon and a regular Majority Report contributor. We talked to Brandon about how revelations of the Epstein files, the ICE raids, and more are wreaking havoc within Trump’s base. Trump’s approval ratings are catastrophically bad, and it’s connected to what was clearly his significant presence in Epstein’s circles. Right-wingers like Alex Jones have rejected what they see as the “hoax” going around about the president, refusing to admit that Trump was a major associate of Epstein’s. But from Trump’s recent and major dip in favorability, we can see that the administration and coalition have been massively and irreversibly fractured by the release of information about his Epstein involvement. Meanwhile, we’re advancing rapidly toward the loss of voting rights in the U.S., while right now some Americans have seen that their home states are willing to throw those rights away without putting up a fight. A lot depends upon the ability of grassroots organizers and allies in government to thwart Trump’s attempts to steal elections and crown himself our ruler again.We hope you enjoy our conversation. This episode is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and other major streaming platforms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe