Krystal Kyle & Friends

On this week’s episode, Hasan Piker gives us a bombshell report of his recent detention by CBP during his return to the U.S. from France. Like us, he’s heard the stories about people getting stopped at the airport and being asked invasive questions about their support for Donald Trump. On his way out of customs, CBP stopped Hasan and took him to a detention area in the airport, where they proceede...

Lisa Gilbert joins the podcast for Episode 225 to help us understand how Trump is pulling a scam right out in the open with his crypto coin. Right now, Public Citizen is calling for Trump’s crypto activities to be investigated, because it’s clear that as Trump hawks crypto, a small fraction of wealthy investors actually see returns on the coin, and (to top it all off) a bill goes through Congress...

According to many political commentators, a liberal victory in the Canadian election wasn’t in the cards. So why did it happen? We tackle this question with this week’s guest, David Doel of The Rational National. The answer has to do with Trump. Trump’s trade wars and tariffs on Canada; his repeated jabs about Canada the 51st state; and his isolationist vision of the U.S.’s role on the global stag...

Economics professor emeritus and renowned political commentator Richard Wolff joins the show to turn a critical eye on Trump’s trade war with China. When we think about the U.S.’s unique position in the global economy in the age of Trump, we think about its power to cause harm — to threaten and cow other countries into submission by making them bend to economic pressure. As a nascent economic supe...

Ben Norton is a journalist and the founder of Geopolitical Economy Report focusing on international economics, which makes him the perfect guest for an episode centered on why Trump’s tariff tantrum isn’t going the way he hoped. When Trump threatened China with tariffs, many of us understood that of course, his main priority wasn’t the welfare of working people looking for more American jobs — it...

This week we talk to two grassroots Dem candidates interested in blazing a new trail for a worn-out, uninspiring party: Jackson Franklin and Kat Abughazaleh. In our interview with Jackson, we hear about the key policies he supports, including Medicare expansion, strengthening unions, banning corporate lobbying, and treating economic inequality as a serious issue. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has “personal...

Insane escalations in the trade war Trump’s waging with China, grants being pulled from universities in the name of combating antisemitism, and more: it’s been another crazy week under the Trump regime. We got Michael Tracey on the show to talk to us about it. We could be staring down the barrel of a global recession as Trump slaps trade partners with major tariffs, particularly triggering a crisi...

Investigative journalist Greg Palast is rejoining the show to discuss the dire straits into which a recent Trump executive order is putting our country. Each week has its fresh horror, and Krystal’s conversation with Greg delves into the latest. Greg has a seriously impressive background in shining a spotlight on the Republican agenda of making sure people can’t vote so the far-right oligarchs can...

In a special episode featuring your two hosts, we discuss Trump’s long game for a regime: taking the so-called presidency again in ‘28 and continuing to wreak whatever havoc doesn’t fit into the next four years. (Not to be too doomer about it — don’t mourn, organize! ) He’s got the usual cast of characters running amok, from Steve Bannon telling Chris Cuomo that Trump will take that third term (an...

This week’s guest, Robert Weissman, walks us through the current climate of grassroots and organizational pushback against our government’s current self-destruct mode. To make a long story short, it’s not looking easy on the ground — but essential victories prove that there’s a limit to the number of times Trump and his cronies can buy out justice and rely on a conservative Supreme Court to do the...

For Episode 216, we dive into the dumbest trade war ever with political writer Lule Savage. Trump has promised to go full steam ahead with tariffs that could devastate industries and cause massive job loss in Canada. Leveraging 25 percent tariffs on most exports would significantly affect the Canadian economy and destabilize the relationship between the countries. Trump has since pulled back some...

As Krystal puts it in this week’s episode during a discussion of the latest in Elon Musk’s quest for world domination, Elon thinks he’s Ready Player One, and we’re all NPCs. Rep. Maxwell Frost joins us to assess the damage. As our conversation takes a deep dive into the insights Maxwell has to offer into the psyches of two billionaire egotists, we talk about one of the biggest shockers of the Trum...

This week we get a bombshell report from reporter Greg Palast regarding voter suppression that changed the 2024 election results. In our exclusive interview with him, Greg alleges that the 2024 election results are not valid; without the gross Jim Crow-era abuses of voting rights that predominated during this election, Kamala would have gotten an extra 3.5 million more votes, clinching states like...

With Judd Legum of Musk Watch, we review the highlights (lowlights?) of This Week in Musk and, given the trends in Musk’s escalating power, what a Next Week in Musk might look like. From the insane reveal that Grimes objects to her ex’s bringing their son to hang out with Trump to careful analyses of Musk’s attacks on the various branches of government, we’ve got a full show covering all the point...

Welcome to Episode 211 of KK&F, covering the Musk rampage against the federal government with journalist Gil Duran. Reporting on the first weeks of the Trump admin is basically reporting on the unfolding of a coup. Musk has gotten keys to the Treasury systems, and is rampaging through the government. In this episode with Gil, we cover the central ideology that has led to the rise of figures like M...

Dotcom bubbles, housing bubbles — as this week’s guest, Ben Norton, explains to us, the bubble itself is not new. But as a keen observer of our financial systems and their manipulation by the wealthy and powerful, Ben Norton gives us important insights into what makes this current bubble — and its coming implosion — even more dangerous. For the past few weeks, for example, billionaires like Musk,...

Our expectations were low, but the first terrifying few days of Trump, round two have been worse than anyone could have imagined. Already we’re seeing the rollback of key civil rights legislation, attacks on immigrant communities, cutting immigration opportunities for refugees, and much more. After Elon Musk’s shenanigans on the Trump 2024 campaign trail, we expected oligarchs — Trump’s fellow eli...

Welcome to episode 208 of KK&F, where your hosts get into Biden’s final days for a special episode. As the sun sets on the Biden admin, it seems like until the last minute, Biden is asking, “Won’t somebody do something?” It’s a vibe that has haunted his whole presidency as for the last four years he’s performatively gestured toward shoring up essential policies like abortion rights, antitrust, and...

This week on Episode 207 of KK&F, British journalist Owen Jones joins us to help make sense of what Elon is up to in Britain, whether his boost of the far right Reform Party will prove successful, and what to make of his falling out with Nigel Farage. We’re so grateful to have Owen back on the pod to share his thoughts on everything from Elon’s British Invasion to the current state of the far-righ...

Welcome to the show, Pisco of Lib & Learn! We’re thrilled to have him on the pod with us to discuss the current civil war hitting MAGA’s ranks and the future of the bromance between Trump and Elon (is it built to last?). Like the Democrats, Republicans have their own big tent that brings a vast array of political tendencies into a single party. From the paleoconservatives to Wall Street libertaria...

With this week’s guest, Matt Bruenig, we debunk the biggest misconceptions and lies about single-payer healthcare. After the 2020 election, so many of us can mindlessly rattle off the most pernicious lines used among both conservatives and liberals to keep our healthcare system private. From zingers about wait times for care in Canada to (more than anything, it always comes down to this) the argum...

In our interview with Ken for KK&F Episode 204, we cover everything we know about Luigi Mangione so far and the media’s fascinating, highly telling reaction to every new revelation about the case. Ken published a separate article about how the Times , for example, has made a point of avoiding pictures of Mangione’s face — anyone on Twitter the last few days will understand why. Apparently he’s too...

We have Michael Tracey on this week to give us the lowdown on Trump’s Cabinet picks, from Pete Hegseth to Tulsi Gabbard. Michael addresses the perception of Pete Hegseth among some of Trump’s base as an anti-war figure, Trump’s leverage in getting his picks through the confirmation process, and much more. Who is the cast of characters currently taking shape as Trump’s next admin, and who do we nee...

We’re back with KK&F Episode 201, featuring MSNBC regular turned critic Steve Schmidt. The “Morning Joe” duo has gone from comparing Trump to Hitler to begging for a meeting in two weeks time to their audience’s utter disgust, a move Steve describes as cynical capitulation in a blistering rant. Add the network’s rating collapse to the news that Comcast is spinning MSNBC off into a new entity, and...

Episode 200 features Juan David Rojas talking to us about how AMLO, Mexico’s Bernie, won. From strategic alliances with billionaires to successful public works programs, AMLO followed what our guest calls a “politics of pragmatism.” By keeping the media at bay and ensuring the rich paid their fair share, he was able to pursue a left-wing political agenda without becoming, as Democratic candidates...