All right, welcome, everybody. It is episode two of the Matt Jones show. And for this episode, I thought I would bring on someone with ties to Louisville, Kentucky. I met this woman in Louisville many years ago when we tried to do a project and it was a lot of fun. Crystal Ball, she has been on everything from MSNBC to a number of different

podcasts. She does breaking points with Crystal and Sager. I think I got that right. I think I got that right.

And has been on everything. I mean, she's been on every. If there's a channel, Crystal, you've been on it at some point. Joe Rogan podcast. You've been everywhere. Nice to have you on.

It's nice to see you, Matt. It's a pleasure. It wasn't that many years ago, was it? I don't know.

You know, it does feel like, it doesn't feel like that. We used to go to lunch in Louisville at the Thai place on Frankfurt Avenue and argue about things. and now we're 15 years later and here we

are. Yep, indeed. It's a pleasure and I'm honored to be guest number two. I didn't get the

number one slot, but I'll take number two. Well, yeah, Beaumani was on my first one, so I decided to

have him back again. Now, let me, you do politics, but what I really like about you is even

though you're on the left, like me, you come at things from a different perspective. So if somebody

was to say to you, Crystal, explain your sort of political ideology in a short phrase. How would

you explain it? I mean, I would describe myself

as populist left. So for me, you know, and a sort of economic analysis is really central to

the way I view politics. And that doesn't mean that, you know, other things aren't important,

that I don't focus on other things, certainly right now in Trump 2.0,

I'm focusing on a lot to do with deportations, a due process and all those sorts of things as well.

But, you know, at my core, that's that's kind of where I come from. And, you know, it's informed by this another thing. I think you and I both have in common. Like, you know, I'm from a rural area. I'm from an area that is much more conservative.

So I think that has affected my political views of, you know, having that kind of

outsider perspective, viewing things a little differently.

And then what was really formative for me was I lived in the industrial Midwest, very close to

East Palestine, where there was that horrific train explosion, all of that, yeah,

in Ohio. And, you know, that area was completely decimated by this bipartisan agenda for

NAFTA and for, you know, opening up permanent normal trade relations with China. And it really

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