1 MAGA Republican vs 20 Far-Left Democrats (ft Dave Rubin) | Surrounded

Summary

Podcast Summary: Surrounded (Jubilee Media) – Episode 1: “MAGA Republican vs 20 Far-Left Democrats (ft Dave Rubin)”

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Episode Overview

In this explosive debut of Surrounded (May 31, 2026), host John Rigolato moderates as conservative commentator Dave Rubin faces off against a room of 20+ people with far-left, progressive, and socialist viewpoints. The episode is a raw, high-bpm gauntlet through America’s most heated divides: wokeness vs MAGA, economics, LGBTQ+ issues, the border, populism, “cancel culture,” Israel/Palestine, and “reality vs ideology.” Rubin presents bold claims, with opponents stepping to the center chair for sharp exchanges. No echo chambers—just a relentless attempt at real, if tense, conversation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Wokeism vs Trump: Who Did More Damage?

00:52 – 15:05

• Rubin’s Claim (02:45): “Wokeism did more damage to America than Trump ever did.”
• Progressive Pushback:
  • Wokeism is defined as “cultural politics aimed at social justice for minorities.” (“Wokeism is a pejorative term... left-wing cultural politics include broad attitudes toward social justice, especially for minority groups that have faced persecution.” — Left-wing Commentator, 03:35)
  • Counter-arguments include: Trump “kicked 17 million off Medicaid, started a disastrous war with Iran, tried to deport students for protest, and weaponized executive power.”
• Israel as a Flashpoint:
  • Rubin: “Israel, the only place that has any of the progressive values that any of you guys share.” (08:12)
  • Left Pushback: “Israel literally prioritizes Jews as policy—collectivism by your own definition.”
• Iran Nuclear Deal:
  • Left: “Iran didn’t enrich uranium above JCPOA limits until Trump ripped up the deal.” (05:29)
  • Rubin: “Iranians lied about enrichment. Verification is nearly impossible.” (06:15)
• Cumulative Insight:
  • Major disagreement over whether “woke harms” (DEI, campus speech, etc.) compare to broad institutional, foreign policy, and economic harms attributed to Trump-era policies.
  • Rubin: “Wokeism is collectivism on steroids... you get judged on racial and gender hierarchies.” (03:57)

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2. LGBTQ+ Rights, MAGA, and Individual Liberty

15:05 – 26:57

• Rubin’s Defense:
  • “Most conservatives, even if personally opposed, actually believe in individual rights.” (11:13)
  • cites openly gay conservative leaders and positive experiences with Christian conservatives.
• Progressive Side:
  • “The MAGA coalition contains figures actively trying to overturn Obergefell (gay marriage) and criticize gay adoption.” (13:24)
  • Left critic: “Your friends call families like yours ‘disgusting’ on public platforms.” (15:05)
• Rubin’s Nuance:
  • “Personal friendship and civil disagreement coexist—‘religious belief is not allowed to legislate my life.’” (14:49)
  • “Attack my civil rights, and there’s the line.”
• Broader Take:
  • Episode shows how MAGA/libertarian/conservative spaces contain a range of tolerance, but also elements pushing anti-LGBTQ+ policies—debate centers on whether this is marginal or mainstream.

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3. Broken Cities, Schools, and Borders: Are Democrats to Blame?

26:57 – 53:19

• Rubin’s Claim (27:05): “If you still vote for Democrats in 2026, you’re voting for broken cities, broken schools, and broken borders.”
• Urban Decay & Homelessness:
  • Rubin (from LA): “More homeless, drugs, and decay now than five years ago.” (27:21)
  • Trans Advocate: “LA is unaffordable but not broken—poverty is nationwide, poorest states are Republican.” (33:39)
  • “Unhoused people are more likely to be victims, not perpetrators. Problem is not Democrats, it’s the lack of permanent supportive housing.” (34:19)
  • Rubin: “Maybe, but Democrats have run this city/state for decades—why hasn’t it improved?” (35:59)
• Education: Woke Indoctrination or Relevance?
  • Teacher: “Critical pedagogy is about relevance and engagement. Top states for education are blue.” (43:09)
  • Rubin: “Florida’s #1 in higher education; school choice, competition, low regulation = better schools.” (43:39)
  • “You want to take money from public schools for charters; I want smaller classes and more funding for public schools.” (45:13)
• Border Policy:
  • Rubin: “Under Biden, we let in 16-20 million undocumented; border should be closed.” (27:42)
  • Left: “Obama was ‘Deporter in Chief’. Trump created the crisis with rhetoric. The ‘border crisis’ is manufactured.” (29:52)
  • Rubin: “If America’s so racist, why do millions want in?” (31:38)
  • Debate ensues on whether US international policy or domestic political rhetoric drives migration.

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4. Economics: Who Broke Affordability?

40:09 – 53:19

• Teacher/Economist: “Affordability crisis (gas/groceries/rent) driven by Trump policies: war in Iran, removal of health care, failed ‘populism.’” (40:48)
• Rubin:
  • “Lower taxes, less regulation, states like Florida are thriving as people flee blue states.” (41:09)
  • “Giving everyone more of their own money creates economic growth.” (55:22)
• Fact Battle:
  • Progressive: “Real median wage, GDP, unemployment all stronger under Biden-end than Trump-end. Trump’s tariffs made inflation worse.” (46:45)
  • Rubin: “Stock market is up, but Trump’s policies take time. Tariffs were to correct unfair global deals.” (47:07)
  • “The 1% pay 47% of taxes; what’s a ‘fair share’?” (55:39)
• Class & Redistribution:
  • “Workers should own the means of production; anti-capitalist.” (54:31)
  • Rubin: “If you want to give the state more power, how much do you want to take? At what point is it theft?” (66:00)

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5. The Reality vs. Ideology Face-Off

68:11 – 88:38

• Rubin’s Final Claim: “The modern left cares more about ideology than reality.” (68:11)
• Progressives Respond:
  • “No, the right is unmoored from reality: 2020 election denial, COVID vaccine misinformation, tax cuts for the rich as ‘help for the poor,’ broken promises.” (68:29 - 77:14)
  • “Progressive ballot issues pass even in red states—Americans aren’t ideologically moving right, just searching for solutions.” (59:17)
  • “Trump’s actual record: Didn’t deliver on America First, increased debt, started new wars, didn’t fix VA, pardoned foreign criminals.” (76:39)
• Rubin’s Defense:
  • “Progressives are obsessed with race and trans ideology. If closing the border is all Trump did, that’s already worth it.” (79:04)
• Notable Confrontation:
  • Trans Rights Advocate: Recurring clash with Rubin (and prominence in the room), states, “We are trying to live, but you keep taking rights away.”
  • “If you can find a law that discriminates against trans adults, show me—I will defend your rights, but I draw a line at medical transition for children.” (97:07–99:31)

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6. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Wokeism is collectivism on steroids... you get judged on racial and gender hierarchies.” (Dave Rubin, 03:57)
• “Israel, the only place that has any of the progressive values that any of you guys share.” (08:12)
• “If you have a slow soft invasion of your country happening, then at the very least you can close the borders.” (79:11)
• “Trump’s big beautiful bill increased taxes for the poor... gave breaks for the wealthy, not regular people.” (Left-wing Critic, 73:29)
• “Every president for the last 40 years has said Iran won’t get a nuclear bomb. The JCPOA actually secured that—why not just trust the inspections?” (Progressive Economist, 52:20)
• “You cannot compare a 5 year old who is going to socially transition... Five year olds are not receiving any sort of medical transition.” — Trans Rights Advocate (94:40)
• “There’s a fundamental difference between equality under law and medical transition for children... These decisions need adult brains.” (Dave Rubin, 94:45)
• “[Young people’s progressivism] shows they’re confused about what America is.” (Dave Rubin, 65:53)

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7. Timestamps of Key Segments

• [02:45] — Rubin’s "Wokeism did more harm" opening claim
• [08:22] — Israel, identity politics & collectivism
• [13:24] — MAGA, LGBTQ+ rights, and Knowles discussion
• [27:05] — “Broken cities, schools, borders” claim
• [40:09] — Economic argument peaks (teacher/economist challenge)
• [43:09] — What “woke education” means in the classroom
• [46:09] — Economic stats showdown
• [55:39] — “1% pay 47% of taxes, what’s a fair share?”
• [68:11] — “Modern left cares more about ideology than reality”
• [79:11] — “Closing the border alone is worth a Trump presidency”
• [94:40] — Children, puberty blockers, & trans rights debate climax

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Tone & Atmosphere

• Raw, unfiltered, and electric. Exchanges are direct, with “voting out” the losing debater after each round, raising both the stakes and the tempo.
• Occasional civility and moments of empathy: Rubin repeatedly affirms “equal rights under the law” for all—including explicit support for his trans debate opponent.
• But also real tension: “I could see some real hatred in a couple of the eyes.” (Dave Rubin, 89:24)
• Recurring themes: Accusations of hypocrisy, demands for evidence, and both sides questioning each other’s grasp on “facts” and “reality.”

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Final Takeaways

• The Surrounded format offers more than viral confrontations: moments of mutual recognition (“respectful disagreement,” 94:11) and persistent attempts to move debate from slogans to substance.
• No conclusion was reached on who “won”—no echo chamber was allowed.
• The stakes: If you want to see America’s culture war battle lines—and some attempts to cross them—laid bare, this is the podcast.

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For full context, listen to the referenced episode and watch the included video recap for the raw, emotional energy and the granular policy arguments not captured in this summary.

Transcript

[John Rigolato]

Hey, listeners, just want to remind you we have episodes of the Pod coming out every Sunday, so please consider subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for your support.

[Dave Rubin]

You're arguing that things economically were better

[Progressive Economist]

under Joe Biden at the end of his administration.

[Dave Rubin]

Absolutely. So can you give me an example of how.

[Progressive Economist]

Yeah, GDP growth was better off. Real median wage growth is better off. Inflation was better off at the end of his administration. Unemployment was better off at the end of his administration. We had the worst year of job growth in the past four years. Just this last year under Trump's administration

[Left-wing Critic]

was the Rubin Report. The did that also accept Russian money?

[Dave Rubin]

What show did I do for Russia?

[Left-wing Critic]

I'm not saying Russia. I'm saying Russia saw you as a stooge who could easily say the talking points that benefited them.

[Dave Rubin]

But what law is stopping you from doing anything that another person cannot do?

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Laws are not protecting trans people. If they were, trans people would not be disproportionately unemployed, unhealthy healthcare system.

[Dave Rubin]

What would you like the law to do for you? Again, the law can guarantee. The law can guarantee queer equality. It can't guarantee protection. Right.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

So, yes, it certainly can.

[John Rigolato]

So has wokeness pushed America past the breaking point? Or is the progressive movement the only answer to maga? I'm John Rigolato, and from Jubilee Media, this is surrounded where one brave soul faces a room full of disagreers. Today we're unpacking what it means to be far left, the backlash to wokeness, and what your vote stands for in the upcoming midterm election. I'm here with our featured guest, conservative commentator Dave Rubin. Welcome.

[Dave Rubin]

Good to be here.

[John Rigolato]

Are y' all ready to debate? Dave, let's begin.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm Dave Rubin. If we knew more about our sleep, what would we do differently?

[Left-wing Critic]

Would we go to bed at a

[Dave Rubin]

consistent time or take steps to reduce interruptions to our sleep? With sleepscore, Apple Watch measures your bedtime consistency, interruptions and sleep duration. Then every morning, it combines these factors into an easy to understand score from 1 to 100. So you'll know how to take the course quality of your sleep from okay to very high.

[Left-wing Critic]

Know your sleep score with Apple Watch.

[Dave Rubin]

IPhone 11 or later required. You survived the Miami weekend, nailed the speech, and maxed out your credit card in the name of friendship. Now you've got one hangover, four pastel dresses, and zero reasons to wear them again. Sell them on Depop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. And you at least get some of your dignity. Money back. Someone on depop. Depop wants what you've got. Start selling now. Depop. Where taste recognizes taste. The Rubin report. And today I'm surrounded by the far left. My first surrounded claim is that wokeism did more damage to America than Trump ever did.

[John Rigolato]

All right, if you would like to debate this claim, please get to the center in 3, 2, 1.

[Dave Rubin]

He's quick. He's quick.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Yes, I am. So I find it interesting that you think wokenism has done so much damage to America as opposed to Donald Trump. Wokeism did not kick 17 million Americans off of their health insurance through Medicaid. Wokeism didn't start a disastrous war with Iran that has now led to inflation outpacing wage growth. Wokeism hasn't ripped up institutions or attempted even to destroy free speech, even by your standards, because Ronald Reagan appointed judge ruled that the Trump administration was violating the first amendment by attempting to deport, arrest and detain students and faculty members on college campuses for protesting for Palestine. Wokeism, to me doesn't even have remotely as disastrous as a track record as Donald Trump.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, how would you define Wokeism? I guess we should start with that.

[Left-wing Commentator]

I think wokeism is a pejorative term that's used to describe left wing cultural politics.

[Dave Rubin]

Right. And what do you think left wing cultural politics are?

[Left-wing Commentator]

I'd say left wing cultural politics include just the broad attitudes towards social justice, especially for minority groups that have faced persecution in various ways.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay. So I think the simplest way to define wokeism is basically collectivism on steroids and usually as it applies to race and gender, meaning that you should be judged based on the color. You actually should be judged based on the color of your skin and your sexuality and your gender and a whole bunch of. Of immutable characteristics and depending on where those fall, on the left's kind of hierarchy of importance, that's kind of how you can parse out where people should be and how important their ideas are.

[Left-wing Commentator]

So assuming your characterization to be an accurate characterization, which I don't necessarily take.

[Dave Rubin]

Right. We're going to have a lot of trouble getting to fair demonstration on wokism.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Wokism has, for example, skyrocketed inflation to outpace wage growth the way that Donald Trump's war of aggression on Iran has done, can you, can you demonstrate that wokeism has violated the First Amendment by arresting students and faculty members on college campuses?

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, well, yes, I can. So let's start. Well, first off, the disastrous war, the quote unquote disastrous war that you're talking about. You're talking about a 40 day military operation that stopped an apocalyptic regime from getting a nuclear bomb and exporting terrorism throughout the world. And we're in a, we're now in a, we're now in an economic embargo of them. Right? We've basically done a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. So to say it's a disastrous.

[Left-wing Commentator]

We've done a blockade.

[Dave Rubin]

We did lose. Hang on, hang on. We did, we did lose 13. We did lose 13 of our soldiers, and that is.

[Left-wing Commentator]

And killed over 200 children.

[Dave Rubin]

But. Well, things happen in war, right?

[Left-wing Commentator]

Things.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, yeah, well, things do happen in war, so you can laugh at that.

[Progressive Activist]

Hold on, hold on.

[Dave Rubin]

Listen, you want to talk.

[Left-wing Commentator]

I agree, I agree. But that's why war should be a last option. If Donald Trump wanted to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, he, he could have just stuck with the Iran nuclear deal that he ripped up. Iran did not. Iran did not enrich past the 3.67. Wait, they didn't enrich past the 3.67% in the JCPOA. They only got to 60% after Donald Trump left that deal and then started doing aggressive actions.

[Dave Rubin]

I must say I'm impressed with your talking points. You got impressive talking points and you memorize them. Well, they're not correct, but I am impressed. Okay, first off, the Iranians admitted in the negotiations right before the war started that they were enriching the past. What they were allowed to. That's number one. Number two, you also have to go on the assumption. You also have to go.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

[Dave Rubin]

You also have, you also have to go on the assumption or acceptance that can you agree, can you agree or verify their claims? It's one thing to say, oh, this is what we're doing, this is what we are agreed to, etc. But you have to be able to verify that. And the idea that we have people on the ground or the UN or some third party organization that can verify what they're actually doing with underground nuclear sites and a whole bunch of other things is, I would say, quite a leap of faith.

[Progressive Economist]

Right.

[Dave Rubin]

You want to trust, but verify.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Can I respond to that?

[Dave Rubin]

Sure.

[Left-wing Commentator]

So the IAEA and, and US intelligence said that Iran did not enrich past the 3.67% prior to Donald Trump ripping up and stepping out of the Iran nuclear deal in, in, I believe it was 2017, 2018.

[Dave Rubin]

So again, in these negotiations, in these negotiations, because Donald Trump ripped up the

[Left-wing Commentator]

Iran nuclear deal to begin with, that's

[Dave Rubin]

the only reason why. Let's try it differently. I'll try it a different way.

[Left-wing Commentator]

The IAEA assessments agree with Tulsi Gabbard, our Director of National Intelligence testified in front of Congress last year. And according to the entire intelligence community, Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, that they didn't have a nuclear weapons program. They were enriching past the point that they were allowed to for civilian use. Everyone knows that. But allow me to say the weaponization

[Left-wing Commentator]

process is different than.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you think the Iranian regime before this war, the Iranian regime that has oppressed the people of Iran for 4, 40 years. Do you think that was a good regime? Would you say that was a good government? Would you like to live under those people? Were they progressive in any way? Do they hold any of the values that any of you guys hold?

[Left-wing Commentator]

No, but we don't just start wars on countries whose politics we disagree with or who are oppressive to their own people. We were actually an ally to Saudi Arabia and Mohammed Osama ripped up that.

[Dave Rubin]

I agree with. You don't. You don't do that. Okay, we got something. All right? We got something.

[Left-wing Commentator]

We got something we agree with that has committed gross humans rights violations in Gaza.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm shocked that Israel came up. Israel, the only place that has any of the progressive values that any of you guys share.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Really.

[Dave Rubin]

Wait, this is actually. Wait, this is perfect.

[Left-wing Commentator]

This is perfect because one of the things that you told me at the beginning of this conversation was that Wokeism was judging people based on characteristics and collective thought. Israel is literally centered around the prioritization of the Jewish people as a matter of policy. That is literally collectivist thought. So you must hate Israel, too. You must think that that's the ultimate. That's the ultimate.

[Dave Rubin]

Let me ask you something.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Form of collective identity, right?

[Dave Rubin]

How many Muslim countries are there? How many Muslim countries?

[Left-wing Commentator]

Okay, so you're just pivoting.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, no. I'm going to ask you, is Israel collectivist? How many Muslim countries are there?

[Left-wing Commentator]

I'm sure there are a lot of Muslim countries.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you have any idea?

[Left-wing Commentator]

There are a lot more Muslims than. Than Jews.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. Well, just ballpark. How many Muslim countries are there?

[Left-wing Commentator]

I would probably maybe say, like, let's say between 10 to 20, maybe.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, you're off by about 40. There's about 52 or 53 Muslim countries in any of those countries. How's it going for minorities, women, gays, Christians, Jews?

[Left-wing Commentator]

Yeah, I can say that. Other nations, it's extraordinarily repressive, but like

[Dave Rubin]

I said, we gotta pause there.

[John Rigolato]

We gotta pause there. You've been voted out by the majority.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Okay.

[John Rigolato]

Please return to your seats.

[Left-wing Critic]

It's been fun, Dave.

[Dave Rubin]

All right. Hi.

[Left-wing Critic]

Good to meet you. I'm actually a big fan. I've been watching you since, like, all the way back in the Sam Harris era.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

And then I remember you brought on softening me up. Okay.

[Left-wing Critic]

No, you brought on, like, Stephen Molahue, like, the white nationalist. And I was like, this guy just loves ideas. He just loves all different types of ideas.

[Progressive Activist]

I love that.

[Left-wing Critic]

But yeah, Just wanted to talk right now specifically about the difference between progressive values and the MAGA coalition.

[Dave Rubin]

Sure.

[Left-wing Critic]

It seems to me that all of the ills that are attributed to Wokeism are typically things that people find annoying. So people being overly, you know, policey about their pronoun usage or talking about specific groups that might seem extremely marginalized. That's what I typically hear from the right. I don't hear, like, a degradation of, like, society unless it's the far theocratic right. And I don't think that you ascribe to that. Would you call yourself a theocrat?

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, I wrote the best selling book on classical liberalism, so it's funny, I get called a conservative all the time. I actually happen to be a liberal. You're a liberal in the truest sense of liberal. You should swing some. Unfortunately.

[John Rigolato]

Well.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, progressives are not liberal, as a general rule of thought. Yeah.

[Left-wing Critic]

Yeah. For me, I just feel like that type of, like, annoyance that Wokeism presents to the world is a lot less dangerous than, like, I don't know, the coalition that you're a part of that like, condemns people for having children when they're in gay marriages or says things like, you know, people that are of particular sexual orientations don't deserve the same equal rights. Would you say that that's something that's, well, dangerous?

[Dave Rubin]

Well, the coalition is going to have all sorts of people in it. So it's like MAGA if we were

[Left-wing Critic]

talking about ideological diversity.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. If we were talking about what MAGA is. What I like about MAGA actually is that it's not a specific set of. You have to believe this exact set. Right. You have to believe these exact set.

[Left-wing Critic]

Some people in MAGA can believe, like, gay couples can have kids, and others can believe, like, that's degeneracy and those people need to be jailed. Those are like, the difference of ideas.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, actually, the tough answer to that is yes, as long as you're not trying to litigate someone's life. I am around a lot of conservatives all the time, and particularly Christian conservatives. Let's say they generally are not for gay marriage. By the way, there's not one mosque in the United States that performs gay marriages, which is worth noting.

[Left-wing Critic]

Why are you so focused on Muslims today?

[Dave Rubin]

I'm just giving you. I'm just giving you a fact. But what I have found consistently, you know, Donald Trump was the first incoming, first time president that was for gay marriage.

[Left-wing Critic]

I actually really want to talk about that.

[Dave Rubin]

Barack Obama was not for gay marriage when he first came in and not until 2013. So what I would say is the MAGA movement. I mean, look, Scott Bessant, who's the Treasury Secretary, is married to a man and has kids. Peter Thiel is married to a man and has kids. Douglas Murray is one of the greatest voices we have in conservatism. Happens to be gay. Yeah, I don't. For the most part, people on the right actually believe in individual rights and don't really care. But that doesn't mean. That doesn't mean that everyone has to have the same religious perspective on everything.

[Left-wing Critic]

But you've been around the block for a long time. And just like you alluded to, in 2016, Trump held up a flag that said LGBTQ for Trump. He was asked in a CBS interview, would you let Caitlyn Jenner use the bathroom that she wants to in your hotels? He said, absolutely. He didn't have a problem.

[Dave Rubin]

He actually gave a better answer than that. He said, I'm a hotel builder. If you told me I had to build one bathroom, that would be fine with me. I think it's a great answer.

[Left-wing Critic]

But that's what's crazy is that evolution has changed so much to the current MAGA movement. The MAGA movement today, Donald Trump would absolutely not say that somebody could use the bathroom aligned with their gender identity. He specifically banned that. And not just that, but he's also just called for. He specifically wrote an executive order that classifies far leftist groups like pro transgender groups as a danger to the country, which often the entire military can go after. That is insane. That is absolutely a violation of people's individual rights.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, so you want to talk about the trans issue sort of broadly.

[Left-wing Critic]

I just, I want to talk about the maga.

[Dave Rubin]

What I can tell you what I can tell.

[Left-wing Critic]

Individual liberty yet wants to police the way that people.

[Dave Rubin]

But what are they doing that also

[Left-wing Critic]

wants to please people's bodies, that want to go after people specifically because their ethnicity. Right, none of that.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so Donald Trump is in the middle of his second term. Gay marriage is here. It's passed. It's adjusted individual.

[Left-wing Critic]

You're friends with Michael Knowles, right?

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Left-wing Critic]

Yeah. So what's that coalition again called? I think it's like Less Equal, that's trying to actually get rid of Obergefell and overturn gay marriage.

[Dave Rubin]

Does that not concern you? Well, first off, I've never heard of that specific organization, but what I can tell you, you're friends with them. Michael is part of. I don't. I just don't know what you're talking about. But what I would look it up right now.

[Left-wing Critic]

What I would say less than Lila Rose, Michael Knowles. I think it's. What's that guy's name at Daily Wire?

[Dave Rubin]

The head one. Okay, but that. That's not Donald Trump.

[Left-wing Critic]

I understand that you want to go away.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, no. That's not Donald Trump. That's not the head of the party. I have friends. Well, first off, Michael and I are friends, but there is a cap on our friendship. There actually is.

[Left-wing Critic]

I have friends with someone who doesn't want you to be in love. My man.

[Dave Rubin]

He doesn't want me to be in love. He's had dinner at my house with his wife. My husband cooked for him.

[Left-wing Critic]

That's against God. So I want to have a word for you.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, no. But think about. Think about what you're saying. I think.

[Left-wing Critic]

No, no.

[Dave Rubin]

Think about what he's saying.

[Left-wing Critic]

But what I want to say.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Your name.

[Dave Rubin]

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, champ.

[Teacher]

Hold on.

[Dave Rubin]

Champagne. You know, in your world of how tolerant you are showing me you are, you're actually showing a remarkable amount of intolerance. Because although I don't know, the group that you're talking about, Michael Knowles as a human being has been to my house and my husband has cooked him lamb. And we have enjoyed evenings together and shared personal moments and all of those things. Now, do we agree on absolutely everything? Of course. The answer to that is no. And if Michael was. Michael or anyone else was trying to lead some organization that was going to go against my civilization rights. Well, that is where obviously we would have our difference of opinion.

[Left-wing Critic]

Of course, David.

[Dave Rubin]

But I also. But I also. But I also respect. But I also respect people's religious beliefs. They're allowed to have their religious beliefs. Their religious beliefs are not allowed to legislate my life. This is all very separate from the trans thing, which obviously I sense is going to come up a few more times.

[Left-wing Critic]

I'll just say real quick, like, I'm not trying to come after You, I believe that you should have the full liberty to have the family of your choice. But what I will say is I'm glad Michael treats you with respect to individually when you guys are together. But when he goes in front of his platform and says that a video of two gay men having a child is the most disgusting thing that he's ever seen, which is a quote, you can look up the tweet. Michael said that that child is in one of the most dangerous situations he can think of, which is crazy to think of all the abusive parents that actually live in this society regardless of sexual orientation. And you're going to look at a happy family and say, this is disgusting. That should feel like a violation.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so I didn't see that video. But if what you're asking me is if, do I agree with. If. Let's just say what you said is true. Do I agree with Michael's point on that? Of course the answer is no.

[Left-wing Critic]

But that is the MAGA coalition.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, no, no.

[Left-wing Critic]

That's what I'm saying.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, no, no.

[Left-wing Critic]

That is the ideology. No, that's not.

[Dave Rubin]

No, that's not the coalition.

[Left-wing Critic]

That's what the administration.

[Dave Rubin]

You're taking a very specific person and

[Left-wing Critic]

you're saying, is it a small specific.

[Dave Rubin]

Absolutely. Yes.

[Left-wing Critic]

No, it is not.

[Dave Rubin]

Yes. Oh, it is. No, that's completely absurd. It's completely absurd. It's completely absurd.

[John Rigolato]

We gotta pause there. You've been voted out by the majority.

[Dave Rubin]

Give me two seats.

[Interviewer]

I want to go to your prompt in a second, but I just wanted to address. Though I actually come from a Christian background, I spend a lot of my career debating Christian nationalists. And even the nicest Christian nationalists, they do want to take your rights. I spend a lot of time talking to these people, even the really nice ones. So I just want to be careful. And I guess I want to say, like, I remember when you posted about having your kids on Twitter, which, congratulations, the comments were horrifying. I don't know if you remember, but it was Christian nationalists and Republicans tearing you and your husband down for having a child.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, you should also note there was a lot of love. There was an awful lot of love from an awful lot of conservatives and liberals and people across the board and everything else. The way the Internet operates is people only focus on the negative. So was there a whole bunch of nasty?

[Interviewer]

Which comment did it come to mind?

[Dave Rubin]

Was there a whole bunch of nasty?

[Interviewer]

Guess. Let's be honest. Let's just be honest.

[Dave Rubin]

Which side supports them for that? If you're Asking me about. For that specific post. It was. No, for that specific post. It was mostly people on the right. For sure, it was.

[Interviewer]

Who were attacking you.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, I fully acknowledge that. Absolutely. 99% of the hate that I get is from people that are in this circle.

[Communist Advocate]

Sure.

[Interviewer]

But it's definitely not for being gay.

[Dave Rubin]

What? No, no.

[Interviewer]

It's for supporting going back to the proms.

[Left-wing Commentator]

No, no, no, no.

[Interviewer]

It's for supporting.

[Dave Rubin]

It's not for being gay.

[Interviewer]

Like the actual authoritarian, desiring, probably demented old man. So going back to the prompt of wokeism, it seems like you defined it as intersectionality, some collectivization based on demographic.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, yeah, we could basically.

[Interviewer]

So wokeism is intersectionality.

[Dave Rubin]

It is a p. Well, Internet intersectionality is a piece of wokeism. If you're going to group people on these immutable characteristics and then you decide based on this, we got to put black people up here, We've got to put white guys down here. Gays are going to be of the straights. Trans will be above the gays. You know, you have this endless hierarchy

[Interviewer]

and what kind of policy harms have happened?

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, quite literally, the easiest one would be college admissions. I mean, we know that Harvard and other colleges were discriminating against mostly white and Asian students because they wanted more diversity and they were allowing students of color with lesser grades to get in as a general rule. I would.

[Interviewer]

If we're worried about universities, who's cutting their funding?

[Progressive Economist]

Well, hold on.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you agree that that happened to some degree?

[Interviewer]

I think it was overblown to a large degree. The cohort basically ended, I think, in the early 2000s. Right. A lot of these issues were clamped down on pretty quickly. And the issue is that when you look at the reason why.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, corporate. I mean, you could look at corporations. I mean, all these corporations that have their DEI stickers. I was just on a Delta flight. They still have their DEI sticker on there.

[Interviewer]

DEI is not inherently a bad thing. Why would diversity ever be a problem for any.

[Dave Rubin]

In and of itself is not a problem. But if you say we are going to inclusion.

[Interviewer]

What about inclusion?

[Dave Rubin]

We are going to hire people and we are going to factor in all of these immutable characteristics inherently, by saying we are going to elevate one group of people, you are going to have to discriminate against another group. Do you have a diverse. That actually is racism.

[Interviewer]

Do you have any unique experience based on your gayness that other people will never have? I'm sorry, does your gayness give you insight into certain experiences that other people simply will not have because they're not gay.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, I suppose as a gay person, I do have experiences that some people don't have.

[Interviewer]

And you probably have knowledge and experiences. I did get the job. I mean, lots of people do all causes of crazy sex. But the issue is that what we're talking about here when we come to diversity.

[Dave Rubin]

But I wouldn't want that, if anything, I wouldn't want that to have anything to do with me being hired.

[Interviewer]

Sure. But it's really hard to compare. So, sir, let's say I granted you all of the woke harms. The issue is that it didn't take us to Iran. It didn't kill schoolgirls. It didn't right now crush with the FCC and kick multiple people off of air and threaten to pull things. It's not burning books in Florida.

[Dave Rubin]

Who's been kicked off air?

[Interviewer]

Jimmy Kimmel got kicked off of air. ABC was regularly under threat for doing these things. The SEC president came out after Jimmy Kimmel that we can't cross these type of things. They crushed James Talarico. This has happened over and over again.

[Dave Rubin]

What do you mean they crushed James Talarico? James Talarico is the nominee right now.

[Interviewer]

They crushed his appearance.

[Dave Rubin]

What do you mean they crushed?

[Interviewer]

The FCC wouldn't allow his appearance.

[Dave Rubin]

I don't know what you're talking about. I have literally no idea.

[John Rigolato]

We got a pause there. I think you're talking about Colbert's show, but you've been voted out by the majority.

[Progressive Activist]

How's it going, Dan?

[Dave Rubin]

Quick, how you doing? How you doing?

[Progressive Activist]

So I just quickly wanted to recognize. I love this, by the way, you have a very unconventional household. And wokeism has brought you that household right to be able to live with your husband, to have your two children who are conceived through surrogacy.

[Dave Rubin]

And I appreciate wokeism didn't bring that. Equal rights. Equal rights.

[Progressive Activist]

So wokeism, as I define it, as I view it personally, is looking to expand on already existing civil liberties. Right. To ensure that hold on, to ensure America practices what it preaches. Equal protections, inclusion of everybody, democracy, et cetera. So it's not a policy prescription, it's a social prescription. Donald Trump is president. He's the head of the executive branch. He is a trifecta, a judiciary that's on his side. Donald Trump's violent. Donald Trump's destroying the pillars of America. Democracy, negative rights, rule of law, our constitution. The list goes on and on. So I'm just curious to see what institutional damage has wokeism done. And if you Want to engage with Trump being violent to be nice.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. Well, I mean, I just don't agree with anything you said there, period. First off, wokeism. Wokeism isn't what led to, say, gay marriage. What led to gay marriage is a fight for equality under the law. If you believe that heterosexual marriage, that an adult should be able to engage in any sort of contract with another adult, then that has to be equal. That's what equal protection, which you just mentioned is. And that's actually what the decision was based on.

[Progressive Activist]

Yes.

[Dave Rubin]

So that was not wokeism. That was the promise of America, which is the promise of individual rights and equal opportunity. As for a few of the other things that you said there, again, if we could do that. You want to do the Iran thing again?

[Progressive Activist]

No, I said Donald Trump is violent.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. So Donald Trump is violent in what sense?

[Progressive Activist]

Yeah. So I also want to mention you, the reason why you left the left, correct me if I'm wrong, is because you believe progressives were turning to authoritarianism. Am I correct?

[Left-wing Commentator]

There.

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, there was a.

[Progressive Activist]

That was your prick or your video. You said it. You can't deny it.

[Dave Rubin]

Settle down, Chip. There was a panoply of reasons that I did.

[Progressive Activist]

That's one of them.

[Dave Rubin]

Correct? Yeah.

[Progressive Activist]

Do you think it's authoritarian for the president of the United States to call for the death of six active members of the legislature for making a video that is totally fine and legal?

[Dave Rubin]

It's interesting. Oh, well, first off, you're talking about the video where they basically.

[Left-wing Critic]

Mark Kelly.

[Dave Rubin]

Mark Kelly and several of these guys were basically saying, if you're in the military, you can. You can go against, you know, Trump and all those things. Well, first off, there are some legal, actual reasons that perhaps you should not, as a former member of the military, be telling.

[Progressive Activist]

Yeah, the punishment for making videos is death. I forgot.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm sorry.

[Progressive Activist]

Did anyone. Hang on. George Washington Wood.

[Dave Rubin]

Did anyone get put to death?

[Left-wing Commentator]

Did anyone. Does it matter?

[Progressive Activist]

The President of the United States is actively calling for the. The death of members of the legislation.

[Dave Rubin]

Are you okay? Is anyone. Are you okay with that? You're missing the difference.

[Progressive Activist]

No. You're saying Donald Trump. No, no.

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on.

[Progressive Activist]

Let's just understand the prompt here. You said wokeism has done more damage than Donald Trump ever did. So explain single time wokeism. But you're doing something remotely similar, remotely

[Dave Rubin]

slimmer as Donald Trump.

[Progressive Activist]

You want damage?

[Dave Rubin]

Being slightly.

[Progressive Activist]

You want damage? I can give you damage.

[Dave Rubin]

Let me explain.

[Progressive Activist]

And I can give you the damage. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

[Dave Rubin]

Let me explain. So I do. Donald Trump, all you need to know about. For any one of you guys that think that Donald Trump's coming for you because you're gay or you're trans or something like that, or you're black or anything else, might I recommend you just read Art of the Deal, which Donald Trump wrote about 40 years ago.

[Progressive Activist]

It's terrible. He's just discussing his activities.

[Dave Rubin]

You can dismiss it. You can dismiss it, but Donald Trump gave you his playbook 40 plus years ago. 40 plus years ago, he gave you the playbook on how he negotiates. He leads with crazy.

[Progressive Activist]

This is irrelevant to what I'm currently talking about, right?

[Dave Rubin]

No, it's completely.

[Progressive Activist]

You asked me about damage. I can give you examples, but you don't want them because you know you're gonna get it.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, no.

[Progressive Activist]

That is the truth.

[Dave Rubin]

Completely.

[Progressive Activist]

Donald Trump tried to rewrite the Constitution, the executive order with Executive Order 14160 and it was followed up by 141601, where they use this to target individuals for pro Palestinian speech like Mahmoud Khalil. And this is already ruled upon, by the way. All right, I'm sure you know about this, correct?

[Dave Rubin]

Okay.

[Progressive Activist]

But you try to rewrite the Constitution be.

[Dave Rubin]

Exactly.

[Progressive Activist]

Can the president do that? There is a different president do that.

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on. There is a difference between exercising free speech. There's a difference between exercising free speech and closing down a campus and not letting students get. You're an interesting character. Yeah, no, you seem nice. There's a difference between exercising free speech, which I will always defend your free speech, no matter how noxious it is. The president closing and closing down campuses. No, they weren't. No. Mahmoud Khalil and all of these masks.

[Progressive Activist]

He was almost supported with no cause. And it's literally in the documents of the case.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, first off, Marco Rabiu has illustrated the point many, many times. If you're here on a green card or a student, student visa, you don't, you don't have the exact same protections that you don't, you don't.

[Progressive Activist]

Congress shall make no law. What?

[Left-wing Critic]

No.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, for people, for people that are citizens of the United States of America.

[Progressive Activist]

What's the president.

[Dave Rubin]

Wait a minute, Wait, wait a minute.

[Progressive Activist]

Nothing. So Donald Trump tried to sign an executive order rewriting the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. Where to get this power?

[Dave Rubin]

Let me ask you something. Do you.

[Progressive Activist]

Is it, is it authoritarian?

[Dave Rubin]

Let me ask you.

[Progressive Activist]

A self granted authority.

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on, hold on.

[Progressive Activist]

Is it. Can you answer my question?

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on. You're not going to Let me chat here for a sec. Listen, listen, listen.

[John Rigolato]

Dave, talk.

[Dave Rubin]

Let me ask you something. Let's try it this way. So let's say you and your girlfriend went on vacation. Bora Bora. You show up the most beautiful place on Earth, and she's seven months pregnant. And she then gives birth in Bora Bora. You think your child should be a citizen of French Polynesia, Bora Bora.

[Progressive Activist]

And you think that just solely principle. And I'm sorry, the president cannot defy because he doesn't like it.

[Dave Rubin]

No, the President.

[Progressive Activist]

That's how our country works. That is an example of damage to America.

[Dave Rubin]

You fight it in the courts. You can fight it in the courts.

[Progressive Activist]

He doesn't like the courts. He ignores them. Prior to the Alien Enemies act, removals. Emile Beauvais and Daniel.

[John Rigolato]

We're out of time. We gotta stop there.

[Progressive Activist]

Okay.

[Left-wing Critic]

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[Progressive Activist]

Gotcha.

[Dave Rubin]

My next surrounded claim is if you still vote for Democrats in 2026, you're voting for broken cities, broken schools, and broken borders.

[John Rigolato]

If you would like to debate this claim, get to the chair in three, two, one.

[Dave Rubin]

Hey. How are you? Santana.

[Border Policy Opponent]

So can you explain a little bit about what you mean, broken cities, broken schools, broken borders?

[Dave Rubin]

Sure. Well, broken cities, I would. Basically, you can boil it down to crime and drug use. And I can tell you, having been in here in Los Angeles for the last 36 hours, I have seen more homeless people, more drug use, more urban decay than I have seen in the last five years combined living living in Florida State.

[Border Policy Opponent]

Florida. Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

In terms of schools, it's basically brainwashing kids and teaching them what to Think instead of teaching them how to think. And then what was the third one in terms of borders is the easiest one. I mean, under the Biden administration, we let in somewhere. We don't even know what the actual number is, but somewhere between 16 to 20 million illegals. If Donald Trump did quite literally nothing else in his presidency, just getting control of the border, I would say, would be good enough, because you don't have a country if you don't know who is in it.

[Border Policy Opponent]

Okay, all three of your claims are wrong. Pick which one you want to be proved wrong on.

[Dave Rubin]

Let's do borders. Perfect. Okay.

[Border Policy Opponent]

Donald Trump is absolutely the worst president on the border. First and foremost, you can talk about the Lankford Bill, which was a piece of legislation which would have strengthened our borders, but Donald Trump had that legislation shot down.

[Dave Rubin]

He also said, wait, wait, wait. So do you. Were the borders open under Obama? No, let's. Or under Biden? Let's try. Let's try that the borders were not open.

[Border Policy Opponent]

What piece of legislation that he passed to open the borders?

[Dave Rubin]

No, it's not about a piece of legislation. It's about quite literally open borders without legislation. You just let people through, which is exactly what we're doing.

[Border Policy Opponent]

There's no one standing at the borders. Everybody just come right in.

[Dave Rubin]

In many cases, yes. Actually, in many cases, they were quite literally moving barbed wire fence. Where did you get this information? There are videos of it. Have you ever seen the video of Bobby. Have you ever seen. Have you ever seen the video of Bobby Kennedy when he was running as a Democrat standing at the border? He was still a Democrat.

[Border Policy Opponent]

Wait, you're talking about the same one that sniffed coke off a toilet seat and admitted it recently? Wait, the same one that actually took a dead bear and dropped it in Central Park? The same one that actually chopped the head off a whale? You're citing RFK Jr.

[Dave Rubin]

Yes, I am citing RFK Jr. No,

[Border Policy Opponent]

no, no, I don't hear that.

[Dave Rubin]

Who's running HHS right now?

[Border Policy Opponent]

Which he shouldn't be, but that's fine.

[Dave Rubin]

Listen, when you talk about how many people do you think came in on Biden? Let's see if we're even operating on the same plane.

[Border Policy Opponent]

The acceptable number is about 10 million.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so you. Okay, all right, fair enough. So I'll grant you that they say it could be anywhere. I've heard 16 to 20 million, but let's say it's 10. Do you think that's good or fair or just. Or how a country can operate?

[Border Policy Opponent]

I think that when you create instability throughout the world. And then you also tell people that your country's open. Then you create an actual, quote, unquote, border crisis.

[Dave Rubin]

Think about this. So what instability was.

[Border Policy Opponent]

What was Barack Obama's nickname?

[Dave Rubin]

Barry?

[Border Policy Opponent]

Deporter in chief. Barack Obama had a negative immigration rate. That means that he deported more people than he let into the country.

[Left-wing Critic]

So.

[Dave Rubin]

So you're for deportation.

[Border Policy Opponent]

So we can say that there wasn't a border crisis under Obama. Right.

[Dave Rubin]

The border crisis was significantly worse under. Under Biden.

[Border Policy Opponent]

But. But under Obama, was there a crisis?

[Dave Rubin]

Biden. Barack Obama did.

[Border Policy Opponent]

Yes or no?

[Dave Rubin]

Barack Obama. No. Barack Obama did dep. Support, I think, more people than Donald Trump. I wish Donald Trump was supporting more people.

[Border Policy Opponent]

I agree. So you're saying there was a crisis under Biden?

[Dave Rubin]

Yes.

[Progressive Activist]

Okay.

[Dave Rubin]

Of course.

[Border Policy Opponent]

But no crisis under Obama.

[Dave Rubin]

No, I didn't say that. He was deporting.

[Border Policy Opponent]

Yes. No. Yes, he was.

[Dave Rubin]

Wait, hold on. We can. Let's do. Let's do.

[Border Policy Opponent]

Biden had a negative deportation rate.

[Dave Rubin]

Let's do Biden and Trump. Let's do the last two administrations.

[Border Policy Opponent]

Yes or no?

[Dave Rubin]

I am. For anyone that will close borders and the port.

[Border Policy Opponent]

I'll say no. I'll say no.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay. Okay.

[Border Policy Opponent]

So if there wasn't a crisis under Obama and there was a crisis under Biden, what happened in between those two administrations? Were there something that happened?

[Dave Rubin]

Wait, are you blaming Donald Trump for. For Joe Biden's border? No.

[Border Policy Opponent]

What I'm blaming Donald Trump for is when he's actually campaigning for president and he's going around and to any news organization that will let him speak and tell everyone that the border's open. They're wide open. Come on in. Come on in. And he actually created something that wasn't there. So when.

[Dave Rubin]

So wait, you're blaming people coming to this country illegally? You're blaming Donald Trump. Donald Trump, who really only appeared because of borders. Right.

[Left-wing Critic]

Build a wall.

[Border Policy Opponent]

There wasn't a border issue.

[Dave Rubin]

That's what he.

[Border Policy Opponent]

There wasn't a border issue when he said that.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Right.

[Border Policy Opponent]

But then when there was.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Well, we've always.

[Dave Rubin]

We've always.

[Left-wing Critic]

No, no, no.

[Dave Rubin]

We've always had a poor. We've always had a completely porous border.

[John Rigolato]

That.

[Dave Rubin]

That is.

[Border Policy Opponent]

We had a negative deportation rate under Obama. He created the actual desire for people to come here because he told the lie that the borders was open.

[Dave Rubin]

Wait a minute. But why. But if America. If America. If America's a racist, evil, capitalist country, why would these people want to come here?

[Border Policy Opponent]

Because it's still better than the country that they're in because the United States.

[Dave Rubin]

So America's is pretty good.

[Border Policy Opponent]

Stabilizing other countries.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

CIA, our CIA keeps destabilizing all the

[Dave Rubin]

countries, overthrowing other countries. So who did Barack Obama.

[Border Policy Opponent]

We're doing that right now.

[Dave Rubin]

Wait, wait. So who did Barack Obama destabilize that then Donald Trump allowed into the country?

[Border Policy Opponent]

The point being is our country has a history of destabilization that doesn't matter if it's left or right.

[Dave Rubin]

So who did Barack. Well, I'm just playing your game here. So. Wait, I'm just playing your game, man.

[Border Policy Opponent]

The need for people to come here. And there was no crisis then. Donald Trump not only created it, but he didn't handle it.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm sorry, man. Nothing you're saying is making sense here. What you want Donald Trump?

[John Rigolato]

We got pause there.

[Dave Rubin]

You've been voted out. What country did Barack Obama destabilize that caused people to come here under Donald Trump?

[Border Policy Opponent]

I guess you'll never know.

[John Rigolato]

Okay, you've been voted out.

[Dave Rubin]

Hey, how are you?

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Hello. What's your name?

[Dave Rubin]

What's your name?

[Trans Rights Advocate]

My name is maybe. Nice to meet you, Dave.

[Dave Rubin]

Good to meet you.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

So I myself am a Democrat. I'm actually running for state senate here in California. I would argue that I am about as far left as you can get as a Democrats and I'm critical of the Democratic Party because I actually don't think they're left enough. If we're gonna talk about broken cities, here we are in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is not a broken city. I live here. I feel safe walking down the street as an openly trans non binary person, as somebody who does drag. This is not a broken city. It is unaffordable in many ways. But that is the case across the rest of the United States. And if we're going to talk about broken cities, we actually need to talk about broken states. Eight out of the ten poorest states in the United States are Republican controlled. And the majority of states that are the wealthiest states are Democratically controlled. And these are actually donor states to Republican states. And the irony is that Republicans are against welfare except when it comes to funding their states.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, well, first off, first off, I would say I'm very glad that as a trans person you feel safe here. You should feel safe. And I treat anyone that treats me with respect. You're gonna get respect out of me. So I appreciate that and I'm glad to hear it. I assume you've been to West Hollywood, right? I have. I used to live in West Hollywood, pretty close to the Abbey. And I Left about six. Well, I moved to the Valley before that, but I lived there for about six years. And the six years that I lived there, from about 2013 to 2019, it was pretty clean and it was pretty safe. And there weren't drug addicts and homeless people all over the place. I spent the last two days there in West Hollywood. That's the hotel I'm staying at, is there. There are drug addicts and homeless people everywhere. Everywhere. You would acknowledge that is the case?

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Yes, I would acknowledge that. But I would also acknowledge that there are plenty of houses, people who are also drug addicts, and they never seem to be the problem. It's only when they're existing in poverty, abject poverty outside that you have to witness it, that it becomes a problem. The issue is not that these people are dangerous. The mythology around people experiencing homelessness is that they are dangerous. The reality is that unhoused people are more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, so listen, I can. I can actually get on board some of what you're saying here. Now, there's a couple issues here, because one, one of them is not just about violence. If you are going to create the conditions, the economic conditions or whatever you want to call it, that's going to allow for these people to be out on the streets. Would you want to walk a baby in a carriage down that block as these people are there? I don't think I would.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

I would because I don't know the last time I've heard of an unhoused person attacking a baby. And these are.

[Dave Rubin]

You know what I would say if you. No, it's not fear mongering.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

It is.

[Dave Rubin]

If you were a young mother and. And you were pushing a carriage and there were a bunch of people who clearly were on. Well, now they have super meth or whatever it is. Super meth. But it is real. It is a real thing. It is a real thing that are on any of these drugs, you would not want to push a carriage down that block. But it's not exactly just about violence.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

I told you I would actually feel comfortable with that.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so you would. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that most parents would not be comfortable with that. But it's not just about that. I would also say if you spend any time in. Well, Hollywood's become a total disaster too. But if you. If you go down Melrose, you go down to these places that were once thriving, the store. Everywhere the stores are closed. Okay, this is not shoppers, but it's because of the. It's because of the economic conditions.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Exactly. It's a part of the economic conditions. So what we need is economic equity.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, no, no, no. But who's been running. But Democrats have been running this city forever. Democrats have been running the state.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Okay, but California represents.

[Dave Rubin]

Forever. Wait, wait, wait.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Spencer Pratt is not coming in to build housing for all the issues that there is not enough housing in Los Angeles. But it's not the number of people experiencing homelessness.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, no.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Yesterday is. Because on any given day.

[Dave Rubin]

It's not a housing issue. It's not a housing issue. You could give drug addicts all the beds and homes that there are, and it will not work. It will not work. If you told me that what you were trying to do was figure out truly functional programs that would help these people get off drugs and they could

[Trans Rights Advocate]

actually work, like universal health care, I

[Dave Rubin]

could get on some of that. No, but just saying universal health care, we're going to give health care to everybody.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Well, Dave, you haven't given me. You haven't given me a moment to speak in retort. So what I want to say is that on any given night in Los Angeles, in LA county, there are more than 72,000 people experiencing homelessness. In LA City, there are more than 43.

[Dave Rubin]

Democratic run.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Let me finish.

[Dave Rubin]

Democrat run.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

43,000 people experiencing homelessness, yet there are only about 16,000 interim housing shelter beds. Meanwhile, there are more than 250,000 vacant units. Here's the thing is your Democrats.

[Dave Rubin]

What I'm saying is your argument that Democrats have not. Fundamentally, is your argument that Democrats have not funded homeless policy?

[Trans Rights Advocate]

My argument is that Republicans are not going to fund it either. They are just going to criminalize our neighbors experiencing poverty. And we cannot criminalize our neighbors experiencing poverty, but just because they are poor.

[Dave Rubin]

But you seem more angry at Republicans who've had nothing to do with this. Republicans have literally no influence in this city or in this state. So even if I could grant you some.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

But they have said what they want to do, which, which is come in and criminalize people who are living poor in public. And that is not going to solve the problem. That is a problem is gonna create more incarceration.

[Dave Rubin]

You're angry at people. You seem angry at people that aren't in power and haven't been in power here in decades than the people who are actually in power. If you're, if you're angry at.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

I can be angry at both.

[Dave Rubin]

But if you're angry at somebody, be angry at Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom, when he was mayor of San Francisco, had his, what, 10 year plan to end homelessness in San Francisco. I am sure I don't have to tell you about the drug and homelessness problem.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

You don't, but we don't actually have is permanent supportive housing.

[Dave Rubin]

We do not have permanent services. Okay, so wait, we can't just criminalize people, People who fail. Okay? No, no, no, no. So we have a fundamental difference on what you can do for these people. I don't think that if you take a bunch of drug addicts and just give them beds, that that's gonna solve anything. I think it's gonna prolong it for the most part. Okay, so we have a fundamental difference there. That's just fine. But what I would say is aim at anger. I'm angry.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

You would probably do drugs if you lived on the street as well.

[Dave Rubin]

Aim your anger. Aim your anger at the people who have been in charge. Your anger should not be at speed.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

My anger is at the duopoly, which is both Democrats and Republicans.

[Dave Rubin]

But it's not a duopoly here. It's not a duopoly here. Here in Los Angeles, which has.

[John Rigolato]

Karen, you've been voted out by the majority. Please return to your seat.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Thanks, Dan.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, thank you. Hi, Eric. How are you?

[Left-wing Critic]

Good.

[Economics Teacher]

How are you?

[Dave Rubin]

Good, Good.

[Economics Teacher]

So I really want to ground this conversation more in what I believe is the greatest damage that's happening right now in America, which is the affordability problem. And I think that there is no one who has exacerbated that more than Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans. We can talk about cities specifically, but I like to just talk about the nation as, as a whole. If you. Look, I was previously an economics teacher for 12th grade. And if you looked at the three primary indicators of how the economy is doing, GDP, the labor market, and inflation, all three of those are indicating that the economy is going in a downhill direction. And that's also validated by a recent poll. 72% of people in America are saying that the economy is in poor condition. Now, if you look at the primary things that the Trump administration, administration has done, taking away people's health care in one big, beautiful bill, the war in Iran, which has raised gas prices. That's really the thing that is making everyone really feel like, oh, affordability. I need to choose between gas and groceries. This is the big, big problem that we're experiencing. So I don't think that going more in a Republican direction is necessarily going to be helpful for that because we're seeing that Donald Trump ran on a platform of making the economy better. He appealed to people, the populace, of saying, listen, I understand the struggle. They pointed the finger at immigrants, at trans people, LGBTQ people. But then he made it worse. I don't think a lot of people were expecting that, oh, you know, the economy could actually go in a worse direction. So I just want to say, again,

[Dave Rubin]

I think there's been a certain theme that obviously, I disagree with a little bit of the premise there, but I can basically get on board what you said there. Look, if you want to create the conditions for economic success, what I think you have to do is you have to lower taxes literally for everybody, and you have to eliminate as much regulation as possible. Right? When we see a massive exodus right now, we'll use New York as an example. Since Mamnami has taken over, they have lost trillions of dollars in tax revenue. Right? So the guy wants to fund big government programs, and what he's saying is, I want to tax these people more, and then he is causing them to leave. That is what people are going to do in a free society. Right? We have states rights, and in Florida, say we have no state income tax. We have low regulation. We create the conditions for economic boom, and that's what we're getting right now. It's not. It's not a coincidence that massive corporations. And if you look at nothing else. If you look at nothing else between blue and red right now. Do you know how many people since COVID have moved to Florida? I want to touch on what you were talking about, mom, because I don't

[Economics Teacher]

know the answer to that, but I can't say.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, I'm not trying. I'm not trying. I'm not trying to get you. I'm not trying to get you. So 2.3 million people have moved to Florida since COVID Right. And it was largely because of COVID Then there were economic opportunities. Now it's because there's a huge boom down there and there's lower taxes, and DeSantis is trying to get rid of property taxes, et cetera, et cetera. You know how many people have left California since COVID Well, I would like to talk about. Again, I'm not trying to get.

[Economics Teacher]

Billionaires would leave California if there was a proposed billionaire tax. And the percent is less than 5%.

[Dave Rubin]

But the billionaires are the billionaires that billionaires will leave. But the billionaires are. The billionaires are leaving. Peter Thiel left. Elon Musk left. We can look to Ken Griffin. What does that do. Well, if you want to pause there,

[John Rigolato]

you've been voted out by the.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. If you want their money, they're going to take it. All right, I started.

[Teacher]

Thanks, Keon. Nice to meet you.

[Dave Rubin]

Hi, good to meet you.

[Teacher]

I want to talk on broken schools. You mentioned that you think schools are teaching kids what to think, not how to think. I just finished my student teaching program today. I'm getting my teacher certificate, like, right now.

[Dave Rubin]

Great.

[Teacher]

Thank you. Everything we talk about in my program, every piece of what you guys would probably consider to be like, woke critical. Race theory has been so beneficial for me in my student teaching and connecting with our students.

[Dave Rubin]

Taking. Yeah, give me an example.

[Teacher]

Yeah. Taking students backgrounds into account when I am planning my lessons, making it actually engaging for them is like the step one if you want to teach them anything. Because if students.

[Dave Rubin]

Can you give me, like an actual example? I'm following you for sure. Yeah.

[Teacher]

Like, I have noticed a lot of my students are specifically concerned about, like, money and being able to make money in the future. So when we're reading Romeo and Juliet, we talk about the class, the class, like dynamics at play in that play because that's something they're interested in. So when I talk about that, they can buy in and they can actually do that.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay.

[Teacher]

This is something that the right would look at and say is like crt. You're just like looking at them because they're from like, poorer economic backgrounds, so they're doing all this.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, you haven't, you haven't, but you haven't mentioned anything related to race. I don't have an inherent problem with what you just described right there. I don't see how that's crt.

[Teacher]

We're not trying to teach people what to think. We're teaching them how to think. And the way to do that is by getting them engaged. And I think we see this in that all the top states are all blue states. All the top states for education are all blue states.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. Florida's number one in higher education without question. I mean, you check the U.S. check U.S. news World Report. Yeah. I'm pretty sure Florida's top three.

[Teacher]

It's not.

[Dave Rubin]

It's not in the top three. Check U.S. news world report. We can fact check it.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Yeah, please do.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I would say my basic situation when it comes to education is we should have school, school choice. We should have charter schools, we should have public schools, we should have private schools. You shouldn't necessarily be stuck in a failing school just because of your zip code. I'M glad you want to have as much choice as possible within the system. And then it also creates competition. I also. Look, we have a huge home. Sorry, I gotta cut you off.

[Teacher]

Charter schools are not more inclusive. Do you know what the average cost of.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, I didn't say. I didn't say anything about inclusive.

[Teacher]

You said you don't want people to get stuck.

[Dave Rubin]

I don't want people. I want their charisma.

[Teacher]

School should be in inclusive.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, it depends what you mean by inclusive.

[Teacher]

So I think everyone should have similar opportunities. And the way to do that is not with school choice. School choice.

[Dave Rubin]

So you want state. You want state run. No competition.

[Teacher]

I think having public schools is the best way to get the most amount of people. And if we make public education good

[Dave Rubin]

and we actually Resources, that's a hell of a. Well, who's in?

[Teacher]

School choice is what gets that.

[Dave Rubin]

But if. But if you want. Wait. School choice? Yes, school choice.

[Teacher]

Where do you think the funding goes with school choice? It comes from public education to go to private and charter schools.

[Dave Rubin]

Right. So I would have as many charter schools as possible. As many private schools as possible. I would encourage home.

[Teacher]

So you want to.

[Dave Rubin]

I would encourage.

[Teacher]

Eliminate public schooling.

[Dave Rubin]

I think actually you could over time. I think you could, but I'm not calling for that today. You want.

[Teacher]

Can I tell you what I really. Can I tell you what I really want?

[Dave Rubin]

So might. I might. I recommend.

[Teacher]

I've always been state run, but has

[Dave Rubin]

always been state run. And how do you think that's working out?

[Teacher]

I think it was working out really great until we started gutting our funding. If we look at class sizes right now. Can I talk about class sizes?

[Dave Rubin]

Sure.

[Teacher]

My teacher, my mentor teacher has class sizes of up to 40 students in her classes.

[Dave Rubin]

So I would.

[Teacher]

That is not sustainable. If we put more funding in, we can hire more teachers for those public schools to get class sizes down, which

[Trans Rights Advocate]

is the number one thing.

[Teacher]

So you think.

[Dave Rubin]

You think if we just put more money into these things?

[Teacher]

I think if we hire more teachers. If we hire more teachers, then we have lower class sizes. Teachers like myself can individualize our curriculum. We can take individual students into account in our lesson planning, which is something I do because I was lucky enough to have a small class size, but other classes don't have that strike off.

[Dave Rubin]

You would be quite a good teacher, likely in a POD or at a charter school or at something where it would be more.

[Teacher]

I'd be a good teacher anyway.

[John Rigolato]

I promise. We got a pause there.

[Dave Rubin]

We got a pause there.

[John Rigolato]

You've been Voted out by the majority.

[Dave Rubin]

Thank you.

[Progressive Economist]

Nice to meet you.

[Dave Rubin]

Hi, how are you? Good.

[Progressive Economist]

What is one main metric that Donald Trump has made better off since he got in office? Like, an example would be GDP, unemployment, inflation, etc.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, right now, first off, the big beautiful bill was just passed last year. And it's kicking in now, right? It's kicking in now. Okay. So we are see. We're going to now see results of that, like even the tariffs. All right, so let's do tariffs. Are you for or against tariffs?

[Progressive Economist]

Against the universal tariffs. So what's the main metric that he made better off?

[Dave Rubin]

What?

[Progressive Economist]

What's the main metric that he made better off? Gdp, unemployment, inflation. Do you have any idea?

[Dave Rubin]

Listen,

[Progressive Economist]

I don't think you do.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you think. Hold on. So you're arguing that things economically were better under Joe Biden at the end of his administration? Absolutely. So can you give me an example of how.

[Progressive Economist]

Yeah. GDP growth was better off. Real median wage growth is better off. Inflation was better off at the end of his administration. Unemployment was better off at the end of his administration. With the worst year of job growth in the past four years, just this last year under Trump's administration, inflation, the inflation, 3.8% year over year since Trump got in office, we're seeing all of those economic indicators become worse off. Can you tell me anything that he's done to make it better off? You say it's broken for Democrats. It sounds like it's broken right now under Trump.

[Dave Rubin]

Have you looked at the stock market?

[Progressive Economist]

It's worse off in terms of growth in 2025 as compared to 2024. If you look at Dow Jones and S&P 500, they're both up quite a

[Dave Rubin]

bit right now, but lower rate. Well, you know, things don't happen overnight. So Donald Trump, for example, things. That's true. That's true. There's reality. There's actual reality. Like you put policies into place and they don't just kick in the next day. Right.

[Progressive Economist]

It's been a year and a half.

[Dave Rubin]

Donald Trump said. Donald Trump said when the tariffs.

[Progressive Economist]

He said in a year, prices would be down 50% for electricity. Are they up right now?

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on. Donald Trump, when he brought in the idea of tariffs, would you agree that for the last four decades we have had completely lopsided trade deals with all of these countries where they're tariffing and taxing our products that go to them and they're getting sweet deals when they sell to the American public? Do you think that's a fair.

[Progressive Economist]

Didn't Trump address that with the usmca, but he went against that when he didn't extend it through the context of his new trade agreement because he wanted to place tariffs on all of them again. And his tariffs that he's placing on are destroying our relationships with countries all around the world.

[Dave Rubin]

No, it's costing. Destroying relationships.

[Progressive Economist]

It's costing consumers here in this country. A Federal Reserve report just came out indicated that we'd be below pre pandemic levels of inflation if Donald Trump never imposed the tariffs in the first place. Meaning be able to bring down interest rates, be able to increase investment within our economy and bring more jobs back.

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on. When you say destroying our relationships with other countries while other countries were getting sweet deals. Right. If Canada, which was charging crazy taxes and tariffs on our products that were going to them and we were basically charging nothing back, how can we sell to their market? So if they're upset with us. Right. So China is a little upset with. Right now. We're upset with us. We're trying to get fairer deals. Canada, obviously, under Carney is upset with us because we're trying to get fairer deals. Donald Trump is trying to reset things. We were basically the world's piggy bank for the last. It's really basically Post World War II, and Donald Trump is trying to reverse that so that we will have fairer deals. If you told me that it was just zero across the board and there were no tariffs going any which way, I could completely get on board that. But as long as countries are going to treat us unfairly, often while we. We foot the bill for their defense or a series of other things and we give them foreign aid and everything else, well, then we should have equal playing field going both directions.

[Progressive Economist]

What better deal did he get?

[Dave Rubin]

What?

[Progressive Economist]

What better deal did he get?

[Dave Rubin]

What do you mean? Several countries have already come back and

[Progressive Economist]

we've named any of the conditions that made the trade better off. Give me the specifics.

[Dave Rubin]

Canada, I think they had something like a 60% tariff on cheese, literally on cheese that was being sold from America. From where? Wisconsin to Canada. And that basically is zero right now. That's one. That's one example. I think it's zero. Right.

[Progressive Economist]

Okay. So that's, That's a targeted tariff, not a universal tariff. Can you name one country that had a universal tariff on us?

[Dave Rubin]

I think there are several countries that.

[Progressive Economist]

Name one.

[Dave Rubin]

I think there. I think there are several countries. Honestly, I'm not sure, but I think there are several countries that did.

[Progressive Economist]

Okay, so why are we putting Units

[Dave Rubin]

zeroed out the tariffs. I think Argentina did, if I'm not mistaken. I think Israel did. I think a few other countries did.

[Progressive Economist]

Why don't we put a proportional tariff on them, the same that they put on us, so that we can negotiate that down? It doesn't seem like Trump's looking for that.

[Dave Rubin]

What do you mean? That that's what. That's exactly what Trump did.

[Progressive Economist]

Let me just clarify. The tariffs are being paid by our consumers. So Trump, while trying to get his deals, is making inflation go up and making it worse off for you at the grocery store, worse off for you at the gas pump, worse off for you when you're trying to buy a house. So, again, like you mentioned before, I'm not one metric that I'm not better off.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm not sure the premise of what you're saying because. Do you think we should just have free trade with everybody without any penalization?

[Progressive Economist]

We're like libertarian. Don't you want free trade?

[Dave Rubin]

No. That's what I'm saying. So I think you're agreeing with me. What Donald Trump is trying to do,

[Progressive Economist]

he doesn't overall decrease tariffs.

[Dave Rubin]

He's trying.

[Progressive Economist]

The Supreme Court did more to decrease tariffs than he did.

[Dave Rubin]

It doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen overnight. They're negotiating these things.

[Progressive Economist]

Have we done anything in his office yet?

[Dave Rubin]

Yes.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

What?

[Dave Rubin]

Yes, talk. Scott Bessen, every day is negotiating with these other countries. You think that he.

[Progressive Economist]

I think the negotiations are worse off with the jcpoa. We have less political concession right now than we had a decade ago under the jcpoa. So tell me, what political concessions have we got with the war with Iran since Trump started it?

[Dave Rubin]

Well, right now, Iran literally exports no oil. Every day. They are losing $500 million. So what you can do over time is you have a military adventure, which we had 40 days, which we took out their air force and their, their entire navy and everything else, and now we completely control their concern.

[Left-wing Critic]

What's an.

[Progressive Economist]

Since the beginning of the war.

[Dave Rubin]

What's, what's the political concession from Iran since the beginning of the war?

[Progressive Economist]

Yes.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, we're in the, we're having negotiations

[Progressive Economist]

with them right now, and we haven't gotten anything.

[Dave Rubin]

We're having negotiations right now.

[Progressive Economist]

So nothing?

[Dave Rubin]

Well, we're in a negotiation.

[Progressive Economist]

Two and a half months now. We got no political concession for two

[Dave Rubin]

and a half months. How long do you think we had.

[Progressive Economist]

We had a limitation in terms of them enriching uranium to 3.7% that was going to be in place until 2030 it would still be in place to

[Dave Rubin]

this game we started. We started with this. They admitted they were. They were enriching past that point for the gcpa. Steve Witkoff said the two or three days before the war started that they admitted they were enriching more. Also, you also pulled out of the

[Progressive Economist]

agreement strike that we made a year ago. You also have. They haven't been building up.

[Dave Rubin]

You also have to go on the assumption.

[Progressive Economist]

Dni, why is it that, why is

[Dave Rubin]

it that you believe. Why would you believe the Iranian theocratic regime? Why would you believe that they are doing right?

[Progressive Economist]

That's the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, appointed by Donald Trump. So explain me why you don't believe her.

[Dave Rubin]

Listen, Marco Rubio. Marco, Marco, Marco, hold on.

[Progressive Economist]

Why don't you believe the entire US Intelligence Committee? Why do you think they're all lying?

[Dave Rubin]

So are you saying that Donald Trump just ignored the entire US intelligence?

[Progressive Economist]

Yes, literally. That's what he did.

[Dave Rubin]

No, he didn't. That's it. That's okay. So that's an interesting disconnect that we have. I mean, Marco, why do they contradict each other? Marco Rubio very clearly laid out what was going on here. And by the way, Donald, Donald Trump. Donald Trump. And every president for the last 40 years has said that Iran will not get a nuclear bomb. Right? Every president has said that. Joe Biden said no. Remember Kamala Harris said no.

[Progressive Economist]

Or the GCPOA did it to a greater extent. Why didn't you address that point again?

[Dave Rubin]

Again you are going on the assumption that you can trust these random inspectors that are going into these places. Literally.

[Progressive Economist]

They're not random inspectors. The IAEA is the International Atomic Energy.

[Dave Rubin]

With all due respect, I think that trust is suggesting some of these international things that they somehow have America's interests or the West's interests in mind, I think is a kind of faulty. It's just a faulty premise, I would say.

[Progressive Economist]

So the international actors that are lying, they don't actually have legitimate surveillance over their nuclear enrichment facilities.

[Dave Rubin]

No, they don't. Okay, so they don't. They have buried under mountain. They were buried underground. My next surrounded claim is that progressives push normal moderate American like to debate this claim.

[John Rigolato]

Please get to the chair in three, two, one.

[Dave Rubin]

Hey, how are you?

[Communist Advocate]

Nice to meet you.

[Dave Rubin]

Good to meet you.

[Communist Advocate]

So my argument here is that what progressives are doing is opening up opportunities for people to reevaluate the way that they see politics. Right. Progressives are arguing that more pocket power should be delivered to the Average American. That is like one of the most, the foundational tenets of progressivism.

[Dave Rubin]

Can you say with that? What is more pocket power?

[Communist Advocate]

Okay, right. So this is the idea, right, that under our current system we see that the majority of power, as well as just like monetary control, exists within people who own private property. And to essentially decrease that gap, progressives want to give more power to those who are in the the workplace.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you not want people to own private property?

[Communist Advocate]

Well, I'm definitely anti capitalist. I would say so. I would say that workers should own the means production, right?

[Dave Rubin]

Oh, so you're communist?

[Communist Advocate]

Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

Oh, interesting.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

Wow. I don't know what is communist. I haven't talked to a real life communist.

[Communist Advocate]

What's a communist?

[Dave Rubin]

Well, you want the people, you want the people to own the means of production and you don't seem to believe in the people who create property.

[Communist Advocate]

The people who create value, as in create the value of commodities, should own the actual value that they create from that process. Yes.

[Dave Rubin]

So my answer, if you want the people, everyone in this room and everyone in this country, if they have more, what I would want is that you would take less from them. So you tax everybody less, you remove regulation, you create the conditions for competition and capitalism so that more people will have more of their money. I want you, I assume you work. Do you work?

[Communist Advocate]

Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you pay taxes?

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

I want you to keep more of your money. I don't know what you do, I don't know how much you earn. Whatever it is you earn, I want you to have more of that money so that you can put that money back into the system.

[Communist Advocate]

The majority of wealth in the system is, is owned by 1% of the population. You understand that, right? And where does that wealth come from?

[Dave Rubin]

1% of the population. Do you know how much percent they pay in taxes? That 1%?

[Communist Advocate]

Not nearly enough because majority of their. Because the majority of their wealth comes from.

[Dave Rubin]

It's 47%. Hold on. So 1 1% of the population pay 47. You accept that?

[Communist Advocate]

Okay, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

So what would be their fair share?

[Communist Advocate]

What percent of that?

[Dave Rubin]

What would be their.

[Communist Advocate]

Is their actual wealth that they own? That again, majority of these lineages of.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, you seem power. And what would be their fair share?

[Communist Advocate]

What would be their first accumulation of what?

[Dave Rubin]

What would be their fair share?

[Communist Advocate]

I would say that the fact that they own 1%. You're not letting me finish.

[Dave Rubin]

47% in taxes.

[Communist Advocate]

Here's my problem. You're not letting me finish the point. So we can't get from point A to B, you understand that?

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so if you accept that 1%,

[Communist Advocate]

there's not going to be a fair share when their wealth is coming from the back ends of colonialism. So that's not going to work.

[John Rigolato]

Okay, we got to pause there. We're going to reset. Please return to your seat. You've been voted out.

[Dave Rubin]

He's back.

[Left-wing Critic]

All right, Good to see you again, Dave.

[Dave Rubin]

Nice to see you.

[Left-wing Critic]

It's interesting to point to like five anecdotal examples as like an overall consensus on where the American people are moving.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, I think they qualify more as anecdote more than anecdotal in that Tulsi Gabbard was a Democrat member of Congress. Bobby Kennedy is Kennedy, which is a standard bearer for Democrat.

[Left-wing Critic]

Do you think Bobby Kennedy is also in alignment with most of his family? Would you say that they would concur that he's a representative of the Kennedy?

[Dave Rubin]

I don't know. I don't know about most. I know some don't like most

[Left-wing Critic]

people and still participate.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, he's, he's the one in the midst of the talking about people like

[Left-wing Critic]

Joe Rogan, Bill Maher. These are people that thrive off of clicks and popularity. What's more clickbaity than I left the left. So many people get that, not just because they're getting a whole new audience in order to capitulate to, but there's also like.

[Dave Rubin]

So you think Joe.

[Left-wing Critic]

There's also like a lot of like.

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on.

[Left-wing Critic]

There's a lot of like oligarchic money too that like that's quite incentivize people to change their worldview. Wait, that's like Russian money.

[Progressive Economist]

Hold on, hold on.

[Left-wing Critic]

That's like for people like Tim Pool or like was the Rubin report. Did that also accept Russian money from Tenet.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, we could. I'll go more than happy to talk about that. But just very quickly to impugn Joe's motives that at the day before the election he suddenly said I'm going to vote for Donald Trump for financial or click motives when he's the largest podcaster in the world. That's what you just.

[Left-wing Critic]

I'm not saying. It's just that is.

[Dave Rubin]

No, but that was indicative of people that is quite.

[Left-wing Critic]

We can walk over Joe Rogan specifically. Yeah, I think his brain broke during COVID I'm going to be honest because he went from somebody who went from like a huge Bernie Sanders supporter. So pro single payer health care, ensuring that we're more diplomatic in our international.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you think it's Possibly he just evolved. Do you think it's possible he just evolved to different points all of those days? You think his brain broke? It's not possible that he just started thinking about things.

[Left-wing Critic]

All of those are political foundations believing that the United States should not continue interventionalism, believing that universal health care should be a right to people. These are political foundations. You don't just switch your political foundations like that.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, hold on.

[Left-wing Critic]

You find that people are bullying you

[Dave Rubin]

or you're saying that's too mean.

[Progressive Economist]

It's not, as I've heard a lot

[Dave Rubin]

of times, it's not a right to someone else's labor. You have a right to.

[Left-wing Critic]

We can have a universal health care debate if you want, but I'm talking the overall why America shifted.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay. Right. But it seems I have to talk

[Left-wing Critic]

about the last person who debated. Most people feel like they can't get a leg up in this economy.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay.

[Left-wing Critic]

And when you have a Democratic Party. This is where I'm pretty critical of Joe Biden. You're gonna love this. Ready?

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Left-wing Critic]

I think that the Biden administration and then the following Kamala Harris presidential campaign, I don't think that they focus enough on what specifically needs to change in order for the average American to feel like their economic conditions are getting better. And while we can follow the metrics, economically, inflation was going down, unemployment was lower. Most people didn't feel that. And when you feel like your rent is burdening you, 34% of Americans feel rent burdened, which is huge. When you feel like the grocery prices are continuing to go higher, you're going to try to find an alternative. And when Donald Trump is saying, look, I'm going to fix all of the problems, I'm going to make sure everything's okay. Some people are like, yeah, I want to go ahead and go, well, that's

[Dave Rubin]

what politics politics is. Right. Like it's a secular four year.

[Left-wing Critic]

But we're not saying that ideologically, Americans are more right wing. Why do progressive ballot propositions pass even in red states? Nebraska, Ohio, we could go over minimum wage increases.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

I got you.

[Dave Rubin]

I got you. You did a lot there. Okay, let's answer something. So. Okay, I'm trying. I'm trying. So first off, you want to talk about the tenant thing. What do you want to talk about? Where do you want to go? I'll even give it to you. I'll give it to you. Where do you want to go?

[Left-wing Commentator]

Yeah.

[Left-wing Critic]

Why did you take Russian money.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. And pretend like you didn't know I was okay? So I was reached out to by Lauren Chen, who you might know as what's her name? Post Millennial Online or. Yeah, she's like the Canadian white nationalist roaming Millennial. And I've known her for about 10 years, and we were friendly over the years and we had agreements and disagreements and we were on each other's shows. And she contacted me a couple years ago and said that she had some backers that she was talking to and she was starting a new network and they were talking to all sorts of people. She mentioned Tim Pool. She imagine a whole bunch of creators that you guys know and I'm sure love, but it was people all over the political aisle. She said they wanted to create a free speech network. I said to her, listen, I am extremely, extremely busy, but I would consider doing something for you. As long as I 100% control it, you have no control over the content whatsoever. I'm going to ask for a ridiculous amount of money because I don't have time. And we'll see if we come up.

[Left-wing Critic]

So come to your defense. I'm not going to attribute you, like, let's say you didn't know that. And I'm not trying to say that you were able to know that it was Russian money. But what I do think is interesting is that this anti woke movement that just says woke a lot and calls it an ideology, it is so easy to be ideologically aligned that Russian propagandists are like, yes, these are our people. This is how we're going to get the American people. That's more of, like, the issue. It's not really your fault. It's more so that, like, your whole ideology is like, what showed.

[Dave Rubin]

What show did I do for Russia?

[Left-wing Critic]

What?

[Dave Rubin]

What show did I do for Russia?

[Left-wing Critic]

I'm not saying Russia. I'm saying Russia saw you as huge, who could easily say the talking points that benefited them.

[Dave Rubin]

But do you understand? They gave me no talking points. I did a show. It was a. Here's.

[Left-wing Critic]

Here's what we're missing, Dave. Right? I'm not saying Russia gave you a script to say. I'm saying Russia's like, yes, this is our guy. If we fund him more and we give him more influence, he's going to do it for us without even getting a script. Is that embarrassing?

[Dave Rubin]

No.

[Left-wing Critic]

You did it without even getting instruction from them.

[Dave Rubin]

It's a quite literal, fantastical adventure that you just went on there. Literally.

[Left-wing Critic]

What's the adventure?

[Dave Rubin]

Literally, I did a call in show.

[Left-wing Critic]

Why would Russia choose. You don't even know. Wait, why would Russia choose You in temple.

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on. You don't even know what I did. You don't even know what the Tenet show that I did. Do you. Did you ever watch it? Do you know the name of it? Do you know anything that I do. So you don't. So you quite literally have no idea what you're talking about.

[Left-wing Critic]

They just gave you money because they're altruistic. No, they're just like, we're thinking of giving it to. To Dave.

[Dave Rubin]

No, because. No. Well, first off. So just to be clear, you have literally no idea what you're talking about. You don't know the name of the show. You don't know the name of the show that I did. You don't know the name of the show that I did for the wedding.

[Left-wing Critic]

I need to know the specifics on a podcaster who takes Russian money.

[Dave Rubin]

Oh, my God. No, man.

[John Rigolato]

But Dave. Dave is trying to respond to you. Let's hear his side of the story.

[Left-wing Critic]

I know he took Russian money.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, but.

[John Rigolato]

But he's also. We also, like, have. I haven't heard his entire feeling.

[Dave Rubin]

I literally did a call in show at first. So my audience just called me and asked questions, talked about sometimes we talked about basketball. We talked about video games. It had literally nothing to do with foreign policy. I don't think we did one show on Russia or anything else. And then we shifted the show. That was kind of boring to me. So I was like, my team, five minutes before we go live, will pick viral videos. You know, woman throws hamburger at somebody at Wendy's, and I'll respond to it. That's what we did. And then. And guess what happened after about six months of that? Because I controlled the entire thing. I didn't even know what the clips were before I was doing them. The deal was off. They didn't want to do it anymore because I did not do anything. Yeah. And also, notice I'm not under federal indictment. I'm not sitting here with a lawyer or anything else. And as a matter of fact, Merrick Garland, who I'm no friend of, basically said that the influencers had nothing to do with this. And if you read the. Yes, just a second. And if you read the indictment, I'm the one that got on the zoom call with the backer to ask more questions about it and everything else. Yeah.

[Left-wing Critic]

So, Dave, again, I'm not saying. You were saying. Russia is such a great country, everyone should love Vladimir Putin. And I get that your show might not even been political in nature.

[Dave Rubin]

I know. Just to be clear, you didn't know the show. You didn't know the show or what I do.

[John Rigolato]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Left-wing Critic]

But the fact that they are building the social capital of the Rubin Report being larger in infrastructure is because you, as an entity, Dave, they want to legitimize you more in the eyes of the viewers that they are trying to capture. That is the point of why Russia paid you specifically. They don't do it out of the kindness of their hearts. They didn't do it because they're like, Dave seems like a good guy. They did it because Dave's politics is advocating for cheerleading for Donald Trump policies, regardless of any criticism. That is the point.

[Dave Rubin]

Where is the case?

[Left-wing Critic]

What do you mean, where's the case?

[Dave Rubin]

Where's the case? Where's the case right now? Why am I even able to talk about about it? Why don't I have a lawyer sitting here? Where is the case?

[Left-wing Critic]

I'm not saying what you did was illegal in nature. I'm just saying that.

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on. There was a federal indictment. Wouldn't I be a little afraid to be talking about it right now?

[Left-wing Critic]

I'm not, Dave. I'm not claim.

[Dave Rubin]

Are they. Have they got anyone in jail?

[Left-wing Critic]

You might not even have known about the Russian money. I'm not trying to cast that blame on you. I'm just saying it's interesting that your show is so ideologically aligned with what Russia wants for the United States that they are going to give you money to continue to do it. That is the point.

[Dave Rubin]

What is it that I do for Russia?

[Left-wing Critic]

You suck Donald Trump's dick without criticizing any bad thing that he does.

[John Rigolato]

All right, yeah, we gotta pause. Mason, you gotta go.

[Dave Rubin]

Sorry.

[Progressive Economist]

Hi.

[Dave Rubin]

Hello.

[Progressive Voter]

I actually will agree with you that establishment Democrats have done a really terrible job of ensuring that their policies reflect what the people actually want. Most people want universal healthcare. Most people want free higher education so that they can actually get a job and move up.

[Dave Rubin]

I don't know that it's most people, but a certain set of people do

[Progressive Voter]

say that they would love for the rich to be taxed at the same rate that they used to be, closer towards the 90%.

[Dave Rubin]

Rather than tax the rich at 90%,

[Progressive Voter]

taxing the rest of the population that can barely pay their rent.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Progressive Voter]

And then they're watching shows like yours and they're hearing ideology more so than factual evidence, and they're saying, you know what? Yeah. The Democrats, establishment Democrats, haven't been doing much that they said that they were gonna do. So let me listen to this guy. And everything you give is emotion. And ideology. So, yeah, sometimes people who don't.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm the one that's giving emotion, speaking

[Progressive Voter]

as they probably should, are going to move to the right. But honestly, the base that's actually growing are the progressive base. Young voters are becoming much and much more progressive than they ever were. Why? Because again, most people.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, I agree. I agree with that. That a lot of young people are very confused about what America is.

[Progressive Voter]

Oh, they're confused about what they want.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, they are. So. So you want. So, I mean, we could just do a few of what you just said. So how much money would you like to take from anyone. From anyone to get whatever policy you want? What is the number? How much money should anyone have that you want to take to get whatever it is that you want. Done. Done? Please give me a number.

[Progressive Voter]

It's interesting that you're using the rhetoric of taking when we're literally talking about a state, a society that functions solely through making sure that most people have their basic needs met.

[Dave Rubin]

So how much?

[Progressive Voter]

Unfortunately, establishment Democrats have moved so towards the corporatist side that they have forgotten what the people actually want.

[Dave Rubin]

So how much of Elon Musk? Elon Musk. All right, so let's use Elon Musk.

[Progressive Voter]

Rhetoric around. I'm gonna take as much money as I can from the rest.

[Dave Rubin]

It is taking. No, it is. Of course it is. What do you mean? If you don't give. If they say we're going to take it and you don't give it, they're going to put you in jail. Right. So it is taking. If it is so benevolent.

[Left-wing Critic]

Taxes.

[Progressive Voter]

If you don't pay your taxes, you're going to jail.

[Dave Rubin]

If it is so benevolent to do these things, then why don't more people do it?

[Progressive Voter]

No, it's just part of being a person living in a country has taxes.

[Dave Rubin]

So how much of Elon Musk's money would you like to take from him? To do what?

[Progressive Voter]

I would actually like for billionaires and the rich in general to pay the same amount that they were paying back in the 1950s.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so that's a rather radical position. If you want.

[Progressive Voter]

In the 1950s, mostly it was Republicans

[Dave Rubin]

that were in the bank. So you want to give that money to the system and the government, which you don't seem to like very much. Right. You're talking about corporate Democrats and you don't like the Republicans, but you're. So the solution seems to be I will take more money and put it into the system to do what I want. What I would prefer to do is

[Progressive Voter]

to do what most people want.

[Dave Rubin]

What I would prefer to do is that you, you have a job.

[Progressive Voter]

Of course.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. Okay. So I would like you to keep more of your money. I want everyone again in this room to keep more of their money. You know what happens when rich people have more of their money? They hire more people. They invest in more things.

[Progressive Voter]

That is so untrueful.

[Left-wing Critic]

It is crazy.

[Progressive Voter]

And that's what I'm saying. People like you will see, spit out this rhetoric. And people who are living paycheck to paycheck and don't have nearly as much critical.

[John Rigolato]

Okay, we gotta.

[Dave Rubin]

We gotta pause there.

[John Rigolato]

We're out of time. We're out of time.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. My final surrounded claim is that the modern left cares more about ideology than reality.

[John Rigolato]

All right, if you would like to debate this prompt, get to the chair in three, two, one.

[Left-wing Commentator]

How's it going, Dave?

[Dave Rubin]

All right, all right, all right.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Let's talk about reality.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Let's talk about three things that exist in reality. Climate change. Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and vaccines out of COVID are effective and safe. The right does not accept any of those things. Does Donald Trump accept the 2020 election results? And do Republicans broadly accept the 2020 election results still to this day?

[Dave Rubin]

I think there's a lot of questions about the 2020 election.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Do they? But did Donald Trump accept it?

[Dave Rubin]

Does Donald Trump. I think he thinks something went.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Something went awry, so he does not accept it. Now, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?

[Dave Rubin]

I don't know. Yeah, that's the truth. I know that he was not the president by the end of that, but I do know that in all the chaos of COVID and mail in ballots and everything else, that somehow magically, Joe Biden got something like 20 million more votes than Barack Obama. That's a little bit curious. Yeah.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Incredibly hot in the election. Because voting was made easier.

[Dave Rubin]

Oh, because voting was. Well, you might think it have something to do if you are doing mail in ballots. There might be a little bit of access to fraudulent abilities.

[Left-wing Commentator]

You might think that, but you have to actually provide evidence to demonstrate.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm just skeptical of it. I don't know. I don't know. I'm skeptical.

[Progressive Activist]

Okay.

[Left-wing Commentator]

So if just.

[Dave Rubin]

I would venture to say that a little skepticism is probably a good thing. Also, the COVID vaccines didn't work. I mean, that's a fact.

[Left-wing Commentator]

That is not a fact.

[Dave Rubin]

That is a fact.

[Left-wing Commentator]

That isn't.

[Dave Rubin]

If you got a COVID vaccine, could you get Covid? If you got a. Yes could you transmit it? Yeah. The claim was never.

[Left-wing Commentator]

That Transmission was at 0%.

[Dave Rubin]

Joe Biden. Joe Biden, Joe Biden. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Joe Biden. If you get the COVID vaccine, you will not get nor transmit Covid. That is what Joe Biden.

[Left-wing Commentator]

But that's not the claim.

[Dave Rubin]

Fauci said that that's not what the

[Left-wing Commentator]

right claims about the COVID vaccine. Similar to yourself.

[Dave Rubin]

Yes.

[Left-wing Commentator]

We're talking about whether or not the right or the left accepts reality.

[Dave Rubin]

Correct.

[Left-wing Commentator]

So the right claims that the. That the COVID vaccine is unsafe and uneffective. That's not true.

[Dave Rubin]

That is true. No, that is true.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Of the people who died from COVID are the vast majority of them unvaccinated or vaccinated?

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on, hold on. Do you know unvaccinated or vaccinated? I know, I know a young guy who's in his early 20s who never had any health. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Who had. Never had any health problems. Young, healthy guy in his early 20s who had to get the COVID vaccine to go to college, and he now has myocarditis.

[Progressive Activist]

Okay.

[Dave Rubin]

Does that interest you at all? Does that interest you? He had no reason. He had no reason to get a vaccine that would stop him. It did not stop him from getting Covid, and he could still transmit Covid.

[Left-wing Commentator]

We don't use anecdotes in science. This is a. Let's pull it to reality, Right? This is why science is so important.

[Dave Rubin]

This is why you're not actually science.

[Left-wing Commentator]

We understand the anecdotes aren't a good tool to use when assessing scientific research.

[Dave Rubin]

So you think the government. The government should have been allowed to force people to get a vaccine.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Okay, that's.

[Dave Rubin]

Now you're rushing. That was rushed through by Operation Warp Speed, which was Donald Trump, a guy you don't seem to like very much.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Right? Yeah, sure. But we're pivoting.

[Dave Rubin]

Sure.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Yeah, yeah, we're sure. I'm okay with Operation Warp Speed. I can.

[Dave Rubin]

So you. The guy that you seem to be quite deranged about, Donald Trump pushes through a vaccine very fast. And you're right, because I want to

[Left-wing Commentator]

ensure that people are healthy.

[Dave Rubin]

But even though I don't like.

[Left-wing Commentator]

What I don't like is the fact that. That Republicans and especially like right wing influencers downplayed the efficacy of vaccines and claimed that they were unsafe or unaffective.

[Dave Rubin]

But they were unaffected. No, they weren't. So we were.

[Left-wing Commentator]

If it reduces.

[Dave Rubin]

If it. Young, healthy people had no reason.

[Left-wing Commentator]

If it reduces the rate of transmission, that Is that is literally what a vaccine is intended for?

[Dave Rubin]

We were sold. We were sold. The bill of goods that they sold us was that you would not get nor transmit Covid. That is the President of the United States words. If, as he was forcing people to get that back, if he said that,

[Left-wing Commentator]

then I would agree that his assessment of it was, well, he's the President

[Dave Rubin]

of the United States. Oh, you should have.

[Progressive Activist]

You should.

[Left-wing Commentator]

Do you think. Wait, hold on.

[Progressive Activist]

Speaking of presidents, how about Donald Trump

[Left-wing Commentator]

and suggesting that people should drink bleach or do hydroxychloroquine? He's the President of the United States. Do you think that that was at all.

[Dave Rubin]

You think that was the bleach? That thing is a completely made up farce. The bleach. He didn't. Yes, he told people to inject bleach. Have you seen the whole quote? You think he told people to inject bleach? Like really like you're. That.

[Left-wing Commentator]

He suggested that things like hydroxychloroquine were effective. That means at preventing Covid.

[Dave Rubin]

There were. There were all sorts of other treatments. There were monoclonal treatments. People did use hcq. There were all sorts of things that were.

[Left-wing Commentator]

People used other things. But that doesn't mean that. That doesn't mean that the vaccine was the most safe and effective means to.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, there used to be something. There used to be something called herd immunity. There used to be that young people would actually go outside and get sun and run around and do exercise and not be sitting inside playing video games all day and taking takeout food and getting fatter and everything else. Like, you might want to encourage people to be healthy rather than take a largely experimental vaccine that turned out not to be a vaccine.

[Left-wing Commentator]

It was, first of all, I don't know what you mean by not a vaccine. It's clearly a vaccine.

[Dave Rubin]

It wasn't vaccine.

[Left-wing Commentator]

It doesn't mean. Just because something is a vaccine doesn't mean it's zero percent transmissibility.

[John Rigolato]

Okay, we got a pause there. You've been voted out.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay.

[Left-wing Critic]

Hi.

[Dave Rubin]

Hi.

[Left-wing Critic]

Hi. My name's Miriam.

[Dave Rubin]

Nice to meet you.

[Left-wing Critic]

So I would just like to get into the fact that I think it's actually conservatives and Republicans who don't live in reality, because in reality, Trump is actually making it worse for people who claim they want affordability. Nothing in the big beautiful bill actually helps poor Americans. It actually increased their taxes and gave tax breaks to corporations and the ultra wealthy. So if we want to talk about who's not living in reality, I think it's the people who are poor but support Trump because they think that he likes them.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, again, I think one of the consistent themes here is that we just have a fundamental difference on what makes an economy work and what I think makes.

[Left-wing Critic]

Okay, so what makes an economy work?

[Dave Rubin]

No, so what I think makes an economy work is lower taxes for every.

[Left-wing Critic]

Did he lower taxes for everybody or did he actually increase taxes? Taxes for the poor.

[Dave Rubin]

He didn't increase taxes for the poor.

[Left-wing Critic]

You can actually go. You can actually go look at it. But if you are poor, after the big beautiful act, you're actually paying.

[Dave Rubin]

What do you mean by poor? What qualifies as poor?

[Left-wing Critic]

You make under a certain amount.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, well, if you make under something like $50,000, you basically pay no taxes anyway. But if the argument you guys seem to keep coming around to, the argument that if you could just take more from a certain set of people, that we could solve all.

[Left-wing Critic]

I'm not even arguing that right now. I'm saying that Trump is not helping people at all. He's not giving tax breaks to them. He's giving tax breaks to the ultra wealthy when he should be giving tax breaks to. You said you like tax breaks, so you like. Well, no, I'm saying if you want to be, like, logically consistent. Yeah, then you would give tax breaks to everybody. But he's not doing that.

[Dave Rubin]

He's only doing that with the poorest people. Pay virtually no tax. Okay, virtually no tax. And again, the 1% pay 47%. So what percentage of would you find acceptable? I really mean that. I seem to not be able to

[Left-wing Critic]

get an answer on that. I don't want to get into the actual specifics.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, of course.

[Left-wing Critic]

Of course you don't, because I'm here to actually say that.

[Dave Rubin]

But. Okay, so Elon Musk, who's sending people to Mars.

[Left-wing Critic]

I think this is not relevant to Teslas. He's doing the boring to your prompts.

[Dave Rubin]

No, because you have to. Because human flourishing is important. And when you take someone like Elon Musk.

[Left-wing Critic]

Human flourishing? Yes. Who works for Elon Musk?

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. 144,000 people.

[Left-wing Critic]

Okay, so should those people also be getting tax breaks?

[Dave Rubin]

Of course.

[Left-wing Critic]

Why aren't they?

[Dave Rubin]

But they are. But what are you talking about?

[Left-wing Critic]

But they're not.

[Dave Rubin]

But they are.

[Left-wing Critic]

But they are not.

[Dave Rubin]

How many people do you think. How many people do you think Elon Musk pays that are making less than $50,000? I'm gonna venture to say it's virtually nobody. Virtually nobody at his companies that basically everybody's making under over 50. That means those people, almost everybody, got a tax break or a tax rebate under Donald Trump.

[Left-wing Critic]

But even I implore everyone to look

[Dave Rubin]

that up, because I implore them as well. I implore them as well.

[Border Policy Opponent]

You've been voted out.

[John Rigolato]

You've been voted out because.

[Dave Rubin]

Hi.

[Left-wing Critic]

Hi.

[Dave Rubin]

How are you? Love the hair. Love the hair.

[Left-wing Critic]

Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah. So I kind of just want to echo what everyone else has been saying. I do agree that the Republican Party, I feel like, has been much more focused on ideology than reality. And specifically, Trump made several campaign promises to his voters that he hasn't come through on. And yet we continue to hear you guys bootlick him all the time. And it's very frustrating.

[Dave Rubin]

The topic is the modern left cares more about ideology.

[Left-wing Critic]

Yeah. And I disagree with the claim. I think that the modern right cares more about ideology.

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, what does it look.

[Left-wing Critic]

Let's look at some of the things that Trump ran on, right? He ran on an American First, America first campaign, and then he bombs Venezuela. Then he doesn't end the war in Israel, even though he promised he was going to do that.

[Progressive Economist]

What do you mean?

[Dave Rubin]

The war is over? The war's over.

[Left-wing Critic]

No, it's very much.

[Dave Rubin]

There's a ceasefire. There's not one Israeli in Gaza. The hostages are home. There's a reconstruction that's beginning.

[Left-wing Critic]

Absolutely not true. But it's fundamentally false.

[Dave Rubin]

You're saying there are hostages in Gaza right now and the war is continuing?

[Left-wing Critic]

The conflict has continued.

[Dave Rubin]

Yes.

[Left-wing Critic]

There have continued to be bombs and moving.

[Dave Rubin]

They're bombing Gaza right now. That's what you're telling me?

[Left-wing Critic]

Yes.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, yeah. That's not.

[Left-wing Critic]

I mean, I know you get your news from Grof, but, like, this is a fact that is continuing to happen. So he promises to be America First, Right. He doesn't end the war in Israel, he starts a war in Iran while simultaneously defunding the va. Right? So he's sending people to go fight an unnecessary war while defunding the organization and the institution that helps those people. That's not America first at all. He promised he was going to drain the swamp. And then he puts Cash Patel in, who's drunk at work. Then he puts Pam Bondian, who's numpty, right? She ain't doing shit. Then he puts Kristi Noem and her big booby boyfriend in, right? He didn't drain the swamp at all. He dumped raw sewage in the swamp. Like, he hasn't come through on any of his promises. And you continue to defend him. You are not accepting the reality that Trump failed his voters.

[Dave Rubin]

The topic here is the modern left cares more about ideology than reality.

[Left-wing Critic]

Yes, the modern right cares more about

[Dave Rubin]

ideology than reality, but that's not what the top is. If you want to talk. If you want to talk about what my claim was, it's that the modern left.

[Left-wing Critic]

I am referencing your claim. You just don't want to interact with this because you know you're going to lose, you know, all these things. You don't want to say the panorama.

[Dave Rubin]

I'll tell you what my claim is. The modern left, which cares more about trans ideology, which cares more about racial ideology.

[Left-wing Critic]

No, you're trying to focus on the. You're trying to focus on your definition of progressive.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm going on what's on the page.

[Left-wing Critic]

You're focusing on your definition of progressivism because you don't want to admit that Trump has failed his voters. Trump has failed his voters. He has not come through on his promises.

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, I just hear, look, he

[Left-wing Critic]

said he was going to be tough on crime, especially immigrants, but he pardons the president of Honduras, who was literally in jail for smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. he has not come through with his promises.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm confused. So you want the government. You want the government to be tougher on crime? Is that what you're telling me? You're a leftist, his voters. You want a left. You're a lefty, and you want. So you want the government.

[Left-wing Critic]

I'm just looking at reality. The reality is Trump made a promise that he did not keep.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Left-wing Critic]

His actions did not align with what he ran on.

[Dave Rubin]

I actually wish Donald Trump was being harder on crime, and I actually wish

[Left-wing Critic]

that you've defended him for the last three hours proves that you're not in touch with the reality of the situation.

[Dave Rubin]

No, I wish he was doing more as it came to deportations. You can only do so many things at once. You don't get everything that you want all the time.

[Left-wing Critic]

You just defended Trump. You just defended Trump's deportation policy. So you wish he was doing more. You're defending, defending it.

[Interviewer]

What is it?

[Dave Rubin]

No, I like the policy. I wish he was doing more. Okay, so I wish he was doing more.

[Left-wing Critic]

The fact that you are continuing to support a president who has not come through on his party promises is delusion.

[Dave Rubin]

No, it's not delusion. It is delusional. Donald Trump, as I said at the

[Left-wing Critic]

beginning, you sat here and defended him so long.

[Dave Rubin]

If Donald Trump did nothing else other than close the borders, he has already done more than enough. For the country.

[Left-wing Critic]

Four years. A president's only responsibility. Responsibility is to close the border. He's supposed to be running the free world.

[Progressive Voter]

He's supposed to be running the entire country.

[Left-wing Critic]

That's all you care about is the border.

[Dave Rubin]

If you have a slow.

[Left-wing Critic]

What about health care?

[Dave Rubin]

What about the national debt?

[Left-wing Critic]

He's increased the national debt by $2.5 trillion. You don't give a about that.

[Dave Rubin]

If you have a slow soft invasion of your country happening, then at the very least you can close the borders and start kicking out the people who are not supposed to be here. Okay, but you just said the only thing that Trump did is close the border.

[Left-wing Critic]

That would be an effective presidency to

[Dave Rubin]

use if the only thing he did. No, I want him to do more.

[Left-wing Critic]

Okay, so then why would you say that him closing the borders would be

[Dave Rubin]

an effective presidency the end if I was Donald Trump? Because. Because presidents have to do a lot of different things at once. You don't.

[Left-wing Critic]

Okay, but you just said if he did one singular thing that would all that's a good president to you.

[Dave Rubin]

If. If really relative to where we were

[Left-wing Critic]

with that sounds like a lame duck president. If the only thing he can accomplish in four years is one thing.

[Dave Rubin]

You want to have like a silly semantic. I think you understand.

[Left-wing Critic]

It's not a silly semantic argument.

[Dave Rubin]

I think you understand. No, no, I think you understand the point that I'm making that in and of itself, closing the border is by far the most important thing that had to happen.

[Left-wing Critic]

Absolutely.

[Dave Rubin]

We had an invasion into this country, 16 to 20 million people. On top of the fact that we probably had at least 12 million illegals here in the first place.

[Left-wing Critic]

Diva. So you don't care about. He just cut a billion dollars from Medicaid. You don't care what they defunding epa.

[Dave Rubin]

You don't care that he funded the epa. But that's besides the point.

[Left-wing Critic]

None of those things. You don't care. It's just as long as he does immigration, you're happy. That's delusional. You're not accepting the reality of the issues in this country.

[Dave Rubin]

No. It's interesting. You guys all seem to hate the government and hate Donald Trump, but you love government programs. I don't understand. That seems to be the disconnect with progressives as a general program when they

[Left-wing Critic]

are effective in supporting.

[Dave Rubin]

Might I offer that most of you guys who are in. You don't really understand how the world works.

[John Rigolato]

We gotta pause here. We've been voted out by the majority. Please return to your seat.

[Conservative Thinker]

How you doing so, your fundamental claim is that the left is more in touch with ideology than reality.

[Dave Rubin]

Right.

[Conservative Thinker]

Make America great again is an ideological claim that they are trying to make America great again. That is fundamentally incongruous with reality. Because Donald Trump is not making America great. He's attacking the fundamental fabric that makes America America. For example, birthright, citizenship. One of the things that distinguishes us from other countries in the Western world, in first world countries, is that we have just solely. If someone is born here, they are an American. If someone believes in the ideals of America, they are an American.

[Dave Rubin]

No, wait, wait, wait. But that's just not true. Meanwhile, someone believes in the ideals of America. They're American. So someone in Canada believes in the ideals of America. They're American.

[Conservative Thinker]

To quote the great conservative thinker Ronald Reagan, there are a million of unknowing Americans.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, but they have to become American.

[Conservative Thinker]

Conservative ideology of the 1980s actually invited people into America that were going to work hard and build a better life, not people who tried to destroy America.

[Dave Rubin]

You would agree that you have to

[Conservative Thinker]

come removing those people.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, first off, that's. You would agree that they have to come legally.

[Conservative Thinker]

I think that we need to reform a legal process so that people can come here legally. Effectively. Trump has actually shut down legal immigration more than he shut down illegal immigration.

[Dave Rubin]

That's not true. But more the border. The border is completely closed. There are people that are waiting in line to get.

[Conservative Thinker]

So that's not true. Trump. Trump has sent back about 80,000 people over the course of the second administration. Biden sent away 956,000. When it comes to border crossings, Biden stopped much more border crossings than Trump did. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing. I'm just saying, objectively speaking, on a per year basis, Biden stopped more border crossings than Trump.

[Dave Rubin]

Anyone coming through the border right now?

[Conservative Thinker]

Yes. Yes, they are.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. What numbers are coming through? I mean, the border.

[Conservative Thinker]

I don't know the exact number. We don't actually track that. We only track.

[Dave Rubin]

The borders are completely closed, and they were wide open under Biden. But the Reagan comment that you just made is that ideologically, someone. It's a beautiful thing about this country, which is interesting, which is that, yes, anyone can become an American, but you don't become an American by believing in American ideals. You become an American by having a set of beliefs and then applying to become a citizen and doing it lawfully and legally. And that is completely not what we have had for the four years before Donald Trump.

[Conservative Thinker]

So to become An American, either you're born here or you immigrate here and then you get legal resonance and eventually from there you become a citizen. If that's the case and that's what we're respecting, why is Stephen Miller ordering 3,500 deportations a day and then to

[Dave Rubin]

do that but people who are here illegally.

[Conservative Thinker]

No, because.

[Dave Rubin]

So are you saying we're deborting.

[Conservative Thinker]

Trump tried to remove temporary protected status of over 500,000 people who are here legally so that they could reach 3500 mark. If someone is changing, Are you saying to make someone's legal status illegal. Hold on, are you saying that's not coming after people?

[Dave Rubin]

You're saying we're illegally. You're saying we're deporting legal.

[Conservative Thinker]

We're actually deporting American citizens. We deported a four year old kid with lung cancer. We deported a ten year old.

[Dave Rubin]

You're talking about because the father. If you're talking about they deported a

[Conservative Thinker]

10 year old kid with brain cancer.

[Dave Rubin]

You're talking about because the father was illegal and they didn't want to break up the family.

[Conservative Thinker]

Was the kid an American citizen or not?

[Dave Rubin]

By the law of the United States States, if the kid was born here by birthright citizenship, then he was. But are you saying, why are you

[Conservative Thinker]

deporting an American citizen?

[Dave Rubin]

Because they were deporting the father. Why are you deporting.

[Conservative Thinker]

The reality is that the kid is an American citizen. Why are you deporting an American citizen? Unless you're ignoring the material reality, Want

[Dave Rubin]

to separate the father from the child?

[Conservative Thinker]

No. But if they are receiving medical treatment, life saving medication in a first world country, granted the worst health care situation.

[Dave Rubin]

We have the same case. So in this specific case, the first, you, you grant that the father was illegal.

[Left-wing Critic]

Right.

[Conservative Thinker]

We're talking about multiple cases. There's a 4 year old kid with lung cancer, but in the 10 year

[Dave Rubin]

old kid, father was illegal. Correct.

[Conservative Thinker]

From my understanding, one of the parents was not documented.

[Dave Rubin]

So they didn't. So they didn't want to break up the family. I don't think you would want to do that and I wouldn't want.

[Conservative Thinker]

They were acting in the best interest of the child. Why were they withholding medication? Detention.

[John Rigolato]

We got a pause here.

[Dave Rubin]

Again, the father was illegal. They didn't want to break up the family.

[John Rigolato]

We got a pause here. You've been voted out.

[Progressive Activist]

Listen, Dave, I'm going to be honest, I'm a little tired, but, but I'm not the president, so I'm not going to fall asleep. Okay, Give me a second. So I want to defend the Democratic Party because.

[Dave Rubin]

Did you think that was funny?

[Progressive Activist]

I thought it was absolutely hilarious. But let's slow down. First of all, I'm pretty sure you talked a lot of shit about Joe Biden. He's demented, but I don't want to talk about that. I want to defend the Democratic Party.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. Do you not think Joe Biden had cognitive problems?

[Progressive Activist]

I'm joking. I'm joking. Hold on. I'm joking. Okay. The Democratic Party is.

[Dave Rubin]

Are you an improv or something? I'm just curious.

[Progressive Activist]

Can we lock in or. Just trying to lock in. King.

[Dave Rubin]

Listen, listen, I'm busy. I'm really. I'm trying to read what's going on.

[Progressive Activist]

The Democratic Party Party, the left is clearly receptive to the needs of the American people because it's shown in the elections, it's shown in the candidates that they're giving out. If you need Zoramdani in New York, you'll get it. If you need Abigail Spamberger in Virginia, you'll get it. If you need James Talarico in Texas, Ossoff in Georgia, you're going to get it. But, you know, what party hasn't changed their mind? What party is so crazy that they will go back on their number one campaign promise and say affordability's a hoax? It's maga. And it's evident that. Hold on. A lot of people say Trump is stupid, and I think he's a little dumb, but I think he's also malicious. Reality is what Donald Trump makes. And a perfect example is his response to a tragedy. When Charlie Kirk was murdered hours before there was even a suspect in custody, Donald Trump blamed half of the electorate. Nancy Mace said the Democrats own this. Van Orden said that it was the fake news media for peddling these radical points. You know what AOC said, this is a time that we need unity. This is a time we need to come together. We need to deal with political violence. The Republican Party. MAGA uses death as a cudgel to justify the unjustifiable. And that is denying reality. That's making reality whatever you want it to be. And people like you are corrupted enough to spew it all over social media.

[Dave Rubin]

Wow.

[Progressive Activist]

Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. I'll respond. Out of all the people, I have to say, you're the worst. Like, by far, because you're having a

[Progressive Activist]

trouble, a lot of trouble, responding to things I say.

[Dave Rubin]

You honestly believe that there is a moral equivalence to the tone and tenor of what goes on the right versus what goes on the left. Did Hasan Piker, who is the number one influencer on the left, did he not just go on an interview? I'll give you two examples. He went on an interview a couple weeks ago and said that he understands why Luigi Mangione killed Brian Thompson, the United Healthcare CEO. When you guys open up that Pandora's box, guess what? There's a lot of people that don't like your ideology. And once you can kind of excuse violence, it's coming every which way. And then it happened again. In the New York Times interview that he did two weeks ago, he said the same thing. Well, Donald Trump, a lot of people don't like Donald Trump, so I can kind of understand why people might kill him. Once you guys do that, once you go past that red line, it literally ends the fabric of what this country is because we are allowed to have political disagreements. We have deep political disagreements. I would never tacitly endorse or pretend to condone someone if they tried to violently harm you or any of these people. But subtly, on the left, that is being allowed, and that is not. And that simply is not happening. On the right, that simply is not happening.

[John Rigolato]

Okay, we gotta stop there because we're out of time. Dave, we are now at the final portion of the video. Please look around the room. Choose somebody who you haven't spoken to or who you want to speak to. They will bring their own claim and you'll debate for 10 minutes.

[Dave Rubin]

Sure. I have to say, first off, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Believe it or not, this is what it's all about. And we can agree to disagree. It's what my entire career and life have been about. So that's just fine. There was some odd moments of real tension, and I could see some real hatred in a couple of the eyes. But two that I did not see it in were you and you. So this is a complete toss up with the two of you. But I actually think our conversation was the most interesting and I think there's the most room to try to get something on the other side of this. So I'd love to bring it back up.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

My surrounded claim is trans rights are human rights. One of the first initiatives of Donald Trump in this current presidency. He put forth an executive order essentially attempting to ban gender affirming health care for people under 19 years of age. And when we say under 19 years of age, this also includes adults who are 18 years old, who are old enough to go off and die in a war for oil, imperialism, and Israel, but they can't make their own health care decisions.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, let's do this. I love how you guys have to get Israel into this thing. It's like Israel is the one place in the Middle east that you could go and you would be celebrating.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

I couldn't get married there.

[Dave Rubin]

That's actually the truth. Well, yes, they are not perfect, and no country is, but you would be treated equally. Equally and with respect. And they have the biggest LGBT Pride parade. It's coming up in two weeks. You should probably go. You might find it quite interesting. Anyway, as far as the claim, I 100% believe that trans rights are human rights or that trans people should be treated equally under the law. 100%. Now, so what your claim is, is about people that are under, let's say, 19 right now. That's a different thing. If you are going to chemically castrate a kid or if you are going to give them hormone blockers or a series of other things when they are 5, 6, 7, 12, when they're in the middle of what? That's not happening. Wait, wait, wait, wait. It is happening. It is happening. Or if you are going to literally have schools where they are calling a child by a different gender and a different name without alerting the parents, et cetera, et cetera, these things are happening. Then. I am not for that. But, however, how old are you, if you don't mind me asking? Is that.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Can I. I'm 39.

[Dave Rubin]

Can I ask a lady? See, I'll leave.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

39 and a half.

[Dave Rubin]

I'll even use your pronouns, because as long as you treat me with respect, I'll treat you with respect.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

I'm 39 and a half. I'll be 40 this summer.

[Dave Rubin]

Great. Wait, wait. So let me say something. So I want you to be treated under the law with 100% equality. Every single thing that I and everyone else in this country should be treated to, which is equality of opportunity and equality under law, you should be treated. I'm not that interested in talking about my sexuality. It's actually a very unimportant part of my life in a weird. And maybe that's because I'll be 50 next month. And as time goes by, you realize you just are who you are and you do the best you can in the world. Right? But I understand feeling. I grew up in a time when there was no gay marriage. And when I was a kid, for however confused I was or anything else, there was no. I never thought about the future, because it wasn't even a thing. There was literally no future. And then magic happened. Over time and we got equal rights. I been married for. It's a long time now. I've been married for about 13 years. My husband and I have been together for 15 years. We're in 100% monogamous relationship. We have two of the most incredible kids who I want to grow up with the most amount of respect and love and who are safe and cherished and all of those wonderful things as I hope, if you want, you will get in your life too. The reason I mention that is because the difference between equal rights for everybody, everybody versus what you might do to a child are very different things. If there is a child who I suspect. When you were a young kid, how old were you when you thought you were in the. In the.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

I was five. I was five years old. I realized that I was a trans person.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, okay, I can accept that.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Can I also ask how old you were when you realized that you were gay?

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, I came out very late for a series of other reasons.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

And are you still gay?

[Dave Rubin]

Only after 10pm So I don't know what time it is right now. Oh, look, I made him laugh. There you go.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

You know, I think.

[Dave Rubin]

Wait, wait, I'm not. Hold on. I think I'm granting you an awful lot here. The only thing that I would say related to a five year old who is having gender dysphoria or whatever term you want to apply it to is that you should wait until the child can make those decisions properly for themselves. That your brain at 5 was not developed enough to do it. And there were so much social pressure over the last couple years to trans kids. Abigail Schreier wrote an incredible book about this that a certain amount of it is a social contagion. That is true. That is empirically true. I'm not saying it was you. Right. I'm not. I'm friends with Blaire White. I believe that Blair is. I believe that Blair was biologically a male and believes that she. And I will call her she because she treats me with respect and I'll treat her with respect to that. She transitioned when the time was right. The issue for most people on the right is about the kids. I can tell you this. You know, it's funny because a lot of you tried to use my sexuality against me. Yeah, I'll get there. Listen, a lot of you tried to use my sexuality against me. And I can tell. And it's interesting because you guys also think sexuality is very important. Right? So you would think I would have been afforded as someone that travels in circles that you guys don't. I go to Republican things, and I have to traverse that a little bit, and it can be tricky at times, but I've shown Republicans that you can be a decent human being who. Who can have a family and be monogamous that. That job.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Dave, I really appreciate you being kind.

[Dave Rubin]

Worth.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

We're less than 5 now, and I have not really had a moment to speak.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, so. So again, I'm just making the point between children and adults. I want you to.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

And that's exactly what I'm gonna respond to right now. I appreciate your kindness. I appreciate you not misgendering me. I appreciate you treating me like I'm just a regular human being. And that's what trans people are. We are just regular human beings with the same struggles trying to get through this life. Actually, more struggles, because we have this whole group of people who want to take away our rights. As somebody who's been an exact.

[Dave Rubin]

But what rights? I'm just asking, right?

[Trans Rights Advocate]

As an adult right now, as somebody who's been an elected official in Los Angeles since 2019, every single year, I've seen more and more and more anti LGBTQIA bills moving across the federal legislature, in. Across state legislature, so all across the US and when I say anti LGBTQIA bills, what I actually mean is anti trans bills. Bills that are trying to limit our existence in society. Bills that are trying to limit how we can receive health care, how we can make our own autonomous health care decisions, how we can even participate in going to the bathroom. We all have to take a shit. And that is something we should be able to do freely and privately without somebody recording us in the bathroom and trying to make us go viral and make it seem like we are the predator. Now, you describe this idea of 5 year olds being chemically castrated. Here's the thing. You cannot compare a 5 year old who is going to perhaps socially transition and wants to go by a name that is opposite of the gender they were assigned at birth or want to wear clothes that are different. Five year olds are not receiving any sort of medical transition. And so you say that they should wait. And that's true. And that's exactly why puberty blockers are prescribed to teenagers that are about to go through puberty. And here's the issue.

[Dave Rubin]

How old is that, would you say?

[Trans Rights Advocate]

I would say anywhere from probably maybe like 10, 11, 12. And here's the thing.

[Dave Rubin]

But do you think puberty blockers have been to know the full.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Yes, I do.

[Dave Rubin]

The full ram of what they're doing.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Yeah, a 10 year old puberty blockers. Puberty blockers have been around for over 30 years. They've been prescribed to kids who are experiencing precocious puberty. And yet this has never been an issue for the rights. It is only an issue for the rights when somebody decides, oh, I'm trans, and they, together with their family and their physicians want to make that decision. So they're not getting surgery at 10 years old. They're taking puberty blockers to make that decision over time with their family and their physicians. There is no reason why you or the President of the United States should be able to decide what is right for somebody's health care for an individual, for somebody else's child, unless you are their doctor or their parents.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so I have a couple fundamental disagreements with that when it comes to minors. But the issue is about trans rights or human rights. So we can.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Trans people are disproportionately unhoused, disproportionately experience housing discrimination, health care discrimination.

[Dave Rubin]

Again, if you.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Well, on the platform, we are legal.

[Dave Rubin]

Hold on.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

We are actually experiencing discrimination every single day in every realm of society.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, you know, I've experienced discrimination. I'm going to guess almost everyone here in some way has something that they've been discriminated against or judged upon or something else. What you have in America is equality under the law. And you have an opportunity to.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

We don't. When Republicans are trying to legislate against us.

[Dave Rubin]

But tell me, so you as an adult, what law is stopping you from doing anything that another person cannot do that literally anyone in this room cannot do?

[Trans Rights Advocate]

See, this is. The thing is, you were trying to hide behind this idea of the law.

[Dave Rubin]

But I mean that the reality is

[Trans Rights Advocate]

laws are not protecting trans people. If they were, trans people would not be disproportionately unemployed, unhealthy health care system.

[Dave Rubin]

What would you like the law to do for you? Again, the law can guarantee equality. It can't guarantee protection. Right.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

So yes, it certainly can.

[Dave Rubin]

So what would you like the law to do for you?

[Trans Rights Advocate]

I would like the law to protect trans people. And it's not the law. Our legislators are actively legislating against us.

[Dave Rubin]

Again, if there was a law, if you can point me to a law that was discriminating against trans adults, they can't get a job, they can't whatever, then of course I just did.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

At the beginning of this debate, Donald Trump is trying to ban gender affirming health care for people who are 18.

[Dave Rubin]

You're talking about minors. You're talking about minors.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

18 year olds aren't minors. They can go off and die in a war, but for some reason they can't make their own autonomous health care decisions. According to Donald Trump.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, listen, when we're talking about young people, it's a different thing.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Yeah, exactly. And these are not your young people. They're not his young people. These are. No 5 year old is walking into a medical office and getting puberty blockers without the consent of their parents or their.

[Dave Rubin]

But you. So you don't think there's any element of social contagion over the last 10 years?

[Left-wing Critic]

I don't.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

And even if there is, that's okay because there's nothing wrong with being trans. And if somebody decides to de. Transition, that's okay. But they can't tell everybody else that they're not allowed to transition.

[Dave Rubin]

Again, I think we're sort of splitting hairs on this that we're agreeing to disagree on. Perhaps we're agreeing to disagree on the underage portion of it. But again, as.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

How many times have you seen. How many times have you seen people on the right make fun of trans people because. Especially trans women. Women because they look like a man, but. Well, you know, but you're allowed. Prevents them by allowing them to go through puberty blockers and to make their own autonomous health care decisions?

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, but. Okay, so have we whittled this down to. Some people make jokes about people. Do they, do they make jokes about people?

[Trans Rights Advocate]

They're not just joking. They're trying to legislate against our very existence.

[Dave Rubin]

But again, if you.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Your friend Michael Knowles at CPAC said that we need to eradicate transgenderism in society, that is a direct threat to me, my neighbors, my friends and family.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, I promise you this. I promise you this. If Michael Knowles or anyone else starts pushing for legislation that will jail you or stop you from getting a job or any of the other freedoms that we all enjoy, I promise you I will be on your side of that.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

So I can't wait to be on your show soon.

[Dave Rubin]

All right then. There we go.

[Trans Rights Advocate]

Thanks for time, Dave.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, my pleasure.

[John Rigolato]

Tune in this Wednesday for a follow up conversation where I'll talk to some of the cast from this episode and we'll dig deeper into some of the moments that happened here. If you agree with Dave's prompts or you disagree, let us know in the comments and keep the discussion going there. But we just ask that you acknowledge the humanity of all the participants. Thank you for watching. We'll see you next time.

[Dave Rubin]

I think that the disconnect between the online world and the real world is getting larger and larger. And so that was why I kind of wanted to. To do this in the first place, because I was like, you know, I exist in the online world. I talk to a lot of people that I enjoy talking to, but it's hard to talk to lefties.

[Left-wing Commentator]

I think Dave totally misses the ball in that he completely buys into Republican framing, especially economic issues, and doesn't understand that things like government regulation are empirically shown to better the lives of the people that they intend tend to better.

[Progressive Activist]

I think Dave all in Love was incredibly mediocre. And I don't know if he's fallen victim to or is willingfully doing this, but it's clear that he's either fallen victim to the MAGA agenda or the money instability is too nice for him to ever actually change his position and really appeal to the needs and desires of the American people. The left does not want to concede to maga. Every single time you give them an inch, they take a mile. So I guess this pattern of them operating in bad faith is made by so our elected officials. A lot of people on social media, et cetera, are very hesitant to give them ground, cuz who knows what they're gonna do with it.

[Dave Rubin]

But if these guys would just tone it down a little bit. They have no idea what conservatives think. They have no idea how generous and kind and decent most conservatives are and that they want the same things. At the end of Trump's second term, there may be a desire for something a little more normal. And I say that as a Trump supporter, right? Like I think he was. He was necessary. We needed him to break something that we all could kind of see. And I think there could be a moment after this, things start feeling a little more the way we thought politics were.

[John Rigolato]

Don't forget to subscribe to Surrounded wherever you get your podcast so that you don't miss an episode. And if you want to watch the video version of Surrounded, subscribe to Jubilee on YouTube.