A Chilling Warning for America & Why Trump's Tariffs Have Backfired | Yaron Brook

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rubin Report Episode: “A Chilling Warning for America & Why Trump's Tariffs Have Backfired”
Guest: Yaron Brook (Chairman, Ayn Rand Institute)
Host: Dave Rubin
Date: October 28, 2025

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Overview

In this searching, urgent, and at times unsparing conversation, Dave Rubin sits down with Yaron Brook for an in-depth discussion about the current crises facing America and the West. They critique both right and left political extremes, unpack the ideological decay behind rising anti-Western sentiment, and analyze policy shifts—especially on trade and immigration—during Trump’s second term. The episode is rich with concerns about cultural decline, education, and the future of liberalism, but ends with Brook’s optimistic vision of what America could yet become.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. State of the World & Western Decline

• Yaron Brook expresses unprecedented pessimism about the global and American political and ideological climate. He cites pro-Hamas protests on the second anniversary of October 7, widespread anti-Western sentiment, and the apparent collapse of productive debate:

  • “I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse... The left has gone completely nuts... The US, politically and economically, is in decline. I just don’t see where the future is.” (02:20)

• Antisemitism, conspiracy theories, and polarization are seen as worse than ever (04:01).

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2. Free Speech and Responses to Extremism

• Rubin raises the tension between defending free speech and confronting pro-terrorist protests.
  • Brook calls for ideological clarity—not censorship but moral confrontation and accountability:
    • “These people need to be called out for their religion. Nobody’s doing that... This is about Islamism... These are anti-Western forces that want to destroy our ideas and we need to call them on that.” (05:29)
    • Calls for intellectual housecleaning of universities: “If I were a university president…I would fire the entire humanities faculty…The humanities have failed to educate students.” (07:06)

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3. The Failure of Ideas and Education

• Education is the root problem; universities have fallen to the worst ideologies.
  • “We basically handed over the universities to the worst elements in our world philosophically. We didn’t view ideas as that important... It turns out they are very important.” (10:07)
• Brook laments the cycle: young professionals indoctrinated in universities grow into urban voters pushing socialist and anti-Western policies (22:10).

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4. The Evolution of the ‘Woke’ Movement

• Rubin asks if the Palestinian/Hamas cause was an inevitable next phase for ‘woke’ ideology.

• Brook explains why ‘wokeness’ cannot be simply defeated—its postmodern roots are deep and entrenched in academia:

  • “WOKE ideology is not some superficial set of ideas. This has deep roots in a postmodern philosophy.” (12:47)

• Christianity as New Opposition?

  • Brook warns Christian revival is not a productive replacement for woke ideology:
    • “The alternative positive for wokeness is Christianity…That leads to a dark place.” (14:38)

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5. Capitalism’s ‘Soft Underbelly’ & Intellectual Abdication

• The best minds were busy building, not defending, the system:
  • “The best people have gone into business... The tragedy is they’re not armed intellectually with the ideas to defend capitalism.... And then they also write these big checks to the universities... And they don’t get that the fundamental battle here is an intellectual one.” (15:51)
• Brook pins much blame on intellectual and commercial leaders who failed to fight for foundational values.

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6. The Rise and Risks of Socialism in America

• On the likely election of Mamdani as NYC Mayor (Democratic Socialist):

  • “He’s a socialist. He’s antagonistic to private property... The legitimization of violence on scale.” (17:24)
  • On NYC’s political amnesia: “If you want examples of the failure of socialism, just open your eyes, study a little bit of history. That doesn’t convince people.” (19:38)

• The self-selection of urban populations and the indoctrination of young, affluent professionals:

  • “These are kids who've been taught at universities that socialism is a noble idea even though it’s never been practiced before.” (22:10)

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7. The Paradox of Nihilism and State Power

• Many who want to “tear it all down” react by giving more power to the state—the very entity they claim to distrust:
  • “Nihilism is probably the one thing that both the left and right share—wanting to smash things... But you need someone to do the smashing for you...that’s where you bring in the state.” (25:04)

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8. The Collapse of Liberalism and Turn Toward Religion

• Brook marks the failure and fragmentation of classical liberalism:

  • “Turns out there aren’t that many of them [classical liberals]... I wish those who advocate for classical liberal ideas were more philosophical... One of the scariest trends I see is classical liberals now turning to religion as the solution.” (26:47)

• On Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s shift to Christianity: “That’s a massive fail.” (28:04)

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9. The Crisis in Education and Technological Immaturity

• The inability to think critically isn’t due to social media, but a century of educational failure:
  • “For 100 years, [U.S. education] has not taught kids how to think and use reason. It’s taught them to emote.” (30:14)
  • “If you equip kids to deal with the flood of information, then...they’ll produce something positive out of it.” (31:34)

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10. Trump’s America: Praise, Criticism, and Policy Breakdown

On Education Policy

• Brook sees some slim hope: closing Dept. of Education, school choice (32:33).
• “What we need is a robust defense of capitalism, of individual liberty; the founding principles. And until we have it, we’re going to continue losing.” (16:58)

Immigration & the Border

• Brook faults the administration’s demonization and lack of vision:
  • “The vilification of illegal immigrants is horrific. The border is under control but we don’t have immigration under control... we don’t have a positive vision of an immigration system that is pro-American.” (35:21)

Trade and Tariffs

• A major focus is the critique of Trump's tariffs:
  • “We’ve gained nothing from the tariffs. Really zero... We have taxed Americans at rates that are unthinkable... There’s literally zero value coming out of this and a lot of destruction.” (37:11)
  • “The process…was actually reducing global tariffs and creating a relatively free trade world… I think the United States has benefited massively.” (39:02)

Foreign Policy

• Mixed bag, but “too friendly” to strongmen and failures confronting China:
  • “Putin’s humiliated him. He’s terrible on China... There’s no reason to believe that as [China builds up militarily], they don’t become aggressive… We need to rethink our entire strategy militarily to face the Chinese.” (40:51, 43:25)

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11. Hope: Brook’s Positive Vision for America

• Despite a mostly somber and dire prognosis, Brook paints a vision of return to freedom:
  • “The positive vision is a truly amazing vision... we still live in the most prosperous time in all of human history... The positive vision...is to somehow return to the values of individualism, capitalism... Imagine if we actually liberated Americans to go out there and build and create and grow this economy... Human potential...is fantastic and terrific. It’s a matter of unleashing the right ideas.” (45:52)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The main thing that needs to be done today is ideological. That’s where the battle has always been.” (05:29, Yaron Brook)
• “[Woke ideology] has deep roots in a postmodern philosophy... We need to do a lot more of that work rather than politically.” (12:47, Yaron Brook)
• “The alternative positive for wokeness is Christianity...that leads to a dark place.” (14:38, Yaron Brook)
• “We haven’t got [a defense of capitalism and freedom] and that’s what we still are desperate for.” (16:58, Yaron Brook)
• “Turns out there aren’t that many [classical liberals]...” (26:47, Yaron Brook)
• “If you want examples of the failure of socialism, just open your eyes… study a little bit of history. That doesn’t convince people.” (19:38, Yaron Brook)
• “There’s literally zero value coming out of [the tariffs] and a lot of destruction.” (37:11, Yaron Brook)
• “Human potential...is fantastic and terrific. It's just a matter of unleashing the right ideas.” (47:58, Yaron Brook)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• State of the World & Antisemitism: 02:20—04:34
• Woke, Universities, and Ideology: 05:29—10:07
• Woke Evolution & Academic Capture: 12:47—15:08
• Capitalism’s Weaknesses: 15:51—16:58
• Rise of Socialism in Cities: 17:24—22:10
• Urban/Policy Self-Selection: 22:10—23:39
• Nihilism, Left & Right: 25:04—26:47
• Classical Liberals & Religion: 26:47—29:44
• Education & Social Media: 30:14—32:12
• Trump Administration (Education): 32:33—33:54
• Immigration Views: 35:21—36:43
• Tariffs & Trade Policy: 37:11—40:47
• Foreign Policy (China, NATO, Russia): 40:47—43:25
• Positive Vision for the Future: 45:52—47:58

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This episode offers a candid, intellectually charged warning about the direction of American and Western values, with clear challenges to both the progressive left and elements of the right. Brook’s prescriptive solution returns, time and again, to the need for intellectual renewal—chiefly, a return to individualism, reason, and the proud defense of liberty and capitalism.

Transcript

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[Dave Rubin]

All right. Joining me today is the chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute and host of the Iran Brook show, my old friend. It has been way too long, man. You're on. Brooke, how are you?

[Yaron Brook]

I'm doing great. How about you, Dave?

[Dave Rubin]

What happened to us? We used to do this multiple times a year and now it's gotta be. It could be three years or something. What.

[Yaron Brook]

What in the world have you been doing? London was at the ARC Conference in London. We did a short segment there, but yeah, we've drifted apart somehow.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, you were always traveling the world. And as people know, I'm traveling at the moment, so I'm in Australia. We're taping this right before I leave, and we wanted to do a couple interviews with people that I thought could be somewhat timely but also a little bit timeless in that we're going to talk about principles, which is, I think, what you excel at really as much as anyone in the public space. And you certainly have the library behind you to prove it. I mean, that is definitely the Uranium Brook Library behind you, which galch. And your books and Ayn Rand's books and all that stuff. So why don't we start this way since it's been a while since we've done a proper interview. How do you feel about the state of the world at the moment? And then we will. Then we will dive into capitalism and socialism and all the areas of expertise.

[Yaron Brook]

I mean, I don't think I've ever felt worse. I mean, really, it really is horrific. I mean, here we are and we're taping after the second anniversary of October 7 yesterday, there were demonstrations all over New York Pro Hamas on October 7, and a number of university campuses. The same was true in Europe. King's College. Massive demonstration at King's College, London, pro Hamas. Pro Hamas. Remember, these are the people who barbarically slaughtered and raped and just. And it's like it just passes. I mean, there's almost no response out there at the same time. So I think the left has gone completely nuts. I mean, it is over the last five years, 10 years, has gone way, way crazy and then woke kind of peak at some point. But they latched onto this Palestinian issue. And this is the issue that really animates them and gets them excited. So that just is horrific. And at the same time, I think the US Politically, economically, is in decline. I just don't see where the future of the Republican Party is. I don't see where the future of the Democratic Party is. I see almost no hope on the political spectrum in terms of moving towards what I believe in, which is individual freedom and liberty and capitalism and all those good things. And I see nobody in our political spectrum advocating for that or pushing for.

[Dave Rubin]

That.

[Yaron Brook]

As we again speak. And I think this will continue for a while. We're seeing people I believe are hardworking. Yes, they're here illegally in the United States being rounded up like cattle. I think it's horrific the way they're being treated. So I just think from every perspective, I've never seen things worse. And the debate, of course, in the country has just deteriorated so much. Conspiracy theories and antisemitism left and right and across the political spectrum. It's just never been this bad.

[Dave Rubin]

Now tell me what you really feel.

[Yaron Brook]

Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, so, okay, so, well, let's just jump off a few things you said there. So when you see these pro Hamas, and I agree they are pro Hamas protests, there's nobody out there saying, I'm for the Palestinians, I'm against Hamas. They'd be treated the way you and I would be treated. So obviously I make no distinction there. And as a matter of fact, there were plenty of Hamas flags out in New York City, even on the anniversary of October 7th. What would or not? What would. What should a free society do in the face of that level of pro terrorism and intolerance? Do we want to respect free speech? Everyone watching this gets all the principles of Ayn Rand and of individual liberty and all of those things. So what is the proper response to these things in a free society?

[Yaron Brook]

Well, I mean, it's a very complex question because I think we have so betrayed the principles of this country since 9 11, really so accommodated our enemies. You know, when Bush refused to blame Islam for 9 11, Islam was a religion of peace, he told Congress. And you know, the Ramadan was celebrated in October of 2001. It was celebrated at the White House. The Ramadan just after 9 11. We are so far gone in terms of what should be the approach. We should have declared Islam, Islamism, radical Islam, however you want to call it an enemy ideology, just like Nazis and just like the communism. When we at war with communism, we should declare it an enemy ideology. We should have listed the organizations that support that ideology, from Al Qaeda on down to Hamas and declared support for these ideologies as treasonous as betraying America. Now it's way too late to do that. Nobody can do that. Nobody remembers, nobody has any context. But I think the main thing that needs to be done today is ideological. I mean, that's where the battle has always been. That's where we failed, that's where we lost and that's where it needs to continue to be. These people need to be called out for their religion. Nobody's doing that. Right. This is about Islamism. Hamas is just a concrete. And it's not about, you know, Israel, it's about the West. These are anti western forces that want to destroy our whole way of life and our ideas. And we need to call them on that. We need to advocate against it. I think that if I were university president, not happening, I would fire the entire humanities faculty. Right. I mean, what we saw after October 7, 2023 was the complete and utter failure which many of us already knew. Right. But the complete, utter failure of American institutions of learning, particularly at the Ivy Leagues, but across the board, the humanities have failed to educate students. They have inculcated support for the worst causes for an anti western ideology, and they should be extracted from those universities. I don't think the government should intervene here, but I do think alumni, I think people who support the universities shouldn't just demand that the president, you know, resign. They should demand a whole, the whole resignation of the. Over the firing of the, of the, of the humanities and start from scratch.

[Dave Rubin]

So in that much of this hasn't happened. Yeah, there's been a couple places where they've been turned back the tide on some of this. You know, Florida has done some nice things, particularly as it pertains to our state schools and stopping some of the, more of a violent protests or at least when they take over our roads and that sort of thing. In that most of what you just described hasn't really happened. Do you now just see it as an inevitability that we will end up where Western Europe is?

[Yaron Brook]

Well, no, partially because I think the number of Muslims here is significantly smaller. And I don't think the problem is Muslims. I think the problem is the Western supporters of those Muslims. I think it's the far left and the people are supported and now kind of elements on the right like Tucker Carlson and Candace who are supportive of this kind of agenda. And I think that. So I don't think we line up exactly as Western Europe. I do think that what we're going to see is an ongoing attack against Western values and Western civilization. I think what that ultimately does, and I've said this about Europe for 20 years and I think this is true of the United States. What ultimately that does, it awakens forces within Western culture which are not good forces. It awakens, you know, authoritarian forces that ultimately will rise and clean it up. Right. They will get rid of these people, but they won't get rid of these people in a nice way or in a way that we would be, I think would be supportive of because it will be in a way that, that, that all of our freedoms will be gone at the same time.

[Dave Rubin]

So does that, does that then tell you something very deep about just how humanity works over generations? That, that it sort of never self corrects until it kind of has to be done in a way that maybe you wouldn't be thrilled about. That stopgap from where we are at now to what you just described as sort of the scary thing, that there just won't be enough people that will wake up and do whatever, whatever it means, whatever that would be. And that maybe is just how it works for humanity.

[Yaron Brook]

I mean, I don't believe it's how it works, but it certainly is how it's working. Right. It's the reality that we face today. I still think this is fundamentally an ideological failure, fundamentally a failure of ideas, fundamentally a failure of education. And I think that the challenge has been that, and I've been a critic of those who have tried to defend the west for a long time. I don't think they have done, we have done a good enough job. I don't think we have gone to basic principles enough. I don't think we have gone to the core ideas. I think people are way too quick to compromise on those ideas and sell out. And we haven't, and this is true for 100 years, haven't viewed our universities as important enough. We basically handed over the universities to the worst elements in our world. Philosophically, we didn't view ideas as that important. So who cares what they teach in some of these departments? It turns out they're very important. It's what shapes the future. And by the time they now the left dominates the universities has for 50 years. Now what do you do? Now you're stuck. Now there are no easy solutions.

[Dave Rubin]

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[Yaron Brook]

I think the realization should have been it was going to morph into something. It doesn't just disappear. And again, you were right. It might have gone unseen for a few months, but then showed itself in something. Something would have happened to bring it up, if not the Palestinian cause or the Hamas cause. But. But yeah, I mean, these ideas don't disappear. They're not. Look, WOKE ideology is not some superficial set of ideas. This has deep roots in a postmodern philosophy. It is taught. You know, it's taught in a number of different courses. It is grounded in hundreds, if not thousands of books. You know, whether we call it intersectionality or post colonialism or all this stuff. It has a huge intellectual foundation. An intellectual foundation. We haven't done enough to question and renounce and prove its falsehood. But we need to do that work. We need to do a lot more of that work rather than politically. Because in politics all you can do is act. It's action oriented. The ideas need to be done before you get to the politics. But look, these ideas dominated universities. I don't see how you get out of that. Because you'd have to replace hundreds of professors every time you, you know, Mamdani's running and you've got his dad who's a professor, and you scratch a little bit on the surface and there it is, there's that postmodernism, there's the postcolonialism. It's all there. And it's not unique. It's like this is it, this is everywhere. This is what graduate students are being taught for 20, 30 years. This is, if you're going to get a PhD, this is what you had to mouth back to your professors in order to get that PhD. And now you teach new students. This is the system we put in place and without a massive overhaul. And then even if you do overhaul it, you overhaul it in favor of what right? What is the right that is objecting to woke? What is it proposing in its stead? And I think the big tragedy, and I think this is going to be the real tragedy of the west, is that the alternative positive for wokeness is Christianity. That is the alternative is going to be religion. And I don't think that leads to a good place. I think that leads to a dark place.

[Dave Rubin]

So is part of this, that capitalism, because of the baked in idea that you will just succeed based on yourself and you will have voluntary relationships, you will be busy with things that interest you. All of the great ideas of capitalism is that the sort of allows for the same soft underbelly that liberalism seems to have, which is that there's a lot of good stuff there. But because once busy building something, you don't really pay that much attention to the fact that the inmates are running the asylum or the barbarians are at the gate. And that is what they used against us, that the capitalist was out there building great societies and not defending the gate.

[Yaron Brook]

No, you know, absolutely. The best people have gone into business, you know, the real entrepreneurs, the real geniuses, the real brilliant people created the modern world from a material perspective. The tragedy is that they're not armed intellectually with the ideas to defend the Capitalism that they're engaged in. And then they also write these big checks to the universities, to the alma maters and perpetuate the anti capitalist mentality that these kids are gaining. And you go to them and you tell them that and they're like, yeah, but it's my alma mater and it's kind of cool to write them a $5 million check. And they don't get that the fundament battle here is an intellectual one and maybe they gravitate towards politics to try to deal with it. That's not gonna do it. At the end of the day, what we need and what we've always needed is a robust defense of capitalism, of individual liberty and individual freedom of the founding principles of this country. And that's what we haven't got. And that's what we still are desperate for. And until we have it, we're gonna continue losing.

[Dave Rubin]

So we're airing this interview, as we mentioned, probably about two weeks or so before the New York City may by every account, Mamdami is gonna win and win quite easily. Maybe there will be a miracle. Do you make a distinction when people call him a democrat socialist or a socialist or a Marxist or a communist? Do you think there's any meaningful distinction between any of these things at this point and then we can get into the policies?

[Yaron Brook]

Sure, I mean, I think there is. I mean, is he now he might be a communist ideology that ideologically he might believe in communism, the complete repudiation of private property and everything is owned by the state or by the workers or however they wanna frame it. He might be that he's positioning himself as a socialist, you know, he wants to open a grocery store, you know, and the city will own a grocery store. He's not yet talking about shutting down all the other grocery stores and confiscating them and nationalizing them. He can't. Right. He's gonna be the mayor of New York City. He's gonna have very limited powers, very destructive. He can be very destructive, but he has limited powers. He's a socialist, he really does. He's antagonistic to private property, but he won't have the kind of powers to impose communism on us. And I think just calling him a communist or treating him like a communist is a mistake because it sets it up for him to say, well of course I'm not a communist. Look at. But he is, he is a socialist. He's really bad. And as we said, a big part of how you see his evil is in his approach again to Israel and to the Palestinian issue. I mean, that's a big part of his agenda, is globalize the intifada, which basically means rape, pillage, slaughter, you know, everywhere, everywhere they want it. And it's a legitimization of violence on scale. And, you know, he is going to be a disaster for New York. And people say, maybe they should have it. And then we'll learn. And it's like, God, I've heard these. I've heard this so many times over the decades, Right? No, we don't learn. We don't learn from experience. If you want examples of the failure of socialism, just open your eyes, study a little bit of history. That doesn't convince people. So it really is unbelievably tragic that the most capitalist of all cities, historically the bastion of America, really, from an economic perspective, is now gonna be voting in and somebody who is an explicit advocate of socialism.

[Dave Rubin]

It's also so incredible. And I get it. They put ideology over truth, so I get where it's coming from. But I heard him say a couple of weeks ago in an interview, he said, well, I won't be the first Democrat socialist mayor because we had David Dinkins. And it's like, dude, do you remember what David Dinkins did to that city? I remember it because my great grandparents and my grandparents lived in the city at the time, and we basically stopped going to visit them and they would come to visit us instead in the suburbs because it was a freaking nightmare in New York.

[Yaron Brook]

Yeah. And. And, you know, go back to the 70s and. And when Democrats drove New York bankrupt, when it was. It was a dark place, it was a horrible place to visit. I mean, New York really went through kind of a renaissance in the 80s and 90s and became a place that was a great to be at and great to be in. And, you know, New York wants to revisit those dark days. It wants to go backwards towards that. I mean, the idea of defunding the police, if we understand anything from the last few years, it should be that, no, if you put police, and the history of New York suggested of this, you put police out in the street, crime actually goes down. Surprise, surprise. So the whole agenda is an agenda failure, an agenda that's failed many, many times. It doesn't matter partially. This is an ongoing thing, I think, a process in American politics. We want to smash the establishment. We want to do away with the way things have always been. So go after the conventional Democrats, go after conventional Republicans. We want something new, different, completely out there. And the question is, what will happen when they start suffering the consequences of all of that.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you think this is also partially the difference between urban life and suburban life? In that people that live in cities seem to want more control over their lives. And you can probably make a cogent argument why it might make sense. You might need some more regulation because people literally live on top of you. There's the congestion, all of those things. So it lends itself to a type of person that wants more rules. And I think people that are more in line with our ideology are just going to leave cities where they'll have more responsibility over their own lives.

[Yaron Brook]

It's hard to tell. I mean, I don't think that that's how it evolved originally. I certainly don't think. I think the reason cities became the way they are is because, oh, I.

[Dave Rubin]

Don'T think that's how it's evolved. I think that's maybe what it's now turned into in a modern city.

[Yaron Brook]

It's what it's become. The people who are there are self selecting to be there and people who leave are self selecting to leave. And you build upon that. But look, if you look at Mamdani's support, Mamdani's support is from young professionals who are relatively wealthy, doing pretty well and highly educated. And this is the same thing we talked about before. These are kids who've been taught at universities that socialism is a noble idea even though it's never been practiced before. And they've been convinced by 9, 11, the financial crisis Covid, all these crises that they've experienced in the 21st century, that they cannot rely on the experts and the authorities and the way things have always been. They need to smash things and they want something new. And that's where he's gaining support. And of course, almost nobody is willing to criticize the fundamentals of socialism. The entrenched altruism and the idea of from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs is something most people resonate with. Right? They take from people who have money and give it to people who don't. That's cool. That's the welfare state. That's a mixed economy. That's what we have. He's just putting it on steroids. And nobody's willing to question the morality of that. No, that's wrong. That is not the way the world should run. And when it does run like that, you're legitimizing violence. You're legitimizing taking stuff away from people just because they created it, just because they made it.

[Dave Rubin]

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[Yaron Brook]

It keeps happening over and over. They don't have a solution and they need. And so they want to smash, they want to smash things, they want to destroy. There's nihilism today. I think nihilism is probably the most. It's one thing that both the ideology of the left and right I think unites them is this wanting to smash things and destroy things. But you need somebody to do the smashing for you because very few people have the audacity or you call it even the courage to actually go do the smashing. So you nominate and that is where you bring in the state. The state is then responsible for doing the smashing for you. And the fact that you have to give up some freedoms for that. I mean ultimately the nihilist hates his own life. So it's not like you're gonna get the nihilist protecting individual freedom. They're not. They're always gonna move towards one form or another of state control of more State of more government. And they love, they love to see things burn. They love to see things knocked down. They want the clash, they want the conflict.

[Dave Rubin]

One of the things that you and I talked about many times over the years was what was happening to the liberals. And you know, why weren't they standing up for Lib? Now that the Democrat party seemingly has been completely taken over, do you think there was a moment or a person that should have done something more or was this all inevitable? I mean, it's sort of an offshoot of an earlier question. But like was and, and do you think whatever seems to be happening on the right that I know you have some concerns about, and I do as well. I'm really trying to hold that. I'm trying to hold the classical libs with the conservatives and I think that's what the most pro America situation we can possibly get is. Maybe that's a fool's errand. But what do you think about why the liberals didn't do better when it came to this stuff?

[Yaron Brook]

Well, I mean, it really depends on what we mean by liberals. If we mean classical liberals. I think it's a number of things. It turns out they're not that many of them. It's a small group, it turns out. I mean, I remember the days, the days of the intellectual dark web where we thought there was some kind of commonality that held this group together. And, and it turns out there really wasn't. It was a group that had a respect for free speech and a few other things, but generally didn't agree on pretty much anything else. And it fractured and splintered very quickly as a consequence. I wish those who advocate for classical liberal ideas were more philosophical. I wish they took ideas more seriously. I wish the ideas that they took were more consistent. I think that we've seen this over the last. I mean the biggest, I mean one of the scariest trends that I see in the culture, and we might disagree on this, but to me this is a really scary trend, is classical liberals now turning to religion as the solution. Ayan Hosi Ali comes to mind as converting to Christianity as the solution to dealing with the left. I think that's a massive fail.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, I don't agree with that. But. But even putting maybe her aside specifically, explain what you mean by that in a broader sense.

[Yaron Brook]

Well, I mean, the idea is that the left is clearly an enemy. The left is clearly this obstacle to liberty and freedom. And we don't have. The opposition has no coherent set of ideas to oppose the left. And so therefore our Response to it should be to go back to ideas that are associated with the West, Christianity, primarily religion, and base our defense, defense of the west and defense of America on those religious ideas in combating the left. And that brings both personally, in terms of finding meaning and purpose in life, and also politically in terms of combating woke and combating the entire ideology of postmodernism. And I think that is a massive mistake. I think this is part of the problem that we've seen over the last few years with the right. The solution cannot be the ideology that, at the end of the day, this country and the Enlightenment kind of overturned. The United States was a product of Enlightenment thinking. It was a product of people holding reason above all else and people advocating for individual liberty and individual freedom and bring everything before reason was what I think they. They held. And to return to an era where there is something above reason. Faith, in other words, I think is a disaster. And it's a disaster that's gonna lead the west in a very bad direction.

[Dave Rubin]

Where do you think our technological adolescence fits into this equation? In that if logic and reason and arguing things based on merit and all those things, if that was the way to go, and that was the lesson of the Enlightenment, that 20 years of social media and scrolling and bots and algorithms and all that was the direct polar opposite of all of those things. So in some sense, this was obvious.

[Yaron Brook]

Yeah, but the reality is that we've had an educational system for 100 years, really, since James Dewey, that has not taught kids how to think and how to use reason. It's taught them how to emote. I mean, the primary function of education in the United States for the last hundred years has been, I mean, to socialize kids and to teach them how to work together and to feel and to connect with their emotions and to have opinions about things they know nothing about. And if you take kids and you teach them how to emote, not how to think, not how to, you know, use your mind in a rational way and look at evidence and judge evidence. And then you give them a tool like social media or you give them a tool like the Internet that, yeah, their emotions now overwhelmed, and they don't have the tools to deal with what is fact and what is not, what is reality and what is not. How do I judge? How do I go out there into the world and even evaluate what is true and what is not? What are the tools for doing that? And so our educational system has failed. And this is not a phenomena of the last 20 years. This is a Phenomena. Again, it's philosophy, it's ideas. This goes back to John Dewey, it goes to progressive education. We have in many respects the worst educational system in the world in the United States. I travel a lot to Europe and elsewhere and the kids just know more and they're better thinkers than most of the kids on our campuses. Now, it's not good anywhere in the world, but because we've exported these bad ideas to the rest of them. So I don't blame social media, social media, I blame our schools. And you know, if you equip kids to deal with the flood of information, then they will know how to deal with it and they'll produce something positive out of it, as some kids do. Not all kids are co opted by this. So to me this is again an ideological philosophical battle about how to teach, how to educate kids, how to get people to think for themselves.

[Dave Rubin]

So in that we've got still two and a half years actually more than that of, of Trump, what would you like to see him do that maybe could heal, to whatever extent he could heal any of this, or direct us properly or get us out of this mess. What are two or three things that you would like from this administration that you're not seeing?

[Yaron Brook]

Well, I mean, healing is the opposite of what he's doing. I mean, he's clearly not focused on healing. But if it was, if that were the focus, I mean, I mean, look, I think at the end of the day this is all about education. I think the best thing, one of the best things, maybe the best thing he's done is close down the Department of Education. I'm sad that a lot of the pieces were saved and just moved to other departments. I'd like to see that wholeheartedly. I'd like to see the government stop, for example, giving loans to education. 00 it out. Let kids go to bankers and convince bankers that their education is worthwhile funding and is worthwhile giving them a lo. That would be a massive game changer. I'll also say that probably the most positive thing going out there at the state level is the amount of school choice that is increasing, which I think is good. That is gonna allow for innovation. Look, I think the whole approach of this administration goes counter to what I hold. So it's not one or two different things. I'd like to see a focus on freedom and liberty. I'd like to see a focus on individualism rather than on the various tribes that are now fighting over the crumbs in the United States.

[Dave Rubin]

So what's like the biggest affront to you that this administration's done. Because to me, they've done almost everything that I think any administration can possibly do to fix this stuff. Maybe it isn't fixing it in the long term. The cultural rot and that our cities are still gonna go in a certain direction. All those things. I just don't know what else they can do, really. So, like, what is beyond that? You'd like more individual liberty? We all would. But what would be, like, the biggest thing?

[Yaron Brook]

I think they're making it worse, not better. I mean, I think that the way he talks about his political opponents, you know, the approach to political opponents I think is wrong. I think the approach to immigration is completely wrong. So I think that the whole approach is to elevate conflict. Conflict. It's to elevate problems with no real solution. I would love somebody who could articulate an actual American solution to the problems that we face, but we're the opposite here. Because I can't really think of anything this administration has done with the exception of maybe shutting the Department of Education.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so why don't we go through a few just to see where we. So to me, we've got control of the border. That is good. I sense we disagree on deportations. But you agree that having a border that's actually a border is better than what we had, right? Or maybe not. I don't wanna put. I don't wanna put words in your mouth.

[Yaron Brook]

Sure. No, I mean, I definitely think that what was going on, certainly during a portion of Biden administration's period was ridiculous. I mean, it was just mayhem on the border. It made no sense. But what you really need is comprehensive immigration reform. What you really need is a comprehensive sol to legalizing immigration and viewing immigrants as a positive, not a negative. I mean, the latest thing on H1BS is just an absurdity and incredibly destructive both of the debate and to the economy. The vilification of illegal immigrants is, I think, horrific. So, yeah, we got the border under control, but we don't have immigration under control. That is, we don't have a positive vision of a immigration system that is pro American it. And that's what we need. And that's what I don't see anybody articulating on.

[Dave Rubin]

But don't you have to do that in steps? I mean, you have to get control of the border first. You have to kind of figure out who the criminal illegals are, and then you can administration.

[Yaron Brook]

The border was basically under control already, you know, and the border was under control before Biden I mean, the borders, I don't consider, I consider like a year or two of Biden where it was really insane at the border. That was nuts. That need to be put under control. But beyond that, I think the issue is massively blown out of proportion. So.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, so let's leave that one again. We don't have to agree on all these things. I'm just curious to see what the points of discrepancy are. Obviously. So on something like the trade stuff. Now I know you're definitely against tariffs and in principle I don't like tariffs. And trust me, I've watched enough videos of Thomas Sowell to understand tariffs. My general feeling is it seems to me we are getting fairer trade deals. So it was used as a point of leverage more than, more than what they were doing with the tariffs specifically. But I sense you would disagree with that.

[Yaron Brook]

Yeah, completely. I mean, there's no, we've gained nothing from, from the tariffs. I mean, really zero. If you look at agreement after agreement after agreement, we have taxed Americans at rates that are unthinkable as compared to what it was a year ago. And we've got almost nothing in return for taxing ourselves, which is kind of ironic. We've got almost nothing in return. That is these countries have not opened up their border, open up trade with the United States any more than it was opening up already. Look, there'd been a process in place for about 50 years which had resulted in a massive global reduction in tariffs. All over the world, tariffs were going down in dramatic fashion. And what Trump has done is reversed that. And now what we've seen is not only is the US Tariffs up what, seven, eight times higher than they were before, but other countries have raised tariffs in the United States relative to us before these so called deals were passed. So literally from my perspective, and here I'll pull rank as an economist, as an economist, there's literally zero value coming out of this and a lot of destruction. A lot of bad stuff is happening. It's not an accident. The manufacturing is seven months now. I've seen a decline in employment and everything else. It's not an accident what's happening to soybean farmers, all of this consequences, there's literally nothing good that has come from.

[Dave Rubin]

So when Trump is telling us that these deals are coming back and they are better than they were before and that we're getting manufacturing jobs back here, and he's up there with all of these tech leaders and bank leaders telling us about the investments in America is The argument that that's just not true or you don't think any of it's going work?

[Yaron Brook]

Both. I think it's not true. Most of it's not true. Most of it's just a lie. And some of it won't work. It won't work. It can't work. It goes against everything we believe in economically. And look, you mentioned fair trade. Fair trade is a concept invented by the left a couple of decades ago to fight against free trade. And it was the idea that, look, you can't have free trade because Mexico doesn't have labor regulations like we do and doesn't have environmental regulation. And we do need to impose regulation on them so that we have fair trade. There's no such thing as fair trade. Trade is between individuals. And if I want to buy something from Mexico versus buying it from the United States, what is the government's business to step in and tax me for it? And I think it's destructive. It's destructive throughout. And again, the process which we had before these tariffs. Tariffs, was actually reducing global tariffs all over the world and creating a relatively free trade world in which we live, which I believe was a good thing, not a bad thing. And I think the United States has benefited massively, massively from the trade regime that existed before tariffs. And I think we will suffer massively because we've up, you know, turned that over. And, you know, and that. That includes, you know, all this complaining about the China shock and everything, like the amount of bogus economics that I hear from. Not from economists, economists are pretty good on this. But from administration officials left and right, because this is where Bernie Sanders agrees with the administration. It's just unbelievable how much economic ignorance is out there.

[Dave Rubin]

What do you make of the foreign policy stuff?

[Yaron Brook]

I mean, I think he's being decent on Israel. You know, it's the one area where I think he's been okay. But look, I think he's been terrible with Putin. I mean, it's just Putin's humiliated him time and time again, and he's made fun of him and belittled him. I think he's terrible on China. It looks like the US Is pivoting away from China and does not want to engage with China in any kind of confrontational way. I wouldn't be surprised if this administration basically turned its back on Taiwan. And the pivot now is internally and towards Latin America. And I'd be really happy to see Maduro go in Venezuela. That will make my day. I'm not sure the United States should be engaged in a war in order to do that. I generally like stepping away from NATO. I want the Europeans to take much more responsibility over that. So I think that that's a good thing. But his behavior towards Putin, his behavior towards Xi, and I was very critical of the way he dealt with the brutal dictator of North Korea his first time around. So it doesn't really surprise me that he has a much too positive review of dictators. Even Erdogan in Turkey, I think he was way too friendly too.

[Dave Rubin]

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[Yaron Brook]

Yeah, first we really need to know what we want, right? We really need to decide on a strategy. You know, the United States has to, I think should make it very clear. Are we set on defending Taiwan if China invades Taiwan? Are we going to defend Taiwan or not? And I'm open to either side of the argument on that one, but I'd like to see an actual debate and actual strategy around it. And then I think we need to, to. We definitely need to be in a position where as China is becoming more militarized, as it's building more sophisticated weapons, we need to be positioned strategically to be able to defend ourselves. You know, they obviously hack into our systems all the time. They're obviously aggressors where they think they can get away with it. There's no reason to believe that as they build up a military, they don't become aggressive vis a vis the United States. So, so we should really think about the technologies we export to them. And here's another Trump, right? He says, I won't send advanced chips to China unless Nvidia gives me 15%. Right? It's just mind boggling. So you need a strategy and say, look, if we're not going to send them advanced chips, and there's a question whether that makes sense or not, because the chips somehow make it to China anyway, we sell them to uae and then the UAE sell them onto China, and then we need to start seriously thinking about our military. And is our military equipped, given modern warfare and given, for example, drones and what we're discovering of drone warfare, is the American military today equipped to deal with China, who can produce, where they can produce millions of drones a day? And we need an orientation and a rethinking of our entire strategy militarily to face the Chinese. And I'm not getting a sense that that's being done.

[Dave Rubin]

So. All right, all of that stuff aside, now I'm gonna ask you the final question, which will be the hardest question. And people can decide if they agree with you on some of these things or not. I want you to. Well, it's not a question I'm gonna, it's a, it's a, it's a statement, I suppose. I'd like you to paint a positive vision for the future. What. So all of the things notwithstanding, what does the positive vision look like? Cause I think that's almost the biggest problem here, or that meta problem is people are having trouble even envisioning what it could look like relative to all the things we've discussed here and plenty of others.

[Yaron Brook]

I mean, the positive vision is, I think, a truly amazing vision. Because the reality is, in spite of all the problems, in spite of all the divide and the challenges that this country faces, we still live in the most prosperous time in all of human history. We still have the most amazing technology ever invented. We still live great lives. I mean, I know I do. I'm sure you do. And life is good. And that should be the focus. What is it that makes life good? And I think at the end of the day, it is freedom. And the positive vision of this country is somehow find a way to return to those values, the values of individualism, the values of capitalism, the values of an American system of government that basically the government does very little and leaves us free to live our lives. And if you think about how much productive energy today exists that is building this country. Think about the AI revolution that's going on right now and all the technology that's being created. Imagine if we actually liberated Americans to actually go out there and build and create and make and grow this economy and grow this world. Imagine if we somehow could flip a switch and create an educational system that taught kids how to think and how to do and how to live and how to produce and how to be happy. And, you know, the world suddenly becomes amazing. And as good as our lives are, everybody's lives are going to be amazing, and our lives become multiples of what they are today. So I think the human potential, you know, I'm not negative on the human potential, on human nature. I think human nature and the human potential fantastic and terrific. It's just a matter of unleashing the right ideas and convincing people that these ideas will make them have more successful lives.

[Dave Rubin]

And it is way better than the alternative. Yaron. Brook. It was good to see you, my friend.

[Yaron Brook]

Good to see you, as always.