Jimmy Kimmel Gets Emotional Admitting Political Differences w/ Adam Carolla

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rubin Report

Episode: "Jimmy Kimmel Gets Emotional Admitting Political Differences w/ Adam Carolla"
Date: May 29, 2026
Host: Dave Rubin
Guests: Dr. Drew Pinsky, Sage Steele

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Overview

In this lively episode of The Rubin Report, host Dave Rubin sits down in person with Dr. Drew Pinsky and Sage Steele for a candid, wide-ranging conversation. The trio discuss the enduring value of real friendship despite political divisions, reflect on the ups and downs of their early careers, delve into topical issues like Los Angeles' homelessness crisis and the city's mayoral race, and react to recent news about space technology mishaps. Notably, the episode features a heartfelt moment from Jimmy Kimmel at Adam Carolla's Walk of Fame ceremony, sparking thoughtful dialogue about the intersection of friendship, politics, and authenticity in public life.

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Main Themes

• The resilience of personal friendships despite increasing political polarization
• Reflections on early career struggles and "paying your dues"
• Commentary on LA’s ongoing homelessness crisis and the 2026 mayoral race
• Navigating generational attitudes toward work, money, and “suffering”
• The challenge of truth-telling and free speech in current affairs
• Humorous asides and personal anecdotes that highlight the guests' chemistry

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Friendship Beyond Politics and Kimmel's Emotional Speech

[07:48 – 10:49]

• Adam Carolla is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• Jimmy Kimmel gives a touching and humorous speech, acknowledging their political differences but reaffirming his friendship with Adam.

“Adam and I, as you probably know, don’t agree much when it comes to politics, but I love him dearly. I’ve never worked with anyone funnier. I am proud of him.”
— Jimmy Kimmel [08:05]

• Dave, Drew, and Sage reflect on how Kimmel’s authentic and softer side is rare now, given his on-air persona.
• They discuss how media personalities can get “captured by their audience,” as Drew notes, and how that shapes their public personas.

“People get captured by their audience. Keep rolling in that direction, and some of it is that, I suspect.”
— Dr. Drew [10:49]

2. Origins and Hardships: Career Beginnings and Minimum Wage

[11:05 – 21:36]

• Dr. Drew recounts his first meeting with Adam Carolla and the spontaneity of their decades-long professional partnership.
• Sage shares stories of waiting tables at night while working early mornings in TV news, expressing pride in her unconventional climb.
• The group bonds over the necessity and value of “suffering” and hard work early in their careers.
• The subject of minimum wage arises, with Drew recalling earning $1.69/hour and arguing its purpose was to teach young people working skills, not to provide a permanent living.

“...the point of minimum wage was to teach you how to work. It wasn't to give you wage. It was to give you the understanding of what work was and how money worked and how to pay taxes... You weren’t supposed to stay in McDonald's forever.”
— Dr. Drew [17:24]

• Sage discusses how these early challenges shaped her values of self-reliance and personal responsibility — roots of her conservatism.

3. Debt, Financial Lessons, and Generational Gaps

[18:44 – 24:43]

• Rubin, Sage, and Drew reflect on naive financial mistakes, such as racking up credit card debt in college and during career low points.
• They critique today's generational expectations for comfort and immediate lifestyle, suggesting there's “something to suffering at the beginning.”
• Sage recounts the pride and freedom of paying off lingering debt after years of work.

“I had four internships, none of them were paid... if you have a dream, you better do whatever it takes to make it happen. And then if it doesn’t, okay, you tried.”
— Sage Steele [14:20]

4. Work Ethic, Scarcity Mindset, and Psychological Legacies

[23:22 – 26:57]

• The group explores how early scarcity experiences can create enduring anxieties about money, regardless of later success.
• Dr. Drew talks about “depression era financial abuse” from his father, leading to an "inability to buy shoes” as an adult.
• Sage reflects on balancing career, parenting, and lingering workaholism.

“You must see the psychological version of that every which way, people being unable to let go of the original feeling...”
— Dave Rubin [24:31]
“It’s either their family of origin stuff or intergenerational stuff... but you can use it.”
— Dr. Drew [24:43]

5. Motherhood, Work-Life Balance, and Realism About "Having It All"

[25:21 – 27:07]

• Sage issues a reality check to mothers about the myth of perfect work-life balance.

“You talk about this work, life, balance, it’s bullshit. Like, stop. Stop trying. Because to me, balance makes it seem like it’s perfectly equal and there’s just no such thing.”
— Sage Steele [26:52]

• Dave praises Sage’s commitment as a mother—“she’s obviously a great mom.” [27:07]

6. LA Mayoral Race, Homelessness, and "Truth-Telling"

[28:24 – 38:46]

• The show turns toward LA’s political landscape: Spencer Pratt (outsider reality TV star) vs. incumbent Karen Bass.
• The guests highlight systemic failures in LA’s homelessness policy—describing bureaucratic paralysis, misplaced empathy, and lack of pragmatic action.

“He just said, these are drug addicts. They don’t lie down on the sidewalk. We take them to treatment. That’s it.”
— Dr. Drew [29:20]

• Drew likens LA politicians’ disconnect to “computer glitches when you actually bring reality and put it in front of them.” [30:58]

• Sage: it’s not inability among leaders but “a choice to ignore it and not say, ‘what the hell?’” calling out local and state politicians for their failures.

• Pratt’s outsider candidacy is praised for “kicking open the Overton window”—expanding what is publicly acceptable to discuss, even if he offers few solutions.

“Every word he [Pratt] said was accurate. He’s not overstating anything. He’s not being mean. He’s just stating the truth.”
— Dr. Drew [35:26]

7. Contagion Fears & Media Hysteria

[39:01 – 47:24]

• Discussion shifts to media-driven fear around new disease outbreaks, such as Ebola and Hantavirus.
• Dr. Drew assures listeners that these fears are often exaggerated for funding purposes (i.e., "it's a fake outbreak" [40:21]), contrasting this with real threats like resistant tuberculosis and typhus that get little media attention.
• Sage notes how quickly masking and panic behaviors are returning, observing demographic patterns at airports.

“Pay attention to the demographics of people who are wearing masks. That’s a story for another day.”
— Sage Steele [44:56]

8. Rocket Explosion: Space and the Spirit of Experimentation

[47:24 – 50:18]

• The hosts react to a viral video of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket exploding during a routine test.
• They praise Elon's Musk's pragmatic reaction—“Rockets are hard”—as emblematic of perseverance and learning from failure.

“Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard. [...] That’s the right take—we gotta keep trying all this stuff.”
— Dave Rubin paraphrasing Elon Musk [49:17]

• The group jokes about “explosion fanatics” and goofs on Florida stereotypes after playing a neighbor’s reaction cam of the blast.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Kimmel’s Speech:

  “That’s a little more human than he usually is ... That’s the Jimmy Kimmel that I miss, that I believe all of America likes and misses.”
  — Sage Steele [10:27]

• On Struggle and Paying Your Dues:

  “When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose ... No one gave us anything.”
  — Sage Steele [15:18, 16:50]

• On LA Homelessness and Political Dysfunction:

  “I know what to say to these people. It is negligent manslaughter. Let’s be clear on what it is. [...] And he just said, these are drug addicts.”
  — Dr. Drew [29:20]

• On Hantavirus/Ebola Hysteria:

  “They have a rat log! The captain has a rat log.”
  — Dave Rubin [44:08]
  “It’s a fake outbreak. And so... God works in mysterious ways is all I can say.”
  — Dr. Drew [40:21]

• On Rockets and Learning from Failure:

  “Rockets are just controlled explosions and sometimes they become uncontrolled.”
  — Dr. Drew [49:17]
  “Are there really explosion fanatics on X? You just met two of them.”
  — Sage Steele, Dr. Drew [50:12]

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Engaging Dynamics & Tone

• The dynamic is warm, self-deprecating, and often humorous, with the group teasing each other about food, finances, and family roles.
• Despite tackling serious topics, the tone remains approachable and open, with personal anecdotes grounding even the most heated political commentary.
• The conversation circles back repeatedly to real-world consequences—both personal and societal—of choices, leadership, and values.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [07:48] Kimmel’s heartfelt Walk of Fame speech for Carolla
• [11:05] Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla’s origin story
• [14:45] Sage’s early TV career and “paying your dues”
• [17:24] Discussion of minimum wage and generational gaps
• [21:01] Tales of debt and financial hard knocks
• [23:22] Money anxieties and their psychological impacts
• [26:52] Sage’s advice on motherhood and work-life “balance”
• [28:24] LA’s mayor race, Kimmel and candid policy talk
• [35:26] Dr. Drew affirms Spencer Pratt’s truth-telling
• [39:01] Disease outbreaks, media fearmongering
• [47:24] Blue Origin rocket explosion—technical risk, public reaction

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Conclusion

Takeaway: This episode reinforces the value of honest conversation, humor, and empathy—whether discussing friendship, politics, family, or the grit required to carve out a meaningful life. The guests champion facing uncomfortable truths, sustaining relationships over ideological divides, and maintaining perspective—even amidst chaos, catastrophe, or political dysfunction.

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Transcript

[Sage Steele]

I'm Kiana. And I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like, I can't stop. I'm addicted.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Start your free [e-mail] the Florida Man Rubin Report.

[Dave Rubin]

Live me, Governor Ron DeSantis, Adam Carolla, Jillian Michaels.

[Adam Carolla]

This is an app where they plot the human feces.

[Dave Rubin]

We gonna do maximum warfare against Republicans.

[Adam Carolla]

You hit one of these people, that's their fault for impinging on you. All right, let's go eat some Chick Fil? A.

[Dave Rubin]

What's that nice agent doing over there? Looks like he's beating on a Guatemalan grandmother.

[Sage Steele]

I've been on a diet since I was, like, six. So Mark Carney went Vancouver Pride Parade. I.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, I'm just trying to get comfortable. Hey, up there in the negro balcony, can you see how comfortable I am

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

with the trans and lgbt?

[Dave Rubin]

It's for jail. That's your dinner Jail right now. Can we get the translation on that one? We can't. He's like, dude, I'll do Chinese. I can't do Somali. Thank you. God bless you. I love you, sir. This is a. Wendy, Start with the obvious. All right, people of the Internet. It is Friday, May 29, 2026. I'm Dave Rubin. This is the Rubin Report. And yes, I am sitting a little lower to the ground because I have two of my literal, actual friends here, sage steel and Dr. Drew on the Rubin Report casting couch.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Down to our level.

[Sage Steele]

Yes, welcome. Down to reality.

[Dave Rubin]

Yes. Well, welcome to the show. We had a big dinner last night, and I think.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

A big dinner. I was just thinking as you were talking about actual friends, I thought, I am so grateful. I'm grateful for your friendship. I'm really grateful for your friendship. There's lots of benefits that dinner.

[Dave Rubin]

Food and food.

[Sage Steele]

Although who actually worked out this morning?

[Dave Rubin]

Did you? I had a later morning, Ruben. The margarita and then the wine. It was a little bit of a. It's been a slow roll, but we had a lot of carbs last night and a good time. And we're here for an hour just to do the stuff we normally do,

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

hang out and hang out some more.

[Dave Rubin]

It's weird doing this in person. This is what. This is what the world has Been reduced to, though. If we see our friends in person, we're like, oh, that's bizarre, because we normally do this in these little boxes.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

It's weird.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. You were the king of the. You were. You were the little box guy before anybody when you were on hlm.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

You know, that's so funny you say that, because Bert Dubrow was my executive producer, and we were. One day, the. The. The boxes came up, and they.

[Sage Steele]

They.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

We sort of. Larry King did some of that when he'd sort of go out on satellite. But I was there with these actually two extremely talented young psychologists. And we. We just. The three. The two of us looked at that and went, there's something there. That. That's what we're going to do. We're going to keep having faces looking out. And then Jeff Zucker got a hold of us and said, we're going to do that at cnn, too.

[Dave Rubin]

And when I did your show, which I think I always forget if your show or Bill O'Reilly, I think maybe it was your show. But any event, I show up there, and what I couldn't believe is you have five guests, and they're all in boxes. So before I walked into the studio, I thought, everybody's in different places, but you're literally all in the green room together. And then they're like, oh, the show's gonna start, and you all go into your little offices with your little cameras.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

And it seems like you're all over the place.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Yeah. And so now with the zoom and all the stuff we do, it's just now, matter of fact, that's just how

[Sage Steele]

it's done, but so much easier, because no matter which hotel room I'm in, when we do actual friends, you just make sure your laptop is. The little camera's cleaned up enough. And that for me, that's only post Covid.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

Honestly.

[Dave Rubin]

And yet here we are on an actual couch. That's my dog's blanket that you're sitting on right now.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Are you allergic to this?

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. You don't have any dog issues, do you?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

No. Your dog and I had a long relationship, but he barked at me this morning, and he's kind of upset.

[Dave Rubin]

He's not getting the attention he used to be.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I was gonna give it to him.

[Dave Rubin]

I will say, since we are actual. We learned a little something about Drew last night. His little allergy situation. Quite interesting to bring someone to an Italian restaurant and find out they can't eat onions and garlic.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I know you're gonna. Kroll is never gonna let Me live this down. Thanks for bringing it up. But. Because he can't stand people that like make their own salad dressings at the table and stuff. But I since I turned 50, had this weird allium intolerance where I can't metabolize them. It's weird and I hate being that person. And I love garlic and I love onions, but I just have to avoid them when I'm traveling. Especially leeks, onions, garlics. It's a certain.

[Dave Rubin]

It's all the good. It's all the stuff that gives flavor

[Sage Steele]

at this Italian style.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

It's not like that. I get nauseated and bloating and gas.

[Sage Steele]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Just a mess.

[Sage Steele]

Well, I'm glad 24 hours later that

[Dave Rubin]

I sat next to him.

[Sage Steele]

I'm glad that I know you refrain.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

You are glad. Trust me.

[Dave Rubin]

And Sage, this is kind of exciting for you because you are currently making up your new little place in Miami as you have officially transplanted right now.

[Sage Steele]

Making up my place in Miami?

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. Aren't you doing. Yeah, you're Nashville.

[Sage Steele]

But this little place.

[Dave Rubin]

No, but you got a place in Miami that you now have a place in Miami.

[Sage Steele]

I can't give any details.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Susan was talking about that last night. She goes, we can if we have to have part time down here. I'm like, how would we do that? So I'll talk to you.

[Sage Steele]

What do you mean how we can

[Dave Rubin]

move in with them? It would be like three's company because

[Sage Steele]

it's a studio that has enough room for a bed and a mini fridge. Basically it's in a high rise. It's a whole story. That's actually quite embarrassing. I'll tell you off camera.

[Dave Rubin]

Off camera.

[Sage Steele]

But Fort Lauderdale still it's for sale. If anybody wants a really nice condo in Fort Lauderdale.

[Dave Rubin]

Oh, that's a pretty good.

[Sage Steele]

Where the new studio is. And I know it's a hot mess. And this was my inspo.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Nice.

[Sage Steele]

It's because this studio is stunning to me. It'll never happen.

[Dave Rubin]

It's all right. You know? It's all right. All right. So you're. Should we sell your Fort Lauderdale place right now? We could probably sell it within the hour. Like someone watching this wants Sage steel's on the water. Fort Lauderdale place. I'll waive my fee.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

On the ocean.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

On actual friends. It looks beautiful.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah, it's stunning and it makes me cry to sell.

[Dave Rubin]

You know what, people? If you want to buy Sages place, drop us a line. What do we do? Contact rubinreport.com sound good? Contactubinreport. Dot com. Hey, we'll put a little auction up.

[Sage Steele]

Maybe we'll do, you know, one episode before I sell it live in the actual condo.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

There you go.

[Sage Steele]

I mean, that's a little perk if you buy it today.

[Dave Rubin]

I like it. I like it. That's what friends do for each other, help each other people. All right, so we're going to cover a couple of things that happened this week. We're not going too hardcore on politics. We'll pick up some of the crazy and the wacky, all the usual stuff. But I did want to start with something relative to friends. You had an interesting week, Dr. Drew, because all of our buddy Adam Carolla got a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, which I really never would have thought he would get. Not as a knock to him, but just because he's sort of an outside. He's kind of like us. We're all kind of outsiders of Hollywood. But Adam got the Walk of Fame star and his two good buddies and broadcasting partners, Dr. Drew and Jimmy Kimmel. Well, here they are posing together on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This is a quick one. And then we'll throw to,

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Like, hundreds of people there. You can't really see it.

[Sage Steele]

He looks great.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Yeah, it was a good event.

[Dave Rubin]

So obviously, the reason that it's sort of worth talking about beyond. It's just cool that your friend was part of this and you guys have been doing this forever is, you know, there's always weird stuff politically around Kimmel. So here is Kimmel congratulating our buddy Adam Carolly.

[Adam Carolla]

Adam and I, as you probably know, don't agree much when it comes to politics, but I love him dearly. I've never worked with anyone funnier. I. I am proud of him. I am

[Sage Steele]

he.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

This.

[Adam Carolla]

This is. And this is a guy who worked his way up from nothing to become literally a millionaire. And if you don't believe it, he will. You'll hear him say it every single show. Adam is a true original. He is a. He was a poor kid from the San Fernando Valley who was rejected by the management at Taco Bell and whose name will now forever be part of this filthy, disgusting intersection next to a bank that has been abandoned for, like, 35 years. And so I am pleased to welcome Laverne to my. Shirley, my friend Adam Carolla to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

[Dave Rubin]

I have to say, Drew, that's a little more human than he usually is. It's a little more humble. We all chuckled a couple times right there.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

By the way, he spoke for about Five minutes before that. It was really funny, too.

[Dave Rubin]

What do you make of that sort of thing? Cause you and Adam have been friends for years and largely agree on stuff. Kimmel, obviously, has gone in a completely different way. But the point of me showing that was to show that people can put these things aside and still be friends and all that.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

That is the point. And they've separated more and more over the years politically, and their friendship has remained just as good and tight as ever. And Adam is confused by some of Jimmy's sort of beliefs he takes. But Adam's always taken the position that, you know, Jimmy lives in that world where he kind of. If he's going to be interviewing George Clooney and people like that, he's kind of have to toe that line a little bit. So he always wonders if some of it is sort of influenced by that.

[Dave Rubin]

A lot of versions of that in the sp. Of when you started being a little more outspoken that, you know, trying to manage friendships with people that maybe weren't gonna be aligned. Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

But I. I just know that it is possible because all of us.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

It's always been possible. Why? This is a new thing. It's uncanny.

[Dave Rubin]

Right, right, right.

[Sage Steele]

Like. Like, he has chosen to not do it. He has chosen to just go so extreme. And that's what makes me sad. I was on a show one time in 2014 when I was doing NBA Countdown on ESPN and spaced out in Los Angeles. He couldn't have been nicer. I certainly was not out. But he was human. He was welcoming. Who am I?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

He's a good guy.

[Sage Steele]

That's what I mean. And so what we saw in that clip right there, and apparently for those five minutes preceding it, that's the Jimmy Kimmel that I miss. That's the Jimmy Kimmel that I believe all of America likes and misses. You know, I mean, it's just not that hard.

[Dave Rubin]

Wouldn't it be refreshing if after doing that, he, like, took a little bit of it to heart and maybe was a little less of that thing every night. It's kind of hard.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I think we were talking about this at dinner last night. People get captured by their audience.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Hey, good. Keep doing. Keep rolling in that direction. And some of it is that, I suspect.

[Dave Rubin]

Let's throw to a guy that I tend to agree with a bit more. Here's Dr. Drew talking a bit about how he met Mr. Carolla.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

95, 96. I was doing Loveline with Ricky Rackman at the time. Then these television producers showed up and said they wanted to do A TV show. I'm like, what's that? How do you do that? Sounds interesting. Ricky did not make a deal with them. The people then turned to me and said, who should do this show? Who do you want to co host with? Which is nothing I had ever contemplated. And I went out and I was running and I thought, I can tell you, I could literally show you the spot I was in that I bet the guy that does Mr. Bertram could do this. I bet that guy, I bet he's got what it takes. And they essentially threw us in a makeup booth and said, work out your relationship. We'll start filming in an hour. And I will never forget that the stage manager who ended up being our stage manager for years, came up to us at the end of the day. We did like a 12 hour pilot shoot. And she went, how many years you guys been working together? We looked at each other. It's like we just met this morning. And I was like, oh, this is going to be interesting. There's something here. And I suppose there, there was.

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, Drew, what I love about this story is that first off, you just kind of were. Just had a feeling and then now you have a 30 plus year relationship. But also, I was listening to you guys back then, you know what I mean?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

We hadn't been on the radio together yet. We had one night on the radio. I was a Bert fan and I used to time my nursing home rounds to be in my car. They gave him a Saturday morning shift because everyone loved Buram so much. So as Bertram, he did Saturday morning and took phone calls and played music. And I would time my nursing home round so I'd be in the car during his breaks. And I asked my producer bring him up on Love life. So he came up as Burcham. I still didn't know who Adam Carolla was.

[Sage Steele]

Oh, my gosh.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

And I just thought, like, that guy, he's so quick. I think he could probably figure this, he could do this. And he used to listen to Loveliness. And that was his thought too. When he was. He was actually building a gym. He said late at night he was a boxing instructor and he got them to give him free membership by building construction at the gym at night. And he would listen to Loveline and go, I could probably. I could do this better than those guys. And indeed he could.

[Dave Rubin]

Did you listen to these guys back then?

[Sage Steele]

I didn't need help, Dave.

[Dave Rubin]

Wow.

[Sage Steele]

Kidding, kidding, kidding. No, I actually didn't. I learned about it more later and I think it. And I don't know.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

She saw a teen mom. She was a teen mom.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah. I don't know if it was a matter of like where I was in the Midwest.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

Kind of. For the rest of the world. Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

It was huge.

[Dave Rubin]

Huge, huge, huge.

[Sage Steele]

I did a little.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

See, we went on studio for a long time.

[Sage Steele]

It was the real world type stuff that we were. I graduated from college in 95, which is ahead of you.

[Dave Rubin]

Right. You were already like a professional. You were a real person.

[Sage Steele]

Because I was on TV in the morning and then waiting tables at night, so I wasn't sleeping. So that's my excuse.

[Dave Rubin]

Wait, that's interesting. You were on TV while the same time you were waiting tables.

[Sage Steele]

Wait, tell me that that's what happens when you're making 18.

[Dave Rubin]

As long as we're doing origin stories

[Sage Steele]

here and I mean, I'm making $18,000 a year.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

No, that makes perfect sense to me because people that I know that are. Have professions and sort of professional interest, years of sports and whatnot, always works essentially for free for a long time. And just had a passion for it.

[Sage Steele]

I had four internships, none of them were paid. And. And I didn't want to ask my mom and dad for help, but my. I had my foot in the door to this crazy ESPN dream down the line. And so, yeah, I mean, I waited to. And I was. I was really good, Dave.

[Dave Rubin]

Oh, I bet. I bet. No, you're people versing.

[Sage Steele]

I'm joking. But it taught me to really, really multitask.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

Cluster 2320. I did it for like two or three years.

[Dave Rubin]

What was your first TV gig?

[Sage Steele]

South Bend, Indiana, the CBS affiliate. And mornings. So like 6am to 2pm ish. If they need you to stay late, you stay late. And then at night it was 6pm through clothes. And it was a steakhouse, Colorado Steakhouse in Mishawaka, Indiana. And I don't know, I think it's actually my. Probably what I'm most proud of is those years where if you have a dream, you better do whatever it takes to make it happen. And then if it doesn't, okay, you tried. But it was. Because when you have nothing, like you

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

have nothing to lose, it also speaks to the power of television and radio. I did radio for free for 10 years. I thought I was doing community service. I really did. It was one practicing doctor. I was practicing. I was a resident, then a practicing physician. And one night a week on Sunday, I'd go in there and do this thing in the middle of the night. And I thought it Was so interesting and fun and kind of teaching people something. And then all of a sudden they went to five nights a week and had a TV show. It kind of took over my life without my understanding what was happening, frankly.

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, I guess the whole point is that when you're young, you just don't know what the hell you're doing. And if you have passion, you do it. I remember doing standup all those years, standing in Times Square, handing out those tickets. I did not have 100 bucks. I literally, for years, I did not have 100 bucks. I remember borrowing change to get a cup of coffee at Zabar's from my friends and thinking it was so miserable. But I just had this crazy dream, and now I look back, that they were the good old days, which is nuts. I was literally sometimes having to wear double pants. Cause it was so cold out there to just.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

The staff here cannot understand what allure TV and radio had, the power it had. And if you wanted to make a difference, you got to find your way into these platforms, these environments that allowed you to do things.

[Sage Steele]

And I actually think it's these kids today are missing out on that as far as just. I mean, we have great memories from being totally broke, but making it happen. And there's, you know, in hindsight, there's some pride there too, because, you know, people are gonna trash talk you no matter what. And, oh, he's a doctor and he can afford this. And he lives in Pasadena. Like all of these stories. I'll look her yet. No one gave us anything.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

And I think that's really, really important. I wouldn't. I don't know, I wouldn't change things. No, no, no. But just for our kids today who are like, what do you mean? I'm 50 grand out of college. Are you kidding me? And I know it's not a lot of money today, inflation, etc. But there's something to suffering at the beginning and then making sure, like, how bad do you want it? We wanted it badly.

[Dave Rubin]

When David and I moved to LA in 2013, February 2013, I think we had $12,000 combined.

[Sage Steele]

Combined.

[Dave Rubin]

And I'm pretty sure I had debt in Los Angeles. In la, we're like, we're just gonna try this thing.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

There's a political issue embedded in this, which is the energy around or the conversation around minimum wage. My first job was $1.69 an hour. And the point of minimum wage was to.

[Dave Rubin]

What was that? Stock boy?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

What were you essentially? Street sweeper, trash man. But it was to Teach you how to work. It wasn't to give you wage. It was to give you the understanding of what work was and how money worked and how to pay taxes and things. It was not meant as a. You weren't supposed to stay in McDonald's forever. You were supposed to do it for a while and get out of there.

[Dave Rubin]

Now they're constantly pushing this idea that it should be. They call it more than a living wage, that you should be able to basically feed a family on minimum wage, which that's not what the intention was and should never be.

[Sage Steele]

And what I'm just now connecting. When you say the political tie to it, it's probably where my conservatism is rooted. You know, I mean, yes, my upbringing, to an extent, even though there were never politics conversations in my house as a military kid growing up there just weren't. My parents thought it was very personal. Go do your own homework to figure out who you want to support and why. But more about now, like, you don't reach out. You don't ask for handouts or for help. You do it yourself, and then you're accountable when you go into credit card debt. That happened to me. It was ugly, right? And I'm not asking the government or anybody else to pull me out of that. Like, to me, it's kind of where. Where it's rooted. Like, work hard.

[Dave Rubin]

And I had one stupid weekend, my brother's bachelor party, where I was the best man and I was a broke comic, and all his buddies were like bankers and lawyers or whatever, and I just had to be in charge of everything. And I'm just. I opened three credit cards. I probably went into $15,000 debt in one weekend. And because they were just. They were just throwing every meal like I was sitting at. Yeah, no, I do remember telling you. I don't remember much of the weekend, but they were just throwing cash at me at the end of the meals. Like, the bill would be like 4,000 bucks, and they would all just throw cash and I'd put it on the car. I have no idea what happened to the money or anything. And then with the penalties, I'm probably paid. Oh, I probably paid $40,000 ten years ago.

[Sage Steele]

I didn't know what the interest rates were when I got a credit card, because in colleges and shame on these people.

[Dave Rubin]

These people, credit cards would go to

[Sage Steele]

the gym and you could get a free T shirt. And a water bottle.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, a water bottle.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah, the plastic water bottle. I'm like, oh, I'll sign up. And then when I called my parents to say, I want to go on spring break with my girlfriends in 1993, Indiana University, driving to Daytona, wherever it is in Florida from Bloomington, Indiana to get on a Carnival cruise to go to the Bahamas. And my mom and dad said, I haven't been to the Bahamas. Nice try. Pay for it yourself. With what? Nothing. So I got a credit card and I charged a cruise and then I didn't have any cash, so I got a cash advance. I mean, I had no idea. Do you know how many times I paid for that cruise over the next decade to pay off? Because you don't understand finances.

[Dave Rubin]

So good thing you married a guy with some money over here.

[Sage Steele]

A brain. I mean, slow down. But no, like. But then guess what? It took years to get out of it.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

No one helped me. And then I remember years later negotiating my own rate for the Baltimore Ravens. Ravens report on the weekends where it's like, you know, an extra show, a magazine show. And I negotiated my rate. I remember every penny I made that entire season for 20 up being 750 bucks a show that I negotiated $20,000. I had to write a check to the credit card company.

[Dave Rubin]

But how good did that feel when that debt was gone?

[Sage Steele]

I remember that I cried because you don't remember what you spent it on after the cruise that got the $20,000. And I tell my kids all the time, I'm like, listen, here's the truth. I screwed up too. Don't do what I did. Honestly.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

You asked how my father was as a father, one of the things he subjected me to was depression era financial abuse. Like he really, like when I was 2, I needed shoes and he was like, oh, shoes. Well, first tell me a story about walking barefoot in the snow. It's in Chicago to school. And then it's like, well, you get your shoes, get your shoes. But tomorrow you'll have to come wave to me in the poor house because I'm going to be living in the poor house. Because you have unique shoes. He did that young kid. But now I'm grateful for it. The idea of dead in my family, that would kill my father.

[Sage Steele]

How many pairs of shoes do you have now?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I can't buy shoes, I can't buy clothing. I can't do it.

[Dave Rubin]

Because if you'd like to buy Dr. Drew shoes, you can email us contactubinreport.

[Sage Steele]

Buy my condo, buy some shoes.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

My wife has no problem getting clothing issues. She does it for me. I just kind of close my eyes, but it's so Deep. So ingrained. Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

So since we said some nice things about Kimmel, I think that was very gracious of all of us. We're gonna jump in just a second to a little bit of what's going on in la, which obviously, obviously he's very ingrained in it with this crazy race between Spencer Pratt and Karen Best. But first, shop. Starting something new can be intimidating. There's always that voice asking, what if this fails? What if nobody notices? That's why having the right tools matters. And that's where Shopify comes in. Shopify powers millions of businesses around the world, giving entrepreneurs everything they need in one place. Online stores, payments, inventory analytics, marketing tools, and more. Shopify also helps businesses grow with built in email and social campaigns, AI tools for product descriptions and photos, and Shop Pay. One of the best converting checkouts available. Plus there's 24. 7 support whenever help is needed. Turn those what ifs into success with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month [e-mail] Rubin that's shopify.com Rubin so we'll get to the Kimmel thing in a second, but just while that was playing, we were all talking about, okay, so we're on the, you know, we all had the struggle days. We all had the debt days, couldn't get the shoe days, the, you know, mom's not happy, you're going to the Bahama days, the broke days, all of that stuff. And we, we obviously are on the other side of that, but we were all just saying how it's hard to let go of that feeling or ever know that you actually are okay or you're gonna be okay or whatever. You're like, I still have moments of

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

that now, but you get a partner. Like, I lean on Susan for that stuff because she's much more reasonable. She too has some of that stuff, but much more reasonable. So I'm like, I kind of like, let her manage certain things.

[Sage Steele]

I'm a vest. But it's still.

[Dave Rubin]

And you were the breadwinner as the mom for many, many years too. So that must have put double pressure

[Sage Steele]

on that ex husband. Now was est, stay at home dad. And then I had three kids in three and a half years and on TV and all the things and trying to be the one. And I didn't. It made me uncomfortable once I started to make money, real money. And then when it went from that to that when my job changed at ESPN and it was. I had guilt because of where I came from. And I was like, oh, gosh, I Don't want anyone to think that it's going to affect me or I'm going to change. And so I think I did the opposite and I spent less. And I, even today I was, you know, one of the kids asked for money, like, no next. But not because I'm trying to be mean, but I'm like, I want them to understand and appreciate it. A little bit of suffering. Right. But even to see. And I'm fine. I'm so blessed and grateful and I'm still like, ugh, like I don't, that's I have issues. Help me.

[Dave Rubin]

You must see the psychological version of that. Every which way. People being unable to like let go of the original feeling, not just related to money, but all sorts of things that suddenly their life changes, but they can't let go of the framing that they had before.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

It's either their family of origin stuff or intergener stuff. And you can use it, right? Like I try to use it to my, I try to, firstly, it doesn't bother me anymore. I'm not suffering with it. And I try to use it to motivate me. And we're all three workaholics too. Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

She's like, I'm having fun. But we also love our work, which makes it happen.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I had a certain amount of dread early on because I was really overdoing it. But you find a way to channel both the workaholism and the trauma. Whatever stuff we're talking about here, you can use it to help you, to motivate you.

[Sage Steele]

I've said though, like, okay, if a big old chunk of cash just dropped right here in front of me, what would I do? Would I work? I think I would like to take a year long break. And I will admit this, try a month first.

[Dave Rubin]

Sister. Join me for August. Join me for August.

[Sage Steele]

Well, I need to get my business business a little more successful.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I mean, I'm not, I'm gonna predict you'd keep working.

[Sage Steele]

I, I, I will say this.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

You wouldn't make it the year.

[Sage Steele]

I'm freaking tired. And it goes back to the mom years. It goes back to those years. And then when you're living for everybody else and I don't regret a thing, I really don't with that. Like, I, I, I just wish there. And I said this the other day on, on my show with Michael Knowles. It was kind of a vulnerable moment because I'm like, I mean I did what I thought was right at that time and so I didn't sleep and it's like if I'm the room mom for one kid, I have to be the room mom for all three kids or else you don't love them equally, right? And you're working a full time national TV job and all these things. But I don't remember as much as I'd like to because I was just surviving. And so I always tell moms out there, young moms, if they'll listen. You talk about this work, life, balance, it's bullshit. Like, stop. Stop trying. Because to me, balance makes it seem like it's perfectly equal and there's just no such thing. You can do it, but it's not gonna be all at once. Perfectly. Something's got to give and you have to be okay. And I wasn't okay with that. And I beat myself up. And I'm sad now because during those years I was just trying something.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I'll use this couch after we're done, just so you know. So I'm gonna have Sage. I'm gonna use the.

[Dave Rubin]

Lay on the couch. We're gonna go Freud style.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I'll sit there, Sage of here. We'll talk about it.

[Sage Steele]

I don't want to work for a year. I can do it for a year because of. Because of that I'm sorry way tmi. I'm sorry.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, I will just say I know Sage doesn't need me to glaze her, as the kids say, but the first time I met Sage, I've told the story a million times. We hop in her, she. I had to go up to West Palm after this. It's like a three hour drive. The best Uber driver, she's like, yeah, best Uber driver, she's like, I'll drive you. And we just talked the entire way. Totally hit it off. But the thing that. That genuinely blew me away about her is that she took calls from all three of her kids. All three of her kids called while we were in the car. And she never said, I'm in the car with someone, El. She just talked to them like a normal person. Didn't say, I'm in the car with Dave or anyone, like as if they were gonna be in attention or something weird or anything. And I was like, she's obviously a great mom. So. So you got glazed by Rubin on the Rubin report. You know, glaze. You know, glaze. They're always teaching me words I haven't heard. Glazes. You didn't know Glaze is. I just said nice things about you, Dave.

[Sage Steele]

Rubin's teaching me.

[Dave Rubin]

I taught Sage.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

You're gonna make sacrifices to do things well and nothing more important than sacrificing on behalf of your family.

[Sage Steele]

Exactly. That's what I mean. No regrets. But I wanna take off. Is that okay?

[Dave Rubin]

I'm going to push you on this, August. All right, we'll deal with that off camera. All right, let's. Let's stick with Kimmel for just a second because. Okay, so we said some nice things about him and there are ways to separate your professional part from the personal part. But let's go back to the professional part for a second because obviously there's the big LA mayoral race. Here he is on Spencer Pratt.

[Adam Carolla]

So then you get a guy who is on a reality show, who's on a lot of reality shows. His profession is to be the screaming jerk on reality shows shows. And his house burns down. And even though he had no private insurance on his house and doesn't believe in climate change, he is understandably upset about his house burning down. And since he's a moderately famous person, he gets attention. He's on the news, he's on social media. And for the first time in his life, people are agreeing with what he has to say. It's hard not to agree with what he has to say. He's angry about the same problems a lot of people here are angry about. Does he have solutions to those problems? No, but at least he's acknowledging that they are problems. So then this angry reality show star who grew up wealthy and popular and is not very wealthy or popular anymore, really starts to enjoy the attention. He starts to think, you know, I should be mayor, which is a statement that should make everyone laugh.

[Dave Rubin]

Like I tried. We really just tried the beginning of the show in some weird gap.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

But. But the. His last conclusion is a conclusion a lot of Los Angeles make. They're scared of somebod who doesn't have the credentials, so to speak. And we are over credentialed in this world. This is supposed to be a government run by the people, all of us. And people should be. Local practice of democracy is the reason democracy works in America. This is a Frenchman in 1822 observed that, that it's our local practice. And this is the local practice of democracy. And you can vote for him or not vote for him. You can be scared for him or applaud the fact that somebody who doesn't have the credentials is going to get in there, see if they make a difference. And the thing I will tell you, he's done that. I'm so grateful he's open, he's kicked Open the Overton window. Just look at the homeless thing. I've been talking about this for 15 years. It drives me crazy because people are dying at six a day. I know what to say to these people. It is negligent manslaughter. Let's be clear on what it is. It's a negligent manslaughter. And he just said, these are drug addicts. They don't lie down on the sidewalk. We take them to treatment. That's it. And people were like, you could do that? He goes, yes, you could do that. Because you want to go down there and be a social worker, you're going to get stabbed in the neck. And they're on meth. They're not. And Dr. And Karen Bass solution. We're going to give the meth addict's teeth and we're gonna give them a bed. And if only it were true that a bed would solve drug addiction. I guess I wasted 30 years of my life because it was much more involved when I was treating drug addicts. So, oh, just put them in a bed and they're cured. My God, this is amazing.

[Dave Rubin]

What do you guys make of the inability to connect, all of the failed policies? I mean, there you have multimillionaires, but

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I'm telling you in Los Angeles, it's so interesting now because. Because you have Nithya Raman in there, sort of. Even Alex Michelson, my old partner on Fox 11, he's interviewing her and she comes up with the party long about staying the course. And he's like, how can you say that he'd been staying the course, not working? What are you talking about? And they're like. They have no response. It's like they have a computer glitch when you actually bring reality and put it in front of them.

[Dave Rubin]

My feeling after being there two weeks ago was that this. It seems to me that the rich people which pretty much run the city, have just given up on the average people. And they're basically like, we won't have to deal with anything that goes on below the hills anymore, and it will be left to the zombies and the drug addicts and everything else, and we'll be okay. But that doesn't really work forever.

[Sage Steele]

Definitely not. And it's fascinating to me, though, that you said inability. It's not an inability of these people to connect the dots and be realistic about it.

[Adam Carolla]

Fair.

[Sage Steele]

It's just choice, because these are smart people. I mean, we might not agree, but for the most part, if you have a brain at this point, if you're not acknowledging what's going on and that all the people that you've had in here repeatedly. Gersaid, Ibass, all of them. And at the top, of course, with Gavin Newsom, who chooses to ignore the whole thing, unless a Chinese emperor is coming to San Francisco, then in five minutes, you have everything cleaned up.

[Dave Rubin]

He literally got rid of them for a weekend. And then they all came back.

[Sage Steele]

And they all came back.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you have any idea what did they do with. When they came?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

They obviously placed them somewhere.

[Sage Steele]

And they're gonna figure it out between. Well, it depends on who's mayor, I guess, and governor. But for the 2028 Olympics, exactly zero desire to attend because of things like this. But it is an absolute choice to ignore it and not say, karen, listen, I'm a Democrat. You're a Democrat. I love you. What the hell? And how about the interview last week when she was asked about it by someone in Los Angeles, like, maybe it's the same person you're talking about and about homelessness. And she's like, yeah, it's harder than I thought. And we'll get it right next it to next time.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Well, let me. Let me. Let me push back what you're saying a little bit and say there are two things that I see going on in there. A, they are brainwashed. The public. They did. Because that's why I'm so appreciative of Pratt kicking it open, because they're. All those people are like, what do you mean you could just do that? It's like, yes, you could just do that. And this is the bigger problem. This is as sick psychiatrically as humans can be where they're gravely disabled, they're detached from reality, they can't feed themselves. You cannot get sicker than that. Psychiatric. And to treat those patients takes internists, addictionologists, neurologists, and psychiatrists who have a decade of training in order to be able to manage these difficult cases. Social workers are not equipped, including Karen Bass. She doesn't understand what she's looking at. It's literally asking a physical therapist to do orthopedic surgery. They don't have any training. They can't even contextualize it. So to them, it's like, well, we'll just meet them where they are. We'll be nice to them. No, no, no, no, no. These are extremely ill people, and they need to be hospitalized.

[Sage Steele]

I like what Spencer Pratt is saying. It's his are there.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

He hasn't come up with a solution yet. He's just. He's just stating the problem.

[Dave Rubin]

He's saying, well, actually, so let me throw to this video because this, this is exactly what Sage is saying there. He's at least addressing what the problem is. Take a look. Side of the country is. Because all I focus on is the truth. I'm the look around candidate. I do basics. I don't do national politics, I don't do parties. I just say, look, they're stealing all of our tax money to give it to drug addicts to have needles and tourniquets. And they're actually even selling the drugs to these addicts to let these people die on our sidewalks. I want to be the compassionate one, get these people mandatory treatment, medical treatment with doctors to help them get off of fentanyl and super meth. And that is what people actually want in la. As much as everybody wanted to believe the people that have been in charge, my opponents combined or at almost 10 years of their experience, they are failures. And so people want an outsider that's not a politician. That's just saying the facts, the truth. These people have failed us. They've spent all of our tax money to increase problems. And I keep it basic. And again, I never wanted to be the mayor. I just wanted somebody to tell the truth. And by telling the truth, now the people are behind me and I will continue to speak the truth on behalf of Los Angeles for as far as they want to push me, man. I mean, we were all nodding along with that. But Drew, what a perfect example of what you just said right there. Kicking open the over window. What is acceptable to talk about in la?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Every word he said was accurate. That's the thing. He's not overstating anything. He's not being mean. He's just stating the truth. And unfortunately, we live in a post structuralist world where truth doesn't matter. Well, we're going to start talking about the truth again because it's killing people.

[Sage Steele]

I actually believe what he said too, about not wanting to run for mayor.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, I fully believe it.

[Sage Steele]

I mean, who wants to get involved in this crap? Like, I fully understand, I mean, some of it, we've had opportunities. I'm like, oh, absolutely not. No, thank you. But I mean, look at, look at his ads. And it's true. I didn't want to do this, but he's standing in front of their Stream Gulf trailer, whatever that is, after his house burned down and after years and years of ineptitude. And I mean, I commend him no matter what happens. And I know we talked at length about this and his actual chances, which he is saying everything that makes sense.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

He not make sense, just simply the

[Sage Steele]

truth, common sense and the truth.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Telling a narrative about a mom of three who loses her job and has lost those. Those are not. If you are that kind of homeless where you are sort of couch surfing, you're not going to lie down on the sidewalk and stay there. That's a wholly different state of being

[Sage Steele]

when you have Jane Fonda people like that who are now coming out. Magic Johnson, great, everybody. I mean, to me, no matter what the topic, if those are your people who are saying do this, then you do the opposite.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, wait, is Magic coming out which.

[Sage Steele]

Supporting Karen Bass? Supporting Karen Bass, man.

[Dave Rubin]

And he. A guy who put aside basketball, who has created so many businesses that has

[Sage Steele]

rejuvenated, but he doesn't actually have to care. But my point, I mean track record matters. Does Spencer Pratt have a track record in politics? No. Karen Bass does.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

You have failure.

[Sage Steele]

Right. And so if you are willing to vote for her again.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Yeah, it's weird.

[Sage Steele]

I got nothing for you, then you almost deserve it. These are self inflicted wounds at this point in Los Angeles, you know, the

[Dave Rubin]

number one book in the country right now is written by our friend Gad Said and it's suicidal empathy. And that is exactly what Karen Bass and all of these other people are mentioning. I'll just mention one other somewhat personal thing because when I was in LA two weeks ago, I quite literally saw someone that we all know from the industry, who was a successful person in Hollywood, who was now a drug addict on the street.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Meth will take them to the street like that. The kind of meth.

[Dave Rubin]

So that's what I wanted to made

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

with the solvents you find in a car garage. And it immediately, very quickly makes people psychotic and disorganized and drives them to the street.

[Dave Rubin]

So basically someone, and this is what they're doing with some of these drugs, like sometimes they think they're smoking weed even. And it's laced with saying. And then next thing you know, you said to me that they. It wouldn't surprise you if someone ended up homeless in a week, right?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Like from meth. From the meth, yeah. It happens very fast because people, you hear the stories, they, they tried to tell these stories. She was a school teacher and then she lost her job. Then, then the, the woman we interviewed, she goes, yeah, I'm a school toss. My job, I was doing okay. And then I, then I started doing math. And then week later I'm on the street like, okay, that's how it goes.

[Dave Rubin]

Sadly, my friend Larry Elder. Our friend Larry Elder, when I was with him in la, he said zero chance for Spencer Pratt because he just thinks the numbers are so out of whack with the Democrats.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

At least he's kicked open that we can have the conversation again. He can talk for the first time. I mean, look, the thing that. The reason I won't stop working if I'm okay amongst other side of my workaholism I can't seem to shake.

[Dave Rubin]

And you're gonna have to fight the zombies.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

It's true. I just think speaking the truth and fighting for freedom of expression is just so important right now. And I never imagined that would be the case in this country. But we have to all keep speaking the truth. And so he is an example of that. Good for him.

[Dave Rubin]

Speaking of speaking the truth, we had two weeks ago, everybody was concerned about hantavirus, which thankfully Drew on actual friends. Drew cleaned up for us. And then I tried to spread it as much as possible. Basically, if you don't lick a rat, you're going to be okay. But now Ebola, apparently is back. Here is Marco Rubio, I think, trying to calm everybody down. Do we have it? Oh, we don't have it. Well, Marco Rubio tried to calm everybody down about Ebola. How. How crazed should we be right now? We shouldn't. Okay.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

The craze is an attempt to get money to the World Health Organization and to make people feel bad for unraveling usaid, which would not have changed the outcome of this outbreak. Congo has outbreaks on a regular basis. They're very good at containing them. It's a dangerous illness, serious outcome, reasonably contagious when people are symptomatic, not asymptomatic. There will never be a pandemic from this. If we have, and we've had cases in this country before, if we get some, I'll be surprised. I suppose we could, but the World Health Organization has labeled this a public health emergency of international concern. A what they call a P H E I C which is pronounced fake. You can't make this shit up. It's pronounced fake. It's a fake outbreak. And so. And the hantavirus. Look it up on your site.

[Dave Rubin]

This is great. You totally.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

This is a. This is a translation of a slang for a foreign language. Look it up. Hanta means essentially sucker, chump. So we have a chump virus and a fake outbreak. God works in mysterious ways is all I can say.

[Dave Rubin]

But my firm belief is that for all the people that now are like, I would never put the mask back on or I never get injected with some weird thing. And I think almost everybody would behave almost exactly the same. I think there would be about. I think there would be about a five day window where some of us, the fighters would fight. And then I think almost everybody, I think their behavior.

[Sage Steele]

You think we're getting shots?

[Dave Rubin]

Well, I didn't get the shot in the first place, and I'm not saying everybody, but I think a lot of

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

people, a lot of people would.

[Dave Rubin]

You could. Once that fear was ramped up again, I think people forget they're so good

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

at it, but it kills me. There's so many. We are biological agents. There are infectious diseases we should be scared of. We should be afraid of rickettsial diseases. A huge outbreak in Los Angeles right now. My son got murine typhus. It's a devastating illness. Why aren't we worried about that? Why are we worried about tuberculosis? We have resistance. TB in Los Angeles, massive outbreak because of the homelessness. We have resistant gonorrhea. Why aren't you afraid of that? It's much more likely you're going to get that stuff much more serious. But you've got the World Health Organization out there fanning these flames. This is. I'm worried about that organization. There's something wrong there.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, well, before we do have the video of Rubio and here he is trying to just calm everybody down about all this. The number one priority of our foreign policy is to protect the American people. We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

And so we're very, the State Department

[Dave Rubin]

and other agencies represented here, the Centers

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

for Disease Control, hhs, others are working

[Dave Rubin]

very, very hard to, to contain this

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

crisis to the countries where it's currently located, particularly the Democratic Republic, the Congo. And so we've surged assistance to make

[Dave Rubin]

sure that that is being contained there. And obviously multiple agencies involved here are also very involved in tracking people just

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

to make sure that nobody comes into

[Dave Rubin]

this country that has Ebola and creates a problem for us. And we feel like we've got good efforts in place to do that.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

And Americans should feel assured that the president and his administration is doing everything we can to protect the them all.

[Dave Rubin]

Now, sage, even slightly putting Ebola aside, isn't it just refreshing to hear people that you feel like are competent and doing the best they can? That's to your point a moment ago,

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

sane, incompetent, but even you can address

[Dave Rubin]

Ebola if you want. But like that I actually trust that Rubio is talking to the right people and doing the right things, which is so different than what we dealt with for four years.

[Sage Steele]

Absolutely. Thank goodness elections have consequences. If people didn't learn that after 2020, I can't help you. But I do wonder, first of all, I don't trust the World Health Organization and have it in a very long time. The first time Dr. Drew and I, when I was on your show out in California, that was probably the biggest topic is trust. And the trust is now gone, which is so unfortunate because at some point we're going to potentially need to trust one of these agencies again. And if we can't, what do we do? Okay, thank you, Marco Rubio. I do wonder that this, though they say we won't allow Ebola to enter the country. How can they not allow.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

They're going to have to track each person, even as a potential of exposure. And they've been doing a pretty good job of that. And so you don't need USAID to do it. The Congo does a really good job on this. Look, hantavirus, there's going to be hantavirus outbreaks. It's with us. It's always going to be with us. It's going to happen here and there. And it's clear, as you pointed out,

[Dave Rubin]

there's no human to human transmission.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

And it's clear the people that got sick got sick because they isolated them on that damn ship where the rats were. And by the way, the RAT log that the captain's supposed to fill out, he's not willing to release it because evidently there's something on there that might create some liability, evidently.

[Dave Rubin]

Rat log. The captain has a rat log.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

They have to kind of document what the rat situation is. And they didn't do it, apparently at the last. And he's not allowing it to be released. Just saying, who knows? But anyway, there was no human to human people on the ship, got exposed, they locked them on the ship. How dumb can you be as what they did to those four people. They locked them in the environment where the exposure is occurring. Okay, fine.

[Sage Steele]

That's when my daughter, college age daughter, called and was like, mom, mom, what's going on? Don't travel, don't do this. And then I, last week alone, I was on seven different airplanes and the number of people were wearing masks again. It's like tripled, quadrupled. And I look at them and of course I totally judge you if you're wearing a mask at this point. But it's very interesting to what? To pay attention to the demographics of people who are wearing masks. That's a story for another day.

[Dave Rubin]

Wait, that's interesting. We can do that now.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Oh,

[Dave Rubin]

wait, I'm curious. I don't even know what you mean by that exactly. I. Oh, Sage, about to step in it.

[Sage Steele]

No, I am fascinated with the number of African Americans who wear masks. Interesting to me. It's. It's. It's just fascinating.

[Dave Rubin]

I want.

[Sage Steele]

I want to.

[Dave Rubin]

What do you make of that?

[Sage Steele]

I don't know. But I also know that if you look at the way the majority of black people vote, it's on the left, it's on Democrat side. And if this is something that is being, you know, stirred up, then are they all in on this? And they. That's. That's one group. Certainly women, but a lot of men. And then I see tons of people with their children, and their children are masked up two and three years old.

[Dave Rubin]

I can't say.

[Sage Steele]

But I do see the mom leading the way through the airport like this, and cousins behind like this, and he's got his mask on. So the psychology behind it is fascinating to me, and I do think it's probably not as simple. Black people. There's a fascinating breakdown, but people are listening and watching and getting their news on TikTok like my daughter was, and saying, wait, here it comes. It's another Covid mask up. We've got to protect ourselves.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, that's why we played the clip of you cleaning it up from actual friends like 20 times, because I pay attention to all this stuff, but I'm not a doctor. I'm not an expert. And then you start seeing it in the news. Hantavirus hunter, virus hunter. And then you just. It's in a weird way, they. It's not that they have to tell you that it's coming to kill you, but you just start hearing it enough, and next thing you know, they shouldn't

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

even be reporting it.

[Sage Steele]

It's like that. And. And so all of the mainstream, the legacy news platforms, not. Not one of them said what you were saying. They talked about the ship and what it's all about, but never once did they have a doctor on, stop licking rats.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

And unfortunately, because what they'll do is look for somebody to add to. To the anxiety about it. Not somebody who goes, because it's not gonna attract eyes, go, hey, there's nothing here. Relax, everybody. You want a doctor that says it could happen, so here you go. But, you know, back to the Ebola. I was looking at some of the data on the more serious outbreaks that Congress had. The one in the early teens. 11,000 died. 11,000 deaths. What are we at, guys? Look it up. 200 deaths or not even that right now. And it's slowing down. It's slowing down. So. So I mean, it should not be reported anymore. Let it go.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, let's put transmittable diseases aside from. And I thought we'd end on this. You know me, guys. I like us particularly on Fridays to end on a positive note. Something sort of terrible happened yesterday with this Blue Origin rocket ship. But we're gonna. But I think to. To a point that Elon, David and

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I thought it was cool, but it's.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, basically you probably have all seen this already, but as you guys know, I'll just read a quick quote from pbs. Jeff Bezos. Blue Origin suffered a massive explosion of its new rocket during a routine pre launch static fire test at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The uncrewed. That's the key part. Vehicle caught fire and was completely destroyed, severely damaging the launch pad. Though all personnel were safely accounted for and no injuries were reported. If you have not seen this explosion. Here you go. And if you have seen it, I mean, it's just wild.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

I think it was just a test launch. It wasn't even a launch. It was a test fire too. Boom. I have a great video to finish.

[Dave Rubin]

Another. Yeah, yeah. After the Helen's Way. Okay.

[Sage Steele]

Goodness.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Incredible.

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, I mean that is something else. And there are videos, you know, people are just taking iPhone videos from across the water. I mean there's just extraordinary video of this thing, you know, so there's Blue Origin and then there's obviously space and, and Elon SpaceX and Bezos's blue Origin and. Well, let me read the Elon tweet because I think this is how I wanted to frame it. He wrote, most unfortunate rockets are hard. And I kind of was like, you know what? That's the right take. Oh, goodness, we gotta keep trying all this stuff. And I don't think he was trying to spit in Bezos's face or saying I'm the competition or anything else. I think they want each other to win here because that's how we'll advance.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

And He Musk has said several times it's remarkable they haven't had more events like that. Rockets are just controlled explosions and sometimes they become uncontrolled. Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

How was no one heard? I know it was unmanned, but that's a big area there. Several acres that went up in a

[Dave Rubin]

can we throw in the explosion again. You can leave our audio on while we're doing that because.

[Sage Steele]

Right.

[Dave Rubin]

Like just, I mean, I guess they plan and make sure nobody's in that blast area. But look at that and just think about the, you know, look, they'll learn a ton from this. Obviously. I don't know if did these rockets have, you know, the equivalent of a black or something like that originated.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

But like the point that I think Elon was making rockets are hard is we're going to learn a lot from this and we can't expect that we're going to get.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

And don't expect that we won't have an explosion. You know what I mean? Yeah. This is a important.

[Sage Steele]

I did see on, on X how many people were like, hey, I'm an explosion fanatic and this is an all time. I'm like, are. I didn't know there was such thing as explosion fanatic.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

You just met two of them.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, yeah. Apparently we were like geeking out like.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

And I'm the gayest straight guy. You know.

[Dave Rubin]

Gay guys can't like explosions. Why can't gay guys like explosions?

[Sage Steele]

And the fact that I'm the quote unquote normal person in the middle is very scary because. Because now I've made everybody angry and I want to quit working for a year and I have ptsd. We're going to lay on the couch afterwards and he's going to fix it all. Like, by the way, I don't want to quit working. And now you get me to say shit stuff.

[Dave Rubin]

Also for the record, unless I'm mistaken, you're not a psychologist.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

No, I'm an internist and I worked in the psychiatric hospital for 30 years. Years.

[Dave Rubin]

But you understand it's not exactly what.

[Sage Steele]

No, but he, he's my shrink.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

But I know how to get people to talk about things.

[Sage Steele]

All of this.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

You don't need much fixing. Trust me.

[Dave Rubin]

All right. I have not seen this video, but the guys are telling me to throw to this right now.

[Sage Steele]

Holy.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Holy.

[Dave Rubin]

So that's a. That's a Cape Canaveral resident. Obviously his ring camera or something in the future.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Florida is such a.

[Dave Rubin]

That's Florida, man. Right there. That's Florida. Like there's a nuclear explosion. The aliens are coming. It looked like he was about to moon the thing for a minute.

[Sage Steele]

His plumber's crack was totally showing. Florida, man. Florida, man. That's good. That's an all time explosion for the explosion fanatics. Should I try my actual friends?

[Dave Rubin]

Should I try to FaceTime Jillian. Michael.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Yes.

[Dave Rubin]

Let's see. Jillian Michaels. Let's see if we can FaceTime Jillian Michaels. Real quick. Let's see what happens.

[Sage Steele]

Oh, boy.

[Dave Rubin]

Let's see, let's see.

[Sage Steele]

Oh, you're gonna show it live. I mean. Oh, she could you never know.

[Dave Rubin]

Pick up if she's naked.

[Sage Steele]

That's right. She's not Russell Brand.

[Dave Rubin]

She has for sure, right? Let's see, let's see, let's see.

[Sage Steele]

Come on, Chillian.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Dave Rubin calling.

[Dave Rubin]

She's. She's coming. She's gonna be on the June 11th. So she couldn't come to Miami again. All right, we're not getting Jillian Michaels. It's nice to do this in person, isn't it?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Yes, it is.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

We. Can we. Can we make this happen more often?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

We have to have a dinner and the show anytime.

[Sage Steele]

I'm talking about the food. The food and the show for sure.

[Dave Rubin]

Carbone, man, that pasta.

[Sage Steele]

Thank you. If only I had stayed strong and not done dessert, I wouldn't have taken us over there.

[Dave Rubin]

However, it was the gelato that took us.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Kill all of us.

[Sage Steele]

It was. It was the right move, wasn't it?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

It was so good.

[Sage Steele]

So good.

[Dave Rubin]

Thank you, Sage Steel. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Drew.

[Sage Steele]

My strength.

[Dave Rubin]

Thanks for watching, guys. No postgame show on Fridays. We'll see you on Monday. Ciao.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now, and it's great. You love the host.

[Dave Rubin]

You seek it out and download it.

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad.

[Dave Rubin]

Did I get your attention?

[Dr. Drew Pinsky]

You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising. Advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements. Or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to libsynads. Com, that's L, I B S Y N Ads. Com Today.