Megan McArdle (4:02)

Yeah. I'm desperately trying to stay above it and not focus on the blue hairs either and do just that. And it's interesting you brought up sort of. So there's like a dichotomy here. There's sort of a set of people that are like, okay, let's separate. That's kind of what you said, the Marjorie ideas. And then maybe there are some people on the other side who realize what's happened here, and maybe we can start agreeing to disagree in a healthier way. Let me ask you this for the people on that side of it. In this case, you mentioned Tommy, but it doesn't have to be about him specifically. Do you think there has to be a mea culpa before we're fully open arms with them? So many of the people that have called us all Nazis and all of the stuff that everyone knows, to me, I don't know that I can welcome them yet unless there was a true moment of self reflection and then get on board. And by the way, I think Charlie would feel that way because when I was on the left and I would be debating with Charlie, he would always be like, Dave, you know, for now we have to kind of keep it at an arm's length because I don't know if I trust you yet. And then over the years, we built a relationship based on trust and mutual respect. But I am hesitant actually right now to just be like, okay, come on down. When you called me a Nazi for the last 10 years.

Dave Rubin (5:18)

I'm not even in that charitable place. You know, notwithstanding the nice reach out, I'm. I don't actually see any Kumbaya moment coming. And I frankly don't see any real change coming either. I, I guess I just, you know, if I had to predict what's next and this could change when I'm like less full of emotions that are, you know, personal to me, I don't see any reconciliation coming. I don't see any change of behavior coming whatsoever. Maybe some decent people will, but not enough to actually change the national conversation or tone. I see them doing more of what they have done and I see more young 22 year old men who are susceptible to manipulation online or in the trans community or what have you, or just more prone to psychotic breaks, being easily exploited and falling prey to the messaging. And it's just a new dawn. So we on our side, which is not the side committing the political violence. And I'm sick of the lies that we are or that this is a both sides thing. It's not that woman in Minneapolis got shot by somebody or killed by somebody in her home who was a complete, absolute nutcase, who, by the way, said that Tim Walls told him to go out and kill demons. It was not a Republican thing. A Democrat was killed, but this is not some Republican killing her for political violence. And Gutfeld made a good point on Fox the other night, which was, by the way, had she been demonized by everybody coast to coast, repeatedly in every sound bite you can find from, you know, cable punditry like Charlie had no. So Just stop, okay? Just stop. Did they have their presidential candidate shot at twice and almost killed a third time too? Reportedly, like, no, it's, this goes one way. And even the, even the guy who broke into Paul Pelosi's house and attacked Paul Pelosi, they're like, what about that? I'm like, okay, so it was a Democrat who got attacked there, but that was a nut case who had a Black Lives Matter and a, and a pride flag on his two belongings that he owned. Like, what are you saying? This is the same. An assassination by somebody who had an agenda and repeating the exact same things that the left says every day. All over the news is a very different situation. Like if you can't acknowledge that we can't talk to you. If you cannot just see those basic facts about this case and you, and you continue to go out there and say, we may never know the motivation, that we have nothing to talk about. And that's fine by me. Because you know what? We have the airwaves now. We're the ones who matter. Our conversations are the ones that people are listening to. The digital lane is king. Cable news is dead. It's irrelevant. So fuck off. Like, I don't care. I don't have to explain it to you. If you don't want to do what's right and stay fact based, that's a problem of you and your audience. And for me, in my audience, I'm just going to have to like, Dave Rubin is like, Ben Shapiro is like, Piers Morgan is like, Tucker will have to batten down the hatches and make sure I can stay alive while I continue saying what's real. Because I'm going to do both. I'm. My plan is to do both. But now because of people like that, we're going to have to go around and have to think about things like bulletproof glass and, you know, extra magnetometers and whatever it is we're going to have to think about. And that's their fault. But if that's what we have to do to continue saying the things that must be said, then that's what we will do.

Megan McArdle (8:35)

Let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.

Will (Travel Segment Guest) (8:39)

Honestly, Will, I didn't plan any trips, but I did switch to T Mobile with their new family freedom offer.

Megan McArdle (8:47)

That's not the itinerary we're following.

Will (Travel Segment Guest) (8:50)

Well, I'm departing from AT&T and embarking on a new journey with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house.

Megan McArdle (9:03)

Bon voyage.

T-Mobile Advertiser (9:05)

Introducing family freedom. Our lowest cost will switch our biggest family savings all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com FamilyFreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16128 gigabyte 8, 2999 eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact T Mobile.

Megan McArdle (9:31)

Where do you think that resolve comes from within you. I heard you talk about how you're taking the show on tour and you're not going to change anything. And yes, you just illustrated that they'll probably have to change some security things. Ben talked about continuing the college tour but not doing outdoor events. I'm about to go to Australia. We're on the phone about all the security stuff. I mean, they've put all of us into an unbelievably horrific situation. And if I don't want to make this about me, but when I think about my career, I was the one years ago that was before Charlie trying to bring everybody together. That's what Charlie saw in me. You've tried to reach out to everybody on every which way and now we're the ones that have to be on our back foot like, oh yeah, maybe I have to think about an extra security guard or I mean, it's just insane.

Dave Rubin (10:14)

It is insane and I resent it. I resent the hell out of it. It's, you know, on a personal level, it's changed something that I was looking forward to that's gonna be fun that I can't wait to get out to into something that, you know, obviously now has caused some serious worry for, for example, my husband and my family. But it's also turned it into something that is was gonna be fun and a good time into something that's actually important. You know, like you going to Australia, me doing this tour, Ben doing what he's gonna do. It's actually important now. It actually is a way of thumbing the middle finger in a massive way to everybody who would mean to silence Charlie or anybody who sounds like Charlie. I mean, Charlie. You're not wrong to point out that Charlie was killed in part because he did reach out to the other side. Charlie was killed on a college campus because that's what he was doing. Because he went there to say, prove me Wrong. Let's talk about your ideas versus my ideas and see if you can prove me wrong. See if you can change my mind or I change yours. And in doing that, he got a lot of exposure to the left, and that's dangerous. A lot of exposure to the left wound up to be a dangerous thing for Charlie. And not only the left, but the contingent of the left that is probably most likely to turn violent. I mean, there is a rash of 18 to 25 year old men in this country who have some sort of a break and go postal, as we used to say, commit a mass shooting or some disturbing, you know, assassination attempt, like with Trump or of Charlie, something they actually succeeded in. And so to go into the belly of the beast on college campuses where, yeah, you're exposing yourself to people on the radical left regularly and making yourself a household name in their homes, and also you factor in, you're going to the age demo that does produce the most shooters, the most assassins. It was a serious risk. And one of the things that I was shocked to see, Dave, was that, you know, I'm sure you saw that Charlie appeared to be wearing a bulletproof vest and that the bullet hit him first in the chest and it ricocheted into his neck. And I thought to myself, my God, like he's, he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Like, they knew that the threat level was there and he was still doing it. You know, like, that's crazy to me. And it's also crazy to me that if they knew it was that level, they didn't have those rooftops secured. I'm not trying to bash Charlie's security. It's just, you know, hindsight's 20 20, but sure, it's just crazy to me that the threat level was that high that he knew he had to wear a bulletproof vest to speak. Not to run for office, not to ask to be put into the halls of power, but just to speak on a campus.

Megan McArdle (13:07)

Let me ask you one that I think is tough that I'm trying to grapple with too, which is, do you think we have all failed here to some extent? You know, when I started doing these tours with Charlie at college, is everyone, when we would get hate from New York Times or usual lefty, whatever, they would always say the same thing. It's like, oh, you guys are just making fun of a bunch of college kids for trigger warnings and all of that stuff. And it was before we even called it woke. We called it identity politics. And they would always say, oh, but when they get to the real world, they'll realize what's up and everything will be fine. I never felt that. But maybe we didn't raise the alarm enough. Maybe we. For even the ones of us that saw this early and tried, and I do include you in that as well, maybe we actually weren't as. As out. As out there, as outspoken as we should have been.

Dave Rubin (13:55)

I don't see that as the cause. I mean, I, for one, was as outspoken as it's possible to be on Fox News. And I remember saying this.

Megan McArdle (14:02)

Yeah, no, I don't know that I could have done anything else in the.

Dave Rubin (14:04)

Not too distant future. Yeah, but. But I don't think identity politics are exactly at the heart of what's wrong here. That I think the biggest thing is the thing that also got Charlie killed, and that is coming back now and fixing itself in a way which is the absence of religion in the public square and in people's hearts. I think the absence of religion is the most pernicious, dangerous thing that's happened in America in its history. And it's happened over the past 30 years. It's been absolutely, willingly, actively erased. And it's been replaced by this vacuous evil that now is called Wokeism, where we have these identity politics, whatever gods, these identity gods that are so empty and dangerous that the new God tells you to cut up your own body, to cut up your child's body. The new God tells you to hate or resent or feel guilt about race, something you're born with and cannot change. The new God has all the wrong messages. It's satanic. And we made room for this devil by chastising people for saying a prayer before a public meeting or at school or uttering the words under God in the pledge. So the pledge had to go. Or just mocking religion, you know, I mean, at every turn. It became fashionable to the Catholic Church after its terrible pedophile scandal. Like it just became the butt of all these jokes. And people never forgave the church and never understood that there were millions of good priests out there who would never have done such a thing. And we. And it was just one thing after the other, led to the absence of religion from people's lives and in the public square and the loss of our identity as a Christian nation, which we used to lean into. And that's why there's so many references to God and the Bible and Christian principles and our founding documents. And it. It's. To me, one of the ironies of Charlie's assassination is now everybody's Watching these videotapes where above all, he was a proselytizer for the Christian faith. People are feeling it, and not just Christians, you know, Jews too, feeling like they want to get back in touch with their faith. Which is the answer. That's the answer.

Megan McArdle (16:22)

So are you hopeful at this moment? You know, you. You sort of started where it sounded like, okay, this isn't going to reconcile. We're not going to get past something now you just gave me something pretty hopeful. I mean, how do you hold those two things?

Dave Rubin (16:35)

I'm just not hopeful of getting along with the other side or convincing them how wrong they are. You know, I've only seen them deteriorate over the past 25 years. I have not seen them ever come down, every stop. I've only seen them right downward, downward, downward. So I don't have that hope now, but I have hope that our side, our silent warriors, are finding the temerity to stand up now and like. One of the reasons why the left had the monopoly has on college campuses and Charlie had to go to each one of them and try to say these things which are considered so controversial is because too many are staying silent, that they totally agree with every word he uttered, but they didn't want to admit it. High schools, colleges, you know, young people in the workforce. And if you can get those people to start speaking sanity, like, and you can get those people to, to not sit there silently as people are saying these nutty things in their class or pretend that they believe somebody wearing, you know, tiger ears is a tiger, right, that these, seriously, like, this is happening. It's an. It's an incredible act of courage. And bit by bit, they won't control every circle in America. They won't control the media, they won't control, you know, the corporate America, sports, the Hollywood, and in particular the Academy, you know, K through 12 and colleges, that is where the indoctrination factory is at its strongest and best. And so, like, the best thing that's come out of this week has been the 32,000 new applications to Turning Point for the college and the high school groups that want to form. So I do not feel like the solution is working with the left or letting our guard down or starting to see them all as more reasonable and giving them the benefit of the doubt so they'll do the same for us at all. I see the answer as doubling down on our principles, being more compelling in our messages, and increasing our ranks so that we will win. That we will win by sheer force of will and power. Of the angels who back us.

Megan McArdle (18:44)

Let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.

Will (Travel Segment Guest) (18:48)

Honestly, Will, I didn't plan any trips, but I did switch to T Mobile with their new Family Freedom offer.

Megan McArdle (18:56)

That's not the itinerary we're following.

Will (Travel Segment Guest) (18:58)

Well, I'm departing from AT&T and embarking on a new journey with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house.

Megan McArdle (19:12)

Bon voyage.

T-Mobile Advertiser (19:13)

Introducing Family Freedom. Our lowest cost will switch our biggest family savings all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com familyfreedom. Up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card. Typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone16128 gigabyte 802999 eligible trade in eg iPhone11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact T Mobile.

Megan McArdle (19:39)

Let me, let me ask Megan the mom the final question here because this past weekend I was in New York for a couple days doing all this, hit all the media about Charlie. And then I came home this weekend and actually David was out of town for something. So I had the kids alone this weekend. It's the first time I've had the two of them just with nobody else here. And I was very aware of that, to the backdrop of Charlie, that there are now these children that don't have their father. And even last night when I was reading them a story, going to bed, I was thinking about that. And so for Megan the mom, you have young boys. How has that been as a mother talking about it and were they influenced? I assume they were probably somewhat influenced by Charlie to some extent. How are you dealing with that? Not the media portion, but just what goes on in your home portion.

Dave Rubin (20:24)

Well, not only was Charlie beloved by my boys, but my daughter, who's 14 now, loved Charlie and he was the person she most wanted to meet. Who I knew. They met Elon and they were like, but when can we meet Charlie? Because he was in their algorithm and they all saw him more than they saw any other talking head. So they, they, especially my older two, really admired Charlie and have taken this hard. They're, they're really sad about it and for the first time, like actually wanted to sit down and talk about it. Like, not just to say, oh, that's terrible, but like really wanted to talk about it. And it got me thinking, like I say, my daughter's also been affected, but I was thinking about my son and everyone's sons. And you know, Dave, there's so few people. I know you're good friends with Jordan, but like, there's so few people who our young boys have to look up to and who have been out there fighting for them and who stand as an example of how to live and what decisions are good for you on the right, you know, there's just so few. And Charlie was huge, huge for them. You know, you've seen all the videos of these young men saying, I'm this one guy. Like, I'm wearing a suit now. I'm wearing a suit for the first time and I'm going to church and I'm going to take my wife and I'm going to take better care of my wife. And I've seen so many similar videos and I just, I do, my heart breaks for, of course, Erica and their children and Charlie's parents and his sister. But I have been thinking so much about these young men who like, have been bastardized, just so wronged by Biden, Harris and the left and Obama and all these lefties who have been telling them they're the problem and they're toxically masculine. And then you have Charlie come along and my God, talk about, like, not saying that. He says, you know what, guys, like, you're the boss in your house and women submit, right? Like totally the opposite of what you would hear from these toxically masculine accusers. And he meant it in the most loving and biblical way. And I've defended him at length on these comments before, even though I'm not much of a submitter, but I totally get it and I love where he was going with it and Right. So they, they have, they have Charlie, you know, telling them, like, dress up, take good care of yourself, like, brush your teeth, come up with a lifetime plan, be assertive, open the car door, pay on the first date. You know, all the things he said, protect your women because women deserve protecting. And somebody who told them, if you don't value yourself. And he said this to women too. Now, don't give up on yourself. You know, Jesus is still there. He cares about you. He'll change you. Just be open minded to it. This total, like, believer in young people taken from them, stolen by some absolute motherfucking demon who I cannot wait to see executed. I truly, I will celebrate. I would love, I will do the firing squad myself between now and then. I don't care. I have no empathy for this killer. I. I believe in the death penalty and I cannot wait to see it carried out on this man. Um, I'm sorry. I get he's somebody's child too, and I'm sure the parents are very sad. I don't care. I don't feel any empathy for him right now. I feel empathy for Charlie's people and the millions who feeling so incredibly lost and sad as a result of what that guy did.

Megan McArdle (23:41)

Well, Megan, I suppose it's incumbent on us to be a little better at what we do in the midst of all this. I have no doubt that you will do that. I have no doubt that I will try as hard as I can. And I love you. And let's just keep going in honor, Charlie.

Dave Rubin (23:59)

Love you too, my friend. I'll see you out there.

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