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The Rubin Report
Stephen A. Smith Challenges Dave Rubin on Trump Policies, Conservatives the Future of MAGA
01:02:44
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- [00:00]
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- [00:28]
Dave Rubin
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- [01:01]
Dave Rubin
You are a minority or an oppressed minority as they like. They like you to be perfectly oppressed. And I don't consider myself oppressed. I happen to be gay. Unfortunately, because I don't view my sexuality as an oppression, the left has really no use for me. I mean that's not to say I don't get any hate from, say more religious conservatives on the right. I do for sure, and I'm not denying that. But. But the bulk of the hate that I get related to my sexuality is from the left because they demand that I be a Democrat.
- [01:32]
Stephen A. Smith
I've been waiting a while to get this this next guest on on the show. I've been on his show twice. He's blessing us with his presence right now. He's a conservative political commentator, some would say a YouTuber, of course, a host of the popular podcast the Rubin Report. Millions upon millions of followers. The one and only Mr. Dave Rubin is here with me right now. My what's going on, man? How you doing? How's everything?
- [01:53]
Dave Rubin
It's good to be with you. I appreciate that you said some would say conservative podcaster because I'm a little of this, a little of that, kind of like you. But I hope we can duke it out here, find something we disagree on and really, I'm sure we will.
- [02:09]
Stephen A. Smith
I'm sure we will. I'm sure we will. Especially since you lie about be Especially since you lie about beating me in Basketball contest. But we'll get to that another time. We'll get to that a little bit later on. Okay. We'll get to that a little bit later. All right, listen, listen. How would. Dave, how would you describe yourself? Would you consider yourself. I know you said a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but where the world is right now, according to you, with the things that you say, the things that you feel, and the manner in which you go about expressing it, what would you describe yourself as being right now?
- [02:42]
Dave Rubin
Yeah, I like the way you frame that question. Because in the world as it is this moment. Yeah. I think you could say I'm a conservative, kind of small c. Conservative, meaning most of my values are conservative. I want to conserve the good things of America. But I would back up and say that in normal times, which is most of my life, let's say, without the last five or so years, if we didn't include those. I am a classical liberal. The founders of this country were classical liberals. I believe in individual rights. I believe in laissez faire economics, logic and reason. I believe in personal property. I believe in a small government that can do just enough so that you can, I don't know, pursue your happiness kind of as the founders wanted. And unfortunately, the reason I don't say I'm liberal anymore, and by the way, I wrote not to pat myself on the back, but my first book, don't burn, this book was the best selling book on classical liberalism probably in the last 50 years. And the reason I can't really say I'm a liberal anymore is not because it is not true. It's because why our friend Bill Maher, I think, struggles when he's trying to defend liberalism. Most people mean progressivism and progressive and liberal is very, very different, which I'm happy to get into.
- [03:59]
Stephen A. Smith
Well, I wanted to know how. So according to you, according to you, how is it different?
- [04:03]
Dave Rubin
Yeah.
- [04:03]
Stephen A. Smith
Yeah.
- [04:04]
Dave Rubin
So progressives basically have ushered in the era of wokeism. And every time we, you know, we all. You and I talk about wokeism all the time. I think the easiest way to define wokeism would be that if you believe that people's immutable characteristics are the most important thing about them. And then you want to put that in some hierarchy of importance. So skin col for some people is above sexuality, but sometimes gender identity is above that. But however you want to order it, that basically is woke. And then there's economic versions of it and everything else that we now see burst forth with mom dummy in New York and Again, happy to explain all that stuff. So in essence, to answer your question, defending my liberal beliefs has become a conservative position. And that's why generally people think of me as a conservative, because I hang out with all of these conservatives and Republicans and things of that nature and generally agree with them on some things. But there are some things that I disagree with them. I happen to be begrudgingly pro choice. I think you are too. Obviously things like marriage equality. It's not an issue anymore. But I think that was a just cause, by the way, a liberal cause, because it was equality for all people and a few other marginal things. But I just want the government off my back. I think this is a fundamentally incredible country that is the dream of everybody who has ever lived here. And it's why nobody leaves and everyone still wants to come here. And I'm always interest in hashing it out with people that I have marginal differences with, not people that say, want to behead me. I usually think of that as a red line.
- [05:32]
Stephen A. Smith
But based on what you describe yourself to be, there's nothing about it really that speaks to liberalism. So at one point in time in your life, you described yourself as a liberal or a Democrat, whatever word is appropriate, go with it. My question to you would be, what changed? What specifically made you make the shift to say, wait a minute, this is not what I believe in. It's more along the conservative line. Was there the specific moment where that occurred?
- [06:02]
Dave Rubin
There's a couple ones. Many people had seen the video where I sat down with Larry Elder, who I'm sure you know, conservative radio host who's been in the game for decades. He's really a libertarian more than anything else, but right leaning for sure. And we sat down. It's now about 10 years ago. I was definitely on the left. I had just been on the Young Turks network, started doing my show with Larry King's Aura tv. And we got into it about systemic racism. And he smacked me around with some facts. And basically what happened was we weren't live streaming that, it was live to tape. And he really just bludgeoned me with fact over fact over fact related to policing and quote, unquote, systemic racism and a series of things. And when I got into the control room after I had several producers at the time and everybody was like, dave, we'll edit that out. Don't worry about that. Because I was not. I was beaten. I mean, Larry, nobody beats Larry when it comes to hardcore numbers and facts. And I truly, Stephen, I think I had my best and worst career moment. At the exact same time, it was my worst moment, for obvious reasons. I got into an intellectual battle, and I didn't have the weapons, you know, the intellectual weapons to back it up. And then it was my best moment because without even thinking, when they said, we'll get rid of that. Don't worry, I said, guys, if I'm going to do this for a living, that was real, and we got to air it, and it is what it is. And I'll tell you, Stephen, the next day, that thing went up, and you know how the Internet works suddenly gets clipped a zillion which ways the titles are Black Conservative Destroys White Libtard. And when you're that white Libtard, it's not so fun and all that. But what I saw, and this truly changed my life, my life changed that day. I saw all of these people in the comments, even though I'm getting owned, but all of these people going, you know, Ruben sat there and he listened, and it seems like he'll continue having that conversation. And I really did continue to have that conversation. I started having you with Dennis Prager and Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro, people who I had big political disagreements with. You know, even. Even when it comes to something like marriage equality, Ben and I do not see eye to eye on that. You know, he. He takes it more from a religious perspective. I'm not totally sure where he stands on a secular perspective on that, but I have no problem engaging with people that I disagree with. And. And that's actually, in some sense, that's the most liberal position of all.
- [08:20]
Stephen A. Smith
Dave Rubin, right here with Stephen, a straight shooter. You know, Dave, everybody knows you.
- [08:24]
Dave Rubin
You.
- [08:25]
Stephen A. Smith
You know, obviously, you know, you're a gay individual, you're married. When you think about the LGBTQ community, who do you find to be more supportive of that segment of our population? Because most people would say it's the liberals, it's the. It's the Democrats, it's the progressives, as opposed to the conservatives. I'd like to know your answer to that question. And if it is the left, instead of how do you still justify being on a part of it? I'm listening.
- [08:55]
Dave Rubin
No, I wish you were right. And I would say if this was 10 years ago, that might be right. But I can tell you this. The left, when you are a minority or an oppressed minority, as they like, they like you to be perfectly oppressed. And I don't consider myself oppressed. I happen to be gay. I've been married. We've been together for 15 years. I've been married for 12 years, we have two kids. We live a very normal, functioning, in some sense, conservative life. I get why it's not perfect, perfectly conservative, I really do. But you've been to my home several times and seen, you know, I'm a normal guy like anybody else. And then, and then sexuality happens to be just like a little piece of something. Unfortunately, because I don't view my sexuality as a, as an oppression, the left has really no use for me. I mean, that's not to say I don't get any hate from, say, more religious conservatives on the right. I do for sure, and I'm not denying that. But the bulk of the hate that I get related to my sexuality is from the left because they demand that I be a Democrat. And by the way, let's not forget Donald Trump is the first incoming, first time president who was for marriage equality. Even Barack Obama, the hero of the left when he came in the first time, was not. But again, this is what I would say. This is the beauty of what the true liberal position is. If you fight for equality for everybody, every single person, regardless of any of that immutable nonsense, then that is right and it is just. And that's what I'm trying to conserve right now. I would also say that the letters, you know, I try to never use the letters that you just used there. And I know why, everyone does. Right, I get it. But the T's have nothing to do with the other ones. Meaning I have no more insight into what it is to be a trans person than you do as a heterosexual. Right. Like that's a completely different thing. And you know, the ultimate irony, of course, is that in some sense they're the most rigid when it comes to sort of sexual roles or gender roles or that sort of thing, because they might these days if a 5 year old boy is effeminate and let's say he likes Barbie or he likes dancing more than he likes Transformers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whatever the hell there are, they'll tell you that he's a girl and they will, quite literally, in many cases, particularly in blue states, try to push him towards that. And then you know, all the next stuff, you've been very outspoken about it, particularly in the realm of sports. But what they will do with chemical castration and hormone blockers and all those things, the other version of it, and you can see this in the wnba, a lot of girls who are a little more butch, they're a little more athletic, they do turn out to be lesbians. But not all of them. And once you do that to a kid, man, in some sense it's the most radically anti gay thing that there could possibly be. You're saying, oh, you behave this way, you're a little more effeminate, you must be a woman, you're a little more butch, you must be a dude. So the T to me has nothing to do with it. And I try to make that point all the time. But again, I would just say I only represent myself, I don't represent anyone else other than that. And I, and I try to make that very clear in all the interviews that I do. But I don't get any hate. Really. Yeah, from, from the right, on the religious side, but that's it. Yeah, right.
- [12:10]
Stephen A. Smith
And you don't get any hate from the right. Is that something that's new or is that something that you believe has always existed from the right? Because so many times and when you hear the word conservative, it's old school, it's, it's picket white fences and beautiful White house and you know, it's marriage. This, you know, everything is aligned, you know, with religion, principled positions. This is the kind of impression conservatives spent decades giving Americans everywhere. And then all of a sudden you hear what you just said and it seems to be like the Democrats are a bit more rigid than the conservatives. And I don't know how many people would believe you saying that, but that's what you just said.
- [12:50]
Dave Rubin
Yeah, well, look, I think you have a little bit of a version of this too, as you've become more political and you find that right leaning people, whether they agree with you or disagree with you, I have found conservatives to be way more open, way more willing to agree to disagree. I agree with you to be generous and kind of spirit and everything else. So yes, conservatives, because inherently if you're trying to conserve something, then you're going to set some boundaries around it and then you're going to be perhaps suspicious or skeptical of people that are a little bit different. So I'm not telling you, if this was 25 years ago that, you know, this is 2000 now, roughly, would I say conservatives were great when it came to marriage equality? Well, of course I wouldn't say that. And I do credit the march of liberalism to getting marriage equality, which all it is is that gay people have the same exact rights when it comes to getting into a marital contract that straight people have. That is a just liberal cause. The issue I think is that because conservatives have usually some set of ideals that may be around religion or whatever it is that people want to uphold, people want to force them to uphold them at all moments, right? So if you believe in traditional marriage, so we could do this from two different versions. Charlie Kirk, my friend Charlie Kirk, who. Man, I wish he was still here. Charlie Kirk believed in a biblical version of marriage between man and a woman from a Christian perspective. Ben Shapiro believes in it. From a Jewish perspective. Neither one of those guys, in my years of friendship with them, once gay marriage was passed, were fighting against it. Now, that's not to say we couldn't have come to loggerheads on this at some point, but I think both of them realize that from an American perspective, in a country of 350 million people who are so freaking different from every walk on Earth, what you want to put above your, even sometimes your most cherished beliefs is the idea of liberty, is the idea of individual rights and dignity. And if you can do that, that's how we can get through a lot of the nonsense that we're in right now. It's the ultimate equalizer, individual rights. And so that's why I've been able to have these conversations with religious people who maybe otherwise wouldn't be thrilled. Let's say.
- [15:12]
Stephen A. Smith
Dave Rubin right here with Stephen, A straight shooter with Stephen A. David, I'll ask you this question. My mic flag fell off. I'm sorry. Ask you this question. We talk about decency. We talk about the quorum. We talk about so many different things, talk about level of tolerance, et cetera, et cetera. You're looking at the president in this White House right now. I don't think those are words that could be associated with him, Dave. Ruben, I know you support him. You understand, saying, you know, and I think he's made me look more right not to say that. Kamala Harris, of course, he would have been different. Not to say that it would. We would have been better off economically or anything like that.
- [15:42]
Dave Rubin
That.
- [15:42]
Stephen A. Smith
I'm not talking policy here. I'm talking behavior. When we allude to, you know, things like tolerance or lack thereof, we see a president that has engaged in a vengeance tour. As far as I'm concerned, we can see him. We talked about the Democrats weaponizing the justice, you know, law enforcement. We see that happening right now with the doj, FBI. We see what the president's doing. You have to be blind and dumb not to see what the hell's going on with him in terms of the people that he's targeting, the very, very things that conservatives, particularly supporters of Trump had lamented. Was happening to him and had been engaged by, on too many occasions by the Democrats is the very, very thing he's doing. How do you justify that in any way as a supporter of the president and as a conservative right now?
- [16:30]
Dave Rubin
Well, I don't know that I fully agree with the premise, but I'll go with it. So on the decorum part, but you know, in that you are, you're a freaking legendary broadcaster, right? Like I was a fan of yours way before I knew you personally. You know that part of this is a show, right? Like some of what we do, we're telling you what we believe all the time. But part of it is a show. And Donald Trump, not only was he a real estate guy in New York, but he was also a reality TV star and he was a hero of the media for 40 years, right. On Phil Donahue in the 80s and Oprah. And you watch those clips. And everyone on the left loved him at the time. Donald Trump, in terms of the decorum thing, so the truth, social posts and fighting with people and all that stuff, do I love it? No. But do I accept, especially basically, 15 years into Donald Trump coming down that elevator, do I accept that it is part of what he does, it's part of his negotiating tactic, it's part of how he keeps his kind of ideological enemies a little bit unsure of their footing and all that. I just accept it is what it is. Look, my hope is that Trump. I hope the Republicans win the midterms. I hope Trump has a really strong last two years. And then my hope would be that the Republicans might revert. It won't be needed, in essence, to have the kind of over the top thing that Trump is. That's not even a knock on Trump. Trump has woke up so many of us, and I think that's so incredibly important. But it might be that after all of this, the Republicans can kind of go back to someone who might be more statesmanlike. And I think you're a fan of his. Marco Rubio might be at the top of that list, but I think JD Would be fine and there might be some others. So in terms of the rhetoric stuff, I just don't get triggered by it the way that when Trump said tonight a civilization might die for not even one second after 15 years of this did I think Donald Trump meant, I'm dropping four nukes on Iran tomorrow. It was just a negotiating thing. Now, in terms of the other part,
- [18:30]
Stephen A. Smith
yeah, I'm saying I can flow with that. My issue is that rhetoric mattered when it came from the left, rhetoric mattered when people opened their mouth and talked and we talked about the detrimental effect it could have on our society because we never know what they're going to do. We never know what they're plotting on doing. And the American citizen out there that might not be as informed over every issue as somebody who studies it every day, like yourself and many others may be. And as a result, you've got to take that American citizen into consideration. I have railed against politicians on Capitol Hill primarily because in a binary system that we live in, when they're so vitriolic towards one another in front of the camera, you're not taking into account that you might go out to dinner afterwards and stuff like that, meaning them on Capitol Hill and everything is just fine. But you've left 300 plus million American citizens to deal with one another in the streets of America and then you want to act like you had nothing to do with the dissension that exists. That's my problem with both sides of the aisle.
- [19:28]
Dave Rubin
So that I 100% agree with. Look, if there was a way, and I try, I mean, I desperately try on my show all the time, and I know you do too, and our friend Bill Maher does probably better than anybody, if there was a way to defang some of the venom right now, I would be all for it. When my career took off, it was because I was having decent conversations as a lefty with mostly people on the right, and then I was embraced by the right and kind of kicked out with the left. So the challenge for all of us, you're totally right. Maybe we don't think about it properly, but maybe the way we should be thinking about it is we're supposed to map to the politicians how they're supposed to do it. We always think we're supposed to take our cues from the politicians, but maybe we should be giving them the cues. But again, that's sort of why I do think this particularly unique thing with rhetoric around Trump and the Trump deranged people who say the most insane things about him and then he comes back this way, it won't last forever. It really won't. But I would also say, Stephen A. If you've ever read any of the letters that the founders were sending to each other or when they were, when quite literally the first few presidents were, I mean, they would say, this guy's got gonorrhea, this guy's got syphilis. So it's not as if this stuff has never existed. But yes, social media makes it it feel a thousand times worse. And, and we're all algorithmically manipulated and everything else. But I'm completely with you on that. And I would love, listen, if you can find a place that we can do more of that, you know, figure out a way that we can map more of that. I mean, it's, I guess it's what we're trying to do here. I'm all about it.
- [20:57]
Stephen A. Smith
Dave Rubin, I wanted to get to Ron DeSantis with you because I had to. You know, I met him just a couple of weeks ago and I know eventually, you know, he told me he's going to sit down with me, and I'm looking forward to having that conversation. But you're going to be sitting down with him for a live event in, in June, if I remember correctly, if I read up on that correctly. I know you, you, you, you, you come, you live in Florida. You're a supporter of his. And the man is definitely, he's smart as a whip, no question about it. And it is a clear leader of the state of Florida. And it would happen to be him in this moment in time. Nobody can doubt that. My issue with him is, is particularly when he was talking. I, I mean, I remember when they were talking about there was some good elements of slavery and stuff like that that really, really turned me off. Off, and I was not happy with him ever since. And that's something that I have no doubt we'll talk about if I sit down with him. But my question to you would be along the lines of your interview coming up with him. Some of the proceeds would benefit Prageru, which obviously had its own issues. Prageru and Florida conservatives took heed over a slavery curriculum controversies. Do you think the right sometimes overcorrects in culture war battles? And what, and what's your feelings about that, especially as this interview is about to come up with you and Ron DeSantis.
- [22:10]
Dave Rubin
Yeah. Well, first let me just quickly address the, the slavery thing, and you should ask DeSantis exactly what he thought. I thought Byron Donalds, who's our congressman down in southwest Florida, he had a great answer on that. It wasn't, they weren't saying that slavery in and of itself was good. The argument was that being outside is good for us.
- [22:27]
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- [22:55]
Dave Rubin
social slaves learn certain trades that actually were positive, which that obviously is true. If you learned a trade that then you could take with you for the rest of your life or bring to your children or whatever it might be, build a life and everything else. That doesn't excuse slavery at all. But you should unpack that with DeSantis. But, yeah, we're doing this event at The Fillmore on June 11th here in Miami, and Ben Shapiro will be there. Adam Crolla, Jillian Michaels. The reason I wanted to do it was we get stuck in this thing where we're always talking about the things that we hate, right? We're always talking about what we're against. It's very easy for me to wake up every morning and write my show and go, ah, the lefties did this. And AOC said something crazy and this one did that. And the NBA went woke. And I can do that all day long, right? But what I wanna do and what Florida has really afforded me in these last five years since I moved here from la, is there are great things happening in this country. Florida is booming, and it's not an accident. It's because, as Ron DeSantis says, decline is a choice, and we are not choosing it here in Florida. We are number one in education. You know, the amount of money now coming down here, and all the players from New York who don't want to deal with the tax situation, all the people like me who fled Cali, right? You've put some roots down here there. It is safe, it is clean. We don't have massive drug problem. Businesses are booming. I mean, go to almost any other state. I was just in New York. You go to the suburbs and look at the strip malls and basically you'll get eight closed stores with maybe one kind of seven, 11 mom and pop shop and something else. You go to our strip malls here in Florida. They are jam. The economy is moving along. There are jobs, all of the COVID stuff. How well he managed all of that and fought to keep the state open. So I wanted to do a show where we will celebrate that and show people especially, you know, we're doing this June 11th, but we got our 250th anniversary coming up on July 4th. I want people to feel that there is a way to do America right. And we're doing it in some of these places, but you just gotta be willing to see it. But you should ask him that question.
- [24:59]
Stephen A. Smith
I am going to ask him that question. No question about it. And in the interest of full disclosure, let me not be phony here. I'm a Florida resident my damn self. I migrated. And we ain't lying to the public. You're damn right I did it because of New York and the taxes and everything in New York. I'm sick of it. No question about it. So I'm with you in that regard. But, you know, getting back to the slavery curriculum thing, I remember one time I used. I was a guest on Jesse Waters show because Jesse Waters, I think, does a good job. And I was a guest on his show, but I hadn't been on as a guest in a. In quite a while. One of the things he turned me off about, and Ron DeSantis had turned me off about the same time. I'm. I found myself looking at them and saying, you're not black. Why even bring that up? Why even talk about. I said, I don't give a damn what trade you learned or whatever. It's. It's so. It was so iniquitous, so insidious, the, you know, the issue of slavery. Why even touch that?
- [25:53]
Dave Rubin
That.
- [25:53]
Stephen A. Smith
That was my attitude. And the same with the curriculums, with the books and everything like that, with President Trump and what he endorsed with executive orders and stuff like this, addressing dei, my attitude was this. And I said this to Officer Tatum on his podcast, come to me and tell me that you would tell the Jewish community they ain't going to have, you know, they're going to have, they're going to limit. They don't have the access limited to books and other education material about their history. And watch what happens. In other words, if you're gonna do something like that, if you did it to everybody, then I get where you're coming from. But when it seemed isolated towards the black community, it was a huge turn off for me. And that's actually a question I will ask Byron Donald, too, who will also be a guest on this show in the future.
- [26:40]
Dave Rubin
I'm glad to hear that. I don't know that there was limited access to the black community to certain books, but I would say this. You know, if you said, if somebody wrote a book and, and I'm sure books have actually been written about this, that the Holocaust actually taught the Jewish people a certain lesson and that look at how many Holocaust survivors became unbelievably successful business People and all sorts of things in various countries. That would be true. And it would be worth noting because the Holocaust was horrible and slavery was horrible. We don't have to play the game of which is worse or anything else. There are terrible things have happened to all sorts of people. But out of terrible things, good things do happen. So I think an apples to apples equation would be, is it possible that some slaves learned trades that ultimately were positive? I think the answer to that is yes, and I don't think that makes slavery good. And is it possible that survivors of the Holocaust who had their families annihilated learned something about survival and everything else that they were able to then apply to business and the world and family afterwards? Obvious answer to that is yes. And that doesn't make the Holocaust good. But again, I think it would be worth unpacking that with them a little bit. And I'm sure, you know, a few of the people, a few of the scholars who put that curriculum together, by the way, were black. So I get it. I get you are going to have a certain sensitivity to something that might be different than mine. And this is where. What a great place to try to whittle all of that down, right? Imagine if we whittled all of that stuff down to, hey, hey, we're just from slightly different places. We just look slightly different. We want the same things, and we've whittled it down to this much. I'll do that all day long.
- [28:27]
Stephen A. Smith
So would I. Dave Ruber, right here with Stephen A. Straight shooter with Stephen A. Getting Back to Ron DeSantis. What's one issue where you genuinely disagree with him? Because every time you speak about him, you seem incredibly supportive, and I'm not knocking you for it. I'm just wondering if there's something that you disagreed with him about, what would it be?
- [28:48]
Dave Rubin
And in terms of policy, I don't think I have anything. I think he has left this state so freaking strong. You know, he's working on getting rid of property taxes right now, which we likely will do. It's already passed the House. He's got to get it to referendum, but he's done everything right. I'll tell you an amazing story about DeSantis. The day I was at his reelection a couple years ago at the reelection party, and I was broadcasting from the. From the evening that night, and a guy came up to me right before we went live and said, dave, I gotta tell you something. I'm an electrical engineer down in southwest Florida in Fort Myers. And he said, when Desantis when Hurricane Ian hit, which was the category five that just decimated Southwest Florida. It's the 100 year storm that we had about three years ago. He said DeSantis got all the engineers. He took us to the Sanibel Causeway, which is a 3 or 4 mile, 3 or 4 mile long bridge that got annihilated. And he said to all of us, what do you need me to do so you guys can fix this? And basically, they. They gave him the list and that bridge was functional in about a month. Everybody was saying it was going to be years. So the guy consistently does the right thing. If I was critical, if you just want me to really, really dig deep here, I would say he probably has to get a little better at this. Just a little better at letting go of policy and just kind of shooting the bull with people. And you know that when he was running, he was a little too stiff, something like that. But even that, I'm really digging for that because, you know, I'm not looking for a friend to be president. I'm looking for a great executive to be president. But I know a lot of people want a friend. A lot of people want, you know, just some funny, jovial, whatever. So, yeah, I would say that he could probably get better at that. But policy, I don't know. I don't know. Do you have one?
- [30:36]
Stephen A. Smith
I. No, I don't. I. I got to think hard and long about it, but being in Florida and seeing what he's done there. Listen, I don't have to agree with everything. I know it's a hell of a lot better than New York. I know it's a hell of a lot better than California. I know that much. Ain't no question about that. And I got to give credit where credit is due in that regard. Other than that, I mean, you know, you do want to hear a little. A heightened level of sensitivity towards minority groups in this country. You do want to see that, because the desolate, the disenfranchised and beyond. Listen, when you're catering as a party and you're perceived rather as catering to the white establishment, that's more of the same. And that leaves a lot of people on the outside looking in. As chaotic as the world is right now, I know there's a lot of people that would prefer the quote, unquote, good old days compared to some of the stuff that we're seeing right now, but there's still a lot of people in America that would say hell no to that because of the progressive steps that have been. Take that. Have taken place.
- [31:29]
Dave Rubin
Place.
- [31:29]
Stephen A. Smith
Having said all of that, you are a transplant from California to Florida. Like you said, I happen to know you were recently in California. Your thoughts about the, the, the state of. The state of California. Because Gavin Newsom is perceived as being. He's predict. Some people are predicting he will be the Democratic nominee in 2028. Not everyone, but some people are saying that. Your thoughts about what you've seen when you were out here. Because that's where I'm at.
- [31:59]
Dave Rubin
Yeah. You know, I'm a born and bred New Yorker. I was born in 76 in Brooklyn, before it was, you know, hipster Brooklyn, when it was old school Brooklyn. I grew up in the suburbs in Long island, but I lived in New York city for about 20 years. And then I had. I had eight years in Cali in Los Angeles, and I had six great years there. And the day Covid started, it all ended. I knew it that day. And I fought very hard. I actually ended up. What a beautiful ending to the story of Larry Elder. You know, he. This is the guy that woke me up politically. And then I ended up campaigning with Larry or on stage with him to get rid of Newsom during the recall. Look, everything Newsom touches turns to crap except his bank account. This is a guy who was mayor of San Francisco, which was one of the most beautiful, flourishing cities in the United States, maybe the most. Especially when you think of its proximity to Silicon Valley, the amount of money coming through the beautiful, the mountains, the water, the Golden Gate Bridge, all this stuff. And he turned it into an absolute nightmare. I once went, when Elon took over Twitter, I was invited to go there. And I go up to Elon's office and he's got a corner office there, and I'm trying to talk business with him or what the hell's going on with shadow banning on Twitter and the rest. And he goes, watch this, watch this. And he shows me, he's pointing and basically does play by play as if he's watching a basketball game of where they get the drugs, where they do the drugs and where they wander to. And we just watched them. It was like watching a video game. So I'm upstairs with the world's richest man, watching him show me what an absolute disaster it is just feet below him. Everyone knows how bad San Francisco's got. And then, of course, what happens in Cali politics, you then become governor and you push that across the state. When I was in Los Angeles this week, I mean, the homeless situation, homelessness is one thing. It's the drug situation that they just allow this everywhere. Everywhere. My guy Joey, who works for me, who you've met, he came with me. He hadn't been to LA as an adult. I mean, we saw people smoking, cracking, cooking drugs or whatever it is right on the corner of the street in broad daylight at 8:00am and then, you know, people have to wander by. But the thing is, not a lot of people wander by because the street, the stores are closed. We kept saying to each other, where are all the people? Where are all the people? So I don't know what the plan in Los Angeles is. It's like, okay, we could all just. The rich people will just live in the hills and then it'll be just sort of a Mad Max wasteland on the bottom. But Cali has huge problems and unless LA, look, LA's gotta go. Spencer Pratt. But the numbers just are really tough. You know, the idea of a Republican running that city and, you know, is there any chance for Steve Hilton to win governor? It's a super majority Democrat state. I really hope I'm wrong, but I just see very little chance for return.
- [34:40]
Stephen A. Smith
What about Gavin Newsom and his supporters making the argument that whether it's economic stability, maintaining a massive economy that serves as the world's fourth largest, and balance the state's updated budget without a structural deficit heading into 2028, they'll point to social safety nets, they'll point to health care expansion. They'll say, these are good things. We just care about the people. The right does not. What do you say to an argument that Gavin Newsom and supporters of Gavin Newsom would say to that?
- [35:07]
Dave Rubin
Of course they will say that. Gavin will say he cares about you as he ruins the city that you live in. Right, Like Gavin Newsom. There's a very famous video of Gavin Newsom about 15 years ago when he was mayor of San Francisco, talking about his five to ten year plan to end homelessness. And he got all the money to do it, and then it exploded in San Francisco and again has now moved that to all of California. That's what they do, right? As long as you give them power. As long as you say, okay, we will take from those people for our programs, they will pretend that they love you, but you just need to look at the fruits of those things. I mean, let's try it this way. One big blue city that is thriving right now.
- [35:51]
Stephen A. Smith
No, I cannot.
- [35:53]
Dave Rubin
And that's the answer.
- [35:54]
Stephen A. Smith
I can't say it's la. I can't say it's New York, I can't say that. I can't say that at all.
- [35:59]
Dave Rubin
Chicago, which has basically the strictest gun laws in the United States, has more shootings every weekend than virtually any other place. Right. So there's. You could do that version of it. You can do, we just did the homeless and drug version that you're seeing in LA and San Francisco. You could do the New York City version of it where all of the people with means are leaving eventually. People say, boy, you know, I'm getting taxed 38% by the feds. You can't escape that. That is what it is. Now I'm in New York City and if, you know, I'm, I'm a top earner, well, okay, now that I'm going to be hit another 13%. If I live in New York City, there's another tax on top of that.
- [36:34]
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- [37:03]
Dave Rubin
and ways to save paid payroll tax and everything else. At some point you go, boy, I'm making a million dollars a year. That's pretty good. But I'm only walking with, I don't know, 300, 400, something like that, which of course is nice. 300 $400,000 is nice, but you are not rich in New York City with that amount of money. So then I come down to Florida and I'm suddenly going, wait a minute, we've got better roads, we've got cleaner streets, we've got a more flourishing economy. And there's no state income tax. And they're trying to get rid of property taxes. Because the thing that the Democrats seem to never realize is it's not a revenue issue, it's a spending issue. That's why mom don't. He can't come up with a number. If you said to me, dave, you know, I talked to mom, dummy, and if we give this guy $20 billion, we give this guy a trillion dollars.
- [37:51]
Stephen A. Smith
He asked for 21. He asked for 21 billion.
- [37:54]
Dave Rubin
Yeah, yeah, okay, great. He asked for 21 billion. It's like what they do with minimum wage. It's like one person comes in, Bernie says I want fifteen dollar minimum wage. And then Rashida Tlaib comes in and says, why not 25? Because it's all made up. You have to run a business to understand how much to pay. People like you do. I am sure you have to look at your books. At the end of the day, made this much rev and I've got a producer. And so they're just playing an intellectual game. So whether it's the shootings in Chicago or the drugs in LA and San Francisco or the people fleeing New York because of taxes everywhere, that the progressive ideology takes root, it's not good for anybody, particularly the poor people that they're pretending to care about.
- [38:35]
Stephen A. Smith
But Dave Rubin, we also, we could flip it and we can talk about the president, President Donald Trump. Right now, approval rating is plummeting, as you well know. About 37% of voters approve of Trump's job performance according to a New York Times Sienna poll released today, down 3% from the last poll conducted in January. 69% of independents, a core voting bloc the GOP will have to capture to maintain control of the House in November. You notice disapprove of Trump, up from 62% in January. You're engaging in a war that you said wasn't war that you said would never be a war because you bombed Iran in January last June. But then you come back and you do it again. You've got people thinking that Benjamin Netanyahu is the one that coaxed him into doing this instead of him doing himself. And he did it against the wishes of his own security team. You got all of this stuff going on. Inflation is an issue. The economy is an issue. The border is not an issue anymore. And give him credit for that, no doubt. But still, in all, 50% of Americans somewhat a strong strongly approved of his handling of the economy when he first came into office. And now that has plummeted. So we can look at the Democrats and we can say what we're saying about them. What do you say about the job that President Donald Trump has done over these last few months in your estimation?
- [39:51]
Dave Rubin
Overall, I think his job, if the guy had done nothing else beyond close the border, we were being invaded. Fact, we had probably 16 to 20 million people come in in four years. That's on top of about 12 million people who were already here. Illeg you know, you end up somewhere around 30 million illegals in a country of 350 million people. That's almost 10% at some point. It is a full on Invasion. So the fact that he closed the border to me, if he did almost nothing else, I would still give him a pretty solid grade. But let me address a number you just said there. Cuz there is a key number and you're totally right. We can't just talk crap about the left. That doesn't solve anything. I think you said 69% of independence now, independence turning against him. Yeah. So look, the independence, this is where he needs to make inroads. When you look at what Trump created, the MAGA coalition, think about what he did in this last go around. He brings in Bobby Kennedy, the standard bearer, name of the Democrat party. He brings in a Kennedy. Right. So who's running as a Democrat only two years ago, right? You bring in Tulsi Gabbard, you get pot smoking, mma, fighting, mushroom eating, Joe Rogan to endorse you. You get a guy like me who was not a Trump supporter. I voted for him the last election, the middle one that he lost, but I didn't vote for him the first time. You've now got a guy like Bill Maher, they're like kind of dancing around, there's something there. So what I think Trump has to do is he has to figure out, okay, how in the next six months do I keep expanding this coalition? You've got your base because the numbers right now he's got about 97% of the MAGA base, but that's not enough. So what do you have to do? Well, most things seem to come down to the economy now. There's a limited amount of stuff that the President can do. We are getting some tax rebates from the big beautiful bill. Obviously, whether you're for or against tariffs, we do have more equitable deals with countries, including China, almost every country in the world right now. So we need to see some of that shake out. The phrases that I wanna keep hearing from Trump are common sense sensibility, like just the Iran war won't last forever. So even though gas is a little bit higher right now, it was much higher than it dropped, now it's a little bit higher. My hope is that this, whatever stalemate we're in right now with the Strait of Hormuz and the blockade, hopefully that ends. I also think, and I really don't think this can be underestimated. The 4th of July and our 250th anniversary, there's gonna be a burst of patriotism in this country, there's just gonna be a baked in burst. And I think he's gotta run with that so it's not to say that he's doing everything perfectly. Look, I think a lot of people in his base want to see more deportations even faster. So maybe he needs to move on that. But that scares off a certain amount of the libs who are moving his way. So that's what makes politics kind of fun, you know?
- [42:40]
Stephen A. Smith
But they talking to people like yourself and a lot of other folks, whether they lean that independent or they lean to the right or whatever, you run across a lot of decent people, more than people realize or willing to admit, who care. But obviously they pay attention to the economy. They can't pay attention to safety in the street. They pay attention to national security, other things like this. But I'm quite sure knowing the kind of guy that you are, you know, when I say what I'm about to say, it's going to hit you. It's going to hit you in a certain way. Way, because you care what? Nearly $1 trillion has been cut from federal health and welfare programs, primarily Medicaid, to help offset the cost of tax cuts under the Trump administration. What do you say to folks that look at Trump supporters and say, do y' all care? Do y' all not realize that this is the kind of stuff that's been happening to where the wealthy gets wealthy, but the poor and the desolate seemed stuck, and they're not thriving nearly as much as President Trump swore they would.
- [43:39]
Dave Rubin
Yeah. So how do you. Yeah, maybe this is one where we actually do have a sort of more of a bigger point of disagreement. I mean, this is where I would say, well, first off, we're uncovering crazy amounts of fraud. Right. This is what JD has been tasked with. Right now we are finding out. Do you know that a third. This is nuts. Dr. Oz, who's in charge of Medicare right now, a third of the hospices in the entire country are in Los Angeles, and they are being funneled insane amounts of money. So the idea that when, okay, you cut this from this, well, doesn't mean the money was working. I think one of the things that the Democrats are really good at is they'll go, okay, education's not good. Throw more money at it. But that's not really what the issue is. You wanna make better education, you wanna have better healthcare and everything else. So this is where I don't think that people. I don't think people are getting richer just because certain amount of money is being cut from this program or that program. What I would want. And by the way, I think we're on the precipice of something really incredible with AI, you know, I want as much transparency in the system and to see where the dollars are actually going. You know, we're going through a. Basically a post World War II World with. Now we're finding out all this stuff about the NGOs. And, you know, you. You saw that Southern Poverty Law center story where they're quite literally funding the kkk. There's been such an endless money laundering thing that to me, if you say I'm cutting from this, I'm cutting from that, I don't have a problem with it because so much of it has been fraudulent. And also I would say how much of it has worked. If the idea of giving to a certain amount of people or having government programs that are supposed to help people, which are always temporary until they're permanent, if they worked, then we wouldn't have so many people stuck in those things. And that has nothing to do with skin color or anything else. If you say to a bunch of people, hey, you're gonna get subsidized housing, you're gonna get food stamps, et cetera, et cetera, and you don't have to work for it, well, then you might just not work. And that's how you get perpetual poverty and everything else. So I want as low taxes, Stephen, you're doing okay. And I want you to keep all or as much of your money as possible. And by the way, I want the guy who's making 50 grand busting his ass at Pep Boys to keep as much of his money as possible. So I think that's just a fundamental. Generally, people on the right and left, people on the right generally see it as a keep more of what's yours. And people on the left see it as more of, oh, the government must help you.
- [46:03]
Stephen A. Smith
But, but I think, I think fundamentally, based on what you're saying, for the purposes of you and I having this discussion, I don't think we're far apart in terms of how we think. I think the word trust comes into play because you're willing to apparently trust that administration along with Japan, you know, President Trump, Vice President, you know, JD Events, you know, I get that. My issue is I look at it and I say, these are the same people that couldn't come up for fighting for a month, obviously a negotiating ploy, but was fighting for a month and wasn't paying, couldn't come up with $2 billion to pay TSA workers. But you spending 2 billion a day on a war, you know, in other words, somehow Somehow you could figure out, in other words, when you want to do something, something, we got the money. When, when you don't really want to do something, or when you're playing games at the negotiating table or whatever, the American people are suffering along the way, which is what happened under this administration as well. So I think about those kind of things and that hits me.
- [47:02]
Dave Rubin
The war thing is a separate thing. There's always money for war. That's just how it is when all these people are like, if we didn't go to war yesterday, we would have put all this money into education. It's just not how it works. I don't know what to tell you, but, but you know, as far as far as the TSA people being paid, that's fully on the. The Dems, because what they were doing was holding up the Dems did the government shutdown because they wanted to stop ICE. But ICE, as I'm sure you know, was already funded. ICE is funded right now through 2029. Big beautiful bill. So the Dems wanted people to think, oh, if we do this government shutdown. And people are, you know, you got a real pain in the ass at the airport and everything else they think. And they're probably right to some extent. People don't really pay attention to things. They don't really realize that we're the ones who, who did it. It was not the Republicans in the Trump administration that did this shutdown so that those people didn't get paid, it was the Democrats. But the Democrats did it in the most cynical way because they basically said, we know it's us, but the American people aren't that bright. And when they get to the airport and they're in a big ass line, they're gonna blame Trump cause he's in charge. So they've done perhaps what you could say is very powerful cynical political ploy. But I think it's been kind of nasty. I want those people to be paid. Of course, of course.
- [48:14]
Stephen A. Smith
A few questions before I let you get on out of here. Thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it. First of all, anytime you criticize, save
- [48:20]
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- [48:51]
Stephen A. Smith
You criticized legacy media for years, but conservative media media ecosystems are now massive. Is the right becoming the new establishment media in your mind? And if so, do they deserve to be on that pedestal in your estimate?
- [49:07]
Dave Rubin
Yeah, well, I don't. I don't know if it's that the right has. You know, the fact that the right grew online faster than the left is purely because the left controlled most of the mainstream media. You know, if you think about the New York Times and ABC and CNN and msnbc, they obviously all lean left at the very least. So when YouTube and Spotify and podcasts began, the reason the hardcore political people were on the right was just because that was where the market was. There was a reaction to it. And then suddenly all these people that were like, boy, you, CNN is lying to me. New York Times is basically propaganda. They finally had a home. What I would say is one thing that's been really disappointing to me in the last year particularly, and I'm kind of an OG in this thing, like I'm an old veteran at this point, is that when I got in on this, you know, it was the Wild West. And I've always, you know, I think you know me well enough, like I'm going to get some things wrong for sure, but I do my damnedest to tell people what I think and tell them the truth. And if I make a mistake, I try to address it. I think what's happened over the last couple of years, particularly in the last year or or so, is that the whole ecosystem really has been poisoned somehow. You know, the pressures of fame and clicks. And if I do this, I get more views and the way things are monetized, I think it's broken a lot of brains. So I don't know that the right online is the new mainstream really, you know, mainstream. For all their flaws, they're still hanging on, right? Like they still are there. They're not. CBS is not closing its doors tomorrow, and neither is the New York Times. But I would say the online ecosystem, which a few years ago looked like, wow, we're really building something that could kind of map us to a great future. It's become pretty poisoned. And I was or am friends with a lot of people that I now see as kind of bad actors in that.
- [50:55]
Stephen A. Smith
In our conversations, you and I have been very, very big on civil discourse. We've talked about it on several occasions. We obviously think it's incredibly important. Do you really Think in America in the year 2026 and beyond, you know, that we're capable of returning to persuasion over tribal warfare.
- [51:13]
Dave Rubin
I love that question. I don't know. I have no idea. You know, maybe just the nature of the Internet and that there will keep pushing us all away from each other. We'll all cater news to ourselves again, then the algorithms will do God knows what to us. And we will all live in very fundamental, fundamentally different realities that quite literally, you and your neighbor will, you know, something will happen, you know, a war will start, there will be an economic collapse, whatever. There will be a natural disaster somewhere, whatever story you want to pick. And you and your neighbor, because you ingest different news, will think completely opposite things about how it happened or why it happened or who's involved. We definitely could be heading towards that. I would say, you know, a white pill on that would be that as AI, as I referenced before, cleaning up some of the fraud, you know, AI, hopefully if we can trust these models. And that's obviously a big if. And, you know, some people think Grok is great. Obviously, you know, you and I are kind of elon guys, so I tend to use Grok more. But, you know, certain people don't trust him and they use ChatGPT more. And if you put the same prompt in both of those things, you're going to get very different answers. But there might be some way that cleans up some of that. But civil dis. It might just be that it's some level humanity. Society kind of is what it is. And as long as we're not killing each other, and I really mean this, it sounds kind of glib, but in a country like America, where literally every person on Earth would be jealous to be in right again, it's why nobody ever leaves. Everyone comes here. It might just be that we will live in very different worlds and the purpose of the government will just, hey, don't kill each other.
- [52:53]
Stephen A. Smith
But here we, we are in your perfect world. Who is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States for 2028? And who is the Democratic nominee they're going up against?
- [53:07]
Dave Rubin
That means Stephen A. Is not running. Is that what you're telling me?
- [53:11]
Stephen A. Smith
Yeah. I ain't giving. I ain't giving up my money. I ain't giving up my money. If they find a way for me not to have to give up my money, I'll go for it. But go ahead.
- [53:18]
Dave Rubin
No. So on the Republican side, I mean, Rubio is the all star. I think that's very obvious. It doesn't even. We don't even have to dive into the politics if just look at the track record of this guy. I've interviewed him a bunch of times. I know him pretty well from the Florida ecosystem. He is a decent family man, and he is a great spokesman for American values. I'm sure you saw that thing when he did. He stepped in at the White House press briefing the other day, and he just gave that unbelievable soliloquy on what makes America great. I think he picks up all of the right pieces. And actually, Stephen, he does exactly what you're asking for. Because basically what you're saying is you like a lot of the Trump stuff, but there's some stuff you. You're not too thrilled with and you don't like some of the rhetoric. Rubio fills in a lot of those gaps, I think. Look, JD Obviously is a skilled politician. I like him. I've interviewed him many times. I think he's a decent human being. I think there's a little bit of weirdness there kind of with the Tucker world, but okay, that would be fine. I think they will have one way. If DeSantis gets involved. I mean, you could see competent people getting in on it. And by the way, I think Trump is going to want a brokered convention, Mark my words. I don't think this thing's being handed to J.D. i think Trump goes out and he kind of.
- [54:27]
Stephen A. Smith
I don't think it should be.
- [54:28]
Dave Rubin
Yeah. Oh, no, you don't think he should
- [54:30]
Stephen A. Smith
be handed to him? I think J.D. i think the problem. I think to a lesser degree, Desantis. A significantly lesser degree. DeSantis had the same problem when he was running that I think J.D. has now. I think they try. I think he tries to be too Trumpish. Marco Rubio, I find him to be his own man. I find him to be an adult in. In the room. He has to deal with the stuff he has to deal with because of the position that he's in, and Trump is the boss, but he's nothing like that, and he has no desire to be that. And I appreciate that. Whereas with JD JD Strikes me as somebody who tries to come across as a younger version of Trump.
- [55:07]
Dave Rubin
When I tell you a story, I don't think I've ever told the story on camera. I don't think Rubio will mind. But a couple years ago, when Rubio was running for reelection down here in Florida for Senate, and there was tons of Senate senators that were up for reelection nationwide, I went to a pretty well known tech guy, fundraiser and there were about eight senators there, all giving their pitch with big money people there. And seven of the eight were there. And Rubio wasn't there, but his name was on the list, he was supposed to be there. And all these guys come in and they give their full on political pitches. Very rehearsed and practiced and all that stuff. And Rubio comes in real late and he goes, hey guys, listen, I'm sorry I was late. I gotta tell you, my son's playing football in high school tonight. I just really wanted to go to the game. And his voice was almost cracking. He was like, I really wanted to go to the game and I really wanted to see it and I wanted to be there for him. He goes, I think most of you know my track record and if you want to donate money to me, that's fine. And if you don't, I apologize for being late and that's fine too. And I thought, man, that's it right there. That's it right there. He probably could have walked out of there millions of bucks. I know. Don't know. And I don't know, maybe he wouldn't want me or the guy that ran it wouldn't want me to say that story. But I'm telling you that's the truth. And I think that gets to the heart of what you're talking about on the Democrat side. I mean, I really think it's just gonna be a clown car of ridiculousness. They don't know what to do. So you have the real radical side of it. So let's say AOC probably represents that right now, like the real hardcore progressive, whatever that is. You'll get two or three others. You know, Bernie's done, Elizabeth Warren's done. Those guys have run out. The guy that I think is the dark horse, who I had to guess will be the nominee is Pete Buttigieg. And the reason I'm saying that is, have you noticed that he sounds exactly like Barack Obama? I mean, the literally the way he speaks, the tone.
- [57:02]
Stephen A. Smith
No, I have not noticed that.
- [57:04]
Dave Rubin
Oh, I have nothing. I'm going to text you a video where they've done a side by side of the pauses and the hand motions. I really think they are training him. And it seems to, to me. Yeah.
- [57:17]
Stephen A. Smith
It's important that I ask you of all people this question. Based on what you just said about Pete Buttigieg. Do you think America would ever vote for a gay individual to be the presidency of the United States?
- [57:30]
Dave Rubin
Don't know. You know, I know people want me to say I Suppose that. I think there's all this homophobia out there, which is. I just don't like these phobia terms. I don't know. I think in America, people judge you on your beliefs and your behavior, and if they believe that his beliefs and his behavior are decent, then they will vote for him. But I think what will happen with the Dems, the reason I think I'm kind of leaning towards it being him is he's young, kind of looks the part. He's modeling Obama. And I think the way they will sell him to the public is the same way they sold Joe Biden, believe it or not, because Joe Biden was sold to us as I'm not a radical loser, lunatic lefty. But then he governed like one. And I think that's exactly what would happen with Buttigieg. It would be their way of saying, see, to the Democrats, we're not crazy. We're not going with aoc, we're not going with the mom dummy types. We're going with Pete. But then Pete would end up governing as if he was one of them. I don't know the answer. What do you think on that? Do you think America would. When it comes to sexuality? Yeah, I think that's fair. That might be right. That might. Might be right.
- [58:40]
Stephen A. Smith
Right. And, you know, they should or shouldn't, but I don't believe they would.
- [58:44]
Dave Rubin
You know, you might be right on that. And I'll. Frankly, I. I don't care as long as gay people have equal rights as everybody else. You know, if America has a gay president, I couldn't care less. And. And I also couldn't care less about the president's skin color or gender.
- [58:58]
Stephen A. Smith
Right, right. Last question. Had a black individual, black man that is a liberal, that sent me something about the gop, and I wanted to share it with you just so you can hear where a lot of black liberals are coming from when they speak about this administration, this party, at this particular moment in time or even for the last several decades. This is what he wrote. I'm not going to say who it is because I don't have his permission to do so, because I don't know if he wanted me to say this publicly. He said, bruh, GOP can't get black votes unless they appeal to black voters. They will never do that because their entire agenda is to appeal to white voters. Knowing as many black individuals that you speak to in the world of politics and outside of politics that you talk to about social issues, political issues, et cetera, et cetera. Dave Rubin, when you hear that, that's the thinking of a lot of folks who are black that are not on the right. What's your reaction to that? Knowing what you know about the modern day conservative gop?
- [60:11]
Dave Rubin
Yeah, well, it makes me very sad to hear that actually, because I know plenty of black conservatives who are treated the exact same way. White conservatives or Jewish conservatives or whatever it else might be. You know, I always think back to when Donald Trump in his first go round when he was given that State of the Union speech and he talked about lowest all time black and Latino unemployment. Do you remember that? And then the camera flashed to the Congressional Black Caucus and they all sat there like this. And I thought, man, if nothing else, okay, you hate this guy. You don't like the way he tweets all of this stuff. But he just said that black unemployment is at an all time low. Could you not give him credit for that? So when I hear someone say, well, he doesn't care about us, or he cares more about white people, what I think Donald Trump cares about is American success. And he's trying to do the things that will create success for everybody. If, if.
- [61:05]
Stephen A. Smith
Yeah, but hold on. He didn't say Donald Trump specifically. He said the GOP pointed out 1865 to 1964. He talked about black folks did vote for, for Republicans. Why? Because they had a black agenda. When the GOP cast black folks aside, black folks left. So in other words, what he's saying, when he was talking about Trump, he was Talking about since 1964, they cast black folks cite white Southern strategy and all of this other stuff. And because they cast black issues and black voters aside, that's when black voters left. And that's what he's talking about. That's how the party is still viewed today. That's what he was saying.
- [61:40]
Dave Rubin
So there it seems to be more of an optics issue than maybe a reality issue. I don't know. To me, black people are just like white people and everybody else. So the best thing you can do is get the government off their back, make sure they have more of their own money in their pocket to make the decision if they happen to live, let's say in urban areas that have crime or drugs, you'd wanna have more policing, not defund the police. So I would say to that person, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that the Republicans have done everything right. Of course they have not. And by the way, the parties flip over time, right? In many sense, in many ways, Donald Trump is a Democrat of 25 years ago. But what I would say is, if you look at the last, let's say four or five decades, what did the Democrats do for the black community? The black community basically as voted around 90 plus percent for the Democrats and show me the fruits of that. So if you keep voting for people who keep making your life worse, whether that is true or just the perceived reality, you might wanna put some pressure on them and say, hey, I'm gonna go over there and see what happens. So that's just a little bit of real politic, right. If a group of people, if a group of people in power know that you're gonna vote for them no matter what. Matter what, they're not going to give you much.
- [62:55]
Stephen A. Smith
You saw me, I just said that last week. I said, listen, I said I wanted folks to vote Republican for one election. People act like I just said that. I've been saying it for over 20 years. I said, just one election. Black folks vote Republican. Why? So the Democrats know they can't take your vote for granted. The Republicans know they have a chance to get your vote. And as a result you're not disenfranchised because both sides are volley and frank for your vote. That's what you should be doing. That's what I said.
- [63:20]
Dave Rubin
Even real quick. Let me just say one other thing because you know how much I admire you. I love you as a broadcaster and I was a fan before we got to know each other. And the cool thing is that you. I love people that sort of get dragged into politics. I don't love like the purely political people. I really don't. Because politics is not everything. And in many ways you do for a living what I really wanted to do. I wanted to be an ESPN broadcaster. When I was a kid, I was watching before Olbermann went nuts. I was watching him and Ken Kilbourne when I was in college going, man, that is what I want to do. And you know how much I love basketball. And if I could get to do that for a living, I could probably ease up on the political thing pretty quickly. When I was in New York City, I saw Buck Williams, who I loved from those early 90s blazers, and I was like, I love you, man. And that, that to me was the best part of the whole trip. It had nothing to do with being on TV or anything else, so. Right. But I did Dave Ruben basketball twice.
- [64:10]
Stephen A. Smith
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if it was twice. I don't know if it was twice. You know, it's rigged. It's your own backyard. You're familiar with the ribs. Appreciate you, my man. Thanks so much for the conversation, man. Look forward to talking to you again. You take it easy. We'll catch up soon. All right.
- [64:22]
Dave Rubin
Good to see you, my friend.
- [64:23]
Stephen A. Smith
All right, buddy. The one and only Dave Rubin right here with Stephen A. Straight Shooter with yours truly. Stephen A. Got a tremendous podcast. The Rubin Report does a great, great job all the time. I've been a guest on this show on a couple of occasions and obviously he was a guest on my show right now for the first time. Really enjoyed that conversation. A light, a lot of stuff to be in light enlightened about. Make no mistake about it, it's all about perspectives, everybody. It's all about perspectives and you can't learn about them unless you actually hear them. Meaning willing to listen and hear. That's what it's all about. That's what we just had a conversation today. Both of us thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm sure. That's it for this edition of Straight Shooter. Catch you Wednesday night on my show, Straight Shooter with Stephen A. SiriusXM POTUS Radio Channel124, Wednesday nights, every Wednesday night from 6 to 8pm See you then. Until then, peace and love, everybody. Stephen A. Signing off.
- [65:16]
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