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Tom Bilyeu
I'm Tom Bilyeu, and this is Impact Theory. Welcome back to part two of my conversation with Dave Rubin. If you missed part one, I highly recommend going back, because today we're going layers deep on the cultural divide and what it really takes to think for yourself when the entire system is pulling you in the opposite direction. Let's get back into it, man. We'll see where this goes. Um, if this really is a fight for the narrative of what America is, I find narratives are really meant to give people a frame of reference, encapsulate a value set that allows them to move forward with confidence, or in the case of the narrative on the left, to disempower the people that have created all the problems as they would see it and empower those that are going to pull us out of that history of sin. If this is a battle, how do
Dave Rubin
you gauge the thing that I mentioned before, the online version of this, where a lot of it seems burning very hot? You know, if I open up X, it looks like, oh, my God, the Nazis have returned versus what's going on in real life? Because I can tell you I'm going to play basketball when we finish up. I play with this incredible group. 25 guys. I'm down here in Miami. We got. It's a lot of ethnically Latino people, so we got a lot of Cubans down here in Venezuelans and Puerto Ricans, and everyone's speaking different languages. And they come and I got Canadian or white guy and just this whole crazy group of guys. I don't think anyone's thinking about any of this stuff. And these are guys that care about politics, but I don't think any of them are suddenly like, maybe I am a Nazi, or maybe the Nazis are back or anything like that. I just don't. And I'm really trying. And it's partly why I go off the grid, actually. It's because we're caught in the algorithmic manipulation and the digital world. And it's real. It is real. I'm not denying the power of that. But it's very hard to. We're doing that map thing. It's very hard to map that to what's happening in reality. How do you do it?
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, so the way that I think about this is it takes a very small number of very shrewd people to create policy that can make the world better or way, way worse. But it's all downstream of narrative. So I think you're right. I think the average person doesn't think about it. I think the average person is absolutely lovely and we should all remind ourselves of that and have a great time. At the same time, I think that policies matter a lot. And when I look at one policy, in 1913, the Federal Reserve act was passed. I think it was done through manipulation and spin, and I think that we are now paying a catastrophic price for that decision. So I think what's happening now is you have the masses who feel something is wrong. They can tell the system is rigged against them. I think the average person feels that, that things are not moving in a great direction. It's harder to make ends meet. Inflation is 25% up in the last five years. Everybody is going to feel that. And so now people are just waiting for, like, okay, well, what's the answer? Like, what do we do about this? And they're going to be handed.
Dave Rubin
I'm sorry to interrupt, but if you were on the right and felt all of those things you said, wouldn't you be for Trump right now? Wouldn't you think, my God, at least I got a portion of the answer. That's why I think what they're doing is so bizarre, because it comes down
Tom Bilyeu
to who has the better story. If Trump can make them money, yes, they'll drop all the other stuff.
Dave Rubin
I completely agree. American success is the antidote. Yeah, there's no doubt that's what the antidote is. And again, that's why it's not hard for me to defend Trump. And this is as. As I think you. I was not a Trump supporter the first time around. I'm a two time. How many other times did I vote for him? A couple other times I voted for him very proudly. But you're right, that's the only thing that stops the horseshoe. The only thing that stops the extremes is American success. So what I see is a guy trying to. To bring back American success, bring back America's borders, bring back the jobs, lean in on innovation and AI and do all those things. So to me, because my motives in this are American success and human flourishing, and I want America to be great and wonderful and fulfill the promise of our ancestors and all of those things. It's very easy for me to defend him, as you can see. And what like.
Tom Bilyeu
And I have. I've literally never said this out loud before, so I reserve the right to take this all back if an hour from now I'm like, this is terrible.
Dave Rubin
That's not how the Internet works.
Tom Bilyeu
That the. What Trump has to offer people from a narrative perspective is simply, America's like a business. We can all be entrepreneurial, and we can make this great again, and everything's going to be wonderful. The problem is, right now, the vast majority of humans think that entrepreneurs are completely corrupt, that business is extractive, and that that's not a positive vision for them. He doesn't know how to articulate what it means to be an American. He doesn't know how to encapsulate the values and give me, like, that rah rah speech. Even the speech you were talking about in Saudi Arab, which was an amazing speech. If you're at all entrepreneurial, you heard that speech and were like, yeah, word. This is America, Inc. Baby. Run it like a business. Like, show people how we can unite around common interests, that we can build a positive world where we can do trade and make money and create beautiful things for the world. As an entrepreneur, I'm here for it. I love it. But if you're looking at the masses who are somewhere between neutral and I just have a general sense of business guys are bad. That's. That's not a winning narrative. And so the other two sides have an emotional narrative that they can really get you excited about. And that, like, on this side, if you're gonna take the Jordan Peterson angle of, like, okay, you might be white, you might have original sin, but you can step into the Messiah complex. And through sacrifice and elevating others and putting yourself down and accepting that you're a fallen individual, you can do something extraordinary. So go save the world via that vehicle over here. It's like, hey, you're being manipulated by this secret cabal of Jews. Go get them. And it's, like, cool. Like, either one, I get to do, like, my thing. I get to have meaning and purpose in my life. And Trump's over here. Like, I cannot believe that between those two, Trump actually seems somewhat moderate because, boy, oh, boy, he speaks like a lunatic, but he comes across as, like, hey, I'm a business guy. Like, we're just here to, like, all do some trade, make some money.
Dave Rubin
Well, it's interesting. I think I completely hear you on that. I think you're slightly discounting some of the more, I would say, positive narrative stuff about what America really is about that Trump has done. But we can agree or agree. Give it to me on that. No, no, no.
Tom Bilyeu
I love that swaying.
Dave Rubin
Oh, well, I don't know that I can give you like an exact quote. But I mean, Trump often, if you listen to his State of the Unions and talks about what America really is and does try to push some of the extremes to the side. But even, even setting that aside, let's say, let's say you're basically directionally right about that. I would say that, you know, years ago, I think I said this to you the first time I was on your show. One of the things that helped me come around to Trump was I realized at one point that Trump was the last thing in America that was trying to save liberalism and conservatism. It was obvious how he was trying to save conservatism as a Republican, meaning he was putting on, say, you know, conservative leaning judges to reverse Roe v. Wade or something like that. But he actually was defending liberal in the truest sense. Also because classical liberalism is about free speech. It is about largely about laissez faire economics and getting the government off your back and everything else. So he was. And he didn't care about the social issues either, really. No one. Donald Trump was the first, first time president to come in being for gay marriage. I don't even think in his heart of hearts he really cares about abortion that much. He used it in a certain way. Right, Whatever. Again, I don't know it's in his heart either. But I felt he was the last thing defending both of those things. And you want some of that healthy tension. A government that's. That I would say is limited enough that if it gets pulled too far towards the left, which used to be associated with liberalism, although now has nothing to do with actual liberalism, but if it gets pulled too far this way, that's actually okay because the government is limited in scope and the same way on the right. What you might end up here with if Trump, if the, if the MAGA thing and the Trump thing falls apart, which I guess I'm a little more bullish that it's gonna succeed than you are. But if it falls apart, I think then you end up right, that the black pill that you're offering ends up right. That all of the people that have just come together, this incredible coalition that he brought together, that includes people that were literally running for president as Democrats Two years ago like Bobby Kennedy or four years ago like Tulsi Gabbard or a guy like Joe Rogan who's a pot smoking, mushroom eating MMA guy who endorsed him. This is the craziest political coalition of our lifetimes. I think it's the thing that can save America. I think he has the right people around him. But you're right, if that can't hold it, then the next thing that you're offering up is probably what will happen.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I mean, we will see. The, the economy is so complicated that I know when I explain it, I'm oversimplifying it to the point where it sounds easy. It is very much not easy. So we'll see. But yeah, if it works, then we're going to have a much better shot. And if it doesn't, then we're really going to be in trouble. Okay, so going back to this idea, we have a narrative collision. What should the narrative of America be like? What should the values B that we're trying to get people in America to embrace?
Dave Rubin
We're about to roll into our 250th year in America. We're a very young country, but 250 is a pretty good number. It's a pretty cool number. Yeah, it's pretty good. Like we've done pretty good in 250 years. Right? We fought to free the slaves. We did some bad things along the way. Women couldn't vote. Okay. That we had issues. But the arc always bent towards more justice, towards more people to the point that right now in America, unless you know something I don't know, there is no law that stops anyone from doing anything based on immutable characterist mean we're all born into everything equally. It doesn't mean some of us have born into a lot of money or have certain abilities or blah blah, blah, blah, blah. But we gotta, we have, we have set the table, I would say as well as any society ever has, notwithstanding some of the obvious corruption and other things that, that you've brought up. Okay. What I think we really have to sell and I think that this may again, I'm. It's funny, I've become a white pill guy, which I maybe never thought I would be. But I think America, as we roll into 2026, our 250th anniversary and there's going to be a lot of stuff in the media kind of celebrating America again, I think a lot of people are exhausted over the hatred of America. I don't think the woke thing worked because it burns Real hot. But things that burn hot burn quick. And I think people don't like thinking that America was fundamentally founded on slavery, which it was not, or that the 1619 project was real, which it was not, or any of those things. Our hatred period, in some sense. The hatred of America, I think does not work right now. And if enough of us get on board that it's gonna be the 250th year of this country. How about we try to do like a national project? Maybe this is what you want from Trump. Maybe Trump should give a speech beginning of 26, state of the Union, and say, you know, a national project should be this. How about one person in every household, ask everyone in their family what they know about their ancestors, write it down and mail it to the White House, and we're going to do something with it. We're going to create an incredible collage from all of the letters or we will have actors read your stories or will AI tell the story something, something so that we could just reconnect with all of our ancestors who came here. My great grandfather, on both sides of my family. It's my great grandparents that came here first time. My grandfather who passed away when I was 2 years old. My grandpa Artie, who I will never forget, taught me how to play golf when I was in second grade and then was gone the next day. He grew up in a, in a tenement house on the Lower east side, like so many people did after coming in through Ellis Island. His father died when he was about a year old. They were in a one bedroom with six kids. Then they had to take all of them out because my great grandmother couldn't afford it. They had to move them all to Brooklyn where his, I think it was, his uncle lived. And they had like five more kids in a two bedroom. So they basically had three adults, like 11 kids, two bedroom, nobody you know, barely making it by. He became a lithographer, kind of lowerish middle class. I remember he told me his first job was for a quarter. And then, and then my dad, after that, my dad ended up going to college. They moved to Brooklyn, which at that time was some sense of the suburbs in some way. And then my dad, eventually, after becoming middle class, then moved to Long Island. I grew up pretty good. I've now taken, I hope to give more to my children. And I don't mean it in the purely monetary way. I mean it in the more, more robust opportunity for success so they can accomplish all of their dreams. If we could com. If we could Reinvigorate that idea. Reconnect back to our history, man. Everyone's got that in America. Virtually everyone in America has that one way or another. Now, your story might go back to your ancestors who were brought here as slaves, and that is damn well true. But you're not a slave, so that's still a pretty good story. So there is a way to connect people to the real reality of their past. That actually might be the thing that blazes the trail to the future. How was that?
Tom Bilyeu
Great. Now, if you.
Dave Rubin
I got a pause over here. I like it.
Tom Bilyeu
Let's go. Now, they are presumably on the payroll, so we will take.
Dave Rubin
I do pay them to applaud once and. Oh, yeah, it's actually right at the time. Yeah.
Tom Bilyeu
If. If you were going to distill that as a value, is it just meritocracy? Like, how do you. Well, I think.
Dave Rubin
Yeah. So meritocracy is kind of the one that Trump's good at talking about, and that the machine, or not the machine that the most of us are good about talking about meritocracy at this point, because that's the reverse of wokeism, Right? Like, that's the reverse of ordering us based on all these things. So just we're colorblind qualifications. But. But that does get to. What you were saying before is kind of weak that you can just speak to these things as a business person. I think what I tried to do there is connect it to a. I think you have to connect it to a personal history. The personal history that we all have in this country is the thing that I think maybe we have to tell the story about.
Tom Bilyeu
What about people, though, that just rolled up, like a first generation or somebody that came here for work. Like, do you see a value system that incorporates them, or is there an element of heritage that is important to you in, like, the idea of American values?
Dave Rubin
Well, no, if you can't. Well, let's remove illegals for just a second. But let's say you're first generation and you just came here. So pick a country. Give me any country. Where do you want to. Where do you want this person to come from?
Tom Bilyeu
Let's have them come from Trinidad.
Dave Rubin
All right? They came here from Trinidad. You're first generation. That's pretty great. You're a first generation American, and if you do it right, it's going to be better for your great grandchildren. And there's a reason you came from Trinidad. You just left Trinidad. That's your home country, where all your ancestors came from. You probably look more like most people from Trinidad than you do if you moved to Kansas, but he came here. So your story already is pretty good. Your. Your origin story already starts off at a good point. So I think that story is just as easily sold as reminding people. I'm very, very aware, in case it's not obvious, I am very, very aware that my ancestors had it much, much worse than me. Much worse than me. And they fought and in cases died. I had family on both, on both my mom's side and dad's side that died in the Holocaust. I am very aware of that. We live in the most blessed, miraculous human experiment ever, so we might as well try to defend it for as long as it can be defended. So I don't think it's very complex. So it's not exactly that there's a heritage piece connected specifically. I think it's easy to get. People are interested in their own lineage. You know, everyone goes through a certain age. Maybe in college or in high school, you start asking more, you start asking your parents about your grandparents a little bit more, or you start trying where did we come from and what's that all about? Or whatever. I think there's a way to connect something that's very human there. But the first generation one is sold just as easily. Like if the guy came here from Trinidad and is pissed, well, then I would say go home.
Tom Bilyeu
We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.
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Tom Bilyeu
Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. And it's interesting. I want to give people, like, a document that says, all right, here's what America is all about. America is about personal freedom, personal property, freedom of speech, hardcore work ethic, meritocracy. Above all, innovation. And you put all of that together and we are not about making sure that everybody has a safety net. We are about making sure that everybody has an opportunity. We are going to educate the life out of our youth, regardless of background. Nobody should be trapped by their zip code. You should have access to getting yourself educated like to death. And I'm not talking about like going to college and all that. I think a lot of that ends up being a waste. I'm talking about learning how to think, interfacing with the real world, learning novel problem solving, like the things that are actually going to be useful to people and not relegating that to like, well, if your parents are rich, then you're going to do just fine. If they're not, you're screwed. But I, that, that is so unpopular. The part about like every time I bring this up, I, I'm waiting for someone to really freak out at me because the idea that I'm saying I don't. The whole safety net idea is creating problems for us. I'm not saying no safety net. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying push that local. Like instead of the government making sure that everybody has a place to sleep and eat, it's like that should be regional. That's exactly the kind of things that churches are for. I think we should be focused on creating opportunity, making sure that somebody that has the abilities, no matter who they were born to, no matter where they were born, no matter what race, ethnic background, doesn't matter. Like if that person's got the goods and they put in the work, I want to make sure that they're able to innovate and continue to make America like that place, the shining beacon on a hill where we make things that
Dave Rubin
the world cares about. By the way, the story you just told there is the story everybody loves.
Tom Bilyeu
Right?
Dave Rubin
That's.
Tom Bilyeu
That is not the story. That is the story we're fighting about the story.
Dave Rubin
No, no. The story that you want to exist is the story that everybody loves. Everyone loves the story of someone who, you know, basically had nothing and created something.
Tom Bilyeu
Right, Now I know why you're white pilled. So let me see if I can introduce you to the blackest of black pills. That story is so divisive. That's why we're in this moment right now. There are people, look at mom Donnie, who actually want to control your rent, give you free access to transportation, make sure they have free health care or not free health care. Well, that I'm sure as well.
Dave Rubin
Yes.
Tom Bilyeu
Child care, all of that. And I'm saying, okay, that stuff, like it, obviously you're headed towards socialism it doesn't work.
Dave Rubin
Right.
Tom Bilyeu
And so I am so, like, for people to understand me and where I'm coming from, they have to understand my obsession with what is happening with Thucydides trap between us and China. Like, this is not for play and people are acting like it doesn't matter and like we can just go the way of Europe.
Dave Rubin
Well, first off, when you, when you said you want the document, you wish you had the document that you could give everybody. I mean, we have it. It's called the Constitution. The Constitution actually lays out much of what you just said right there, except for the social safety net part. Now, the problem with the Mamdanis and all these other people is they want the social safety net. It's actually way more than a social safety net. Actually, they want a social program that would lead us to living much more like China. Like, it just starts with this minimum. You know, they have no basic understanding of anything. Like, you know, years ago it was $12 minimum wage, then it's 20, then it's 25. Well, then the next press progressive will come tomorrow and say 50. And none of it's. It's because it's just based on how nice you are with someone else's money. It has nothing to do with actual economics or can someone create anything with this? And guess what it is. My biggest fear with Mamdani, by the way, is that if he wins that for a year, things are gonna go pretty well. Because, you know, the Democrats, they control the foot soldiers, so they can get all the Hamas guys and the antifa people off the streets. They can make New York City look real nice again. You could run probably government run grocery stores for about a year where it'll basically be okay. You can kind of fake it for a while, but eventually you won't be able to fake it and then it'll all come collapsing. But in that year, could that thing spread to Minneapolis where they have this guy Omar Fattah, who's now there. Mamdani? Yeah. Could it start spreading to Portland and Seattle and a couple other places? And then we have a much bigger problem because it's scaled. So that's what I'm worried about. As it pertains to that, you're also completely right, obviously, on the general premise of local versus the government providing all these things. And this again, a lot of what we're talking about gets down to education. Like, if you taught young people the right things, they wouldn't be so reliant on the state. It's very sad. It's very, very sad that so many young people seem to think that is a good idea. And the idea that they grew up in a time of COVID to only think that the government is the answer to all of their problems is deeply, deeply troublesome, I would say. And it also leads to what I think will be the next kind of bifurcation of America, which is we've had a huge separation between red and blue. I live in Florida, you live in Cali. We live under wildly different conditions. We've gone into that before. I pay a lot less in taxes than you do, my friend. And my roads are better and my infrastructure's better and my policing's better and all that stuff. But, okay, I don't want to. I don't want to black pill you.
Tom Bilyeu
You don't want to rub it in.
Dave Rubin
Yeah, I don't want to rub it in. You're offering the black pills today. But I think the next bifurcation will be that the cities basically will. Will cease to function. There will be a lot of people living in cities, but they are going to be. They're going to be like Gotham City style, like endless crime craziness. And then all of the producers and the good people and everything else, they're going to be moving out of the cities. And we're going to see a lot more movement in the middle of the country. You'll see a lot more in the suburbs. But cities as functional structural places, I don't see how that can work much longer because all these bad ideas are being imported in places where people live on top of each other and they demand more government control and everything else where then the rest other people are just going to kind of check out, you know, I don't mean they're going to get off the grid altogether and all live on farms in the middle of nowhere, but they'll largely be outside of having to interact with the entire system all the time.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, everything boils down to economics, and everything is downstream of policy, and policies create very weird incentives. And watching us in this populist moment really start to reconsider socialism is so wild to me. And there are plenty of countries that people can look at and go, okay, does the experiment work? But there's something about that idea that people just cannot stop themselves from touching that hot stove. And it is going back to Thomas Soul. He's got a quote that sums us up so perfectly, which is the last 30 years have been marked by exchanging what works for what sounds good, and it sounds great. The problem is that no one will work for free. And once, like, I always want that dime to drop for people where they realize, oh, I'm the problem. I'm the one that won't work for free. And therefore, because if you want me to drive your bus, you'd have to pay me, suddenly the bus has to cost money. And now that it costs money, we have to generate that money from somewhere. They will say, tax the rich. Here's another terrifying stat for you. The bottom 50% of the country only pays 3% of the taxes. 3%. 5, 0%. Pay 3% of the taxes.
Dave Rubin
Look, I don't have to. I don't have to tell you how many of. Probably your friends, literally of your friends of that. Of that tax bracket, probably that city that you live in, maybe living on your block, you know?
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. No, man, look, it's wild. And I understand the impulse. I get what people are trying to do, and if it worked, I'd be all for it. My thing is, it just doesn't work. And so trying to figure out the magic sequence of syllables that I can utter that will get people to go, oh, cause and effect is the name of the game here. We have to do the sequence of things that actually works. But, yeah, I've not found that magical sequence yet.
Dave Rubin
Look, as Jordan always says, you got to give the devil is due. And I think this is where we have to give the lefties and the people that have ushered in so much of this nonsense, we have to give them a certain amount of credit because they did it while. While we were all out creating things and building things and making families or whatever it might be. They. They ruin the brains of so many young people. Did you happen to see a clip on CNN this week? There's a girl who's, I guess a famous tiktoker. She's like a socialist tiktoker. And now she's running for Congress. And she went on CNN on that panel show that Scott Jennings is on where he deals with all those dingbats the entire time. And she's going on and on about health care is a right, health care is a right, and da, da, da. And talking about all the things that she thinks should just be free. And Scott's trying to calmly, the way he does, explain to her that it's not. You can't just say these things. Well, I guess you could just say them. You could just say them, and a certain amount of people are going to be like, yes, that's brilliant. Well, of course, of course. Would I love Everyone to have perfect health, hair. Yes. Would I love everyone to have a beautiful house? Yes. Would I love everyone? It's just not how things actually work. So the frustration you have is, I think, what most thinking people are realizing right now as this socialist thing encroaches, it's like, how do you deprogram enough young people right now to make them realize that, yes, would we all like to live in Utopia? Sure. Does Utopia really exist? No. So how about we limit and constrain the power of the machine that can do an awful lot of bad at the same time. And how about you get a little skin in the game and see what you can do? And. And how you do that? I mean, that's tricky. I don't know.
Tom Bilyeu
I mean, there is a way to do it. I think one of my upcoming deep dives is definitely going to be about Lee Kuan Yu, who basically was the guy that wrestled. Well, they got kicked out of Malaysia and they had to turn what is now Singapore into Singapore. And his whole thing was, I told the Communist, basically, I'm willing to fight to the death. You guys are not getting control. I told the unions they could not create problems for me. I made sure everybody got a house. And that way people were invested in making sure that, like, things went well and they really wanted to think about personal property and invest in what they were doing. And I just thought, yeah, when once it is impossible for the average person to buy a house and you have a fiat currency, you are in a death spiral because the house will become unattainable and it's the only asset that people understand.
Dave Rubin
Well, that's why now I'll offer a black pill, which would be. That's why I think something very weird is happening with Jerome Powell at the Fed and not lowering the interest rates right now. Because for all of the good things that I just laid out that Trump's doing, man, if you could get those interest rates to go down right now, then you could get a whole bunch of people into the housing market, you could get young people in, but they can't get in at 6,7%. It's simple as that.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, unfortunately. What? Powell wouldn't have solved that problem if he was going to lower rates. He should have done it a few months ago when.
Dave Rubin
Why do you think he's not doing it?
Tom Bilyeu
I don't know. So I'll use your card if I don't know what's inside somebody's heart. But Trump has been such a dick to him that even if he didn't want to be like, political and anti Trump. He's going to be. Just because people are like that, if somebody's treating you that terribly, the thought of giving them what they want, even if it's good for people, it's just not going to happen. Now, he may also actively not want to give Trump what he wants, but this is one part of Trump that where I'm just like, bro, you've got to understand that when you badmouth people that endlessly, you make them not want to help you. So that one's crazy. But now that prices, inflation is beginning to tick up, he's definitely not going to. I mean, literally today he said they're not going to, so we'll see. But yeah, there was a narrow window there where he could have done it. And then if inflation started going up, he could crank rates back down. But we would have been able to lock in the refinancing for at least say, five years, which would have bought us some time.
Dave Rubin
Yeah, alas. No, listen, I get that. Look, I'm here in Miami, where we're still booming right now. We have so many people still coming here. We're doing incredible amount of infrastructure projects. We still have people moving from Cali, particularly New York. And there's a lot of new people thinking about it because of what's impending, obviously, in Manhattan and New York City. But even here, it's slowed down a little bit because people can't get mortgages. Because even if you have a good amount of money and you want to get down here, well, it's still highly competitive down here. But if you have to borrow money at 7% or, you know, 7, 8%, it's like, that's an awful lot where, you know, I got in right before all that. It's a lot easier when you're at, you know, say 3.2%. And by the way, that's higher than it was, you know, what was it eight years ago? We were in the twos. Right. So that I do view as. I'm completely with you on that. If there was some magic bullet to solve that and just let. Because I like the fact that I have a low interest rate. I like paying my mortgage. I really do. And when I see my stuff every month, I'm like, yeah, I paid so that I can own this house, which I couldn't afford otherwise. But I also do a lot of. We're doing constantly doing things here to improve the house and the neighborhood is booming because there's a lot of people coming here. And one day, this great asset, I'll sell it and hope maybe I'll move into something nicer or I'll downsize at that point or something. But I like paying it. It's like, yeah, I have to pay the bank a little something. They're not doing it out of the generosity of their heart. They want some money. But Once it's at 8%, then you're suddenly like, I don't think I could do this.
Tom Bilyeu
Taking a short break, but there's more. Impact theory after. Stay tuned. Nine out of the ten largest banks get it. They get advantagescore. The modern credit score is the leader in predictive power, improving mortgage default predictions and saving lenders billions. Better predictions, better for your business with VantageScore.
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Tom Bilyeu
Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it. Yeah, this is where I get very frustrated because the reality is that the bank created that money out of thin air and charge interest on it. So, man, boy, I would love to have a product that cost me nothing to create, but people have to pay me for it. That would really be exciting.
Dave Rubin
That's a, that's a whole other thing. Are you, are you floating a mortgage on that beautiful, beautiful house you got over there?
Tom Bilyeu
No, we paid cash. I'm so terrified of debt now. Admittedly, as I learn more about economics, I'm less concerned. There is a very narrow band of debt that can be extremely useful if you actually know how to use it. The vast majority of humans do not. I have a very when it comes because I've already made my money. I have a very low tolerance for like massive risk. So the risk dollars that I have, I put into the companies that I'm building and I put into Bitcoin just because it was like, well, this is certainly matches my thesis about where the world's going, but I'm not fooling myself. Like that is a highly volatile asset. That is part of the attraction is that is volatile. So up today, but ask me again tomorrow, we'll see. But yeah, so the housing thing is a big deal. If people really understood that housing, you have to have assets. If you have a fiat currency, you must have assets, otherwise you will get left behind. And the only asset that people understand intuitively is a house. And it's the only asset that you can make memories inside of, live inside of. So everyone's going to push for that. Once a house is unavailable to the average person, that means that assets are unavailable to the average person, at least in any meaningful quantity. And so yeah, you've created that death spiral. All right, enough about the, the economics. Let's talk about what do you see? Okay, we're, in my opinion, it is just obvious that we're going up against China, God bless them, love them, want nothing but the best for them. I do not want to be, I don't mind being rivals. I don't want to be adversaries. And so right now we're in the rival stage. I think we're headed because of Thucydides trap. I think we're inextricably headed towards becoming adversaries, but right now we're not. So what I admire about them is they are very good at long term planning. If you were going to long term plan for America, what would that long term plan look like?
Dave Rubin
Well, I would say broadly speaking it would be, it would be pretty close to the things that I've laid out here that I think Donald Trump is doing. I think getting fairer trade deals was an important thing. I think bringing back manufacturing here to whatever extent we can still manufacture or even need to manufacture things, I think is good. You know, part of this EU trade deal is that we're going to be bringing back a lot of the pharmaceutical manufacturing here. That's important. Post Covid, I think leaning in on all of the AI stuff, as I said, I was just at this AI conference and it's like it is going to so radically change the world and I'm a big sci Fi guy. I suspect you're a big sci Fi guy yourself. I am all, yeah, so I am all about all of the ways that this could go awry. Like we might be in the Matrix right now and you and I are actually just laying in pink goo. That's possible. We might be in Total Recall right now. And this is all, you know, we might be in the simulator. I can do all of that fun stuff. So, you know, I've read all the Isaac Asimov books, I've read every Philip K. Dick book and short story 20 times over. So I can, you know, Black Mirror, I'm sure you've watched all of them. Like, I can go to all of the dystopian ways that this could all go crazy. But I would say we have to lean in on this stuff. It's coming whether you like it or not. And you have to lean in and figure out how you can incorporate some version of it into your life. Like there are going to by the end of this year, supposedly the Optimus robot is going to be sold retail now at first. What's it going to do? I don't know. You're going to get it in your house and maybe it can, I don't know, fold a blanket or it's going to do some pretty basic stuff. But all it will need is a software update ultimately. Yeah. Obviously there'll be physical upgrades to it over time, but you can see how once we start getting it into the houses, it'll eventually replace the housekeepers, it'll eventually replace the gardener. Like these things are coming. So what I want to see happen is we have to lean into that. We have to do better trade deals, we have to control our border. I mean, I think these are a lot of the good things. I think you mentioned local before. We have to stop doing so much top down education. We have to kick education back to the states, which we're massively doing. I mean, one of the best lines that I've heard in the last year was when Linda McMahon took over the Department of Ed and she said, you know why I'm here? To put myself out of a job. I thought that was incredible. Like absolutely incredible. Kick that back to the states so that so many young minds aren't brainwashed by the centralized brainwashing machine. I think most of the things that we are doing right now, particularly as it goes in red states, you know, it's just wildly different. I see it, you know, I know I talk about Florida all the time and I make fun of Callie all the time, but like, it's so profoundly different. I don't know if you saw it yesterday, but DeSantis gave a big speech talking about how we in Florida, because we're coordinating with ICE and Department of Homeland Security and all this stuff. We're actually. Because he empowered the local police to also make arrests that they can then coordinate with ICE to do deportations. That's what Alligator Alley basically is the holding center for the state of Florida is ahead of the federal numbers right now. Now, putting aside what you think about deportations or anything else, it just means that if you want to do something, you can do it. DeSantis line that I quote on the show every day is decline is a choice. We've chosen not to do it here. So there are blueprints to fix a lot of these things. Whether the whole country will do it, I'm not so sure. But I think really you have to figure out how to do it at your micro level first in your life, and then we'll move it up from there. Because the top down thing that I know you're wary of too, it just doesn't fly anymore. And that's the irony. The socialists are promising in their promise of utopia, what they're actually promising or what they're actually swapping it out for is complete control. Because once the state controls the groceries and the state controls your health care, and the state controls literally every other facet of your life, which is ultimately what that will all lead to, well, they can turn it on and turn it off pretty easily, dude.
Tom Bilyeu
What's wild is there was a study done across a bunch of different cultures, and they found that people that are into socialist policies, it isn't about helping the poor, it's actually about punishing the rich. And unless you take envy into account, you won't be able to map their behaviors. And so when people in the study were given the option to, okay, you can reduce taxes on the rich and it will help the poor more, or you can raise taxes on the rich. It will hurt them, but it will also hurt the poor. They chose the option to hurt the rich, even though that meant that the poor were going to be hurt as well. Like, that is so wild to me. But then you really begin to understand, okay, what's driving a lot of this. And if people really want to be radicalized, read about Mao's China. It. It is just absolutely astonishing what he did. The number of people he starved to death, killed, murdered, disappeared. I mean, it is very distressing.
Dave Rubin
Tom, how much of that do you think is just based on human biological wiring and how you actually come out of the Oven. Because, you know, I've been around a ton of successful people, billionaires and everything else. Like, the first time I went to your house, I was like, you live in such a cool place. You have a absolutely gorgeous house. I go downstairs, you've got your studio, all your people working for you. I was like, this is awesome. Like, that was my takeaway. This freaking operation is awesome. This guy's. I know what you've done with Quest, obviously, and everything else, but I was like, this is freaking amazing. Like, he gave me. My producer. Phoenix came with me. I remember when we got in the Uber going out, and you have this freaking gate outside is like the size of Castle Grayskull. And I'm like. I was like, this is incredible. How can we do this? And it's one of those things that I've had many other times when I've been around people that are doing cool things. It's not like, oh, my God, I have to have this giant house, per se. That's an ancillary benefit of doing something cool. But the reason I'm asking you the question is, I'm wired that way. I have never walked into any amazing house or anywhere and thought and be jealous of it. I never have. It is not the way I am wired. I'm always like. I'm either, like, incredibly happy if it's a friend. I'm like, man, this is fricking amazing. Or I'm like, whoa, how did you do this? I would like to learn a little bit about that. But your point to that study, and Jordan talks about this a lot too, about what envy will do to you, is they'd rather hack away at those people and destroy those people. That's why this thing about billionaires. Remember Bernie used to go after millionaires, then he became a millionaire. Now it's. Now it's billionaires. What do you think that is? Do you think that's pre wiring in us, or you think that that's social conditioning?
Tom Bilyeu
It is both. So this is what I call frame of reference. Everybody lives inside of a frame of reference that's made of three things. Your biology. So we're roughly 50% hardwired and 50% malleable. So there's that. Then there's your values and your beliefs. And that makes up the. Not only what you look at, but what you see when you look at something. And you can take control of your beliefs. And people don't. People think that their beliefs and values are merely the reflection of objective reality. But we are not wired to see Objective reality, we only see 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum. Colors don't exist in the world. They exist in our mind. Size doesn't exist in the world. It exists in our mind. Like you can look at all of the optical illusions. You are in the matrix. Matrix. It's just that your brain is creating it. Once you realize that my brain is creating all these shortcuts, all these heuristics to make the world digestible for me, you begin to realize, oh, my God, there are choices being made all the time. There's actually like a dime sized hole in your vision that if you hold like a pencil in just the right place, you can make it disappear. It's super weird, but your brain fills in that gap and so you never see it. But that means that your brain is actually saying, oh, this is a curtain, this is a piece of a camera, whatever, and it's just filling it in. That is so wild to me. So we're all shaping that frame of reference unconsciously for the most part. And then it traps us inside of a worldview that then color sings emotionally, makes us resentful or not. So you can't manipulate all of it to your point about biology, but you can manipulate a lot of it. I just find that most people don't. Yeah.
Dave Rubin
All right, so that, that really is the bumper sticker there. It's like, man. And. And isn't that actually, even though you're doling out the black pills, in some sense that's the ultimate white pill that you can have all of that pre recorded and all of that stuff, but you still could overcome it actually, if you want.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. Look, this is the thing that motivates me is I would not get in front of a camera and talk if there was nothing that you could do. And I believe that we are automata. I don't think I can stop myself from coming on the camera. However, we are influenceable. And so whether I can stop myself or not is irrelevant. It will impact some people. Now, maybe not always in the way that I want it to impact them, but it will impact people. So, I mean, you always hope that some people take it and get as obsessed with cause and effect as I am, that they understand, hey, all of these problems are solvable. They're not going to be easy, but you have to make contact with the actual road before you can make those changes.
Dave Rubin
Well said.
Tom Bilyeu
All right, brother, you're about to go away. You're doing a whole blackout. Tell me about it. What, what's the Drill with this.
Dave Rubin
This is my ninth year of off the grid August. Literally no phone, no tv, nothing. No computer, no. No news, nothing. I will avoid public places so that I don't have to walk into a burger joint and see the news or anything else. I did this nine years ago. This is my ninth year, so I did it eight years ago, basically as a. It was sort of a joke. I had just finally become a little bit successful with the show. I had one employee, actually, and I was like, you know what? Maybe I could just do it. I mean, I'm trapped in this flywheel all the time, this endless hamster race. I was like, what if I just disappeared for a little bit and saw what happened and it was incredible. You know, there are things, like, crazy things that happen, you know. Yeah. At first there's like this anxious couple days and phantom buzzing in my pocket and where's my phone? And, oh, my God, what's happening in the world? Will everyone forget about me and all of that nonsense? And then days go by and then just out of nowhere, I'll just think of my friend Rich. What happened to Rich Canarazi? Third grade. We used to sit next to each other and then I'll think of him. And I can remember every. Suddenly I can remember being in his basement playing with Transformers or whatever, like just some weird stuff. Or I'll remember, like, literally like an entire album. I can think of every song that Billy Joel had on Piano man album or something like that. And then there's just. Just the general state of neurosis and whatever that we all live in. I don't. I don't have a lot of that, I don't think. But, like, we could all be more present. And I find, you know, if I'm. If I'm doing something as literally as simple as going to the store to get food, that my interaction with the cashier is more pleasant. I'm. I'm giving more of myself in that moment because I'm not fiddling with this or that. You know, it's also gotten.
Tom Bilyeu
Is it that people aren't. You're not distracted? Like, what. What's the juice here?
Dave Rubin
It's a little. It's probably multiple things. I mean, I think there's a distraction element that we all have because, you know, if you're doing this when you're around other people, you're distracted, but, you know, sometimes you put it away and your mind is still in the distraction. You know, it's like you can endlessly scroll or you could just slide Your finger like this. Well, you put it away sometimes your mind is still doing that thing. So I think there's some element to that. I think there's some element of we are not. Our brains are not biologically wired to be intaking as much information as we intake. And for literally, for guys like you and me, where we're in this battle, like we're in it all the time, it doesn't stop that. I don't say that as a pat on my back. I mean, there are plenty of people that don't. That don't do this as a living that are in on it as well, maybe more in it. But we're. But I don't think we're supposed to be hit with this much information all the time. I also use it as a massive time for like, working out right and eating right, which I've been on a real quest on that for the last couple years anyway. But like, really, really focus on that last couple years. Now we have kids, so spending a lot of time with the kids, we're working on some house project. But it really is just what started largely as kind of a. It was a lark. Like, it was just like, oh, let me see if I could do this. Then I did it and I came back and so many people were so fascinated. People can't do it for one day. When is the last time you went for one day without your phone?
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, totally without it. Very rare, right?
Dave Rubin
I mean, no one does it, and yet somehow we all live that way. 25 years ago, right? I remember I got my phone. I think it was. It was just two or three months before 9 11. I remember that very specifically because I had a phone on 9 11. I lived in New York City. I had a little candy bar phone that all I knew how to do was play Snake. Remember that Snake thing? But I remember I was like, oh, I finally have some use for this thing. And of course, it didn't work in New York City that day. I think I had got it right before that and never used it because I didn't even know what to do with the cell phone. But that shows you how that was 24 years ago. It shows you how much things change so quickly. So it went from being something that was just kind of fun and almost silly in a way, to something that's been unbelievably restorative. And if I was to try to take this show full circle, where we started talking about some of that woke. Right stuff, you know, I've interviewed everybody on every side of all of this stuff. And I've seen a lot of people flourish and do amazing things. And I've seen a lot of people go off the deep end and become consumed by the fame and the clarity and the partisanship and all that stuff. And I think one of the things that kept me sane throughout it was doing this. I take 1/12 of the year off and I get away and I come back and I have fresh eyes on all of it. And I think it does something for my ego also. Like, you know, I go. I go places where all the time where people recognize me, say nice things to me. See. And to get away from that, literally to get away from that. I'm not talking about the hate. I get plenty of hate online, but that I've largely figured out a way to inoculate myself or just ignore that. But even getting away from some of the other part of just being that, you know, I was thinking this. I might, I was thinking, I'm not sure I'm gonna do it, but I was thinking this year I might not shave for 30 days and see what happens here. Maybe, maybe I'm not totally, I'm not totally sold on that one. It's hot in Florida, so to. To walk around with that might be rough, but it's just to reset. It's just to reset. That's it. It's reset on the 8 bit Nintendo, man. Same game when I come back.
Tom Bilyeu
But we're going to have some A.I. dave, if I'm not mistaken.
Dave Rubin
We've been working on this for about a year. Yeah, we're working with this amazing AI company and Dave will be here, AI Dave hosting the show. We're not going to do an hour long show every day, but AI Dave will be talking about the big story or two of the day. We've been fiddling with it and really trying to get the intonation right. But it's me here in studio, normal shirt and jacket like I usually wear. And we got some of the humor right. And there's still things. Look, AI is still as is. You know, you probably follow a lot of the same Instagram things that I do every day. There's some incredible new like AI model that's put out there and you're like, holy cow, you can input one sentence and basically write a movie. I mean, it's freaking mind blowing. There's still a lot of work that has to be done. But we've created a pretty great model of me that, you know, you. You ask it. We were fiddling with it before. Like you asked this thing. Dave, what do you think of Gavin Newsom? That's evil. Snake lizard, son of a bitch. Motherfucker like it it. He gets it it. So we'll see what he thinks of the news and then we'll compare a little of reality Dave to AI Dave when I get back.
Tom Bilyeu
Well, I hope when you do it that you release what your workflow is over here. Because we do game development, we are obsessive about the different AI workflows and what outputs what. So I'll be very eager to see what you do.
Dave Rubin
Let's do that when we get back. I'll get the guys that we're working on this with. That would be fun. Maybe we could figure out some other project or we could could have AI Tom and AI Dave do some sort of. They could do a co interview or some sort of debate on something and. Yeah, let's figure it out. I love it.
Tom Bilyeu
That'd be fun. Well, brother, thank you for taking the time, especially as you're about to bounce out. I appreciate it very much. Where can people connect with you?
Dave Rubin
My branding guy is good. It's RubinReport everywhere. RubinReport.com x YouTube Rumble. Is there anything else on the.
Tom Bilyeu
Is.
Dave Rubin
Is MySpace still. Apparently MySpace is down, but pretty much everywhere else.
Tom Bilyeu
Awesome. Thank you for being here. Enjoy your vacation. I'll see you when you get back.
Dave Rubin
Good to see you, my friend.
Tom Bilyeu
Same. All right, everybody, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.
August 6, 2025
In this second part of Tom Bilyeu's deep-dive conversation with Dave Rubin, the two examine America’s escalating culture war, unpack the evolving values and narratives shaping both the political left and right, and wrestle with the country’s economic and cultural future amid technological disruption and increasing polarity.
Both hosts candidly debate the resonance—and failures—of the American narrative, the tension between socialism and meritocracy, and what "success" means for America as it approaches its 250th anniversary. The episode is both a diagnosis of today's fractures and a prescription for how individual ethics, historical context, and technological adaptation can help the nation thrive.
Timestamps: 00:30–03:26
“I don't think anyone's thinking about any of this stuff... We're caught in the algorithmic manipulation and the digital world. And it's real. It is real. I'm not denying the power of that. But it's very hard to map that to what's happening in reality.” [01:22]
“It takes a very small number of very shrewd people to create policy that can make the world better or way, way worse. But it's all downstream of narrative.” [02:19]
Timestamps: 03:26–09:08
“What Trump has to offer people from a narrative perspective is simply, America's like a business. We can all be entrepreneurial, and we can make this great again... But...the vast majority of humans think that entrepreneurs are completely corrupt, that business is extractive…” — Tom Bilyeu [04:41]
“The only thing that stops the horseshoe...the extremes, is American success.” — Dave Rubin [03:44]
“This is the craziest political coalition of our lifetimes. I think it's the thing that can save America.” — Dave Rubin [08:13]
Timestamps: 09:08–14:46
“There is a way to connect people to the real reality of their past. That actually might be the thing that blazes the trail to the future.” — Dave Rubin [12:52]
Timestamps: 14:46–17:21
“If the guy came here from Trinidad and is pissed, well, then I would say go home.” — Dave Rubin [16:18]
Timestamps: 17:21–23:34
“We are not about making sure that everybody has a safety net. We are about making sure that everybody has an opportunity.” — Tom Bilyeu [17:41]
Timestamps: 23:34–27:06
“The bottom 50% of the country only pays 3% of the taxes. 3%.” — Tom Bilyeu [24:55]
Timestamps: 27:06–30:55
“Once it is impossible for the average person to buy a house and you have a fiat currency, you are in a death spiral because the house will become unattainable and it's the only asset that people understand.” — Tom Bilyeu [27:56]
Timestamps: 32:16–38:32
“Decline is a choice. We've chosen not to do it here.” — Requoting Ron DeSantis via Dave Rubin [36:51]
Timestamps: 38:32–43:41
“They chose the option to hurt the rich, even though that meant that the poor were going to be hurt as well.” — Tom Bilyeu [38:54]
“We're roughly 50% hardwired and 50% malleable...But you can manipulate a lot of it. I just find most people don't.” — Tom Bilyeu [41:01]
Timestamps: 43:41–50:42
“I take 1/12 of the year off and I get away and I come back and I have fresh eyes on all of it. And I think it does something for my ego also.” — Dave Rubin [46:51]
This conversation is a potent and personal exploration of America’s culture war, the evolving meanings of freedom and meritorious advancement, and the human tendency for tribalism and envy. Through candid anecdotes, economic analysis, and speculation on the impact of AI, Tom and Dave challenge each other—and the listener—to think deeply about the stories that unite and divide, the policies that shape everyday life, and the paths to both individual and collective flourishing as America enters its next chapter.