← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Election Special: Dave Rubin on What You Should Really Know About the Deep State
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- [00:00]
Dave Rubin
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Dave Rubin
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- [00:45]
Tom Bilyeu
I'm Tom Bilyeu. Today is Friday, November 1st, and this is a special 2024 election episode of Impact Theory. This week we're doing something a little bit different. With the election right around the corner, we wanted to do something special and really cut through the noise. We are bringing on some of the sharpest minds from both sides of the aisle to answer two simple but vital questions in addition to our normal interviews. What values and beliefs drive their voting choices? And why do they think you should vote the same? Each guest will break down their reasoning and make their case. And now, while I've got my own views, the goal here is simple to help all of us think from first principles. No bs, just straight talk with that. Please welcome Dave Rubin. If you had to, without making reference to the left or right, Republicans or Democrats, you couldn't mention a specific candidate. If you had to explain to somebody how you make political decisions. Trying to get to that, the core beliefs and values, what is it that you use to think through these things?
- [01:52]
Dave Rubin
Ooh, I like that question. And I particularly like that question right about now where every day on my show, as I start every show, I say we're just in the racehorse portion of it now, right? It's like he said this, she said that, and we're just caught in that. It just kind of is the nature of reality of where we're at in the news cycle as it relates to the election. So I like stepping away from that for a moment. I mean, my main, I would say the main driver behind my politics and really what drives me as a person is that I want equal rights and equal protection under the law for all people. I do not care about your skin color. I do not care about your genitals or your gender identity or any of the other immutable markers that unfortunately, identity politics has thrust upon quite literally every portion of society and has infected all of our institutions and all of those things. I want lady justice to be blind. And I would say, fortunately, I live in the United States of America, which, for all her flaws, we've done that thing pretty well. And in the spaces, as we talked about when I was with you in LA just a couple months ago, in the spaces where that was not perfect, say, women could not vote or black people were slaves or Japanese internment, all of the things that have been historically wrong in the past, the arc of justice has always bent towards more justice, and we have freed more people. So as it. As it stands in America right now, we have individual rights for everybody. There is no law that I know of that discriminates against anyone based on the color of their skin or again, their genitals, their gender identity, et cetera. And that is what I'm always going towards. I want the light touch of government. I'm not an anarchist. I love discussing things with anarchists. I don't know if you've had Michael Malice on or, you know him, he's sort of my favorite anarchist of the moment. You know, I love talking about He's a favorite anarchist. He's everybody. Yeah, I always say he's the Willy Wonka of politics. But I love those ideas. Like, I love the idea could you completely deconstruct everything basically and have people sort of in some version of a Mad Max thing not gone completely, completely awry. I don't think it's that realistic. So I believe in the light touch of government. So anyone basically that's running for office, that doesn't want to use government as the crudgel over everything, that really wants to talk about how to empower you to live the life you want, that's what I'm interested, interested in. I would say that is very few and far between as it becomes. As we talk about politicians these days, even forgetting the presidential election, it's like most politics. Politicians come in because they say they want to give you this or help you with that. And as Ronald Reagan famously said, the nine scariest words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. So anyone that wants to kind of get out of our way, but have a realistic understanding that there has to be some structure to organize us, that's what I'm interested in.
- [05:02]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, that makes sense. So if you want a light touch of the government. What exactly is a government designed to do?
- [05:10]
Dave Rubin
Well, not that much, actually. I mean, you would just have to look at the founding of the United States and our Constitution. The government's not really supposed to do that much. The federal government really is supposed to do very little. I mean, the federal government in essence is supposed to make sure that we have borders. The federal government is supposed to make sure that the states aren't warring with each other. And then almost everything else, without getting into a full history lesson, is really kicked back on the states. That the states, if it's not explicitly laid out in the Constitution, then the states are basically supposed to do everything else. Which is why a lot of people would argue against federal income tax, for example. There's all sorts of other ways we get taxed that you could fund all sorts of federal projects. But I would always argue for more local control over everything. Look, you live in Los Angeles, I live in Miami. There might be things that you want to pay taxes for in Los Angeles that I don't want to in Miami. And we should have that variance. You should have the ability to kind of move around the system. And some places can have legalized marijuana and some people, places won't. Some states, now that we've reversed Roe v. Wade, which even though I'm begrudgingly pro choice, the initial decision of Roe v. Wade to federalize abortion I think was very faulty judicial decision. So even though, again, I'm begrudgingly pro choice, I am for it being kicked back to the states. You can decide, you have this constant test, okay, if I put eight month abortion, if that's at the top of my hierarchy of importance of where I'm going to live, well, then you're not going to live in Florida, where we have a heartbeat bill. By the way, I live in Florida with the heartbeat bill and I think it's too extreme, but it doesn't fall at the most important part of, you know, at the tip of my hierarchy of important issues, it could for somebody else. So the government actually isn't supposed to do that much. It's supposed to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's supposed to make sure that we protect property rights and that, you know, we have some basic things like competent policing and I would say, you know, very, very light regulations as it pertains to safety issues, you know, that are, that are across the board, be it building safety or environmental safety, but actually not that much. Certainly not most of the things the government's doing these days.
- [07:28]
Tom Bilyeu
What are your Thoughts about the debt.
- [07:31]
Dave Rubin
Debt is not good. I would say the simplest way to put it this way is just turn on any mafia movie that you've ever seen or watch the Sopranos, or I mean literally go through Goodfellas, Casino, et cetera, et cetera. Whatever your favorite mafia movie is, in essence, once you owe somebody something, and for example, right now, we owe China an awful lot, one day China is gonna call in the debt, right? They're gonna call it in, they're gonna say, okay, you guys gotta pay us back, or get on some kind of plan to pay us back. This is what happens in every mafia movie. And when the guy can't pay it back, eventually you break his legs or you take him out to Newark, New Jersey, and you shoot him in the back of the head and you leave him in the swamp. And that, bizarrely, is the situation we're at in America right now. I don't think there's any serious person in America that I've heard of, at least, that thinks we can actually pay off the national debt. We were borrowing on top of borrowed money constantly. This number is just getting completely out of control. And the only thing, in a weird way that keeps us, well, not only allows us to do that, but keeps us somewhat safe while we're doing it, is that we have a bigger mafia than the Chinese, at least at the moment. Right. We have a bigger set of weapons, a bigger army, and at the end of the day, that it's a game about power. But ultimately, if you look the basic version of it, and you can do this a lot better than I can, but the basic version is if you keep borrowing money from at some point and then you're only servicing the debt, then your own money in that's running around your economy will ultimately be worth less and less and less. That's kind of where we're at right now. And I don't know what happens when China calls in that debt.
- [09:17]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. So by way of quick how I think that actually plays out. China's never going to call in the debt. They're going to ditch their US holdings for sure. They already are. The thing that on the debt that I hope people really take home, the government will. They'll never not pay their debt because they can print money because we have the world's reserve currency. The problem is printing money is a euphemism for stealing money from you in a way that leaves the same number of dollars in your bank account. But it's still. They steal your buying power. We'll we'll derail on that really fast. I'll. I'll avoid the. That. That's the thing for me, that is, if I were going to be a single voter issue, and I'm probably not, I probably have a couple more issues than just that. But the debt, for me is the biggest. The debt is the thing that will create the big terrifying crisis as it has all throughout human history, or at least since we started doing debt.
- [10:13]
Dave Rubin
But, yeah, well, real quick on that, because you're right. We can. We can do this one all day. And you're definitely more. More of an expert in this than I am. But in essence, what people don't realize, it's like, there's nothing sexy talking about debt, right? There's nothing like being like, I'm going to pay back the debt or we're going to reign in government. It's a hard path to win an election by saying that. So when every now and again, nobody really says it anymore, but you and I are roughly the same age and 20, 30 years ago, people, there were politicians, there were presidential candidates, there were senators, Congress, people who used to say, boy, we really do have to reign in spending. It's not a government revenue issue. It's a spending issue, right? It's not that the government just needs more money. Like, even now, it's so absurd. The idea that Kamala Harris is pushing, you know, in essence, that will raise the federal rate at the top from whatever it is now 37.5 to 39, as if, okay, if they get just a little bit more off that 1%, that that's gonna solve anything. It's completely, completely insane. But it's a lot easier to say that and have most people be like, yes, take more from the rich than to be like, oh, actually, the government is completely inefficient at almost everything. They build buildings at three times the cost of what anyone else might do. They build affordable housing at triple the cost. They spend $10,000 on a toilet. Like, all of the things that we all. On top of the wars and all of that stuff. We all know government is inefficient and everything, but nobody really wants to look at. I would say the one guy probably in the Senate that still is yelling about this stuff is Rand Paul, but obviously he's a very minority person in national politics.
- [11:58]
Tom Bilyeu
Now, both from where I'm sitting, both Harris and Trump are. They have a terrible track record from a spending perspective. How do you think through that? If this is a big issue, if the debt is a big Problem. What do you do with the fact that neither of them are good at being tight with budgets?
- [12:15]
Dave Rubin
Yeah, I mean, I would basically say Kamala's probably just worse in that almost all of her policies are. Are about expanding government. Even just this morning, we played a clip on my show where she's already talking about, we're going to have to study reparations. Well, that just means taking more money from some people and giving it to some others. And it's like, boy, if you think that that's so morally right, then why aren't people just voluntarily doing it? Everything they do is, you know, why do they want public school? They want all of this money always pushed to public school. Is it because they think public education is so great, or is it really because it's just sort of a blind. A giant bloated thing in cahoots with the teachers unions and also kind of keeps people dumb? So I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Trump or any other Republican is great when it comes to the debt or spending, but I would say in almost every case, the Democrats will be worse. That's a very sad reality. Look, the best way I can explain that, and anyone watching or listening to this I think will get it, is I live in Florida. Florida has no state income tax. We have roads that are clean and clear. We have fabulous policing throughout the state. We have environmental protections that are better than most across the country, even though everyone thinks Republicans hate the environment or something. And you live in California, where you have high income, you know, you have high personal income tax, you're at the top rate. I used to be there myself. It's not that fun writing that check. And the question is, is that money being used in any functional way? I would argue, and I bet you would agree with me on this. When I lived in la, putting aside the reasons that I left, which mostly had to do with COVID and crime and things like that, it's like, I didn't leave because of the taxes. I got here, and then it's nice to look at my bank account and be like, oh, I'm saving all this money and I live in a safer place or something. That's nice. But if I had still lived in la, not too far from you, and I was paying all those taxes and the services were great, meaning the public schools were great, public health was great, the roads were great, infrastructure was great, they were building things properly, it was safe, et cetera, et cetera, I actually would have had no problem paying those taxes. Peter Thiel, he's definitely said this to me privately. I'm sure he said it publicly. He always says, I'm a libertarian because none of it works. And I think most people, if most people, if we had a system that just kind of roughly worked, or at least that we believed worked, more people would be willing, would gladly pay into it. But don't show me a system that really doesn't work for anybody, which largely the blue states have, and then also tell me I still gotta pay in more. I think that's kind of the tension that we're feeling right now here.
- [14:58]
Tom Bilyeu
What I think is the more distressing read on the situation is that it all does roughly work like America is great. It's still, as far as I can tell, and I've been all over the place, it is still the place to be. Now you're starting to feel some energy picking up in the uae. I will tell people that. But yeah, it is right now, I would say it's the place that everybody wants to be. And the death will happen slowly. I think Elon's vision of this is Lilliputians tying you down one regulation at a time is the right way to think about it. I also think Gad Saad has really identified the problem, and the problem is suicidal empathy. So there's something about the human mind where what's driving all of this is, to me, there. There are two things that people really need to think through if you want your prediction engine to be functioning well. People really do want good things for other people, and they do not like to see people suffer. I think that is baked into the human animal and then also baked into the human animal is a will to power. And so when you put those two together, you get the populace clamoring for. You cannot leave these people behind. You can't do it when it's me. You can't do it when it's my mom, my dad, my cousin, my neighbor down the street who I love and care about. You just cannot leave these people behind. And then you get other people that are like, oh, word. This is my opportunity to seize power and I'm going to leverage people clamoring for that and their misunderstanding of the way that governments work, which I don't mean this in a conspiratorial way, but when you think of it as a deep state, I think that gets more to the. I don't even want to use the word corrupt. It. It is like mold isn't corrupt, but it grows on everything. And you get that same Thing like there's just all these. This tendency for the government to get bigger and bigger and bigger and for people to fight for their jobs. And I understand it. But when you put those things together, you get this cycle of. You can either start at the beginning or you can start at the end. If you start at the beginning, it's, hey, we like America. We have these hopes and dreams. We want to build something. We're going to use freedom to do it. We understand that there are risks associated. We try to plan for all of that. But over time, the government just gets bigger and bigger in the way that barnacles grow, unlike a sea turtle. And all of a sudden the turtle can't float anymore. And so you will end up with something that ultimately crumbles under its own weight and then another spot will rise up in its place, just like America did and took over from Great Britain.
- [17:33]
Dave Rubin
Yeah, well, in. In that you just said that, and I agree with. I think probably every word you just said there. I would qualify what I said about none of it works. The teal line about none of it work to sort of just add one piece. Which it's not exactly that none of it works. It's that we're realizing how little of it works at this point. So none of it working would be that it would basically be complete anarchy, that we'd all be killing each other constantly. Right. There would be no respect for any law and order. All hell would be breaking loose at all the time. Now, for all the problems we have, we're not there. Right. We don't have religious sectarian violence bursting out on the street every day. But what I would say is we do have an awful lot of problems that may be put that vision not too far in the future. So when you have every now and again rallies either for terrorist organizations or you have, you know, antifa, say blm, that can just kind of turn it off or turn it on at any time and take over streets and break windows and destroy businesses and go after monuments. That tension, how long can a society exist where that is happening? And I think that's the weird moment. So we're not fully at the. Oh, none of it works yet. But I think partly, and it might be because we're in a very weird tension right now between an old world and a new world that's developing. You know, sort of the baby boomer world that's somewhat ending right now, even though they're kind of not letting go. And a new world that's gonna be powered by AI and automation and everything else that's trying to get on board. I think Elon represents a lot of that tension, his own political evolution and where he's at sort of culturally these days. Right. Is right there. So it's not that none of it works. It's that we're seeing a lot of it does not work. And then the question is, okay, do you try to repair that thing? Do you burn it down? Do you go in a totally new direction or something else?
- [19:23]
Tom Bilyeu
The idea that baby boomers letting go, I have beef with that. So Eric Weinstein was the first person to put that on my radar. My thinking around this is you should never ask anybody to let go. You should be able to outperform them. Them. So the question is, has the system really been rigged such that the next generation actually can't get ahead? So let me ask has the setup of the US Government been rigged to the point and the economy very pointedly been rigged to the point that the next generation has an inability to wrestle power away from them? Hold tight. We're going to take a quick break
- [20:01]
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- [20:48]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, let's pick up where we left off.
- [20:50]
Dave Rubin
It's a little bizarre, I think. I've heard you and Eric talk about this, and I've definitely Eric may be the one that brought to my attention also this thing about the boomers holding on. You know, when you just think that even in the last look at the last decade of politics, if we just went through the names, it's not just Biden and Trump, but it's Pelosi and Schumer and that Dianne Feinstein was your senator while she was basically 97 years old and completely incapacitated, that there's this set of people of a certain age and science allowed them to live longer and everything else and they did not let go. Now, that's not an excuse. So I do agree with you completely in that it's like, man, no generation has to wait for the moment that you get handed the slip and congratulations, it's yours, you gotta go take it. Now there is that being said, there has been a weird moment and maybe this is fully the fault of our generation, the Gen Xers, who for some reason, you and I, we have one year between us, right? I'm 48, you're 47, I think. Yeah. So it's like we, yeah, 48 as well. So you have two 48 year olds, right? We are now basically in the prime of our life in that we have some years behind us, but we're still young enough that we basically feel good. We have some experience, we have education, we have, we have knowledge of like, what was behind us and what could be in front of us. Like, it's all there. If you're somewhere between 35 and almost 60, something like that, and that, that's probably the set of people a little bit on the older side of it that should be running things for some reason. Something I think happened, I don't know exactly what it is between the boomers and their children. Gen X, where it was like we just deferred. We just deferred all of it. And we're like, okay, you guys seem to have done a good job with the world. The post World War II order of things. America kind of makes sense. We're children of the 80s where everything was kind of great all the time and America was sold as great all the time. And we had Rocky and the WWF and there was so much culture and TV shows and movies and sports and all of this amazing stuff that I think we, for you and I, our generation, it was like built in basically that it was always gonna be good. And I think because of that, we never realized we were gonna have to take over until recently. And I think that that is sort of what's happening. I would include Elon in that too. That I don't think this is a guy who really wanted to own X. On top of trying to get us to Mars and catch rocket ships that are landing back in our atmosphere and, you know, build the tunnels under la. I think suddenly he was like, whoa, whoa. We really let this thing get out of control. So I don't know if it's more a dereliction, let's say, of Gen X's duty to take it or that the boomers did convince us of something, maybe that wasn't true, or if all of that is just part of human nature,
- [23:40]
Tom Bilyeu
I'm going to run a thought experiment and say something that I think is true, but I'm not 100% sure yet. I have a feeling that this is a problem of inflation and that we're not preaching. We've lost faith enough in the government. As you see, our belief in institutions is just absolutely plummeting. That people that really want to pursue, like we have a God shaped hole in our heart. A lot of us fill that up with meaning and purpose derived from something other than religion. I certainly am in that camp. And so I chose to build businesses and that's my answer to not having kids, for instance. So you've got people that say, okay, I don't believe in the government, the government's trash. So I'm certainly not going to give myself over to that. I think it's just dysfunctional enough that I'm not here for it. And there are these gigantic opportunities out in the world to get wealthy and I have to deal with inflation. And to me, inflation is the thing that deranges everything because it forces everybody to gamble because you can't just save money. And I really believe that the deranging force of that is extreme. All right, I'm going to set that to aside because I'm very curious. What I heard you say in your answer is not that this is a government corruption problem. And I don't mean that as in corrupt individuals. I mean that the system has been allowed to either get bogged down with middle managers or something, but a thing broke there. It's more that Gen Xers did not go. I'm going to rally into this. I'm going to contribute civically and I'm going to make sure that I uphold the foundations of democracy, liberty. I don't know what word you would fill in.
- [25:16]
Dave Rubin
Yeah, well, I think it was a function of success for all of the reasons. Like I have no doubt you have as many great memories of growing up in the 80s as I did. And there was a new toy every day, there was a new TV show every day, like a new awesome movie and Schwarzenegger and all of these things that were happening all of the time. It also felt very pro America. So if you grew up with that, it was like, oh, and we defeated, we won the Cold War, we defeated the Russia, you know, blah blah, blah. It was like, oh, we're just going to have this run and this run is just going to go and go and go. So I think Some of that. It's not to discount the rent seekers and the middle management people in the government or in corporations or any of that, because obviously all of that is real. I mean, I think if Trump, Trump's given us a bunch of good things, or at least put a bunch of good things into the culture. I think the phrase deep state, which nobody really said before him, understanding that there is a class of people that work in D.C. at these, at these institutions and at these agencies that exist, whether the administration goes one way or another, people didn't really understand that. Now most of us do understand that. And if he becomes president, we'll see if he can deal with anything. So that is part of it. But I think it was more kind of spiritual in a weird way. It's not even spiritual. It's spiritual and cultural, wherever those two things can meet. I think we basically, the Gen Xers and even the ones a little bit behind us, they just handed us a world that was pretty damn good, and we did not realize that we had to fight for it. I mean, I say that as somebody that I think I'm fighting as hard as I can. I, I, I say what I believe, and I've, I guess, built some things that'll allow me to do that that people are interested in. But I guess maybe I should have realized the severity of this a long time ago, and most of us just were blind, and that's a function of success. We had, we had an unbelievable run here in America. And good times create weak men. I'm not saying we're weak men, but, like, when everything is good for a while, everybody kind of relaxes a little bit, and that's when the bad things can get in there.
- [27:19]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, so if there is an intelligent way to fight and a dumb way to fight, what is the number one thing you would want to see whoever ends up being the incoming president do in order to reinspire people to engage civically?
- [27:36]
Dave Rubin
Well, this is tricky because, look, let's say it's Trump for a second. I'll do both. But if let's say it's Trump, which obviously I hope it will be, the problem with this is that because they have done such a crazy job on calling him a fascist and a white supremacist and a neo Nazi and all of those things, and it's. By the way, I don't know how much you track what goes on on mainstream media, but, like, as we're getting into these last 20 days, it is on full steroid mode right now. I mean, on the View, they're talking about Trump's gonna use the military to shut down their show, literally. Joy Mahar said that, like, they are really ramping up the craziness. And the problem with that is, is that it might just be that Donald Trump gets in office, and maybe he's not a fascist, and maybe we even have evidence he isn't, because he was a president before. And for all of the craziness around the ending of his presidency, he did leave office and all of those things. But what if he gets into the office of the presidency again and he does lower taxes and he does clean up the border a little bit, deal with some of the illegals here, he does roll back a little bit of regulation, does a few things that, in essence, free people to do what they want. Let's say he does some things as it pertains to the Middle east or even to the Ukraine war, that scale those things back a little bit. If some of that starts happening, I think an awful lot of people could suddenly be like, you know what? We went a little crazy over the last decade or two. The evidence of that is that a man like Donald Trump's not supposed to be president. I can fully admit that. Like, he really isn't supposed to be president. It's sort of like we summoned him from hell in a weird way. But you get the hero. You. But that's what I think he sort of represents at this point. But I think if he can just get in there, do a fairly decent job despite the fact that they will have. They. They will start being violent in the cities again. They. They have no out on the rhetoric. That's the problem. There was a video that I did the day before. No, the day that Donald Trump was elected. So it was the next morning after the election, when Hillary officially conceded. And I did not support Trump that first time. And I did a video saying, look, I didn't vote for the guy. I didn't support the guy. I voted for Gary Johnson, who was the libertarian. But I said, look, I'm gonna give the guy a chance, because if it turns out he's not a white supremacist and he's not a neo Nazi and all these horrible things, it's not what I've done to him at that point. It's that I've painted myself into a corner. Because it's very hard to be like that guy's Hitler year after year after year, and then suddenly be like, oh, but Hitler actually did a pretty good job. So I'm gonna come around to it. So I was always very cautious with that kind of language and I think allowed me to evolve properly. And I've now seen that evolution in people like Elon and RFK and many others. So I think there's a chance that Trump could map something pretty good. It doesn't mean that an awful lot of people on the other side aren't going to still try to burn it down and everything else, but I think there could be a restoration of America in that you'd have Donald Trump as a president. Now you have Elon working for him in the, you know, he says the Department of Government Efficiency. Maybe you're bringing in a David Sachs as chief of staff. You have RFK potentially going in and cleaning up the NIH and the cdc. You bring in Tulsi, maybe in the Department of Defense. Like, there really is a way to staff something that would feel so sound and good and different that that would be one version of it, the Kamala version, to get out of this. I have no idea what that looks like. I think that, you know, I keep describing her as the first AI candidate in that she's just the product of programming. It is impossible to say what she believes. If you can figure it out, I'd love to hear it. I don't know what she believes on literally any issue other than it's very clear she wants to be president or that the system has decided she should be president and she should take any position to get there. So my gut feeling is if she becomes president, things will get very bad, bad very, very quickly in a real way. Because if 12 or 15 million illegals have come in in the last four years, there's no reason to think that'll stop what that does. It's not that it all gets bad quickly, like right overnight. We just don't know what their intentions are, what these people are doing, et cetera. She's talking about things like reparations. She's talking about things like raising taxes. They do things like the Green New Deal, which in essence was just printing more money. You already hit on why that's no good. So I think virtually every policy would not be good. And I see very little way at a federal level that America would work. I think the states would figure out ways to keep doing things. I think Florida would figure out a way to flourish for the most part. I think Texas would, in Tennessee and a couple other places. But at a federal level, it's very hard to paint a positive picture.
- [32:31]
Tom Bilyeu
Hold tight. We're going to Take a quick break break
- [32:35]
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- [33:35]
Tom Bilyeu
And we're back. All right, flash me forward. So same idea. Trump doesn't win this time, we get Harris presidency. What would you say to your followers at that point? Is it, hey, let's give her a shot and see what happens? Is it, everybody get a bunker? What does that talk look like?
- [33:54]
Dave Rubin
Well, look, she'd be the President of the United States, which in essence is the captain of the ship. She's the pilot of the plane. So I would want her to guide the thing as best as possible. I just think the set of ideas that seem to be driving her are so antithetical to what America is or certainly what I believe America to be, that I don't see anything good there. I think what I would say, and I've thought a lot about this, I, I don't talk about it that much because I don't like speaking things into existence, really. But as we talked about earlier, we have 50 states for a reason. We have states rights for a reason. There was a reason the founders left everything to the states except for the few things that were left to the federal government. So I would be very bullish on Florida. I would do everything I possibly could to strengthen Florida, which I do anyway. But I would encourage more people to build businesses here. I would. And I think that, I think basically what you would see in essence is a very, very exacerbated sorting of the system. We saw a lot of it during COVID with this great migration mostly from blue states to red states. And I think you'd see another wave of that for sure. I think there's an awful lot of people that live in California right now. Because think about it, California has a huge amount of Republicans. It's an incredibly populous state. Now, it happens to be a one party state in that the Democrats always win, but there's millions and millions of Republicans there. I think an awful lot of them would be like, you know what? Now it's a bridge too far, because now we have four years of Kamala after four years of Biden. Newsom's not going anywhere. We're still doing all the gender stuff. We're still taxing the hell out of people. San Francisco's still a dumb blah, blah, blah. It's time to move on. And I. And ultimately I'm not that sorting. I don't want the states warring with each other. I think we discussed this a bit when I was in studio with you, but the sorting in and of itself, where people are like, oh, I will have some autonomy over my life. I will decide where I want to live and what that community looks like, and hopefully get engaged and know people in your community and know the police chief, know the local people. Like, that would be some version of a solution in light of a Harris presidency. But even to call it Harris presidency feels kind of nuts to me because it's like, it's not a Harris presidency. It's just a machine presidency.
- [36:12]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, so that is getting into the national divorce conversation. Why? I. I agree with you that people are sorting geographically based on their political affiliation, which makes me incredibly nervous. But why, if we can do so much at the state level, will it exacerbate?
- [36:33]
Dave Rubin
Well, because I think people would lose. I think there would be a certain amount of people that are Republican leaning, let's say, or right leaning in blue states. That would just be like, okay, now I waited long enough. Like, we had a massive wave during COVID right? I think about a million. It's over a million people left California, and I think about 800,000 of them ended up in Florida. A good percentage ended up in Texas. Some ended up in Tennessee. People should check the exact numbers on all this. We know that about 500,000 people left New York. A majority of them also went to Florida, but went to red states. It's very. The sorting very rarely goes the other way. The sorting very rarely goes. Someone in Florida is like, oh, my God, I can't deal with these low taxes and law and order and freedom. I'm moving to California. It's not to say it never happens, but it.
- [37:20]
Tom Bilyeu
But that was because there was something going on at the state level. So Covid is My local government is a sociopath, and I want to get out of here, and I want to go somewhere else. What I'm trying to figure out is, does something that happens at the national level actually cause a bigger problem at the local level, or is that literally only at the local level? So I think I'll ask the question this way. By kicking Roe v. Wade out and going back to the states, are we now exacerbating that filtering based on red and blue? Because we're giving the decision making at the state level.
- [37:56]
Dave Rubin
Well, as it relates to Roe v. Wade specifically, I would say it was the right decision, because abortion is not a constitutionally guaranteed right. Abortion is not in the Constitution. Thus, anything that's not in the Constitution is kicked back to the states. That's on a pure legal level. On the philosophical level that you're talking about, I think more choice in the system is good. I'm always for more choice. So, ironically, you know, there's a funny thing. They call it the pro choice movement, and I understand why they call it pro choice. But choice was not taken away. You now have a choice to have. You still have a choice to have an abortion or not. And you also have a choice to live in a certain place that is hopefully roughly in line with your values. And by the way, if you are a Floridian and you find out you're pregnant at 10 weeks and you can't get an abortion here, they can't stop you from going to California and getting an abortion or anything else. So I'm always for as much choice as possible. But you asked the right question, which is so, okay, so if Kamala comes in, why does that affect the state thing? What I think would happen, I don't know that it happens overnight, but I think an awful lot of people who are, let's say, begrudgingly staying where they are, not thrilled with the direction of California, I have no doubt, you know, a lot of these people not thrilled with the direction of New York, they're probably just kind of waiting right now, like a whole bunch of people that are a little more reactive got out that would include someone like me. I just couldn't take it anymore. Right. There's a lot of other people that are like, all right, well, let's see what happens with this election. And I think what they would see is that now with the, again, I hate to call it a Harris administration, but with the Democrats in power again, the bad forces will be emboldened, and the things that are bad in those cities will get Worse. And I would bet anything that that then would cause a second wave of migration across the country.
- [39:48]
Tom Bilyeu
It's interesting when I play that out in my mind, the only reason that that would be a logical play is if you think things are going to continue to get bad at the federal level. And I want to be in a state that's going to secede. And that thought has crossed my mind. I would be lying to say otherwise. But one of two things is true. Either what happens the state can protect you and the state is stronger than the federal government, or what the federal government does doesn't really matter here.
- [40:21]
Dave Rubin
Let's hear.
- [40:22]
Tom Bilyeu
I mean, that is true.
- [40:24]
Dave Rubin
Maybe I can give you a. I'll try to give you as a specific one as I can as possible. So let's say Harris is president right now. Let's say she roughly keeps the same border policies that the Biden administration has, and the Democrat cities keep the same policies that they've had, which is largely a sanctuary city situation. Well, that means that if you're gonna not do it the Trump way, where you're gonna. What he's arguing is that you either build the wall or you close the border or you deport some people, but now you're just doing it the Harris way. So now we have another 10 million people come in. Well, where are they gonna go? Largely to blue cities. What's going to continue happening in blue cities? Go to the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown New York City, which is now a migrant center. See what happens literally at dusk in New York City. I don't know. The last time you walked around New York City, the second dusk hits, it's like a zombie movie. Suddenly there are less business people than there used to be, but suddenly everyone kind of looks shady. It's just something is not right in these places, and we all know it. So I would say basically at an immigration level, if for no other issue, if the Democrats are in charge, we know that will be a worse situation at the border. And where do those people end up? Largely in blue cities, because the Democrats have chosen to have all of these sanctuary cities, thus creating more crime in those cities, taking over hotels, a strain on policing, et cetera, et cetera. And that one, if we're just going for one specific one, I think will cause another wave of people to get out of those cities.
- [41:50]
Tom Bilyeu
Do you think Elon is right, that this is all a big play by the left to get immigrants in, to get them filtered into swing states, to then get them voting status, to ensure that we become a One party nation.
- [42:06]
Dave Rubin
I mean, I think it's probably directionally right, like it's a game. You have to win elections. I think that their intersectional coalition just does not make sense. You can't have the Hamas people on the same side as the gays for too long before they realize that they're actually enemies. And that's what they've done. And there's a million other examples of that. You know, actually the trans people aren't on the side of the gays either. Like, there's so many versions of what they built. Basically, you know, they were the Constructicons from Transformers. They were like, oh, we'll take five Constructicons, we'll put them together into Devastator. But now they're realizing Devastator needs some glue to stay together as the big strong transformer, and that's not what they have there. Did that reference work for you? I feel like it kind of worked maybe a little bit.
- [42:52]
Tom Bilyeu
It did. Let me just make sure I understand what you're saying. I certainly love the reference. Are you saying that it is an ill advised strategy that's actually going to backfire because the, the immigrants are going to have a wildly disparate value set. And so theoretically it makes sense, but in reality it's, it's never going to work.
- [43:11]
Dave Rubin
You might find that being an ultra lefty liberal who is for open immigration and loves the gays and all of those things on the Upper west side of New York, you might find at some point that when there is a Venezuelan gang Living on 80th and Broadway and it's a little more difficult for you to walk with your children on the street because of it, that perhaps your policies were wrong. So the question would be, what are the Democrats doing as I think they were really realizing that this coalition, look, the Democrat coalition wasn't wide enough to keep Robert F. Kennedy, it wasn't wide enough to keep Tulsi Gabbard, it wasn't wide enough to keep Elon Musk. It wasn't wide enough to keep me. These are all people who are moderates. And 20 years ago, absolutely 10 years ago, would have all considered themselves Democrats. So if that is the case, and I think there's evidence to point to it, well, then you're gonna have to find new voters. And by the way, you don't have to take my word for it. Nancy Pelosi on Real Time with Bill Maher about two months ago, she wants to give these people citizenship. She said, I want everyone to share in the American dream. That is an unbelievably scary notion. I believe Americans should share in the American dream regardless of their skin color or any other immutable characteristic. But the American dream is not for everybody. It's for Americans. Unless you don't believe in the nation state. And that might be. I mean, this would be a whole other conversation, but that might be what a lot of Democrats actually are trying to get us to, whether they know it or not.
- [44:43]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, is this corruption or is this suicidal empathy?
- [44:47]
Dave Rubin
It's a little bit of both. I mean, you know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So most of these people, I think they think they're doing the good thing. You know, I wonder when it comes to someone like Barack Obama, it's like, what do you really think you're doing, man? Now, you ran, you had two terms as a president. In effect, you had a third term because it's his people kind of running the Biden show. And I think he wants Kamala because he wants, in essence, a fourth term of his people basically being in charge. And it's like, well, Barack Obama, you're gonna have to live in America with all of this. So do you want all of these illegals here and do you want the crime and do you want all this fentanyl crossing? I don't think that's what Barack Obama would want. I mean, I know that Barack Obama has a 30 acre house in Martha's Vineyard. And when, you know, Ron DeSantis sent about 30 illegals up to Martha's Vineyard, they got rid of them pretty easily. So, you know, these are all sort of nimby, not in my backyard type people. I don't know what the. I think for the foot soldiers, the average purple haired, queer college kid that's just screaming. I think it's suicidal empathy. I don't think they know what they're doing. And that's one of the, you know, it's one of the things that everyone goes through when they're young. You know, oh my God, I can make the world so right. And everyone before me was such an idiot or moron or caveman. I think the people who are manipulating them, let's say, you know, the George Soros types or the. Even John Kerry's, some of the more wef aligned people that really believe in a worldwide government, not in the sovereignty in nations. I think their intentions actually are bad, I would say bad if you think that America is good.
- [46:27]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, it's interesting. I think there might be something else going on with the Blue haired people screaming. I think Jordan Peterson nailed that with that's. We all have like this, especially when we're young. I think he calls it the Messiah complex. Like you have such a profound need to assist, but the Barack Obama one, that is more interesting because you've got somebody that's in political power. Yeah, I think that this really does stem from I want to help people. He's been a political organizer his whole life, which is about agitating against power. So you see somebody that's like, yeah, we can come up, we can make this system better. I don't attribute to him malice or ill intent, but humans steer emotionally far more than they steer logically. And I think that the narrative of doing things to help other people, that, that give us your tired, weak, poor, huddled masses, whatever the exact line is on the Statue of Liberty, like that really speaks to me. And if I had not gone into being an entrepreneur, I think I would, I don't know that I'd have blue hair, but I'd be screaming those same slogans because it was only getting in business that forced me to realize there are real metrics. And so you try a thing that feels right, feels nice, feels kind, and then you see people take advantage of it and you see that, that as that starts to happen, then the organization begins to have a difficult time actually outputting a product that people want to buy. So you're like, whoa, like I thought I was doing a positive thing with this policy to help my team. It really did come from a good place, but it yielded a terrible outcome. Now Millay from Argentina says everybody is willing to play prostitute with somebody else's ass. I think that's a paraphrase, not an exact quote. Yeah, it's pretty close, but that's a great idea. When, when you are the government and you can spend somebody else's money, all of a sudden you aren't just fiendishly holding yourself accountable. And so I think you throw that into the mix and it's it, it gets complicated again, going back to will to power. You also have to understand will to power. And for those who don't know, it's a Nietzschean idea that people long to control themselves, control their own destiny, to get into a position of power, to keep it, it. And when you mix that with I want to help people and I just need to be in charge to do it. And so now I'm going to get myself in charge and I'm going to make sure that I do good things, but with no metric to be Accountable to. And all hell breaks loose. All right. Debt makes me feel completely politically homeless. That and money printing. What makes you feel politically homeless?
- [49:03]
Dave Rubin
You know, I have to say, having the evolution that I've had politically, very publicly, which many people have been on a similar journey. And I see that journey now mapped out with. With some of the people that I've mentioned, like RFK and Tulsi and whatever. What I've consistently found is that people on the right, the broad right, and I don't mean conservatives specifically, but people who roughly are on the right are willing to agree to disagree, are down to have that conversation, have a. And this may have a religious attachment to it. They are willing to accept that people will be different than them without trying to convert everybody. Which is an interesting thing that. That religious people seem to be more okay with that than often a lot of the secularists, certainly the younger progressive types. What would make me feel homeless? At the moment, there's not much I feel very welcome in the Republican Party. I'm a registered Republican for the first time here in Florida most of my life, I voted for a Democrat. I certainly don't believe in all Republican policies. If we were able. If we were to just look at the party platform, I'm sure that there are some things I have issue with. But the basic thing is that America is fundamentally good, that we should have lower taxes. I believe in peace through strength. I believe in strong borders. The basic stuff is there now. The one that might be the most glaringly obvious is that for many, many years in America, Republicans were wildly against gay marriage. I've been married to a man for. We got married in 2000. I've been married for basically 10 years. We have two kids. People would not have been okay with that at some point. And I have no doubt, not no doubt. I know for a fact there are a certain set of more religious Republicans that don't love that idea. The idea of legislating that out is almost virtually gone. It's almost non existent. Yes, there are some annoying people on Twitter or something like that. So what I love, would I love that to be like buttoned up completely and never hear of that issue again? Yeah, but we largely. That issue is largely gone. And by the way, I have to give credit to Donald Trump on that. Donald Trump ran first time around. Barack Obama, when he ran first time was. Was against gay marriage. Donald Trump first time around was for gay marriage. So he shifted the party. That. That also is the irony of where we're at at the moment. The Republican Party because Donald Trump is more of a populist. And no one thinks he's a real hardcore conservative. He's done conservative things like flipping Roe v. Wade, obviously, but no one thinks that Donald Trump, in his heart of hearts, is like the most pro life person. Donald Trump, again, moved on gay marriage first. He actually took the Republican Party and I would say brought it more to the center. So something very weird happened in politics. While Donald Trump was bringing the Republican Party more to the center, the repo. The Democrat Party was going more to the left. And had they only just, just stayed, I think this would all look very different right now. But unfortunately, they went where they, I guess, felt the energy was, or I can't even speak to exactly what their intentions are anymore, but they went that direction. And. And so I don't feel particularly politically homeless right now at all, actually.
- [52:20]
Tom Bilyeu
How do you avoid getting sucked into tribal thinking? Because one thing that, as somebody who views himself as an independent, that drives me me absolutely bonkers is when I see people defending everything. You can tell they're speaking from a position of I just don't want the other person to get elected and they're no longer being intellectually honest or they're able to fool themselves. But how do you avoid that?
- [52:45]
Dave Rubin
You know, it's unbelievably tricky. And I. As it's unbelievably tricky as just a person that exists in 2024, I would say it's like compoundingly almost impossible if you're in our line of work. Right. Like, that makes it a million times more difficult because I'm covering these issues all the time. I don't hide my feelings. So I tell people what I think, that I absolutely have blind spots and I get things wrong and all of that sort of stuff. I would say I try very, very hard to tell people exactly what I think when I think it. I don't hold that much behind. Look, I was not for Donald Trump in the primary. I thought it was time for a generational shift, shift, sort of what we talked about before. Ron DeSantis, closer to our age, totally competent governor of a flourishing state, doing virtually everything right, doesn't have the baggage, good family man. All I thought all of the pieces were right there. Now, clearly the Republican base or whatever disagreed with me. And I think in light of the last six or eight months, Trump probably was the right choice here. And again, I'm obviously supporting him. But I think the. But look, in that moment when I was supporting DeSantis, I had no idea which Way my audience was gonna go with me or go with me or not go with me. Right? And I've had a lot of those things. I have audience members. Every now and again, I'll see a message, someone will email me, or I'll see a comment, and it'll be like, dave, I've been watching you for six months. I didn't even realize you were gay. It doesn't matter that much other than all you can do is, I think, say what you believe consistently explain why you believe it, and then that hopefully takes care of most of the other nonsense. But, yes, I can tell you for sure. In the last year, I have seen an awful lot of people just dive into the purely partisan part of this, and that's very disappointing at this point. I am partisan. I think there is one political party right now that is significantly better than the other, and there is one political party that is. That is seriously dangerous for the future of America. That. That is absolutely the way I see it. And I don't hide that. But within that, I still try to call balls and strikes to the best of my ability. Right now, I don't see Republicans, for the most part, doing anything, like, completely insane that I need to really call them out for. If you've got one, I'd totally be down to hear it it. But I. But I don't see it right now. But I can give you an awful lot on the Democrat side.
- [55:18]
Tom Bilyeu
Do I think that they're doing anything that is completely insane? I think the. The big hang up for the Republican Party is very similar to what you've got with Harris, which is she had all these old positions. She switched them. Do we believe that she actually switched them? You've got Trump. It seems crazy to me to not say he tried to create a tremendous amount of friction around the peaceful transfer of power. Like, I would have felt a lot better about it if he had said, cool, all right, these, the. This is the election. This is how it came out. I think there's a lot of fishy stuff. I want to fight it. There was, having been alive during the Gore Bush challenge, that just felt like two people that were like, all right, we're going to let the process play out the way that it's going to play out. Gore accepted defeat, and honestly, that felt like the way to handle it. That did not feel like how it was handled here. I think Trump has left himself wildly open to just trust not only criticism, but suspicion. The. The actions on January 6th lead him open, leave him open to rightful suspicion. That all of his sort of backing off talk on that is just to get elected and he doesn't want to seem crazy, and then he gets in, is like, no, for real. We need to really make sure. Because he won't concede that he lost the election. It's just like enough of these things where I'm like, like, bro, if you didn't have all that, if he had peacefully transferred power, if he said, yeah, I lost the election is what it is, I left it too close. This is like somebody that loses an MMB bout and is like, just cannot accept that the mistake was leaving it in the hands of the judges. The mistake is, hey, enough people didn't think you did a great job. It is what it is. And anyway, period, I'll just loop.
- [57:01]
Dave Rubin
Yeah, well, the only thing I would add to that is I think JD Vance has had some good answers on this lately. Not only at the debates, but when he's done some interview, because they're really trying to hang. This seems to be a spot that obviously you can get a lot of people to just who are getting pretty damn close to voting for Trump. You can suddenly freak them out and they run the other way. And it's not that anything you said there was wrong, per se. He never said violently do it. He did say peacefully protest. But putting that aside for a second, I think if you look to the backdrop, and this is what JD has said, if you look to the backdrop of what was happening with Big Tech and silencing the Hunter Biden laptop and Russia collusion and really a largely hoaxed impeachment. First impeachment, and then they did it again after January 6th, that this, it's not that it was stolen in the most traditional way that we would say stolen. And I'm really not making that argument. The argument would be that there is. There was enough stuff in the system, largely related to the corruption in that laptop, that when you then saw that the government was colluding with Big Tech to silence people on top of just the way the media lies about almost everything and claims he's a racist and very fine people on both sides and all those things that all of those breadcrumbs could add up to a meal, I think that would be the most sensible answer around that, which J.D. i think has laid out pretty well. But I fully understand the position that you have there. And I see a lot of people with that, that it's like, had that just not happened, maybe I could get there. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe there would Always be an excuse. I don't know, it's probably different for every person, but I believe you'll always
- [58:41]
Tom Bilyeu
fill in an excuse because they have emotion and they're just post hoc trying to explain why they have the emotion.
- [58:47]
Dave Rubin
Right.
- [58:47]
Tom Bilyeu
Just saying that one really leaves them exposed. And so you need. I haven't heard JD Talk a lot about it. I haven't heard him talk a lot about anything, just because I'm. I'm not that engaged. But it isn't enough, in my opinion, for the vice president to be able to address it. It isn't enough for somebody admittedly partisan like yourself to be able to address it. Well, what we need is on both sides, the candidate needs to be able to address it well. And so when you look at somebody like Vivek, dude, you could put him out on stage and you give him a mic and say, the most hostile people are going to ask you questions for 12 hours straight, and he's just going to be able to field it. That's just where he's at from an intellectual horsepower perspective. Take somebody like Sam Harris, you can love him or hate him, but if that guy were running for president, you could put him on a stage with a microphone. He's going to be able to defend his positions. He will leave you the breadcrumbs where you can say, oh, I understand the base assumptions that are driving your logic. I disagree violently, and therefore, I'm not going to vote for you. But there's no obfuscation. There's nothing confusing. There's no, like, weird thing to hang your hat on. It's just, just this is a guy that I disagree with. I think his fundamental beliefs and views are incorrect.
- [59:59]
Dave Rubin
All right, so I will complete. I will completely agree with you that Donald Trump gives his opponents an awful lot to work with. Like, for sure. And again, that's why that, again, was my calculation with DeSantis. Let's just see if we can take all of the goodness in a package that is much cleaner and more efficient and better and younger and everything else. Again, it didn't work this time. And maybe that's it for DeSantis at a national level, who knows? But, you know, there's Glenn Youngkin, there's. There's all sorts of people that maybe would do the cleaner version. In essence, then, which is basically what you're asking for.
- [60:36]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, it is what I'm asking for. It is. So talk to me about the one thing on the Trump candidacy side that's got me really excited. So, in an ideal World, I would have been voting for RFK as a Democrat. Like that. That. That was like, woo. All right, buddy, let's go. Obviously that. That didn't play out that way. We don't have to relitigate that. But the fact that you've got RFK with Trump, you've got Elon with Trump, those two people I have a freakish amount of respect for. What do you think about Elon specifically and the idea of going in and making the government more efficient? Is that that real, or is this just a rich guy that is trying to get things lined up to get even richer?
- [61:23]
Dave Rubin
No, you know, I was thinking about it when I was walking my dog this morning, because Elon just in the last couple days now, you know, catching the rocket, which is the most, like, insane. These guys, within a week, it's like, we've got the robots serving beer, he's catching rockets. Like, the guy's doing so many things and he's. And he's, you know, arguing with people on Twitter and gave 75 million bucks to the pack to support Trump. Like. Like he's doing a million things, and it's like, so what's really going on there with this guy? I've met him a few times, but I will not pretend that I know him that well. What my sense is is that he suddenly realized over the course of the last five or so years that things were as dire as I think a lot of us think they are, that we are genuinely at risk of handing away the greatest human experiment in governance that has ever been done. And I think he suddenly was like, holy cow, I have to get in on this. And there's something within him that forces him to do that, right? Like, if. If the world was pretty good, let's say there's no reason for him to buy Twitter, right? There's just no reason. If the world. If. If the systems and big tech were kind of good, maybe not great, but not so obviously evil. So in cahoots with the government and censoring people and everything else, why would he have any interest in buying Twitter? He would be focused on SpaceX and Tesla and robotics and AI and Neuralink and Starlink and all of those things. And I think he'd be very happy to be doing that, but something happened related to free speech, obviously. And now if you see the way California is going after his businesses and that when he announced that he's taking X out of California and whatever's left of Tesla, I think he's taking them out of California, moving it all to Texas. Gavin Newsom basically gave a press conference saying, great. And it's like, dude, how freaking evil could you possibly be? It doesn't matter whether you agree with Elon Musk about free speech or anything else for your own citizens, for all of the good people who work at Tesla, for all of the tax revenue that they bring in and everything else, man, you're happy about that. I mean, I met with the guy at, at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco amidst the zombie apocalypse of homeless people and drug addicts outside, and it's like, well, now that building's empty too. Congratulations. Is this a real win for you, Gavin Newsom? So I truly believe. I can't imagine a world where Elon Musk, basically the richest guy on the planet, or certainly in the top five, is like, my God, I have to do this so that I could have more money and more power. I think he is putting an unbelievable amount of skin in the game to fight for what is right so that his children, and he's got an awful lot of children, will have a better life. I see it as almost as authentic as it can possibly be. And I think you, I'm sure you know this. As an interviewer, you genuinely, or generally, I think you know when someone is telling the truth. And one of the ways you can tell someone's telling the truth is when it's easy for them to speak. And when you listen to Elon in all of these interviews, you can sense how thoroughly thoughtful he is, how even the way he sometimes stammers over words because he's thinking about a thousand things at once, but trying to express himself properly. I do not mean this in a kiss assy way at all, but I am as impressed as I can possibly be with someone with him. The guy is in the fight and he does not have to be. Although the war may come to all of us one day, he doesn't have to be in it the way he's in it right now. Mark Zuckerberg certainly is in it that way. He's now suddenly saying he's kind of a libertarian because I think he sees the tea leaves changing. But he's been on the wrong side of it for a long time. Elon wasn't on the wrong side. He was just largely apolitical. So anyway, to really answer your question, could he do the Department of Government Efficiency? Why not? Is there anything this guy has set out to do that he hasn't been able to do? He's doing an awful lot, and I think he could do that, and then if you throw in a couple of the other names that you like right there. Is there anyone better suited on planet Earth than Robert F. Kennedy to go into NIH and the CDC and crack some skulls and really fire people and figure out what's going on there and figure out what happened with COVID and all of those things? No. He could actually do it. Is there anyone better suited than Tulsi to go to the Department of Defense and figure out what's going on there? And where is this money that we keep giving to Ukraine and why do we never get receipts? Like, you actually could assemble the right team. I think this. This is the chance to do it.
- [65:45]
Tom Bilyeu
Let's get into the horses here. In the horse race, 50% of the country is going to vote for Harris. What? What do they believe? That you don't believe that. If you assume that they are being sincere, that makes them convinced that's the right play.
- [66:04]
Dave Rubin
Yeah. I spend a lot of time thinking about this and talking about this on the show because look, for if I'm right, even roughly right about all the things I'm saying here, it's like, so could all of these people be so wrong? Are all of them evil? Blah, blah, blah. Well, first off, I don't think they're evil. I think there's a lot of people who are confused. I think we have to give credit where the credit is due. And the machine and mainstream media and the culture has just completely bamboozled so many people for so long that I think a lot of people don't know what they believe. I think that, to your point a moment ago, Donald Trump still makes it easy to dunk on him. I think he's cleaned it up a lot. He doesn't do the name calling nearly as much. I think he's gotten better at some of that stuff. But he is what he is, and basically everyone on earth has made up their decision about him. So the best version. If I was trying to give the best version of what a Kamala Harris supporter thinks banks, I would qualify it by saying I don't think that they really fundamentally understand how the United States was set up to be governed, because it was not set up to be governed this way. It was not set up to be governed, to take some, take from some and give to others. To have the government in charge of so much to go out of your way to eliminate school choice, to be so in bed with the teachers unions, to have this unaccountable amount of money going to foreign nations, like there's so much wrong with it that I just have to put that out there. But for the average person that's supporting it, I think there's two versions of it. One version is they just hate Trump. And that is a huge amount of people and we just have to accept it. You may not think it's right, but it is what it is. I think there's a huge amount of people that just hate Trump and that's why they're gonna vote Democrats. I'm a Democrat.
- [67:52]
Tom Bilyeu
What do they hate him based on, though? What's the underlying believe?
- [67:55]
Dave Rubin
I think they hate him. I think it's largely lies. They think that very fine people on both sides is real, that he never said. I'm not talking about the way for a reason.
- [68:03]
Tom Bilyeu
Do you think it's. Is it temperamental? There's something about the way that he talks. Is it?
- [68:10]
Dave Rubin
Yeah, I think. Well, I. You brought up Gad sad before. I think he's talked about this a bit. I mean, I think that he's. In some ways Trump is like an affront to liberal sensibilities. You know, he's bold and braggadocious. He likes steak well done with ketchup. You know, he can go into meetings with people and instead of being prim and proper, you know, is just sort of over the top and ridiculous. Like he basically is Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack. And why did everyone at the golf club not like Rodney Dangerfield? Was he such a bad guy or was it that he was just like a little looser and sillier and all of that and was more of a common man? I mean, that literally was the character of Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack. He was a common man getting into the elite club. Donald Trump doesn't really fit into the elite club. So for a certain set of people, it's that. But then I will say because of his language, and again, he's cleaned it up a lot lately. But because of some of the over the top things he said and that he was just Megyn Kelly bleeding from here and all of that stuff, he made it easy. He handed it over easily. It's why he struggles mostly with middle class women win because there's just a certain thing that they want that he does not deliver but the best. So I would say for a certain amount of Democrats, it's just a hatred of Trump. Now for the. For the Democrat that loves Kamala. Well, first off, it's very hard to actually see who that person is. Kamala Harris basically was polling at 0 to 1% in her own primary when she ran against Joe Biden. Her most famous moment in that primary was calling Joe Biden racist. Joe Biden then said when he cut the deals and got the nomination, I'm going to choose a black woman. So he handed. Selected her not for qualification but for identity politics. She's attached herself to a lot of these bad policies. But I suppose if I was trying to give the most generous version of it that you possibly could, like, this is what we have of, let's keep going. Maybe some people are like, oh, maybe she'll give us reparations. Or some people are like, oh, she'll continue the food stamps. Or some people. It's connected to the suicidal empathy. It's very hard to tell you what a genuine. I am a fully thought out Kamala Harris supporter. I support her policies other than I want power. I genuinely don't know who that person would be. I can't even think of a, of a person we could point to that. I'm like, oh, this person is a true Kamala. I'm not talking about an MSNBC host and I'm not talking about a blue haired kid. Like, if you can think of one, I'd love to hear it. Who is an adult, a thoughtful adult in the world of business or somewhere. And I'm not, you know, in culture that is like, I am really voting for Kamala Harris because her vision and plan for America and policies are the correct ones. I genuinely cannot think of anyone. I can think of some people who would say that on msnbc, but I don't know anyone who genuinely believes that. That's quite a. That's quite a statement. But if you've got one, I'd love to hear it.
- [71:20]
Tom Bilyeu
I mean, I do. Mark Cuban.
- [71:24]
Dave Rubin
Well, Mark Cuban's an interesting one because I think he is so confused about so many issues, which is why he keeps fighting with all these people on Twitter all the time. I mean, Mark Cuban, a man who has become a billionaire through capitalism and now is deeply, deeply confused. I mean, the way he talks about die or dei, although it's really die. It's like, dude, you ran the Dallas Mavericks for however many years you had them. Where were all your Asian women on the Dallas Mavericks? So you don't really believe in diversity. You believe in diversity when it can be faked, but when it comes to actually putting a team together. And by the way, the Dallas Mavericks won the championship one of his years owning them with Dirk Nowitzki. He assembled it by skill, not by identity. So I would say he's largely confused and. And in. In a weird way, he's just offering service to a system that has been good for him. Something like that.
- [72:19]
Tom Bilyeu
Do you. Are you glad that Mark Cuban is speaking up as loudly as he is right now?
- [72:26]
Dave Rubin
Sure. Yeah. Even look with him, there's something very curious about him because it's. It seems really weird if you would have asked me and. And I think even if you would have asked Elon, probably, and many other people, if you would have asked me what I thought of Mark Cuban five years ago, Shark Tank owning the Mavs, occasionally political, whatever it was like, I thought he was a great personality. I like that he was out there. He did a lot of fun things as it related to the NBA. What's been weird about him is, generally speaking, people, as they evolve politically, you become conservative. You know, there's the old line that if you don't have. If you're. If you don't have a heart, when you're. If you're like, oh, God, I've done 20 shows young.
- [73:06]
Tom Bilyeu
If you're not. When you're young, you don't have a
- [73:08]
Dave Rubin
heart, you don't have a heart. And in your 30s, if you're not a conservative, you don't have a brain. Right. Most people evolve that way because you get a little world wisdom behind you and everything else, and you realize, oh, there is some stuff that the generations before me had that was good and I didn't know everything, and that's part of growing up and everything else. So it's very rare that someone evolves the other way, where suddenly you're like, oh, actually, I do want to kind of give more power to the system. And suddenly I do believe less in the individual and more in identity and a bunch of things. So it's. So I would say it's not. I'm not glad or not or unhappy that he's speaking out more. I think it's been a particularly interesting case because it's so bizarre. And I would say you don't even have to listen to me on this. I would say listen to so many people who were his friends and colleagues for decades that are like, what in the high hell happened to you?
- [74:02]
Tom Bilyeu
It's interesting.
- [74:03]
Dave Rubin
What do you think? What do you think? I mean, as a business person and as someone that understands economics and everything else, to watch and that I don't sense you have a great love of identity politics. I mean, to watch him go in that direction, what do you make of it?
- [74:17]
Tom Bilyeu
So I don't think he is in identity politics. I think that Mark is almost certainly. And I don't know him at all. I have never once met him. I've never had a conversation with him ever. Um, I'm very glad he's speaking. He is sharpening my thinking and hopefully a lot of other people's thinking, because you either go, ooh, that's a good point. I didn't see it that way. Or, huh, that still hits me wrong. Let me look at into why that hits me wrong. And that seems outrageous. But here's what I think is happening. And. And Mark, Lord knows I would talk to you at any time. He is ex. He's independent. He has an extremely fluid intelligence. So he is able to take either side. And I think he. It goes something like this. I've engaged with Donald Trump enough to believe he's not going to listen to the sensible people in the room, that he has some very erroneous views that I, Mark Cuban, think are going to make America worse. And so when I look at Harris, I see either. I like the idea of machinery, that it's not just one person, that there's something that you can interface with here. You can get behind the scenes and have rational conversations with people that feel like adults and they're presenting themselves much better. And so I'm having a hard time getting over somebody who, I think Cuban would agree with this. I don't know that he's ever used the word narcissistic, but I'll use it because I think it sums it up very quickly. A narcissistic guy with his finger on the nuclear button who I think swaggers into every meeting with world leaders and thinks that he can just sort of push them around or whatever. But the reality is that he has failed at business over and over and over again. He's done a good job of remaining famous, but he has not done a good job of building businesses. And so I'm now going to switch my very fluid intelligence and show you all the arguments for Kamala Harris. And look, he's another guy you could put up with a microphone. The part that I don't know yet is, is Mark able to argue both sides? And he has simply decided that Harris is better for the country, in his opinion, and so he's putting his weight behind her. And because I have a feeling he could argue just as well for Trump on the other side if he felt like that was the right move forward in terms of. Even though I disagree with him very aggressively, because he has to understand the way that he's representing. What. So the, the DEI part of his equation, if I'm understanding this correctly, goes something like this. Dear Mr. Rubin, obviously I didn't end up hiring Asian women because they're not going to have the skill set to be good at basketball. But if you think for a second that I wouldn't consider an Asian woman to make sure, hey, nobody's looking at Asian women, let me go give a look. I look. Okay, cool. There's obviously nothing here. There's no small smoke, there's no fire I can move very quickly on. But I'm going to look into these pools of talent that other people are overlooking. And I think everybody that doesn't do that is an absolute fool. And so I have the broadest tent. But at the end of the day, and I'm pretty sure he would say this, I am still only going to hire based on competency.
- [77:20]
Dave Rubin
Yes. I think that that is his position. I think it's completely mistaken. And several people, I think, including Eli, have pointed this out to him on Twitter. It's completely mistaken in how DEI actually works once it's in the system.
- [77:32]
Tom Bilyeu
Important. So, yes.
- [77:33]
Dave Rubin
Right. Read so I can get. I'll grant him the longest leash on that. That that is his intention with all of this. But again, if you really believed in it, if you really believed that diversity above all is the most important thing, you, you would bring in a 5, 4 foot 6 Asian lesbian to play on the Mavs because she would have some other thing that you know that the seven foot black guy doesn't have. I would say. But I, but I think what you just laid out there is probably the fairest estimation of kind of where he is at. It's pro. That's probably approximately close to it. I would say the one other piece of this that probably that neither of us, because we don't know him, can really pinpoint is that I think he probably got very lost in the DEI thing because of being so close to the NBA, because he was around so many black athletes because the NBA went so over the top on the BLM stuff. And he was a rich white manager during. Rich white owner of a basketball team during all of that. I think that probably comes with a little bit of the suicidal empathy. And no matter how many, even if the Mavs had the best locker room and all the best facilities in the league, which I think they largely did for many years, at least in his first years, because that's what he was known for, he just opened the checkbook and just gave them everything they wanted. That maybe he couldn't get over some guilt related to all of that, that it was still him, the rich white guy, doing it for a largely black team, although ironically, the best player on his championship team was white. But,
- [79:08]
Tom Bilyeu
yeah. So if I had to guess, and this is a guess, but hey, this is YouTube, and guessing is fun. Let's go. I think it probably goes something like this. He has not yet had the very sour, disgusting, horrible realization that I have had, which is you have to give up on adults. And so what he realizes is, okay, wait a second, we're getting these. These absolutely intolerable differences in outcomes between ethnic groups. And obviously you have to subdivide them, because there are different people in the US Whether it's Asians or black people from certain backgrounds that have done extraordinarily well. But you still. You can look out and you go into the inner cities and it's like, hey, it is not awash with white people. And you start going, huh, Something is broken. What the hell do we do? And I've spent so much time, because I was in manufacturing for almost a decade, you are in there and you just see up close, ah, this is an ideas problem. This is not an intelligence problem. The problem is the human mind begins to codify and get so baked that even though you can change at any age, most adults won't change, even when confronted with this information. So I look at all that. I'm in the middle of it. I'm trying to teach all of my employees everything about entrepreneurship that I can. And I'm realizing 98% of them are not changing. 2% are. And it's amazing, super gratifying, but 98% are not. And when you're looking at that problem, one conclusion you can come to is people just aren't. They're not setting up systems to take care of these people instead of going, oh, this is an education problem. Got it. I've got to get to kids when they are young. And kids need to belong to their parents. But let me just say, a lot of parents, if they grew up in the inner cities, they're awash and terrible ideas. They probably are part of a broken family. And so now you. You have created an engine that outputs dysfunctional adults, and the temptation is always to. And Sam Harris tells this analogy all the time. If somebody. You keep seeing humans tumbling over the edge of a waterfall, and you try to catch as many as you can, you're like, oh, my God, like, what's happening? This is a tragedy. Eventually you have to say, who the hell is throwing these people into the water in the first place?
- [81:30]
Dave Rubin
Place.
- [81:30]
Tom Bilyeu
So let me go upstream. To me, the punchline is always in forever going to be, you've got to educate people on strong ideas from the earliest conceivable moment. I'm talking, can you get parents to read to their kids? Because the number of words that a kid hears by the age of five is going to wildly impact the language centers of their brain, which is going to wildly impact their job prospects down the line. So, and I'm not even talking education once you get into kindergarten. I'm talking education like from the time that child is born without usurping a parent's rights, et cetera, et cetera. So I would be so interested to have that conversation with Mark and to see if he's like, oh no, no, no, I've already thought about that too. And either yes or no, that's a terrible idea. But you still have to do all this DEI stuff and here's all the data and it really is working because look, I could not be more open. I care only about what works, but I don't see how the policies, at least as I understand them, them could ever possibly work.
- [82:25]
Dave Rubin
Right. Well, so let me just say two things briefly on that. One is like directly on the policy side. So, okay, so in most inner city areas you have public education, right? These people don't have the ability to send their kids to private schools or charter schools or elsewhere or homeschool. And we know that public education has systematically gotten worse and worse and worse. Then you throw the woke stuff on top of it beyond just sort of general bad education and not the best teachers and maybe not enough money for the schools or whatever. And then you have really toxic stew. So now you have these kids that are not learning the proper things, in many cases learning completely the reverse of the proper things. Then you also have giant government programs that Democrats largely are for that keep people on welfare forever, that keep them in generational poverty because you put them in rent controlled apartments. And then if they were ever to say, okay, I'm going to get off the government dole, well, now I have to earn $4,000 a month instead of $100 a month for this rent. So there's a series of things that all lend itself to a screwed up machine. However, all of that being said, I think you just absolutely nailed it about what you have to do with kids first, and I would say more something that I care about far more than Anything we've discussed here or that I, that I discuss on my show every day is that we have two two year olds right now who we are doing, doing absolutely, knock on wood. So far, everything. Right. An hour, not only in terms of feeding them, but attention and no television and outdoors all day and reading to them in the morning and at night and all those things. And we just had our two year checkup with the doctor and she told us that our kids are speaking at a four year old level already and that she's now using them as an example of proper parenting for some of her other, for other patients that she has. But that's because we, and it's largely my husband more than me because I'm in here all day, are putting that much effort into doing all the right things and not giving them sugar and making sure that they're eating the right foods and that their brains are ready. And a lesson that I learned from Jordan Peterson, getting them so damn tired during the day from climbing things and running around and everything else that when 7 o' clock rolls around it's like that they're ready to go to bed and then we'll pick it up at 7am the next day. And, and so I think that's slightly separate than a lot of the public policy stuff that we're talking about, but that sets up proper people to maybe build proper systems in the future.
- [84:49]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. And any parent, God willing, listening to this, that does not have access to those kind of resources, AI is going to be your best friend. And even if your child is already born by the time they're, you know, I mean, we're talking three or four years from now, they're going to have an AI that grows up with them, that can tutor them, that has infinite patience, effectively infinite knowledge. My heart absolutely goes out to all the parents that are struggling to make ends meet. Man, I absolutely get it.
- [85:17]
Dave Rubin
Yeah.
- [85:17]
Tom Bilyeu
And, and by the way, really, it's going to be transformative.
- [85:20]
Dave Rubin
By the way, look, I, I'm blessed like you are in that I, I've become enough of a success that I can afford certain things for them, obviously. But a lot of the stuff, especially as it pertains to nutrition, I think people are very confused on how to do things. Things you can mash up an avocado and you can get a couple organic eggs and mash those up and do some simple, simple things that do not cost a lot of money. And those kids can eat pretty well now. Kids can be picky and you're gonna have to Work with them and all of that stuff. And I am by no means saying that we're perfect at it, but, you know, getting them out of all of the processed foods and all of that stuff and all of the sugar, everything, even the stuff that you go into the kid's aisle at Whole Foods and half the stuff is just loaded with sugar or high fructose corn syrup. And it's like, we just don't go that route. And for the first time ever, about two weeks ago, we gave them soft serve ice cream. We're at a farm. We took them to the farm for the day. We were like, all right, we'll do it today. Both of them took like a couple licks and like, they just clearly hadn't developed a taste for sweetness and they, and they had just moved on. So now we'll just push it as far as we can.
- [86:24]
Tom Bilyeu
That's crazy. It's crazy. All right, Dave Rubin, tell the people why they should vote for your candidate.
- [86:32]
Dave Rubin
If you think that the founding of America is good, that this 250 plus year experiment is pretty good, if you believe in individual rights, if you think that your grandparents came here for, for the reasons that they probably told you, that they came here, that they wanted a better life, that they were fleeing something that, that was authoritarian or not good, whether it was Cuba or Eastern Europe or part of Asia or Russia, whatever, if you think that this experiment is good, then I think that actually this is probably the first time in my life that although they say it every four years, that this actually is the most important election. We have a political party that has largely been taken over by radicals and seemingly just wants to hold onto power and expand that power. And then you have another party that maybe you were a little afraid of and hasn't been perfect with a guy that certainly isn't perfect at the helm of it, but is showing some degree of tolerance and flexibility and openness. And I think there's a chance to work with that. And for anyone that remembers pre 1995, I think that was the year we talked about when I was in studio with you last time. If you remember, pre1995America for a long time, it was really good. It was not perfect, but was good. And if we can get back to that, get back to realizing that capitalism is good, that choice is good, that, that it's a little messy and your neighbor is going to think things that you don't think and we're going to be different than each other and that that is all good. That the, the melting pot is good, that it's better than what they have in Europe, where it never became a melting pot, that you bring your traditions and your food and your languages and all those things. You actually, in Europe, they largely stayed separate but became citizens of England, let's say, where in America we all brought all of that stuff. And then on any given day, it's like, man, I could have Chinese food tonight and pizza tomorrow and Vietnamese, blah, blah, blah, and understand people's cultures and all those things. But at the end, we're all Americans, that we all believe in freedom and the right to disagree and that we can all pursue happiness and all those things. If you believe in any of that at this particular juncture, I think there's only one way to vote. I hate to say that it's not the healthiest thing, and I do think that there's a way it could get back to something more normal afterwards. But I think we need this. I think Trump was a wrecking ball the first time that didn't fully get the project, didn't blow up the building effectively. I think this is really the chance to do it right. And if any of this can be solved by politics, it's that. But I would in summation say most of it can't be solved by politics. It can only be solved by you in your life. And you have to figure out what that means to you.
- [89:31]
Tom Bilyeu
I hear that you and your own life. Yep. Ultimately, everybody, that is what it is all about. All right, Dave, where can people follow along with you?
- [89:40]
Dave Rubin
Well, I created a tech company to solve some of these problems in the midst of all of this, so. Rubenreport locals.com thanks for tuning in today
- [89:48]
Tom Bilyeu
with Dave Rubin and wrapping up an intense week of conversations. If this series has brought you new insights, be sure to hit that follow button and make sure you don't miss what's coming next. Until next time, my friends. Be legendary. Take care.
- [90:09]
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