Oct. 13, 2016 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
04:01
| 
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
(upbeat music) | |
| Let's go all the way back to one of my favorite years, 1985, and talk about Russia today. | ||
| There's so much happening in the news lately with this giant country, but since we're all in election mode here in the United States pretty much all the time, most of the news about Russia is getting completely lost and there's a bunch going on. | ||
| First, there's the ongoing war with Russia and Syria, which has become the deadliest conflict since World War II. | ||
| It's estimated that over 400,000 people have died so far, and sadly it seems that there's no light at the end of the tunnel. | ||
| Then there's the rumors that Wikileaks is somehow working with the Russian government to influence our election right here. | ||
| This has become a big talking point in democratic circles as Wikileaks continues to drop information about Hillary Clinton emails and Clinton Foundation donors. | ||
| Even Julian Assange, Wikileaks editor in chief, is promising more October surprises and clearly They're not going to be aimed at helping Hillary or the Democrats. | ||
| On top of those issues, there's a lot of other reasons to believe that Vladimir Putin sees America in retreat around the world, and he's looking to fill that void. | ||
| Russia has occupied Ukraine for two years now, and it's clear that Russia is making moves throughout Syria without US approval, sometimes in direct conflict with American goals, although it's completely unclear to me what exactly those American goals are. | ||
| Only four years ago, in America's last presidential election, Mitt Romney was widely mocked for calling Russia, without question, our number one geopolitical foe. | ||
| And yet now it seems that it's the Democrats who are leaning more hawkish on Russia. | ||
| Just listen to Hillary or Tim Kaine in the debate so far. | ||
| The Democratic nominees are much more anti-Russia than either Trump or Pence. | ||
| Is Trump too close to Putin? | ||
| Or does he have other Russian business interests in mind? | ||
| I guess that's possible too. | ||
| There could be a new Cold War brewing, but this time there may not be a Rocky Balboa vs Ivan Drago boxing match on Christmas Day in Moscow to help us work things out. | ||
| While I don't think there's any legitimate reason that a direct conflict with Russia is on the way, I do think it's important that we start talking about our deeply complex relationship with Russia in an open and honest way. | ||
| Not just by demonizing and making fun of Putin, which don't get me wrong, he makes it very easy to do, but by really understanding what's going on within Russia and the geopolitical circumstances which have led us to where we are now. | ||
| If we don't do a little homework now, then we'll all be easily manipulated by both politicians as well as by the media that has their own goals in mind. | ||
| Boogeymen are a lot less scary when you know a little bit about them. | ||
| My guest this week is author and columnist Cathy Young. | ||
| Cathy grew up in Russia until the age of 16 when she moved to the United States. | ||
| She's written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, as well as my hometown newspaper Newsday. | ||
| She focuses on some of my favorite topics including political correctness and free speech and from what I've seen she equally calls out the bad elements of both the regressive left and the alt-right. | ||
| She's also been an outspoken critic of modern feminism and a defender of the men's rights movement, though she sees some issues with that movement as well. | ||
| I view Cathy as one of the few people really trying to take both sides to task and give both sides a chance before forming her own opinions All the while not being too attached to a specific ideology. | ||
| Not being locked into a specific ideology and being intellectually flexible is one of the most important attributes you can have and one that I consistently strive to have for myself. | ||
| The last few months have been interesting as we've seen many never Trump Republicans slowly fall in line. | ||
| To a lesser degree we've seen it with the Bernie bros who seem far less inclined to go all in for Hillary. | ||
| The wider point here, though, is that everyone is making their own calculations and decisions based on the information around them. |
Export Selection