March 14, 2018 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
06:07
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
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unidentified
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(dramatic music) | |
| You guys know that I try my best to stay out of the day-to-day political bickering | ||
| and focus more on big ideas and the philosophies which are behind all the fighting. | ||
| all the fighting. | ||
| This doesn't mean I'm ignoring the issues of the moment, be it North Korea, the gun debate, or the general state of Trumpism, but focusing on why people believe what they believe is far more valuable to me than adding fuel to the fire of whatever the story of the day might be. | ||
| Toss in a healthy dose of political gridlock and we seem to have lots of people who are yelling, but very few people who are doing. | ||
| There's one issue happening in American politics right now, which is a great example of the stagnation we face, but that is totally flying under the radar. | ||
| Right now, dozens of countries, some of them key strategic allies, don't have U.S. | ||
| ambassadors because the Senate has refused to vote on their confirmation. | ||
| According to the rules of the Senate right now, the Senate needs 30 hours of debate to confirm an ambassadorship. | ||
| You can imagine with all the nonsensical waste in DC how impossible it would be to spend 30 hours debating each of the new ambassadorships when a new administration comes in. | ||
| We'd be talking about literally thousands of hours of debate for a branch of government which can't seem to agree on which flavor of yogurt should be served at the Capitol Hill Commissary. | ||
| Back in 2014, when the Democrats controlled the Senate, then-Majority Leader Harry Reid used what is known as the nuclear option to get many Obama appointees through the Senate. | ||
| In effect, Reid changed the rules so that a simple majority, rather than a 60 vote supermajority, would be enough to confirm ambassadors, federal judges, and other positions. | ||
| Though I was firmly on the left at the time, and I had no issue I can remember with the Obama appointees, I was against Reid using such a drastic tactic. | ||
| To me, if you change the rules when you're in power, it's incredibly obvious, and probably quite deserved, when those same rules will be used against your team when you're not in power. | ||
| You can rightly blame Republicans for not voting on the Obama appointees in 2014 just as right now you can rightly blame Democrats for not voting on Trump appointees in 2018. | ||
| This is exactly why people rightfully hate the political machine in Washington. | ||
| It either does nothing or it changes the rules to suit itself while usually leaving the people it's supposed to serve far behind. | ||
| The Republicans, now led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, could use what is known as the nuclear option right now, just as Reid and the Democrats did back in 2014. | ||
| For whatever reason, McConnell refuses to do so. | ||
| Some are saying he has such an old school affinity for the rules of the Senate that he doesn't want to stoop to what Reid did. | ||
| In a certain way this seems like a principled position, but at this point in American politics I wonder if clinging on to the old ways while your ideological opponents chisel away at those very institutions at every opportunity makes much sense at all. | ||
| Let me add another wrinkle to this story. | ||
| The highest ranking ambassadorship that we now have open, Germany, has been offered to former U.S. | ||
| spokesman for the U.N. | ||
| Richard Grenell. | ||
| Richard is the longest serving U.N. | ||
| spokesman in history, working for four different U.S. | ||
| ambassadors. | ||
| He's also served several other positions in the government, as well as worked for a few other high-level political campaigns. | ||
| By every measure, he's supremely qualified, and I've seen plenty of people on both sides of the aisle that praise him as the exact type of person that we need more of in politics. | ||
| Richard and I have become friends over the past few years and I can personally tell you that he's truly a decent guy who just wants to serve his country. | ||
| Oh, and there's one other piece to this. | ||
| Richard happens to be gay. | ||
| You may remember, back in 2012, Richard was briefly a spokesman for the Romney campaign until the media decided to attack An openly gay man for daring to work for the Republican candidate Mitt Romney, thus causing Richard to step down from the campaign because he didn't want to be a distraction. | ||
| Apparently, although Romney felt it was just fine to hire a gay man, and Richard felt it was totally okay to work for Romney, the media just wouldn't let it be. | ||
| Gay conservatives like Richard, much like black conservatives like Larry Elder, or female conservatives like Nikki Haley, challenge the orthodoxy that the Democrats must own all of these groups of people. | ||
| I mention Richard's sexuality not because it's important or even relevant, unless you play the identity politics game as so many do. | ||
| In effect, the Democrats are blocking an extremely qualified, openly gay man from serving his country. | ||
| Aren't the Democrats and Lefties supposed to be for gays? | ||
| Isn't that part of their intersectional worldview? | ||
| Immutable characteristics often trump qualifications if you subscribe to this line of thinking. | ||
| Shouldn't this also mean supporting gay people whose political positions you might disagree with because you believe in their ability to think for themselves? | ||
| Or perhaps the so-called tolerant side really isn't pro-gay or pro-any minority, they are actually only pro-those who believe as they do. | ||
| Now, obviously you know that I don't think anyone should be confirmed because of their sexuality, nor should their sexuality matter in the least when it comes to being nominated in the first place. | ||
| I just think that this particular case is interesting on so many levels. | ||
| We have the gridlock of Washington with Democrats refusing to vote on Trump nominees. | ||
| We have a majority leader in McConnell that refuses to use his option to confirm nominees, even though the previous Senate leader, Reid, did exactly just that. | ||
| We have dozens of qualified candidates waiting to do their civic duty, and we have just as many countries waiting for our ambassadors to move there and get to work. | ||
| Caught in all of this mess is a good man, Richard Grinnell, who I happen to know personally, who doesn't want extra credit for being gay, but just wants to get to work. | ||
| How can you make a difference in all this? | ||
| Call your local senator and ask their assistant at the office why they aren't voting on these nominees. | ||
| And you can also call Mitch McConnell at his D.C. | ||
| office by calling 202-224-2541. |
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