Dave Rubin and Bridget Phetasy dissect the Democratic debate, criticizing six white candidates while mocking Elizabeth Warren's inauthenticity regarding her Native American heritage and Joe Biden's mental state. They analyze a leaked claim where Bernie Sanders allegedly told Warren a woman couldn't win, debate the impracticalities of Medicare for All, and ridicule climate change assertions by Steyer and Sanders. Ultimately, they argue the party's radicalization has doomed its future, suggesting only Trump or a chaotic collapse can resolve the deepening societal divides. [Automatically generated summary]
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You can submit questions right now.
We already have, I mean, we have literally like, I don't know, easily a hundred questions already.
And we're just going to kind of share our thoughts on that thing.
Bridget's kind of similar to me in that she, well, can I say you're a former lefty or you're, you're mostly a lefty or mostly someone that thought they were a Democrat or?
Literally to show what hypocrites Hollywood, this whole town really is, that is not a joke what you're saying.
There's no public transportation, no rail, no train that will get you to Beverly Hills because basically the rich people didn't want all the poor people to be able to get there, even though they work for them, right?
They're the gardeners and the plumbers and all that.
They didn't want them to be able to get there on public transportation, which is such a Perfect example.
All the people who are done ran on some kind of wokeness.
You know, they ran.
And it feels like, even just seeing what happened in the UK, that clearly doesn't work.
It didn't work in 2016.
I don't understand why anyone thinks that will work.
Instead of facing that and saying, oh, maybe running on this platform is not helpful, I feel like they'd just double down on it and then lose and then say, see, that confirms my belief, which is the tricky catch-22 of that.
Instead of looking in the mirror and be like, ah, maybe we're doing something wrong here, it actually, in their minds, it's like, oh, we are even more oppressed than we thought.
Didn't he remind you of just, like, a kid in, like, elementary school or, no, no, more like junior high school or something, seventh grade, lunch table, who, like, nobody liked, but he was rich, and you knew if you, like, let him sit at the table, maybe his parents were gonna buy you toys or something like that?
Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't all turn on him and start devouring him limb by limb.
I get mad because he's wasting time.
And that is really, we were joking about this, quintessential billionaire just up there like, I can be here because I'm going to waste all your time, guys.
Well, it has something to do with, he's polling, I guess, at 16% in South Carolina.
That's an early state, so that somehow got him into this.
But actually, that's a good point.
I would say the two saner people out of this whole thing, now two of them, they happen to have sat in that very chair that you're sitting in right now, but Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard, who at least strike me as pretty decent moderates.
There's maybe a little more left than for my taste at this point.
You actually said something that was really funny but also deeply depressing during the debates and we're watching Biden and so most of the audience knows that.
My dog Emma now, she's 15 and a half.
She's lived an incredibly wonderful life.
She's in her last couple weeks now, we know it.
It's been, we've done everything we can do but we're getting there.
And basically, well, you could just say what you said, because it was just like, it was actually... Because you want me to get cancelled for saying this?
Yeah, because let's cancel, let's get PETA on Bridget's ass.
She was on the floor and he was, it was one of those moments where you could see him just kind of, and I was, I said watching him is kind of, it gives, it evokes in me that same feeling I feel when I look at Emma Dogg.
who's struggling, and I'm not saying that he's near death or anything by any means, but I do have that,
it evokes something really primally in me of like, no, what are you doing?
I don't know, but it is kind of... So one of the reasons that I like talking to you about this stuff is because you upfront admit you're not a political expert.
You don't have like an absolute... They have ideas.
Well, no, you do have ideas though, right?
But you admit that you're not a political expert on these things, but you are sort of intuitive about what people feel about this.
I don't think it's... I don't think they're excited about him.
My feeling about Biden is that he's the only hope, which isn't a great way to go into... It's not really stirring passionate feelings of like, yay, and excitement.
It's more desperation.
Like, I feel in the same way that he's grasping when those moments you kind of see... Ah, good metaphor.
I feel like that's the, it's like, we're just gonna hope that he's the one.
I just, again, intuitive, I judge them all based on superficial things.
No, we were joking.
Okay, so gut instinct initially, there's just something about her voice, so she sounds like she's trying to talk like a man.
She always sounds to me like she's trying to come off like I'm a tough guy, or maybe it's The fear of not sounding shrill are all of the things that women are often accused of.
Well, I always say it, it's like, how is it, like, how did we end up in a universe where Donald Trump, an orange-haired, giant, boisterous, over-the-top billionaire, is genuinely more authentic than all of these people?
Or is that their only strategy in in just the in in the primary, you know, moving into Well, it also seems, and I think we're going to play the clip of this little, did Bernie ever say that a woman can't win, but it seems like Elizabeth is in many ways just a slightly younger female version of Bernie.
Like, what is the difference between the two of them, right?
They want the government to basically do everything and that's that.
Bernie, talk about Bernie.
You were having trouble eating when Bernie was, you were in the middle of eating This is so embarrassing, but it's true.
Which is crazy to me, because he literally had a heart attack, and I just think that he... I always joke, like, I don't want the olds running the country!
And he looks visibly... He was leaning forward to try and hear.
It's very us versus them, which, again, is why I always actually think he's the only one who could go up against Trump, because everything is, like, these people did these things, and then this is how we're gonna fight these people.
This is the matchup I'd like to see, just from a purely entertainment perspective.
Just from my fiddling while Rome burns, that's the matchup I'm rooting for.
Yeah, for somebody that wants to see the world burn and make some jokes about it, that's probably Well, because a lot of people wanted Bernie because they wanted to bring the whole system down, too.
And so it's really choosing which system you want to bring down.
But for real, what do you think about these people that, it's almost like they're so bored with success and decency, and that they have iPhones and video games and all this stuff, that they're like, let's burn it down.
You think that's his handlers like because you'd think that like a young guy like he's I think he's like 36 like that like you think like a young guy who grew up with the internet and like he was also in the military so you'd think he'd be like a little more like You know, like go getcha or something like that, that he just comes off as just like, you know, and I also, I mean, just personally, I'm not thrilled with him because, you know, we were going to have him on the show and his people agreed to it.
And then basically HuffPo and Vox attacked them and then they backed out of it and stopped responding to our emails.
And it's like, man, if you're afraid of me, meanwhile, he's like talking about the Ayatollah.
Forget Trump.
Yeah, you're going to stand up to Trump, but he's like, I'm going to tell the Ayatollah what to do.
And now with the TVs and the HD, it's like, even I'm like, oh god, you see every single thing.
Every blemish, everything.
But then when they overcompensate for that and overdo it, it looks like when one of the moderators, I think she was from the Des Moines paper, And they were on a split screen and it was like Hunger Games.
Right, so then that's a bet for basically Klobuchar or Pete or the two that- Or Biden.
Or Biden, but the two that it really was, well, I guess Biden was really there for that vote, but that's also where Yang and Tulsi would have done well, and we'll see if they get back in.
But then the second the cameras went off, she turned to me and she's like, you know, I'm pretty much a libertarian, too.
And a lot of what you say makes sense.
And I was like, lady.
I would really never do that to a guest, but it's just like with, I think, a presidential candidate, you know, what they say off camera is different than just like a regular person.
You know, and then she got caught on that hot mic on that show where she basically said the same thing, that the lefties are like far more evil and mean.
unidentified
She's like, how come the Republicans are so much nicer to me?
My theory with him is that the only person who can beat Trump is Trump because he does have like a bit of a self-destructive wild tendency which makes it feel very out of control and chaotic and I don't know Who among them can beat him?
Yeah, it still feels a little bit, part of me is like, yeah, he's gonna win 44 states, and the other part of me is like, or we'll all die in a nuclear explosion.
I will say this about Trump, that a couple weeks ago I was in West Palm Beach speaking at Turning Point, and I spoke in the morning, and Trump spoke like an hour or two later, and I'd never seen him speak live before, but I was in the second row, so first time I've ever seen the guy speak live.
And I noticed one of the fundamental differences between live Trump and what you see on TV Trump, which is he's kind of a comic up there.
But when you see only the snippets, it all sounds crazy.
So one of the things he was talking about was wind power and windmills.
And he gets up there and he goes, I know everything about windmills.
Nobody knows more about windmills than me.
And then he does this three-minute thing about windmills, the shape of the thing, and they don't look pretty, and I like windmills that are this.
And it's like, if you're actually there and you see it within context, you're like, he's just being funny.
He's making a broad point about that we waste money on, you know, giant programs that don't really do anything and the rest of it.
But then you watch then, because then I was there, so I see it live, you know, the full hour speech, but then I see the Vox reporter that clips it, and then it's Trump saying, I know more about windmills than anyone.
And then the reporter's like, Trump claims he knows more about windmills than anyone.
And it's like, you people are all fucking bananas.
Are there any legitimate polls that can let us know who's actually doing well, or are we just going to hear whatever nominee the Dems have is ahead, just like last time?
So, that's really interesting because, you know, you hear people quote polls all the time.
Dave, I'd love to hear you and Bridget tease on where you see each of our social cultural trends heading and your honest assessment about how we're not only incredibly divided, but that social currency behind silence or acquiescence when it comes to radical left.
Okay, I think I got the rest of this.
So the basic idea being that because the left has sort of gone so bananas and that everyone is now a deplorable or evil or whatever, that there's just like this massive layer of people who just are completely afraid to say what they think.
Because basically, you have to agree with them There was nothing on stage tonight that they really had any disagreement about.
The one little thing is that Biden did vote for the Iraq war and Bernie was against it.
That is a fact and they're going to bring it up all the time.
But that's something that happened 18, 20 years ago, whatever.
It's almost 20 years ago.
I mean, it's crazy.
But in terms of everything else, there's no real disagreement there on anything.
Like they have little like oh my social security plan I'm gonna make up this number that's a little higher than your number and you're gonna do this with your number and but like there's no real disagreement.
Right the the version that's what I don't understand really is that what is their I get the sense that they hate America.
It's just been my, I just feel, when I watch it, I'm like, God, it's so cynical.
It seems so cynical.
And I'm not saying, you know, we're talking about the Democrats tonight, so I know a lot of people will be like, but you didn't say anything about how the right is cynical.
I didn't know you during the last election, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you made a gajillion jokes about all the Republicans just as I did when they were doing it.
unidentified
You can find jokes about every Republican from Trump to Rubio to Cruz to... I made fun of them all and I also said Trump is going to win.
If my choice is Trump, who I think is a capitalist, he's a, you know... I still think I would, like, take the pussy way out and do... I don't think I can do it this time.
Well, no, last time I voted for Gary Johnson because I'm in California, we have a certain luxury.
I really wanted just like a libertarian idea to get out there.
And I thought if there was ever a chance for the libertarians, I thought because everyone, so many people hated Trump and Hillary, I thought, whoa, maybe Gary Johnson could sneak in and get 5%, you know, like something unheard of.
And that then would like proliferate some of the good libertarian ideas.
He was just a terrible candidate and whatever.
And he's a nice guy and he smokes too much pot and you know, nobody's perfect.
But I don't think I can sit on the fence in that regard.
Well, first off, just generally speaking, I wouldn't have a major problem voting for Trump at this point.
I just wouldn't.
Do I love everything about his personality?
No.
But do I think basically the country's in pretty great shape, the economy's crushing it, we are getting out of these wars, I don't think we're going into World War III.
I think there's so many good things actually happening here.
I think he's also the guy that's crushing identity politics, and while a regular Republican would have just been
destroyed by it, he's calling out the media bullshit.
One of the things that he does all the time that I think he should get away from is he needs to stop making it sound like he's the president of the Republican Party.
You know, he says we as Republicans are Republicans this and Democrats this and whatever and it's like, you know, we all fall into that trap sometimes.
Well, in this moment, as of a question, I don't, I can't, there's still a part of me that just would feel like it goes against my intuitive sense of... So you think, so basically, if it was someone like Bernie, who I know you don't like, you would vote for the Libertarian, or you'd write somebody in?
Right, right, right.
I wouldn't vote for Bernie, but I'd probably vote Libertarian.
I wish there was a third party.
I hate the binary choice.
I think we should smash that.
I would love to see a third party breakthrough.
I think if there could be any chance, it would be now.
Well, my crazy conspiracy theory, which all seem to be true these days, is that this was exactly what the plan of the progressives was.
The progressive plan for these last five years or ten years basically was to sneak in through the liberals, the good liberals, because this was the only way that they could get in because liberals are nice and tolerant and we've got a weak underbelly, so they snuck in through us to destroy the party.
The Democratic Party is destroyed.
Because AOC, who I think is an idiot and wrong about everything, she actually made a good point the other day.
She's like, why am I in the same party as Joe Biden?
Joe Biden is not, shouldn't be in that party, no matter how much he tries to fake that he's woke or whatever.
So it's like, you know what I mean?
Like there's some Truth to that, that these people shouldn't be in the same party, but you know, once that party splits, well congratulations, you've got Republicans winning forever.
Or years before, if a strong Libertarian had come in and it would have split the right, then you'd have Democrats forever.
So it's risky what happens when you bring in a third party.
I know.
But yes, maybe a couple more parties, although a lot of countries in Europe have tons of parties and then they have these weak systems that, you know, Israel's had three elections in a row because they can't form a coalition.
Well, you know, Adam Carolla, when he was here a couple weeks ago, his theory is that if someone's in Hollywood and you don't know their opinion... Oh, I've been saying this forever.
Yeah, that they're, you know, I do, I hate the whole like, Privilege everything privilege, but I do have a certain amount I have some luxuries that other people don't so I my experience of the country and the nation is different Which is why I sure but it's not because of your whiteness.
No, but I always knowing your history But I but I But I don't I don't experience things the same way, and I do try to give every individual the benefit.
I believe in individuals, so I try to give every individual the benefit of the doubt and understand that my worldview is not the only worldview.
I can understand why someone might have a different visceral reaction.
What's weird, and I don't trust myself always, because I'm an addict, and so I'm trained to not trust a lot, and I just wonder, did the culture move super far left?
And I was left behind?
Or is my lizard, or not even my lizard brain, or is like some part of my brain adapting so that I can survive?
So they taught, they indoctrinated a whole bunch of people.
And then even just in the last couple days, you know, it's like three years ago, we were talking about labeling everyone a Nazi and why that's bad.
Then it was you can punch a Nazi.
And now this Project Veritas video came out.
You probably see this today about this Bernie campaign surrogate.
Well, yeah, he locked himself in the campaign headquarters because they caught him on video basically saying, you know, we're going to send people to the gulags and there's going to be violence if Bernie doesn't get the nomination and we're going to kill cops.
and I was in Salt Lake City and a bunch of stuff in Texas and everyone basically was like,
I would do a joke about how the Californians are ruining everything and they're moving here
and everyone was like, Dave, stop telling them it's good here.
Because I would come back and I'd do a live stream and I'd be like, I was in Salt Lake City and it was clean and it was great and everyone was respectful and nice and the economy was booming.
And then I'd get mail from people in Salt Lake like, Dave, shut the fuck up.
You know, I think that that, I don't know, maybe people, I feel like the libertarian spirit in Texas is so strong it would be hard for me to imagine it being flip blue.
And I don't understand that mentality of That's what I don't understand.
Everybody's bitching about this, the freelance law, the AB whatever it is, AB5 or something.
I don't remember the name of it.
And I'll see these lying threads from people who live in California and they're crazy.
But what I've said to him several times is, Ben, I'm struggling with abortion now more and I used to say 20 weeks and I I'm not going to say it right now, but in my book I take a slightly different position on that, whatever.
But what I find is my position is changing a little more pro-life, not because I've been compelled that much by the pro-life arguments, but it's because the pro-choice people are so bananas that it starts making me like, oh, they're completely unhinged.
But there's nobody on that stage up there tonight, except maybe Biden, and he's getting weird with it too, that would stop a woman from having an eight-month abortion.
I think the internet too, it just destroys everything in that sense because everyone's so afraid that that one gaffe is gonna go viral and just tank them.
Yeah, it was interesting too because If it was something that got dumped just the day before the debate so that then it gets brought up at the debates, and then she gets to pivot to, oh, let's have a conversation about how many elections we won, and now we're talking about women winning the presidency, which isn't even a real question.
No one's seriously like, a woman can't be president!
Our job is to rebuild the United Nations, rebuild the State Department, make sure that we have the capability of bringing the world together to resolve international conflict diplomatically and stop the endless wars that we have experienced.
Like, with all that being said, that's true, that people go broke with things and, you know, all of that.
But then they say crazy things like, you not only, well, Medicare for all, like, it sounds good.
Everyone will have Medicare, so we'll all be good.
But that doesn't say anything about quality of care or how long you're gonna have to wait, or can the government actually do things, or the paperwork, or all the red tape.
Well, I think it's both, but you'd have, but at least, at least, at the very least right now, we have some level of competition, right?
So one of the things, when Bernie talks about Medicare for All, he also wants to get rid of private insurance, meaning you wouldn't even be able to supplement your own insurance privately.
Like, what right does he have to say to you, you can't just buy additional insurance or put more money into something?
And so many people from other countries come here for those surgeries too, because we have great doctors.
And then I look at it from another perspective, which is, I am a freelance, I've been freelance forever, and I have never had health insurance, I've never had a company pay for my health insurance, any of that.
To do it, we should definitely be doing it in coalition with other countries.
And I want to point out that as we do that, we're confronted by this issue which everyone is talking about, but at the same time, there's a gigantic climate issue in Australia, which also requires the same kind of value-driven coalition building that we actually should be using in the Middle East.
Somebody, when they were talking about the climate, they were like, there are, it might have been Mayor Pete, I'm not sure who said it, but they said, there are literally tornadoes of fire.
I mean, the best example I can think of, this is an easy personal one for me, but a couple months ago, I remember when there was that thing online, suddenly this new frog white nationalist group was coming out of nowhere.
It doesn't even matter to get into their specifics.
But we knew that they were going to a bunch of events where Shapiro was speaking and Charlie Kirk was speaking and I was speaking and a few other people.
So I did this event at Sacramento State and there were, it was about 300 people there and there were probably about like 30 or 40 of them in the crowd and I could tell because they sit there and they're very angry and they have crumpled papers in front of them because they're ready to get to the mic at the end.
And local news was there because they were expecting all hell to break loose.
So there's a lot, I mean this tells you a lot about my audience, but it's a lot of basically what I would say are former lefties who are just saying... Confused.
Will it ever end?
Will what ever end though?
The craziness of the left.
Will it just ever end?
Someone said, tell Bridget I was just joking when I said that her Phetasyland post was the worst advertisement ever.
I'm guessing that's some sort of insider thing for you.
Why is it that the school system is never a real and big political topic when we know that there's maybe no second mechanism with such a huge and deep influence on the future of society?
You know, it's interesting.
Well, they talk about education.
One of the things that I always say is that Bernie wants free college for everybody.
It's not because he wants everybody to be Equally knowledgeable about everything or truly learn about everything.
It's because if you ever wanted to get people indoctrinated Leftism, where would you send them?
Yeah, you'd send them to college, especially if you're gonna state fund the college you'd send them there So he wants them and this video that project Veritas just put out of one of his Campaign people that's what the guy was saying.
We're gonna have to send I mean he was saying it in Some sloppy language, but basically saying, after Bernie wins, we're gonna have to send all these Nazis, meaning people who don't support Bernie, to college, like re-education camps, to learn how to not be Nazis.
It makes, it reminds you who the Nazis were and what happened.
And just, we all joke about it so loosely now, and it's so, it's crazy how that has become such a, that word's been flattened to last all meaning, as so many other words.
Well, especially also because the people that use the word Nazi all the time are the same people who scream about cultural appropriation all the time, right?
So it's like, You don't want people to have a certain haircut
because that might offend somebody, but you can joke or you can just label anyone you want a
Nazi.
Like I grew up around Holocaust survivors.
I had a lot of Holocaust survivors that were in my family or that were friends of the family that I knew.
And it was like, I know, fortunately not firsthand, but I know secondhand what that thing is.
And then these people literally calling me a Nazi.
So you think we're just, that's where this is all, this is all head up, this is all headed to just sort of rise of Skywalker, like good versus the good, the light versus the dark, good versus evil, socialism versus capitalism, like it just, that is that.
He might get some of the burn it all down votes that will matter.
People who just might, he, so.
An independent, I think, someone who's more moderate might get those independents who are on the fence, and they can't stomach it, so then they vote Democrat, if it's a moderate Democrat.
But I think Bernie could get the, I'm sitting this shit show out, vote to come out.
And I also think, you know who else thinks this?
Trump.
Because he's been taking pot shots at him left and right.
It's like we talk about momentum and then it's like, then we have the first Iowa caucus and then suddenly some weird thing happens and then like Tom Steyer's president.
Or Tom Ding Dong, whatever his name is.
But yeah, my What's your gut?
Well, my gut feeling, if you're just doing the momentum right now, like where is the energy?
It's Bernie, for sure.
Just knowing the way the DNC is and how corrupt they are and how the machine works, they're gonna push Biden's old bones across the finish line.
That's what my general gut would be, but I will throw out one other crazy conspiracy theory.
I think I put this on Twitter, but I've never said it on the videotape, which is that I think Bloomberg, the only reason he's running, People think he's running to destroy Trump, but Bloomberg's running on the off chance that Bernie or Elizabeth Warren, but more so Bernie, if he gets the nomination, Bloomberg then runs as an independent.
To get all of the decent liberals and the disaffected, just the people that don't want to be socialists, thus causing Trump to win because at the end of the day Bloomberg is still a capitalist and he would rather have Trump than Bernie.
That's a pretty weird twist on the way people are talking about his name.
Yeah, I mean it's so funny because you hit this before but it's like if you literally, if the election comes down to do boys have penises and girls have vaginas and one person says yes and the other one says no, it's like most people are going to vote for the yes guy.
Well, I have no doubt that it was worthwhile than CNN, but this was honest, real stuff from people trying to make some sense of the madness, and I think that is more valuable in a lot of ways than... I have a lot of questions.