Sept. 3, 2020 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
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[Outro Music] | |
| Alright, humans of the internet! | ||
| This is the Rubin Report Direct Message for Thursday, September 3rd. | ||
| Give me 24 minutes, and I'll give you all the news that I can fit into 24 minutes. | ||
| Pretty clever, huh? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| There's a lot happening in the world. | ||
| I don't know if you know that. | ||
| It seems like every story, I think this is sort of where we're at in the world at the moment, is that it seems like every story is the most important story. | ||
| Everybody wakes up, you immediately go to your Facebook feed or your Twitter feed or whatever feed you're looking at, and it seems like everything is the thing that's going to blow up the whole system or take it all down or Whatever else is happening. | ||
| But what I'm trying to do with these direct messages, as I laid out yesterday, is not bludgeon you with every detail of every little story, every little political minutia, but sort of pick the big stories. | ||
| And the big themes that are happening each morning. | ||
| That's what I'm doing with my producer, Michael. | ||
| We talk about what's happening in the world. | ||
| We pick a couple things to go through. | ||
| So I'm really only doing three stories today. | ||
| And as I said, we do this in 24 minutes. | ||
| So it's just a few minutes per story. | ||
| I'm going to give you what you need to know. | ||
| And hopefully you can take that and talk about these stories with other people and not get into fights and maybe enlighten somebody or learn something from somebody else. | ||
| Okay, so the big story, I think, at the moment Donald Trump is considering withholding federal funds from some of the progressive cities that seem to not be protecting their own citizens, from some of the cities that we're seeing | ||
| Burning and looting and the violent protesting and the rest of it. | ||
| Trump is saying, hey, I am the president of the United States. | ||
| That means I'm in charge of the federal government. | ||
| And if you guys at the local level, so first at the state level and then at the city level, won't protect your citizens and your property, then we're going to withhold funds from you. | ||
| So, just to back up a little bit and just give a little sort of context to how the government's supposed to work, is that most of the stuff that happens in the city that you're in, wherever you're watching this from, if you're an American, the city that you live in, the town that you live in, is supposed to handle most of the stuff that goes on there, meaning the roads and the local laws and things of that nature, and then we build up from there. | ||
| That's how our system works. | ||
| Most of the laws are related to your town or city, then within that you have your state, and then of course you have the federal government on top of that. | ||
| And the founders set up the whole system so that the federal government, meaning the government that's in charge of the whole freaking thing, is actually not supposed to do a ton because that gives more power to the local governments to do things. | ||
| And obviously if you live in New York City, what you need at a local level in the laws that you need or perhaps want at a local level are very different than if you live in a suburban area of let's say Idaho, right? | ||
| That's just obvious and that's why you have local elected representatives and you decide where you wanna live. | ||
| These are ideas that I talk about on the show often because I think our system was set up quite brilliantly and yet a lot of what we talk about Especially in the mainstream media, we've created such a cult of personality around the president, and this isn't really about Trump specifically, but just the idea that when you vote in a president, you're voting in the guy who can do everything. | ||
| He's the guy that's gonna save me. | ||
| He's the guy that's gonna make all the things that I want to happen, happen. | ||
| And actually, that's the reverse of how the system is supposed to work. | ||
| He's supposed to do some things, The president is supposed to be in charge of protecting our borders, for example. | ||
| He is supposed to be in charge of foreign policy, for example. | ||
| But he's not supposed to do everything at the local level. | ||
| So what Trump is saying, in effect, is, listen, if you guys in New York, in Seattle, in Portland, in Washington, D.C., those are the four that he mentioned, if at the local level You mayors will not allow your police departments to defend property, to defend monuments, to defend people. | ||
| And we're going to talk about defunding all of these things and the rest of it. | ||
| Then what choice does the federal government have other than to withhold some funds that they give to the states? | ||
| Now there's a couple philosophical issues here that I think are really interesting. | ||
| So first off, if you believe everything that I just laid out there, that the federal government's not supposed to do that much, then at some level you're probably like, all right, he's doing the right thing, right? | ||
| Like if that's the only lever he has, right? | ||
| Like he could send in federal troops, he could send in the National Guard, that sort of thing, and we can have a discussion about that, right? | ||
| Because if a mayor, let's use Portland. | ||
| Portland and Seattle are really the best Two examples, because I think we're seeing the most violence on the streets there. | ||
| We're seeing mayors in Portland and Seattle particularly who are, in my opinion, in complete dereliction of their duties. | ||
| I'm going to do a separate story on Ted Wheeler, who's the mayor of Portland, in just a couple minutes. | ||
| And if they're not going to protect their citizens and their property, then should the federal government send in troops, right? | ||
| Should they send in the National Guard to restore law and order? | ||
| Now, you don't really want that if you're for limited government. | ||
| You don't really like the idea of the federal government doing that. | ||
| But on the other hand, if you don't do anything, if the federal government doesn't do anything, and then you have specific places in the United States Where as misguided as the voters might be, they vote in these lefty politicians who then allow for semi-autonomous zones as they had in Seattle and just basically anarchy on the streets as they have in Portland. | ||
| If you allow for that within your country, well, then what is the purpose of the federal government? | ||
| What is sort of the national cohesion that we have if some cities can burn and some can thrive? | ||
| Now, I think a pure federalist would say, well, hey, that's tough. | ||
| Tough, right? | ||
| Like if you live in a city and you're voting in these morons, | ||
| then we're just gonna let it happen and it is what it is. | ||
| On the other hand, if we're to believe that you as an American, | ||
| that me here in Los Angeles has any connection to the person that lives in Dallas, | ||
| other than we live in the same country, but then the question is, well, what is a country? | ||
| And should we allow certain cities to burn and all those things? | ||
| And what levers can we push without giving too much power to the federal government? | ||
| So I think this is a really interesting play by Trump. | ||
| I've said it a million times. | ||
| You guys don't know. | ||
| I don't want the feds having to do too much. | ||
| But in effect, he's saying we're going to cut some funds to these four cities specifically. | ||
| His tweet was, my administration will do everything in its power to prevent weak mayors So that's pretty clear and I personally agree with the message there. | ||
| "Harm people, burn buildings, "and ruin lives and businesses. | ||
| "We're putting them on notice today." | ||
| So that's pretty clear, and I personally agree with the message there. | ||
| You know, there's a meme out there that somehow violence against property isn't violence. | ||
| And this meme is spread by the same people who will tell you that words are violent. | ||
| So somehow if you say a word, that's violent, but if you actually burn down a building | ||
| or break a window, that's not violent. | ||
| not violent. Now I suspect if you're living in Seattle Or you're living in Portland, or you're living in New York City, where businesses are still shuttered, and the economy has crashed. | ||
| Let's say you're, just really try to think about it this way, and maybe you are one of these people. | ||
| If you're a small business person, whatever it is, you own a shoe repair shop, or a coffee shop, or anything in between, and you've put your life's work into that, and then some thugs, basically, Misguided young people usually decide to break your windows or just cause general chaos in the streets so no one can get to your store or you can't even open your store. | ||
| This is all putting the pandemic issue aside. | ||
| It's like, if your mayor won't do anything to protect your livelihood, which you've put your blood, sweat and tears and life's work into, it's like, does the federal government have to do anything? | ||
| And I think what Trump is trying to do, Trump is a negotiator, right? | ||
| So what he's trying to do is he's trying to say to these Progressive mayors, hey, I get it. | ||
| We have a philosophic difference on what's happening in the world right now. | ||
| Don't make me send troops in. | ||
| Don't make me send the National Guard in. | ||
| I'm gonna withhold money until you guys start taking care of your own people. | ||
| There were some other responses to this. | ||
| New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is possibly the worst mayor in all of the country, and that's tough when you've got Seattle and Portland and LA in the same country. | ||
| He tweeted, while real Donald Trump spent his year in hiding from COVID-19, New York City led the fight back. | ||
| Now we're trying to recover and he's making unconstitutional political threats against us. | ||
| Mr. President, we'll see you in court. | ||
| We've beaten you there before and we'll do it again. | ||
| I'm not sure what he's saying is... | ||
| Unconstitutional, but I suppose there could be some legal argument about what the president can do in terms of withholding funds if he's in disagreement with what a mayor is doing. | ||
| So there might be some court fight there. | ||
| The part that he said about New York City has led the fight back from COVID? | ||
| I've got a lot of friends that are in New York City. | ||
| I've also got a lot of friends that have fled New York City, and I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks that New York City is leading the fight back against this thing. | ||
| I've mentioned this a couple times, but in my own family's history in New York City, there have been times since the early 1900s, around 1908, that my family at times has had about 70 people living in New York City and the boroughs, Brooklyn, Bronx, | ||
| Queens, etc. | ||
| We are down to one. I've got one cousin remaining in New York City. | ||
| My sister and her husband and two kids just fled about two months ago and now are in the suburbs. | ||
| And that tells you a little bit about what's going on in New York City. | ||
| I've got a friend who's on the Upper West Side right now and he said everything is just, it's just silent and quiet and shuttered. | ||
| I used to live on the Upper West. | ||
| I think it's one of the most spectacular places in the world to live. | ||
| But the idea that Bill de Blasio in New York City is leading the fight against COVID is really quite bananas. | ||
| And then Portland Mayor, Ted Wheeler had this to say, and this will lead us into another story about Portland's great mayor, who I'm pretty sure is just a character in the show Portlandia at this point. | ||
| Wheeler tweeted, Trump threatens to withdraw funds, possibly including health, education, and safety net dollars Americans are relying on to get through this pandemic and economic crisis. | ||
| He continues to believe that disenfranchising people living in this country to advance his petty grudges Well, how about disingenuous, Ted Wheeler? | ||
| Because let's put it this way. | ||
| Imagine if in these cities, in Portland and Seattle, Washington, New York City, imagine if the mayors were actually backing up the police officers, not to have a violent state rule of law and be hunting people down, But just saying, you know, if you attack property, if you're attacking cars on the streets, if you're breaking windows, burning things down, we're not going to allow that. | ||
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Rule of law. | |
| If you don't have rule of law in a country, in a city, in a state, then you don't have a country. | ||
| That is just true. | ||
| Then you have just some sort of rebel stronghold, in effect. | ||
| So he's being very disingenuous here because if Portland was just Allowing the police to do their job Seattle allowing the police to do their job. | ||
| I have some friends in the NYPD They just want to do their job. | ||
| They don't wanna hurt anybody. | ||
| They wanna maintain law and order. | ||
| And they do a pretty damn good job of it. | ||
| I mean, the New York Police Department is under more pressure than probably any police department | ||
| in the entire world. | ||
| And they do a pretty spectacular job of it. | ||
| The idea that if Trump would just go away, that somehow these things would be better is kind of crazy. | ||
| It's like, Trump's not saying, I'm gonna put the police in Dallas. | ||
| He's not saying I'm gonna put the police in Salt Lake City, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
| So this is a big mess and it's gonna be a big fight. | ||
| And I suspect one of the things that we're really gonna see more and more and more of | ||
| over the next five, 10 years, and maybe for the real next couple of decades in America | ||
| is sort of the battle between local and state. | ||
| And I think generally that is a good thing. | ||
| But if big metropolitan cities are only going to be run by progressives, which by the way, this is then where all the violence and gun violence and all of the crime and everything else takes place. | ||
| Well then does the, what is happening here? | ||
| Siri literally just started talking to me. | ||
| She was under my leg and she started talking to me. | ||
| Stand by, please. | ||
| Stand by, please. | ||
| Did I say Siri? | ||
| I didn't say Siri. | ||
| That is disturbing as hell. | ||
| But in effect, I think that's what we're going to see over the next couple of years, that if big progressive run cities are just going to crumble, what is the role of the federal government? | ||
| And that's a great place for us to have an honest, real conversation, and hopefully we're able to do that. | ||
| We're not particularly good at it. | ||
| Story number two, which is sort of an offshoot Story number one is that Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who I was just talking about, he's moving. | ||
| And do you know why he's moving? | ||
| He's moving basically because of himself. | ||
| His policies have led the people in his city, the Antifa, Marxist, BLM activists, to think that not only can they burn down businesses and set up autonomous zones and do whatever else it is that they want to do, but they can actually also go to people's homes. | ||
| So even though this guy has been a total patsy for them, he's acquiesced to virtually all of their demands, he's a lefty! | ||
| He is a progressive, right? | ||
| He's not a scary Trump conservative. | ||
| He's a lefty. | ||
| He's supposed to be one of them. | ||
| But even that isn't good enough for them. | ||
| Because the thing is, there is nothing good enough for them. | ||
| What is happening with this BLM Marxist progressive ideology is that it's nothing other than for itself at any given moment. | ||
| So even the Wheeler should be their hero, right? | ||
| These lefty mayors should be their hero, but they actually hate them. | ||
| So what happened? | ||
| A bunch of activists showed up at Ted Wheeler's apartment building, his condo building, and there was a violent clash there and they were spraying graffiti on the door and they were scaring people and setting fires and breaking windows and a whole bunch of other stuff. | ||
| So Wheeler is now moving! | ||
| Because of Wheeler! | ||
| Wheeler is wheeling out, okay? | ||
| He said, I want to express my sincere apologies for the damage to our home and the fear that you were experiencing due to my position. | ||
| That was part of a letter that he sent to the other people who live at the condo. | ||
| And basically he's gonna get out. | ||
| And like, you really gotta think about how bananas this is. | ||
| His solution is not to stop it, right? | ||
| It's not to think, oh, maybe some of my policies have led to the ever encroaching violence | ||
| that is now literally, literally at my doorstep. | ||
| But instead of doing that, I'm just gonna leave. | ||
| Does he think he can live somewhere else safely in Portland? | ||
| Or is the mayor not allowed to live in a condo? | ||
| I guess he can't live in a condo, because if he goes to another condo, well, they'll just take it to the other condo. | ||
| So does the mayor have to live on a mountainside somewhere? | ||
| Does he have to live in some sort of suspended giant tower somewhere in Portland? | ||
| Do they have one of those? | ||
| I'm not sure. | ||
| Anyway, it's just such a perfect example of what is wrong with progressive policies. | ||
| They think that not only if you just strip the law back that you'll be okay, but that eventually it won't come to | ||
| you. | ||
| And the thing is, it will come to you every time. | ||
| All right, enough about Portland. | ||
| Let's move on to the NFL. | ||
| It's a wonderful story, actually. | ||
| The NFL has decided to end racism. | ||
| They're going to do it. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Everyone else is just talking about it. | ||
| But the National Football League is going to end freaking racism. | ||
| You know how they're going to do it? | ||
| They are going to put a call to end racism in the end zone. | ||
| That should do it. | ||
| I mean, we were just waiting for some kind of message. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| I guess the NBA tried it. | ||
| They put Black Lives Matter on the court. | ||
| Now ratings are tanking. | ||
| And people are just sick of the endless politicization of sports. | ||
| I have trouble with that word for some reason. | ||
| But people are just sort of sick of it. | ||
| But the NFL has decided if we put some anti-racist messages in the end zone, We're going to solve this whole thing. | ||
| They will also be adding social justice phrases to the end zones in the 2020 season, which of course mirrors activism that's engaged by the NBA and some of the other sports leagues. | ||
| So the reason I thought this was an important story Even though it sort of sounds like, oh, you're just talking about a sports story. | ||
| But as we've been talking about for a while now, we're running out of spaces in the public sphere that are not political. | ||
| And that isn't to say that a athlete or a team owner or an organization can't talk about politics | ||
| or express their views or any of those things. | ||
| But my personal belief is that once you're on that court, once you're on that field, | ||
| it has to be about the sport you're playing and that's it. | ||
| That's why we love sports, like whatever sport you're into. | ||
| I'm a big basketball guy, but whatever sport you're into, if you're a baseball guy, or a hockey guy, or a football guy, or a soccer guy, or whatever it is, why do you love sports? | ||
| Why do you watch sports? | ||
| Why do you play sports? | ||
| You do it because you love competition, you love the athleticism, you love the engagement, and the rivalry, and all of those things. | ||
| And when you sit on a Sunday afternoon, whether it's to watch an NFL game, or a basketball game, or whatever it might be, You're having a human experience of someone else at hopefully the peak and apex of their athletic life doing things that you could never do in it. | ||
| It helps make you dream and it can bring out real emotions in you. | ||
| And for anyone that's a real sports fan, you've most likely cried. | ||
| When your team lost in the finals, you know, my favorite player, I've got a basketball signed by him right behind me, was a huge star in the NBA in the late 80s and early 90s, Clyde Drexler, who played on the Portland Trailblazers and the Houston Rockets. | ||
| And the famous moment, unfortunately for Clyde, is game one of the 1992 finals. | ||
| Everyone remembers this, even if you're not a sports fan, when Michael Jordan hit six threes and I think scored 35 points in the first half. | ||
| And there's that moment after he hits, I think, the fifth or sixth three in the first half, And he just shrugs because he can't even believe it. | ||
| Can't even believe it. | ||
| And you can see Cliff Robinson, who actually just passed away a few days ago. | ||
| I found out about that while I was off the grid. | ||
| Only 53 years old. | ||
| Passed away another player who I love. | ||
| You can see him just crumble to the floor behind. | ||
| Clyde ended up winning a championship a couple years later, so it all worked out for him. | ||
| But, like, I remember watching that moment and, like, dying inside. | ||
| And then when Clyde won a ring a couple years later, it was like I won a ring. | ||
| That's what sports is all about. | ||
| And the more that we make sports about politics, about all of the stuff that none of us can escape from, we're actually destroying it. | ||
| I mean, you really have to think about it this way. | ||
| I really believe this. | ||
| The athletes that are injecting politics and race into everything are actually destroying the sports that they love. | ||
| So when LeBron makes it all about race, or whatever it might be, or any of these guys do this, Colin Kaepernick, it's like, do more people like football now because of Colin Kaepernick, or do more people not like football? | ||
| I definitely think it's the latter. | ||
| People are just like, oh, well, why would I wanna give these guys my money? | ||
| Or when you boycott, when NBA players boycott playoff games in the name of protesting racism, did you expand the fan base of basketball that pays your multi, multi-million dollar salaries that any of us would kill for? | ||
| I assure you people, as much as I love doing this, doing what I'm doing, and I'm certainly doing okay by it, I would quit this in a freaking second. | ||
| To be an NBA player, but if the NBA players keep destroying their own league Maybe the future of sports will be washed up 44 year old guys with no ACLs in their knees and a bum shoulder Playing basketball because it'll be more fun. | ||
| So actually keep at it guys, but but this general idea That they are gonna paint. | ||
| I mean I kid you not they're gonna they're gonna paint phrases like end racism in the in the end zone and it takes all of us and End racism. | ||
| We're all for ending racism. | ||
| There's virtually nobody that doesn't want to end racism. | ||
| That doesn't mean there aren't racists. | ||
| There are pocket racists who will always exist. | ||
| Racism and fear of the other and xenophobia is part of the human condition and the best thing you can do is show people why it's a bad set of ideas. | ||
| But the idea that Every single one of our things, you know, it's not just that. | ||
| You open up Uber Eats, there's a message about racism. | ||
| You turn on Apple TV, there's a message about racism. | ||
| This is actually making the system more racist. | ||
| It's making us all focus on something that we in America have gotten past in a way that almost no society has ever gotten past in a Speed and a fashion, which is incredible for such a young nation. | ||
| A nation that fought a civil war over slavery to end it, and we did, who's already had a black president. | ||
| There are nations in Europe that have existed way longer than the United States that haven't had black prime ministers or leaders. | ||
| That in and of itself doesn't mean we're racist or not racist, but it shows you that something really good has happened here. | ||
| And the quote from Richard Goodell, who is the commissioner of the NFL, he said, | ||
| "The NFL stands with the black community, the players, clubs, and fans confronting systemic racism. | ||
| We will not relent in our work." | ||
| Now, he's a white guy, and of course, he will be destroyed by this, right? | ||
| The next commissioner, obviously, will be a black man, and no matter how much penance he pays to the cause here, he will be destroyed. | ||
| Of course, he also doesn't describe what systemic racism is. | ||
| They just say it as if it is true, and if you're a little confused as to whether systemic racism exists or not, I would highly recommend you watch my original interview With Larry Elder, where he beat me senseless and woke me up to the myth of systemic racism. | ||
| And there's many other videos that you can watch on that. | ||
| On that note, that was 24 minutes. | ||
| I gave you everything I got. | ||
| I hope you feel a little more enlightened and a little less of a political headache at the moment. | ||
| And I hope you can take some of this info and get out there and fight for what you believe in. |
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