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March 20, 2022 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin

40:29

Ex-Intelligence Dir: How Biden Created & Worsened Crises | Richard Grenell | POLITICS | Rubin Report

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dave rubin

08:51

richard grenell

31:22

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Speaker	Time	Text
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		I think that it's really important to point out Donald Trump.
		Yesterday I heard him say that he was tired of Joe Biden talking about how Russia has nuclear power and is a nuclear force.
		And it sounds like, you know, when you say that, that you're scared.
		And President Trump said, you know what Joe Biden should be saying?
		We are a nuclear power and we know what to do.
		And I think therein lies the difference is that Donald Trump was no wimp.
		He wasn't anyone who just said, you know, I want to bring troops home and avoid war.
		He built up the Defense Department.
		He built up America's power.
		He used the power with Soleimani.
		He was really able to show an unpredictability when it came to using America's power.
		But he has his criteria, and this is, I think, a really important point.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		What is best for the US?
		Ambassador to Germany as well as the former Acting Director of National Intelligence for these great, at least great for now, United States of America and my friend and Californian, we're gonna have to get into that, Rick Grinnell.
		Welcome back to the Rubin Report.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Dave, thanks for having me.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Always a pleasure.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Let's just do the California thing quick in one minute.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		What the high hell are you doing there still, man?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		I love this place.
		I can't leave.
		I can't abandon it.
		It's bad.
		Look, today's the filing deadline for people running for governor, senate, congressional races, all the races.
		Doesn't look like we're going to have any major candidate running against Newsom.
		And I think that's just more of a commentary on the fact that the system here is broken.
		They do mail-in ballots.
		Democrats completely rule this place like a third world country.
		And so therefore, we really don't have competition.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		You know, Rick, I knew it was bad in Cali when I was calling people to say I was leaving and I thought you were going to be the one guy because you were trying to clean up the rolls there and you're still trying to do a whole bunch of stuff.
		And I know how much you love California.
		You've been there forever.
		But I was calling people to say I'm leaving and and everyone was like, oh, great.
		You know, you should go.
		It's time to go get out of Dodge.
		And you were the only person I thought was going to say stay.
		And you go.
		I get it.
		And then I was like, all right, I'm out of here.
		By the way, Rick, every time I mentioned California on the show, I put money into this jar.
		And at the end of the year, I'm going to be handing a whole bunch of cash and I'm throwing in a couple thousand dollars of my money for somebody, for somebody that's willing to leave California and migrate to Florida.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		So I thought you were going to say for somebody who needs to help pay taxes because they stayed there.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		And so I'll gladly take the money.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		No, I am not paying your taxes to King Newsome.
		OK, but let's let's get on to the stuff that I really want to talk to you about this week, because obviously there's this whole Russia-Ukraine situation.
		This is what you're an expert in as an ambassador and on the intelligence side and all of that.
		So I thought maybe we could start by just doing a little a little 101 on what you think American foreign policy should be like.
		So before we get into the specifics of what's happening in Russia and Ukraine, just generally what you think America's role in the world should be and maybe how it was when you were working with that orange guy versus how it is now.
		Let's just start there and then we'll jump to the specifics.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, look, I think that the America First policy is a fantastic one, and it doesn't mean America alone, and it doesn't mean just simply that we bring troops home and we ignore crises around the world.
		I think what America First means is just that, is that we put America first, we think about our U.S.
		national security, that's the criteria, what is good for U.S.
		national security, but it also means that our allies have to stand up.
		and we encourage them to do so.
		So it's why we removed our US troops in Somalia, 'cause we said to Kenya,
		"Hey, can you kind of police your own neighborhood?"
		It's why we wanted the Europeans to do more.
		And I think there's an admission, a tacit admission from the Germans right now
		in terms of their policy, that they believe that they were on the wrong track
		for 10, 16 years of Merkel.
		They now are completely flipped.
		They're better than the Senate Democrats.
		They're better than Joe Biden because there's an admission now that, wow, not paying your NATO fair share of 2% was a huge mistake.
		So what did the Germans do?
		They decided to say, we're going to pay it all at once in one year to catch up.
		This is a huge admission that they have been on the wrong track for 16 years.
		Then they turn around and they say, we got to stop this Russian pipeline.
		This is historic.
		This is unprecedented.
		Don't forget just a few months ago, not very long ago, Senate Democrats, the Biden administration and the government of Chancellor Merkel in Germany all came together To say, drop the sanctions on Putin, on the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline, because they all said, this may encourage him.
		If we squeeze him too much, he's going to lash out.
		Well, obviously, they were wrong.
		And they completely got it upended.
		And so the sanctions should have been put on, or stayed on, we should say.
		But the Democrats, the Biden administration should have Kept that pressure on and I think that we would have a different scenario.
		But when Putin is looking at Afghanistan, and by the way, people are not talking enough about the policy that Biden put in place to drop the Houthis from the terrorist watch list.
		As soon as they did that, Dave, a couple of months later, what did the Houthis do?
		They were bombarding the UAE.
		Abu Dhabi was receiving missiles from the Houthis.
		Now, this was by official Washington, largely ignored.
		There wasn't a correlation made between, hey, you know, Joe Biden and the Biden administration, all the Democrats just took the Houthis off the terrorist list.
		And what happened?
		They started acting like terrorists.
		And so You literally have to push official Washington to see that these weak policies translate globally into terrible situations.
		I don't think it's too much to say that Joe Biden's weakness is causing war, scandal, destruction, and we have to be able to shake the Senate Democrats because the Germans now see that.
		I never thought I would see it in my day, and they're certainly not saying Rick Grinnell was right, Donald Trump was right, but they're coming awful close.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Let's stick with that Germany situation for a minute.
		So you were ambassador to Germany under Trump, and if you would listen to the media throughout all of that.
		You know, Trump was mean and scaring people all the time.
		And you went in there and you weren't listening to anybody.
		And the other ambassador wasn't happy with you and all of this stuff.
		However, things were basically working in terms of all of our international agreements.
		And we were at least trying to encourage people to pay a bit more, which, as you just said, now they're catching up with.
		Did everything shift overnight, basically, once Biden took over?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		I think that there's a combination of once Biden took over and once Merkel was gone, it was relatively at the same time.
		And, you know, Merkelism really didn't work.
		We had 16 years of, and I'm passionate about this subject, is that I believe that Chancellor Merkel, in making her policy Germany first, she decided to move the German transatlantic relationship away from the West.
		Instead of making a Western-facing alliance where you stand with the West and you do things that benefit the West, she decided to have a foreign policy like Switzerland and be everybody's friend and to sell cars in Moscow and Beijing and Tehran and everywhere else.
		And don't forget, when I arrived in Germany, I was walking around one day and I walked past this Hotel, youth hostel, and I looked over and it was literally, I'm not exaggerating, the property of North Korea in the middle of Berlin.
		And I went back to the embassy and I was like, what the hell?
		There's a North Korean hotel, youth hostel in the middle of Berlin?
		I mean, they're under international sanctions.
		This is illegal.
		And everybody at the State Department was like, yeah, but I guess we've allowed that to happen.
		And I said, no, no, no, no guessing.
		This is unacceptable.
		So I took it to Chancellor Merkel and, you know, there were a lot of excuses.
		Oh, it's not really us.
		It's this management company.
		And I said, I don't care.
		It's in the middle of Berlin.
		Shut it down.
		You're violating UN sanctions.
		They eventually shut it down.
		They weren't happy with me for pointing that out.
		But I wasn't happy with them for violating international sanctions.
		My point in telling you this is that they've moved away from the West for 16 years, while the German Marshall Fund has just applauded them as, you know, this great economic power.
		And yet, I think that there's a difference.
		You can bifurcate the transatlantic alliance from the Western-facing alliance, the Western alliance.
		And Merkel decided to just be a part of this transatlantic alliance, which was not Western facing.
		She's the one who moved Germany and Europe away from the West.
		And now I think they're scrambling to say, yikes, we might have encouraged war in Ukraine.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		OK, so with all of that in mind, none of this happened for the four years under the guy that you work for.
		And everyone kept saying, oh, but Trump is Putin's puppet and all of these things.
		And yet, oddly, Putin made a move on Crimea when Joe Biden was vice president.
		And then he cooled it off for four years and then made a move when Biden was president.
		Are any of these things connected or am I a crazy conspiracy theorist?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		I know you personally, you're not crazy.
		But don't forget that we should also put in there, though, that Putin moved on George under Bush, under President Bush.
		This is not a partisan statement to say that you've got to be able to put America first and articulate the responses of the US government.
		And, you know, I think that it's really important to point out Donald Trump, yesterday I heard him say, That he was tired of Joe Biden talking about how Russia has nuclear power and is a nuclear force.
		And it sounds like, you know, when you say that, that you're scared.
		And President Trump said, you know what Joe Biden should be saying?
		We are a nuclear power and we know what to do.
		And that, I think therein lies the difference is that Donald Trump was no wimp.
		He wasn't anyone who just said, you know, I want to bring troops home and avoid war.
		He built up the Defense Department.
		He built up America's power.
		He used the power with Soleimani.
		He was really able to show an unpredictability when it came to using America's power.
		But he has his criteria.
		And this is, I think, a really important point.
		What is best for the U.S.? ?
		And I'll finish by saying, you know, the State Department needs to learn this lesson.
		Because when you talk about America First, and all of the great things about what that means to be an America First advocate, it doesn't mean America alone.
		And there's a way to articulate America First, and I believe this passionately, that America First helps our allies and others.
		When America is out front, Trying to push forward democracy, human rights, the rule of law.
		Guess what?
		Every economy benefits.
		We see that.
		Inflation is spiking now.
		Economies are not doing well.
		When America puts itself first, capitalism and the rule of law thrive.
		That brings up every other country.
		We should have the State Department, ambassadors overseas who articulate why an America first
		policy is good for them.
		There should be no apologies about this. It's better to have America first than to allow Russia
		or China to put themselves first. And I think what we've seen from 16 years of Merkel, it's much
unidentified		better for America first than to put Germany first. So who do you think Biden is putting first right now?
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it seems like a lifetime ago, but literally only three weeks ago, right before this whole thing started, we had about a two week window of every day where Biden, it sounded like he was basically acting as Putin's PR guy.
		He kept being like, well, he's probably going to go.
		Maybe he'll go.
		These are the 16 things we don't want him to do.
		Here's a bunch of stuff he can do.
		I mean, what is our policy at this point?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Look, I don't want to get too philosophical or theoretical here, but the opposite of America first is consensus, especially consensus with the Europeans.
		And I spent eight years at the UN and I can tell you inside the Security Council that anytime there's a policy or a statement coming out of the Security Council, it's the lowest common denominator of what 15 countries believe.
		And it's not putting America first, certainly not putting democracy, human rights, the rule of law first.
		And so Joe Biden is trapped in official Washington ideas that he wants to be loved by the world.
		He talks, you know, I know all these world leaders.
		He really prioritizes the applause from the globalists.
		And so when you think about it, he really wants the Europeans to be pleased.
		The reason he dropped the sanctions on Nord Stream 2 is because Merkel and the Germans at the time
		asked him to.
		He maximized being with the Germans, being with the Europeans, having them love him.
		Look no further than the Iran deal, Iran deal 2.
		And now we see the Europeans saying, wait a minute, this deal, we're going to have to put it on ice because it's going south.
		When the Europeans are saying we need to stop this process and the Biden team is not the one calling it first, we've got a big problem when you're behind the Europeans.
		But this is the policy.
		Now I can go through.
		You know, each area of the world.
		Look at Venezuela policy now.
		We're moving and transitioning into engagement again, which already failed with the Venezuelans, simply because there's a bunch of Latin countries that want us to do that.
		And Joe Biden is leaning in and letting them determine that policy.
		The same thing in the Balkans.
		I worked very hard on Kosovo, Serbia.
		We had four economic agreements.
		You know what the policy is now?
		Let the Europeans lead on this issue.
		And this is the whole 1990s crowd filled with NGOs that love to write white papers and tell rich people
		to give them money to think about these issues, but they're not making sense at all.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that these people, without getting too far into the philosophical part then,
		do you think that he at least has competent people?
		I mean, when you listen to Kamala Harris talk about this stuff, you know, Ukraine is small, Russia is big, even Tony Blinken, I mean, all of them, they don't sound competent to me.
		Putting aside that you may have a philosophical disagreement with them on what U.S.
		strengths should be or something like that, do they strike you as competent people?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		But a friend in need is a friend indeed, Dave.
		Look, they're not competent, and I blame the Sacramento media for allowing Kamala Harris as a woman and as a black person to rise and win all of these different offices simply because of her identity.
		She wasn't qualified.
		She doesn't have the capacity.
		And I honestly will double down on that.
		If you look, there's no possible way Susan Rice and Ron Klain did not prepare her with a good book.
		of what to say and what to do and what the policy was.
		I don't think it was a lack of preparation.
		I think it is a capacity issue that she doesn't understand these issues.
		She's been allowed to rise to the top without any vetting from the media.
		There's been no push until she got into the presidential.
		And then the national media a little bit were like, wait a minute, you're not really ready.
		And so she imploded.
		But the Sacramento media allowed her just to, you know, catapult and take over I don't think she's qualified.
		I think Anthony Blinken should have been fired after Afghanistan.
		I don't understand why he's still around.
		He's totally weak.
		Wendy Sherman, the deputy at the State Department, you know, her nickname is, what do you want, Wendy?
		When she goes into negotiations, she gives away the store.
		She did it in North Korea, in Iran, with Russia.
		I don't know how many times we're going to put her forward.
		She's the terrible negotiator for the United States.
		And then, you know, Susan Rice is behind the scenes supposedly doing domestic policy, which she's not qualified for.
		But I think she's pulling the string of all of these other positions.
		Remember, Susan Rice, when she was National Security Advisor, had two deputies at the NSC.
		One was Averill Haynes, who runs the intelligence program as DNI.
		And the other was Anthony Blinken, who's now running the State Department.
		So diplomacy and intelligence All are really under Susan Rice.
		They're her deputies.
		She chose them.
		And that just means Obama is pulling the strings.
		You know, there's this philosophy, and I think I agree with it, that Barack Obama couldn't be the far left progressive that he really wanted to be.
		Because as a black man, he was very nervous about being, you know, somebody who was in the middle and being accepted by all the polite sides.
		And I find that to be a phony kind of analysis.
		But nevertheless, he wasn't as progressive as people said that he was going to be, but now unleashed in this Obama third term with a puppet like Biden.
		I think the reality is, is that Susan Rice and Ron Klain and everybody from the Obama administration is back into this Biden team.
		That the Obama third term is unleashed and they really are just using Joe Biden as a puppet and as an empty suit to kind of let go and really try all these hard left progressive ideas.
		Since it's imploding, I think they now have a good scapegoat where they can say, you know, Joe messed it up and maybe they'll try to adjust.
		I see them a little bit trying to adjust, but they're not getting it fast enough.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		By the way, what you're saying is not like some crazy idea that Obama wanted the third term.
		I mean, there is that famous interview of him saying, boy, I wish I could have a third term where I was behind the scenes basically acting as the puppet master.
		I mean, it's his words, so you're not just pulling this out of nowhere.
		Do you think that this mainly boils down to America's energy sector?
		I mean, if you just listen to what we're talking about suddenly in the last week and gas prices going crazy, $8 in Los Angeles, really nuts stuff.
		that they keep now saying, well, this is the time for the Green New Deal.
		This is the time for electric cars.
		That in some ways, this is exactly what they wanted.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		It's scary to think that they would view everything that's happening
		and somehow come up with the idea that they gotta get more progressive and more lefty.
		But--
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		But they always do, right?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		I think they are.
		I mean, do they ever look in the mirror?
		I think that they're reading this and saying this is our opportunity.
		It's crazy to think about that they are not looking at the highest inflation and the highest gas prices And the fact that the American people are, you know, overwhelmingly saying this is a disastrous administration, worse than Jimmy Carter.
		The numbers keep going down.
		You've even got some Democrats now rising up and saying, you know, this blaming Putin for the high gas prices is ridiculous.
		But, you know, you can't talk about these issues without talking about the dutiful media in Washington.
		I mean, they're allowing this to happen.
		The New York Times, CNN, AP, The Washington Post are literally working for the ruling party.
		If we saw this happening in another country, we would call it out.
		We would say you don't have free media.
		You have official media of the Democratic Party, of the ruling party, of the president.
		And there's no question that the New York Times and the Washington Post and the ADP work for the Democrats.
		They can't critique the Democrats to save their life.
		And I think this is the crisis that we find ourselves in.
		Because if you stay in Washington like Joe Biden does and all of his people, you know, Washington is exploding.
		It's getting, every time you go, there's a new crane and a new building and the budgets are getting bigger and $30 trillion in national debt.
		The joke is now on us that live outside of Washington.
		Why do we keep expecting the media who live there, the politicians who live there, the lobbyists who live there, they're never going to tear down their city.
		They want a bigger, better city.
		The only way to drain the swamp is to dig trenches with fresh water and get that muck out.
		And that means we got to start sending people who don't want to live, work and go to church In Washington, D.C.
		We need people who want their social life back in their home districts, so they go, they vote, and they leave.
		I will tell you two people who do that, and that I admire.
		There's more than two, but the two that I see constantly doing that is Ron Johnson and Ted Cruz.
		Their lives are back in their home states, and that includes their social life.
		And so, They're not part of Washington and they can make better decisions because of it.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Do you think Trump has any regrets related to not draining the swamp as maybe more clear?
		I mean, clearly the swamp still exists, right?
		He's not president and the swamp exists.
		Do you think there were more things that he could have done or it was almost just an impossible thing to do within four years or maybe that he didn't even fully grasp the severity of it, how entrenched it was and what he was really up against?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		So I would say this is my opinion.
		I have not had this conversation with President Trump fully.
		I've had it a little bit on the sides.
		But I think by the end of the administration, by the end of the four years, there was an admission that you really have to dig deep in Washington into the agencies and get your people.
		You remember when Donald Trump came, he told me that he had never stayed in Washington, D.C.
		overnight until The week of his inauguration.
		So he was a true outsider.
		He had participated in some of the, you know, donations for both sides and the processes.
		But he was a true outsider.
		And so coming in as an outsider, he was thinking like an outsider.
		And he thought, you know, I got to get the White House right.
		I got to get the loyalists there.
		And you run the government from the White House.
		Over time, I think he realized, wait a minute, you got to really get Uh, into the agencies and dig deep and get your people in there.
		And so there was an admission that we had to do more of that.
		You know, I blame the people that were really around him in the very beginning not to say, wait a minute, you got to have loyalists across the board.
		Um, but I think that lesson was learned through time and would have been fixed in a second term.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		So I want to go more towards that, but I just want to back up for one second on the Russia-Ukraine stuff.
		When you hear from some of your counterparts that are probably still in some of these ambassadorships and still overseas, are people quietly saying to you, boy, we sure do wish that orange guy was still around because this wouldn't have happened?
		Because it seems fairly obvious to me that this would not be happening if Trump was president.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
		It's across the board, all around.
		I'll even go a little bit further.
		Messages every single day from Foreign Service officers at the State Department who are saying, what a terrible mess we have.
		They're not happy with Blinken.
		They see this as weakness.
		I mean, this is a real problem and they see it.
		And these are people that I know personally did not vote for President Trump because I have great relationships with them and they've told me and we've sparred about this before.
		But I respect so many Foreign Service Officers and their work because they, most of them, can salute the President and implement the policies of the President, even when they don't like the President.
		And so they can separate that.
		I actually always found it refreshing to have these political discussions with people because the ones who were really honest about, yeah, I'm a Democrat and I think this way, It was much better because you could trust them, actually.
		You could see their work, and you knew they were implementing.
		And so I have great friends who voted for Biden, who are Foreign Service officers, and I love talking to them, and it makes a healthy environment.
		But many of them are admitting to me that they can't believe that this is happening.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		So I had Nikki Haley on last weekend, and she said something similar.
		And she also said something that you sort of referenced earlier about that the world wants America to lead.
		It really desperately does.
		It loves to hate on America in a way, but also really wants America to lead.
		I sense that's really what you think, too, that it's like if it's not us, everybody just runs around like a chicken without a head.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		I mean, look, I think or China or China.
		Yeah.
		You look you look at the Middle East.
		You look at now Europe.
		And I would even put the Latin and South America in this category.
		There's an open admittance that under Trump, everything was better.
		They're just they're literally able to say that now, more than a whisper.
		And they're right.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		They are right indeed.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		I thought you were giving me a long pause for a crushing line there.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		They're right.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, what else can you say?
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		So what do you think Trump would be doing right now?
		Or what would he have done for the two weeks before where Biden was basically coaching Putin in?
		What do you think Trump would have done then and now?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		So I hate this question, and the reason why is because, you know, now we sit here and we have to answer the question of, now what would you do between a terrible and a really terrible choice?
		Look, if I were in charge, if that's the hypothetical, right?
		If you were in charge, what would you do?
		If I was in charge, we'd kick Joe Biden out of the White House.
		Because really what happened was, is Biden led us down a terrible road.
		We got to turn around and go back.
		and fix this, but I'm pissed off that we have to be answering these questions of, you know, now what are your choices between terrible and really terrible?
		If Donald Trump had been in charge all along, we wouldn't be in this process that we are now to have a choice between bad and really bad.
		I do think that this goes back to Afghanistan.
		And the weakness that was showed by literally having a president of the United States appear to be proud that he got 90% out.
		And the world held their breath and were shocked and they looked at each other and were like, did he just say that we left 10% behind and he's proud of it?
		Everybody saw that.
		Again, why is Secretary of State Anthony Blinken still in his job He has failed miserably so many times, and yet he still has a job.
		I don't understand that.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think it's because the media runs cover, basically what you were saying before about New York Times, Washington Post, and everything else.
		So what do we do about that?
		I mean, okay, so you drain the swamp, you start doing things.
		Let's say Trump's magically president again, and you do the things that the agencies you're talking about.
		There's still this media issue that runs cover.
		Yeah, but you gotta- And lies about other mistakes.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		You gotta just ignore them.
		I mean, they all have paywalls, so don't pay it, and then you won't read it.
		And the reality is, is that with social media, You can educate the public about what the government is doing and be transparent.
		That's the goal.
		The goal is to get information, transparent information, honest information to the American public.
		We have developed this system of a filter that the media think that now they are in charge of information to the American people.
		Social media upended that, just like, you know, our phones having our bank accounts on it.
		We don't have to go in and see the teller anymore.
		We get to go straight to our account and we get to transfer money and control it.
		It's not unlike the media.
		And that's why I think they're clamping down on getting Trump off social media.
		They don't want to see a debate.
		They want to control it.
		So they're applauding it.
		It's terrible for this country.
		It's why first and second generation Americans are the loudest pro-Republican, pro-Trump group because they left fascism.
		They left totalitarianism.
		They know what it's like and they see the signs with the media.
		Some of the proudest members of the America First crowd are first and second generation Americans.
		You want to know who the problem is in this country?
		Seventh, eighth generation white liberals who haven't traveled enough.
		They don't understand how great America is.
		I'd like to have them travel a little bit more and then they will stop tearing our country down and realize that we're the greatest country in the history of the world.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, wait, can you go a little further on this sort of second generation, like we're now seeing a huge explosion in conservative Latinos.
		That's one.
		Trump made major inroads in the black community.
		It's a little unclear where that sits now at the moment.
		But can you talk about that?
		Because that seems to me to be the future of this thing, not because of the color of their skin or even their ethnicity, but because of the value stuff.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, look, I don't even think that it's just the Hispanics and Latinos anymore.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		You know, certainly we know the stories of Cubans who have left totalitarianism and fascism and they become this rabid supporter of freedom.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		I'm in Miami, man.
		Come visit me.
		You'll see it.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		I have a joke about Miami, which I can't say because they'll hold it against me forever.
		But it's a very funny one, I'll tell you personally.
		I love Miami and I love South Florida because it's so filled with people who are freedom fighters.
		And if you've ever had a taste of not freedom, you want freedom.
		And so I think what's happening too is Eastern Europeans, Chinese Americans, Taiwanese Americans, people who have lived On Russian Americans.
		I actually have some friends in L.A.
		who were born and raised in Russia who live here.
		They're some of the most pro-Trump, positive, love America patriots that you've ever seen because they are like the canary in the coal mine for what's happening in our society for institutions that take away our freedoms.
		And I think you've got to listen to first and second generation Americans.
		Tell the story of why they came to America.
		And we have a problem with those in this country who don't travel and who continue to think, you know, I'm going to write a big check to BLM or something because I feel guilty and America is a racist country.
		And that's not what the people who are coming here are seeing.
		They're seeing a great place filled with freedom and democracy and opportunity.
		And yet we need to get these white liberals You know, Rick, you could correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that all of those rich white liberals in Beverly Hills never voted to defund their own police.
		so that they can see how great America is.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		You know, Rick, you could correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that all of those rich white liberals
		in Beverly Hills never voted to defund their own police.
		Isn't that bizarre?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		That's not their own.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		You know, you've mentioned America First a few times, and I actually, I spoke at a Republican congressional event here in Miami a couple weeks ago.
		It was for about 80 Republican congressmen.
		And I was taking them questions after, and one of them asked me if they felt that the America First branding was okay, or was it too, because of the way the media talks about it, was it too associated with racism or white supremacy or something.
		Obviously, I know you don't think that.
		But, but what do you think that that, uh, what do you, do you think there's anything that has to be done in terms of branding so that when people hear America first, there isn't like some sort of knee jerk reaction because of the way the media talks about it?
		I mean, or again, it's ignore the media.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		I think you've got to ignore the media and not play into them.
		I mean, they have silly arguments.
		Everything is racist, sexist, homophobic, you know that.
		And I think the more you just ignore them, go straight to truth-telling.
		Social media is really powerful to be able to go straight to the people.
		We've got to do more of that.
		We need help from Republican senators to fix this big tech problem of how they try to silence us.
		I think we've got to grow our own media.
		I think it's okay to say that We're always going to have media that are on the left or the right that they bring their personal bias into this.
		I think the danger comes when somebody stands up and says, I'm unbiased.
		I am the arbiter of all things.
		And so that person is dangerous because then you know for sure they're a silent liberal.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, scratch a progressive, find an authoritarian.
		Sort of backtracking again, what do you make of just sort of the worldwide response to this?
		You know, in the last couple days, we're banning Russian vodka now, Chase and MasterCard are booting Russia from their systems.
		There's all this talk about Swift.
		I mean, that the whole worldwide system, not just nation states, but corporations, everything seems to be coming down on Russia.
		Does that feel organic to you?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Look, I think the corporate world is groupthink, right?
		I mean, right after January 6th, all the corporations were like, we're not going to give any money to any Republican.
		And so it's this reactionary thing.
		You know, some of those same companies refused to shut down their operations in Russia.
		I think it's okay that companies are always going to act in their own financial interests.
		We understand that they wanna sell, they wanna make money.
		The public has a big role to play here.
		How do we get people to put pressure so that human rights and values become part of it?
		And I'm not a purist.
		I will go shop at places where they give most of their money to Democrats.
		I'm not gonna be one of those people.
		But there are moments where I think you've got to take a stand.
		I'm not a big believer in saying that we're going to boycott certain things, but I think that you can use your own power of your money.
		You have the choice.
		Right now, I think with what Russia is doing, We should apply financial pressure, personal financial pressure, and SWIFT, and companies should recognize that this is a belligerent moment from this country.
		But I also think that 69 countries criminalize homosexuality and some of these same people who moralize about, oh, I can't do business with Russia, they're doing business with countries that will put a gay person in prison simply because they're gay.
		And so where does that line stop?
		I'll also say I've gotten hit from the foreign policy establishment because I said that I won't sign any letter that says we should implement a no-fly zone now, even a humanitarian no-fly zone.
		The idea that there's a light no-fly zone or a partial no-fly zone is ridiculous.
		A no-fly zone is meaning you're going to shoot down a Russian plane.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		You've got to shoot something, yeah.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and I'm all against that.
		I do think, though, that the line in the sand is a NATO ally.
		We have a treaty obligation and Article 5 wire is tripped if there's an attack in Poland or on a NATO country.
		That's a different story because we've got to set boundaries and we've got to enforce boundaries.
		What you see going on in Ukraine is heartbreaking, though.
		It's terrible.
		I mean, I watch, but all of the media are focusing on that.
		And I continue to believe that if the media all moved to the Congo and start telling us the stories of what's going on in the Congo, there'd be calls from neocons and others to have a no fly zone in the Congo.
		And then they'd move to another country and it would just be this perpetual problem.
		What we need to do as Americans is recognize that the criteria that we have is what makes America less safe. We have to respond to the national security
		threats for America.
		Never apologize about putting America first because we are largely a moral country.
		I don't think that we're perfect, and I'm not saying that, but I am saying that we have the best system.
		A checks and a balance.
		I mean, every month there are stats going out on our economy, and there's a whole industry that will immediately say, yeah, that number is higher, that number should be lower, you didn't include this.
		We have transparency in our country.
		We should be really proud of the system, because our system is the best.
		While not perfect, We should never apologize for this system, and I think that's where we have failed, is we've allowed people to really tear down the greatest system and say it's not the greatest system.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Rick, you just gave a beautiful ending, but I will ask you one other question, which is that as a gay, as they say, will you come to Florida?
		You can bring Matt and David and the four of us.
		We will go out to dinner and we will say gay in front of people here in Florida and see what happens.
		Are you willing to take the risk?
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Let's do it.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		We'll be there.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Good seeing you, my friend.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for joining.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		All the best.
richard grenell ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Dave.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about politics instead of nonstop yelling, check out our politics playlist.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		And if you want to watch full interviews on a variety of topics, watch our full episode playlist all right over here.

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