Dec. 18, 2022 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
23:41
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
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| Because of the work that I've done on these issues protecting women and girls, I have heard from people about scholarships, academic competitions. | ||
| I've heard about job promotions. | ||
| We have even had cases in women's prisons and domestic abuse shelters where someone presents and says they're a female or they identify as female. | ||
| So you're so correct on this. | ||
| It is something that is becoming an issue in so many different areas of our society. | ||
| And people want to make certain that they're what they have fought for. | ||
| the rights, the opportunities they have fought for as a woman, | ||
| that those are recognized and that they are not disadvantaged. | ||
| I'm Dave Rubin and joining me today is the senior USA ambassador for the United States of America, Dr. David A. Goldman. | ||
| the senior U.S. | ||
| Senator from the great state of Tennessee and somebody who actually knows what a woman is. | ||
| How wild. | ||
| Senator Marsha Blackburn, welcome to the Rubin Report. | ||
| It is good to be with you, thank you. | ||
| So, I want to start right there. | ||
| You know what a woman is, and not only do you know what a woman is, you've asked other people, in this case, then Supreme Court nominee Katonji Brown-Jackson, you asked her what a woman was a couple months back in a very viral clip, so I want to throw to that and get your thoughts. | ||
| Can you provide a definition for the word woman? | ||
|
unidentified
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Can I provide a definition? | |
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
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I can't. | |
| You can't? | ||
|
unidentified
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Not in this context. | |
| I'm not a biologist. | ||
| The meaning of the word woman is so unclear and controversial that you can't give me a definition? | ||
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unidentified
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Senator, in my work as a judge, what I do is I address disputes. | |
| If there's a dispute about a definition, people make arguments and I look at the law and I decide. | ||
| The fact that you can't give me a straight answer about something as fundamental as what a woman is underscores the dangers of the kind of progressive education that we are hearing about. | ||
| Well, Senator, did you expect that sort of response? | ||
| You know, I did not. | ||
| When you look at the full line of questioning, I started with the school board she serves on and the fact that they have a woke kindergarten curriculum. | ||
| Did she support that? | ||
| She said she didn't know about it. | ||
| So I asked her about Virginia. | ||
| And VMI and that case made it to the Supreme Court, U.S. | ||
| versus Virginia. | ||
| And that is the decision that was written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg that allowed women into our military academies. | ||
| And it's kind of law school first year. | ||
| So I asked if she agreed with Ginsburg and her writing and gave her that quote and said it basically said women and men have enduring differences. | ||
| Well, she said she had never heard of the case and was unfamiliar with the writing. | ||
| I didn't think that sounded quite right. | ||
| So I asked her to define the word woman. | ||
| And she refused to do so, as we've seen. | ||
| And I did that because I was trying to get to men in women's sports and the impact that is having on young women. | ||
| And just like U.S. | ||
| versus Virginia, I know that at some point, what the NCAA has done with allowing men and women's sports. | ||
| There will be lawsuits and that will make its way to the Supreme Court. | ||
| So I wanted to see where she was on it. | ||
| Dave, you know the interesting thing? | ||
| I met privately with her before we did our hearings. | ||
| I laid out for her when we met privately what I was going to ask her about when we did go into the hearing. | ||
| We had a delightful discussion. | ||
| We met for about an hour. | ||
| We went through a series of things, and I was very fair, pointing out what I was going to ask. | ||
| Then, when we did our opening statements on Monday, prior to the hearing beginning on Tuesday, I again went through a recitation, listing the things I was going to discuss with her in the committee setting. | ||
| So she knew what was coming, but she chose not to give me an answer. | ||
| And everyone knows that there are differences between men and women. | ||
| And I think everybody could give me a definition of a woman, an adult female, two X chromosomes. | ||
| I think that, you know, there are plenty of ways that this could be answered saying, I am a woman. | ||
| There are ways to answer that. | ||
| So it just shows you how far the left is pushing even members of the U.S. | ||
| Supreme Court to deny that there are differences between male and female. | ||
| You know, I hate to play the identity politics game, but but for you as a female senator asking this question, how concerned are you now that as these cases rise up to the Supreme Court that they will not have a foundational definition of woman? | ||
| And as you say, we will have I mean, we already have it. | ||
| We will have men beating women in collegiate swimming, in Wrestling and basketball, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
| And although it's just in some sense, people think, oh, well, that's just about sports. | ||
| It's actually about something much bigger happening in society right now. | ||
| Well, it is. | ||
| And because of the work that I've done on these issues, protecting women and girls, I have heard from people about scholarships, academic competitions. | ||
| I've heard about job promotions. | ||
| We have even had cases in women's prisons. | ||
| And domestic abuse shelters where someone presents and says they're a female or they identify as female. | ||
| So you're so correct on this. | ||
| It is something that is becoming an issue in so many different areas of our society. | ||
| And people want to make certain that they're what they have fought for. | ||
| The rights, the opportunities they have fought for as a woman, that those are recognized and that they are not disadvantaged. | ||
| So we're going to continue to stay on this issue and continue to support women and girls as they work to preserve the opportunities that should be there for them. | ||
| One more on this and then we'll get to some other stuff. | ||
| Do your colleagues on the other side of this issue, you know, generally Democrats consider themselves feminists, so that means that they would, you know, be for women in some sense. | ||
| Do any of them, when you talk to them privately, say, boy, we've really kind of lost the ball on this one and we're actually defending men who You know, purport to be women, let's say, but it's sort of gone too far. | ||
| The whole party has gone so radical, there's not much that they can do. | ||
| You know, one of the interesting things to me has been how women on the left will all fall in line behind whatever the left says is their agenda for women. | ||
| And they stay very close to that. | ||
| They're very submissive. | ||
| to the left's agenda on gender. | ||
| But when you have conservative women or women that are center-right or to the right, what do you hear? | ||
| They will come at you and will absolutely blast you and say, oh, you're not a real woman. | ||
| Oh, you're not defending women. | ||
| If you don't fall in line and submit, to that agenda to the left. | ||
| It is a very interesting dynamic that is happening, and these leftist groups, they don't show up to protect women who are conservative. | ||
| So I saw you a couple weeks ago. | ||
| You were kind enough to take a few minutes in your office right after the midterms. | ||
| And obviously the red wave did not fully form the way a lot of people thought. | ||
| And when we were chatting, they were still trying to figure out, even if the Republicans were going to get Congress, which obviously did happen. | ||
| Are you hopeful now that there's going to be some actual change here? | ||
| I mean, I think a lot of people, and I know this from my own audience, They're happy that the Republicans got Congress, but there's always this feeling like, ah, they got it, but are they gonna actually do anything? | ||
| And one of the frustrations for so many Tennesseans that I talk to is that you have Republicans who will not back Republican principles. | ||
| And they want them to focus on getting the government spending under control, securing that Southern border, making certain that crime is addressed. | ||
| That we work to get drugs off the street and support law enforcement. | ||
| Those are the things that people are wanting to see addressed. | ||
| And they're very concerned that you will have some Republicans in the House and some in the Senate that won't support getting things done for the American people. | ||
| I fully believe that this next two years is a great opportunity For Republicans to show what we are for and to draw that distinction between what Democrats are for and what Republicans are for. | ||
| It's a great opportunity for us. | ||
| We should embrace that and we should be bold. | ||
| So are you hopeful that the Congress will do it? | ||
| Obviously you don't have as much leverage in the Senate, but do you think that whoever ends up as the leader and whatever direction they go will be the right one? | ||
| My hope is. | ||
| That you're going to see House Republicans and Senate Republicans work together to stop a lot of these bad initiatives that are coming out of the White House. | ||
| And we need to be sure we don't make life difficult for one another, but that we stay focused on things. | ||
| A few things that the American people want to see done. | ||
| The spending, the crime, the border, making certain we fund the military. | ||
| Making certain that we're protecting our families. | ||
| Let me ask you a little bit about your home state of Tennessee, because Tennessee, much like Florida where I am now, is absolutely booming. | ||
| And I told you, I considered Nashville. | ||
| It almost happened. | ||
| But a lot of my friends have moved there. | ||
| As you know, Daily Wire has moved down there. | ||
| There's really like a real explosion in Tennessee right now. | ||
| Are you guys just feeling good about things? | ||
| Like we're doing it right? | ||
| We're seeing this influx and it's all good? | ||
| Yes, but bear in mind, this has been a long time in the making, getting Tennessee on the right path. | ||
| When I was in the state Senate, there was a big push and it was a four-year battle, four full years. | ||
| We had a governor that was pushing a state income tax and I led that opposition. | ||
| We kept our state income tax free. | ||
| We're never going to have a Income tax in Tennessee because we've amended the state constitution that doesn't allow it. | ||
| What was the argument for it? | ||
| It seems so hard for me as a, as a former Californian to come to Florida where I'm paying no income tax. | ||
| The idea that anyone here would say, yes, we would like income tax here. | ||
| It just sounds so insane. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And, uh, Tennessee in the mid nineties had been the test case for Hillary Clinton's healthcare. | ||
| And it was a program, TennCare. | ||
| It was to cost $2 billion a year, but with any government-run program, they always underestimate. | ||
| They're building it on theory, and it never works. | ||
| Never works. | ||
| And it was an $8 billion program. | ||
| So, after that five years of experimentation, they decided, oh, wait a minute. | ||
| We've got to have money to pay for this thing. | ||
| Oh, we don't have an income tax. | ||
| Let's do an income tax and pay for this program. | ||
| Well, as you know, working on symptoms is not always the right thing to do. | ||
| You have to go to the root cause. | ||
| And the root cause was the program did not work. | ||
| And passing an income tax was not going to fix the broken program. | ||
| But Dave, you know, it was really wonderful. | ||
| People of the state supported me in that effort to fight that tax. | ||
| It's the people of the state of Tennessee who stood up. | ||
| They stood with me. | ||
| And we were able to defeat that tax, and Tennessee is better for it. | ||
| We are a well-managed state. | ||
| We're considered one of the top one or two, three well-managed states in the country. | ||
| We have the lowest tax burden. | ||
| Our secretary of state in the state was recently honored. | ||
| Our state is number one in election integrity. | ||
| Those are things that people want to see. | ||
| So when you've got that great quality of life, a well-run state, low cost of doing business, a good standard of living, that's where people want to come. | ||
| Does it shock you, the stark difference now between a well-run state and a poorly run state? | ||
| I mean, I can always bring everything back to California, but you know, the fact that you have to show an ID to vote in Tennessee or in Florida and you don't in California. | ||
| I mean, are you shocked that they're just continuing to go down that path? | ||
| Ballot harvesting, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
| You guys closed your polls and I think you had results basically immediately. | ||
| Yeah, that's right. | ||
| And when you talk about poor management of states, I always think I was listening to something on California the other day. | ||
| You know, they're going to increase their state income tax and they're trying to pass a bill that if you leave California and you've built your business there for 10 years, they're going to tax you. | ||
| And it reminded me of that great country song written by James Dean Hicks. | ||
| It's called The Hole. | ||
| And the gist of the song is, when you're in a hole, stop digging! | ||
| And so, you know, Dave, some of these states need to learn that lesson. | ||
| Whether they're New York or Illinois or California or Washington State, just give it up! | ||
| Give it up and try to start fixing the problems that are affecting you. | ||
| Unfortunately, they really like that shovel, apparently. | ||
| Yes, they do. | ||
| And they just keep digging. | ||
| What kind of stresses do you guys have with such an influx? | ||
| Do you know how many people have come to Tennessee over the last two or three years? | ||
| I mean, it's got to be, my guess is it's got to be at least 100,000, right? | ||
| Well, the number continues to grow. | ||
| And I think in the Nashville area, they are changing about a thousand driver's license and car tags Every single week. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| And it doesn't matter where I go, whether it's to church or the grocery store or one of the kids activities. | ||
| I'm meeting people who have relocated to Tennessee from California and from New York and many other places, some of these big blue states, Connecticut, Illinois. | ||
| And they finally, they say, you know, we've just had it. | ||
| We can't handle it anymore. | ||
| I was talking with someone from New York, and they said they left New York City. | ||
| They're in the financial service sector. | ||
| We've had a couple of big relocations coming out of New York City to Nashville. | ||
| And they said they have small children. | ||
| And they thought, you know, we can work from anywhere. | ||
| And they had started, here's what did it. | ||
| They were trying to get their child into a preschool. | ||
| And they were told by somebody, well, you need to hire a consultant to coach your child to get into a preschool, because there are so few good preschools that are available that are not into the woke kindergarten, woke education, things of that nature. | ||
| So this family said, after they heard all of that, they said, We need to move. | ||
| And so they came to Tennessee. | ||
| Have you guys done anything like Governor DeSantis is doing here in Florida related to making sure that the woke stuff doesn't get into the schools and isn't in all of our institutions? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| They had passed, Tennessee has passed a ban. | ||
| They don't allow the teaching of CRT. | ||
| They've changed people that are on the textbook commission. | ||
| They go through a different review process. | ||
| They will not allow the WOKE curriculums to take place. | ||
| They are dealing, when they go back in in January, my understanding is they are going to deal with some of the gender dysphoria issues and the way that is represented to minors and the allowance, what has been the allowance by some of surgeries or medications. | ||
| that deal with the gender dysphoria issues. | ||
| What, uh, what are you planning, uh, related to COVID if, if they start, you know, quote unquote, bringing COVID back, or if there's a surge and all this stuff, you know, we're hearing that LA, it's like always, you know, a half inch away from bringing back masks. | ||
| I mean, what can you guys do to ensure that, that Tennesseans can live the way they wish and make choices for themselves? | ||
| Well, and we know that fearful people are easier to control. | ||
| That was one of the reasons that you had pushing the lockdowns and the mandates during COVID. | ||
| And you have some, as Dr. Fauci is being ushered out the door, he is very defiantly saying, we may have to go back to lockdowns and mandates. | ||
| And I think people are saying we're over that. | ||
| The science didn't support that. | ||
| They are looking at the learning loss and the mental health issues of children. | ||
| from the masking and the lockdowns and the isolations. | ||
| And they're also looking at people who have the vulnerabilities and or more susceptible to COVID or any other type disease. | ||
| And Dave, I think that, you know, whenever the next pandemic comes, that people will be smarter about this. | ||
| And interestingly enough, they're probably going to be less trustful of government and what government is telling them. | ||
| And what we're finding out from the Twitter files and other things, you're going to see how you had elite Democrats and federal agencies and people working together on what they classified as disinformation and what they allowed to be put out as information And now what is it that we're finding out? | ||
| It's probably flipped. | ||
| The things that they were saying was disinformation was actually correct. | ||
| Yeah, are you doing anything on that front? | ||
| Oh yes, absolutely. | ||
| In terms of holding the social media companies responsible? | ||
| Yes, I am the top Republican on the Consumer Protection Data Security Bill. | ||
| And we are indeed, we have spent the last two years Working on social media and governance and how they protect individuals and children online, how they censor and how they push forward information, how sometimes they push forward products that are fraudulent products. | ||
| So we're going to continue that emphasis. | ||
| I've only got one more for you. | ||
| I'm gonna make it real easy for you. | ||
| I know you're not in the middle of a reelection campaign yourself, but what's your stump speech for people to be hopeful for America? | ||
| Because I think people are between the censorship and getting post COVID and just the general state of sort of political craziness. | ||
| I think people are just looking for a kind of positive message. | ||
| That's how I try to do my show every day. | ||
| Yeah, you know, when you go back and you look at our founding documents, there is that, That encouragement that we, the people, should be the people, and people is with a capital P. That is the regard with which our founders held the people of this country, looking at it as a country that is indeed blessed and endowed by God in individuals that are endowed with these inalienable rights. | ||
| And it is up to us to exercise and protect and defend those rights. | ||
| But it requires people to be the people, to take the responsibility, to hold their government to account. | ||
| And it's so interesting to me. | ||
| I think you can push people so far and then they're going to say, hey, wait a minute, we've had it. | ||
| And we saw that with the lockdowns. | ||
| And the mandates. | ||
| And people saying, no, these are my rights. | ||
| They're not government-granted anything. | ||
| They are my inalienable rights. | ||
| And I am going to exercise my right. | ||
| And it is up to you, elected officials, to rein in this federal government. | ||
| Senator, you are a fine senator and a fine woman and I didn't even need to look at a dictionary to figure out what that meant. | ||
| I appreciate your time and I hope I hope to see you maybe at the Ryman sometime soon. | ||
| Oh, got it. | ||
| Any day. | ||
| Great. | ||
| Always. | ||
| You are welcome in Tennessee. | ||
| Come see us. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about politics instead of nonstop yelling, check out our politics playlist. | ||
| 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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