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March 28, 2023 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
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Exposing the Truth About GOP's Civil War | Dan Crenshaw | POLITICS | Rubin Report
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Speaker Time Text
dan crenshaw
I'll never forget, before we took one vote, I won't say who, but one of the leaders of this 20 stood up and McCarthy asked him, what else do you guys want?
Let's just settle this before we go out there and look like fools.
What else can we do for you?
And he just couldn't answer it in front of everyone.
That was a really frustrating moment.
So that's actually where all the animosity came from, because it felt like it was just for show.
dave rubin
All right, I'm Dave Rubin, and yes, this is a different set, because we are in the swamp.
That's right, we are in Washington, D.C., and joining me across the table is a former Navy SEAL and now a U.S.
Congressman representing Texas's 2nd District, Dan Crenshaw.
Welcome back to The Rubin Report.
dan crenshaw
Great to be here.
dave rubin
Small bunker that we are in here in Washington, D.C.
dan crenshaw
Everything's a little smaller out here.
You know, it's compact.
Welcome.
Glad you're out here.
dave rubin
I am glad to be here.
You just got in from Texas like seven minutes ago.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan crenshaw
Yeah, I just flew in this morning.
dave rubin
How are you feeling?
Do you need a moment to collect yourself?
dan crenshaw
I'm waiting for the Sudafed to kick in.
That's what I'm waiting for, if I'm being particularly honest.
dave rubin
So this is, you have like COVID-7 that you're bringing to the Capitol now?
dan crenshaw
Yeah, it must be, I don't know.
I think it's just allergies got into a sign, you know how it is.
I'm fine, we'll work through it.
dave rubin
I guess we shall see.
So I said to you right when you walked, you just walked in two seconds ago, but I said to you right when you walked in that we offered, I told Republicans and Democrats alike, about 20 on each side, that I'm in DC for three days.
I will interview anyone.
And I will treat everyone with respect and all that stuff.
Basically, every Republican said yes, except Mitch McConnell who has a, he fell and I think he hurt his leg or hip.
I think he might be in the hospital at the moment, so I'll accept that one.
And not one Democrat even responded.
We didn't even get nos.
We got just nothing.
dan crenshaw
Yeah.
dave rubin
Does that kind of sum up what's going on here in D.C.
these days?
dan crenshaw
Yeah, it kind of does.
Let's unpack that a lot.
One, I think it's political malfeasance on their part.
I see a lot more Republicans go on left-wing shows.
I like doing it.
I've done it a lot.
And frankly, if you only care about catering to your own base, it's actually still good for that, because your base still loves watching you go toe-to-toe with somebody who disagrees with you.
dave rubin
Especially if you get them.
That's what they really like.
dan crenshaw
Right, and it's fun, it's intellectually stimulating, there's a lot of other reasons I like doing it.
But most importantly, I always say, fighting in politics, what is fighting in politics?
Fighting in politics means persuading others.
That's the metric by which you fight.
A lot of people think otherwise, right?
It's just yelling and screaming and picketing and doing all that.
Maybe dying on hills that you knew you were going to die on.
That's not fighting.
That's fighting for your base's attention.
That's a certain kind of fight.
But you're not really fighting for them.
And so fighting means persuading.
And the best way to persuade is to get your point across in a reasonable manner on a show where you know the audience generally disagrees with you.
So yeah, I don't get it.
So I think it's political malfeasance.
But to your question about is it a broader indicator of what goes on here on the hill, yeah, yeah, to an extent.
You know, I'll give you an example.
We were in ENC, Energy and Commerce Committee, we're marking up some bills and some of these are kind of obviously not things Democrats will vote for.
Some of them are not so obvious.
So here's one, like scheduling fentanyl analogs as a schedule one drug.
So analogs, this is like stuff that basically acts like fentanyl or something?
dave rubin
this is like stuff that basically acts like fentanyl or something?
dan crenshaw
Yeah, an analog means it's been, it's kind of been chemically altered by the exact same
basic makeup and outcome.
I'm probably getting that somewhat scientifically wrong.
dave rubin
It's bad stuff, fentanyl.
dan crenshaw
But legally speaking, like you need to do it so we can go after these dealers in a cohesive
way, which is a way that's not happening right now.
Prosecutors have a really hard time prosecuting, not even just fentanyl, but fentanyl analogs.
Something slightly different that does the exact same thing.
I mean, marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug.
We can debate that separately, but the point is, this shouldn't be that controversial to make fentanyl a Schedule 1 drug.
By the way, it's already temporarily a Schedule 1 drug.
It expires soon.
I don't want to get too much into this particular issue, but the point is, it's really not that controversial, and fentanyl is hurting everyone across the country.
I think two Democrats maybe voted with us on that.
You know, the things that should be bipartisan, that really shouldn't be that controversial, they find reasons to make them controversial.
Now, I think when we were in the minority, we might have done the same thing every once in a while, like, you know, nitpick some silly things.
But I would say only every once in a while.
I think it happens a lot more with Democrats, and it certainly happens a lot more in the House.
The reason being is that if you're, you know, if you're a politician, you're sitting in the minority, Maybe you do kind of like a policy, but you also don't really want to take heat from back home for voting for it from your own base, because your first election is always your primary.
You know it's going to pass.
Just vote no.
The no vote is the easiest vote in the world.
And a lot of people just vote no on just literally everything.
dave rubin
Is it sometimes not just that they're worried about the base, but they're worried about the radicals that are here?
Like that that's going to cause more of a headache than say their voter who might be a little more left than they are?
dan crenshaw
I don't know, what do you mean by radicals here?
dave rubin
Well, meaning like, let's say the squad crew is gonna create more of a headache for them than their own base that might just be like, ah, we'll let it slide on this issue.
dan crenshaw
Well, same thing, so same thing.
So yeah, I mean, they might be afraid of somebody in the squad tweets something which riles up their base back home.
That's the dynamic, yeah.
But it's kind of the same thing.
dave rubin
Yeah, so let's do a whole bunch of stuff.
All right.
All right.
Let's go.
Well, first, how about we do start with this?
Because I think a really interesting moment that we had that you probably don't even know about is I think the first time, maybe the second time we met was at a Turning Point USA event during the first Trump impeachment.
So this was right before Christmas.
I guess this is like 2018 or something.
And I'm sure you remember the moment where you actually brought up your card.
It was the card that you said no on impeachment.
Is that what it was?
So you actually brought that up on stage to Trump in the middle of his speech.
He called you on and you brought up the card and you signed it for him.
That night was the first night that I ever met Trump in person.
And that was basically when I started saying I could support this guy because you supported him.
And I was like, I like Crenshaw.
Then having met Trump, I was like, I like him personally.
That put some of the pieces together.
That feels like a long, long time ago, doesn't it?
Just the way the world in 2018 felt compared to 2023?
dan crenshaw
Putting aside the specifics of that, just how much- Yeah, massively different.
I've only been in politics four years, so I'm in my fifth year, third term.
Fifth year, I guess if you count running for Congress for about a year, I could say it's five years in politics, but that's not very long.
dave rubin
How many years does that age you?
dan crenshaw
I don't know, I just turned 39.
So I don't feel like I've been aged, but at least I won't admit it.
But I will say, yeah, the atmosphere is very different.
The 2018 primaries were very different than 2022 primaries.
2020 primaries were nonexistent, at least for me.
I didn't even have a contender.
And now there's nobody that runs without a primary contender and can run way to the right or way to the left.
So politics has gotten way more extreme.
On both sides.
And it's gotten vicious and angrier.
And it is a wildly different time.
Yeah, everybody, I do miss those days.
I do miss those days a little bit.
dave rubin
Is that weird that 2018 are the good old days?
I mean, that's kind of bizarre.
I mean, COVID obviously escalated a lot of things.
It did.
But just the general sense, I mean, I know you well enough, like you really do want to sit down with some of these other people.
And when you see them, like when you see some of the progressives in Congress, when you're at the Capitol, Does anyone chat with you?
Like, are they willing to talk even on the DL, or is it just there's nothing there?
dan crenshaw
Yeah, yeah.
No, there is.
But, you know, the frustration comes from... it's very hard to get them to act.
But don't... but, you know, I do want people to realize there's actually a lot more good faith conversations and attempts than people might realize.
It doesn't always end up where we'd like it to.
It rarely ends up where we'd like it to.
Let me draw your attention back to the Kevin McCarthy speakership votes.
Not because I want to talk about that drama.
unidentified
It's on the list!
dan crenshaw
It's on the list!
No, but actually what I wanted to bring up was the hilarious bad lip-reading that came from that.
dave rubin
Oh, I saw it, I saw it.
dan crenshaw
And how often did you see bad lip-reading between hardcore Freedom Caucus members and AOC?
unidentified
They talk to each other quite a bit.
dan crenshaw
People do talk to each other, right?
There is some yelling and screaming publicly, but I've gotten completely out of the habit of going after anyone individually in the House.
Senate, up for grabs.
Bernie Sanders, all day long.
President Biden, that's, yeah, totally free for all.
But I try not to even go after anyone in the House, unless absolutely necessary.
Because you do have to see them every day.
And there might be something you work on.
I mean, so like, I'm trying to get psychedelic treatment for veterans and military.
AOC is a big proponent of that.
Also, we're neighbors now.
We literally, our offices, we just got moved this year.
We are right next to each other.
dave rubin
Psychedelics all the time.
We'll get to that in a minute.
dan crenshaw
We're right next to each other.
I prefer a world where we actually try to figure some things out.
I'm trying to get a bunch of Democrats on my cartel bills right now.
I mean, that's not out of the question yet.
And I've not made it partisan.
I want Democrats to agree with me that we have to go after the cartels in Mexico.
I mean, there's room.
It can happen.
I still have some faith.
dave rubin
Okay, so since it sounds like you're extending a hand to AOC, just on my show this morning that we just finished an hour ago, I played a clip of her speech during the Parental Rights and Education Bill that just got passed, and she's screaming how this is fascism.
That if parents know these things, that this is fascism.
And all the bill is, as I basically read all the bullet points, It's just so that parents know what's being taught.
That's it.
dan crenshaw
Their reaction to this was so crazy.
dave rubin
So what do you do with that, then?
So you want to put the hand out there.
You want to maybe work with her on things that make sense, okay?
Psychedelics for veterans.
dan crenshaw
I'm just saying, the way it works up here is like, we just ignore it.
Hey, will you co-sponsor this?
Yeah, sure, great.
Right.
Which is healthy, actually.
Because what's interesting is I do think a lot of the emotion leaves the room when behind closed doors.
And that's a good thing, frankly.
I haven't actually specifically talked to her about this psychedelics bill.
I just know that she's promoted something similar.
This is one of those weird things where it's me, Matt Gaetz, and AOC all on the same page about something.
It's just an example, but my comments about X, Y, and Z don't necessarily need to affect her opinion on this bill, and her comments on X, Y, and Z don't necessarily need to affect my opinion on this bill.
Well, it's about a greater good.
It's about getting military people treatment that they need.
So it can still happen, right?
It really can sometimes.
dave rubin
But what do you do about the over-the-top writer?
Because I don't hear that from you.
Obviously, I'm more in line with your politics.
Like, she knows it's not fascism.
But then you say that, it gets clipped everywhere, it goes around, and then that just becomes the mainstream thought on this thing.
dan crenshaw
We gotta fight back on that issue.
Like, I can fight back on that issue against her.
I'm just saying, I'm trying to make people feel somewhat better about DC.
That's all I'm trying to do.
I'm just saying, we can fight like hell on that.
Like, she's totally lying and totally wrong, and I would say it publicly.
It's completely disingenuous.
It's complete grandstanding.
And all the Democrats have been saying it, by the way.
They're all using the same line.
Like, this kind of sky is falling rhetoric.
I'm just saying, we can fight about that and probably still do a bill on something else that we agree on.
It can happen, and it should happen.
If you let your entire life and entire career, and certainly Washington politics, be driven completely by emotion, we'll definitely never get anything done.
Because it largely is already driven too much by emotion.
dave rubin
Right, it's interesting because the rhetoric is so out of whack with what most people think of the country even, you know, because most of what they're running on to me seems like radical anti-American ideas and all of the woke stuff.
And then the other day, Hakeem Jeffries was suddenly talking about American exceptionalism and it's like, well, Pick one, guys!
But then I kind of think that's almost baked in.
It's like, we say every extreme thing, so people have no freaking clue what's going on here.
And then you get left holding the hat, like, hey, I'm trying to be sane.
dan crenshaw
The intellectually honest and consistent people, yeah, do get left holding the hat a lot of times.
Because sometimes my own side wants me to really go extreme, and I'm like, that's not really intellectually honest, whatever the example is.
And so I tend to look for people on the other side who also share that same kind of intellectual honesty and consistency, who kind of maintain some sort of consistent equilibrium.
AOC is not one of those people, just to be clear.
I don't even mean to make it about her.
dave rubin
She says these things and I'm like, Man, you don't believe this lady.
I would say she's LARPing.
She's live at home.
dan crenshaw
Yeah, yeah, it's true.
dave rubin
It's just true.
dan crenshaw
I mean, Hakeem Jeffries said the same stuff on the Parents' Bill of Rights thing.
He was saying the same things, like book burning, they want to stop teaching the Holocaust.
dave rubin
Yeah, oh, the Holocaust, we played that one.
dan crenshaw
What are you talking about?
It's completely bananas.
That being said, as just a Republican strategist putting that hat on, I like it when they do that because it's so easy to debunk.
You know, it was like the Georgia election law, the Texas election laws.
Those were so easy to debunk.
They looked ridiculous and they did lose those battles.
So, it does drive us crazy when they do that, but we do also have to take a step back, think about it unemotionally, and think, this is an opportunity.
unidentified
Right?
dan crenshaw
Because it's so easy to fact check them.
Right.
They've gone, they've miscalculated, they've gone too far.
It's an opportunity for us to win over those independents who are like, you know, I don't like that they lied to me.
I believed it for a second, but then you showed me this and I read it and it's not like that.
And that's an opportunity for us.
dave rubin
So I can tell you really wanna talk about the McCarthy fight for at least 17 minutes consecutively.
Let's do literally two minutes on it.
So you were basically in McCarthy's camp.
Then it was sort of getting nasty for a couple of days.
The media loved it because Republicans were fighting with Republicans.
Okay, fine.
Are you happy in the end result in that it does seem to me that the Republicans are standing up a little bit more and maybe the fight did actually give it some teeth or do you think it was gonna end up that way either way?
dan crenshaw
It's going to end up that way either way.
I mean, what really bugs me about that whole week was that nothing really changed from day one to day five or whatever it was as far as the substance of the so-called demands, right, this rules package we passed.
It had already been agreed to and it was a pretty uncontroversial rules package.
Everybody liked it.
dave rubin
So what about these concessions that they got?
Isn't that the whole thing?
dan crenshaw
Yeah, yeah.
Well, those are personal concessions that we don't quite understand or know about.
That's another frustrating thing.
dave rubin
Meaning that behind closed doors McCarthy was like, okay, Matt Gaetz, I'll offer you this or something into that.
dan crenshaw
And I can't talk specifics because I don't really know exactly.
But the point is, is the actual written down rules, the supposedly, Again, I think there was a narrative out there that they were fighting for this, like, more transparent, better, more Republican, more Democratic rules package.
But it was already agreed to.
It was the exact same from start to finish.
dave rubin
So the rules package itself did not change?
dan crenshaw
It didn't change.
Well, there was one tiny change, which is like the motion to vacate changed from five votes to one vote, which is like nothing.
So I mean, that's splitting hairs at that point.
So that's what was frustrating.
It was frustrating, too, because, I mean, you know, I'll never forget, before we took one vote, I won't say who, but one of the leaders of this 20 stood up and McCarthy asked him, like, what else do you guys want?
Let's just settle this before we go out there and look like fools.
What else can we do for you?
And he's like, and he just couldn't answer it in front of everyone.
That was a really frustrating moment.
So that's, that's actually where all the animosity came from, because it felt like it was just for show.
dave rubin
So that's interesting.
So that's the rights version of what we were talking about before with the left, right?
Like just the show version of all.
dan crenshaw
Yeah, it was just so it was just frustrating.
And it wasn't clear to those of us who were supporting and why.
Again, I can negotiate with somebody if you're like, no, I really want this rule to change.
And I'm like, well, I can figure that.
I can wrap my head around that.
But that just wasn't what was happening.
And that's where the animosity came from.
Because I'd go around asking some of them, what else?
I'll go talk to them.
What do you want me to talk to them about?
Let's just get through this.
And I wouldn't get answers.
And that was really frustrating.
That's why I think the heat got turned up so much.
But I also think we're definitely past it now.
Washington tends to be like that, which frankly... Apparently your offices are all right next to each other.
Yeah, but it's a good thing.
You gotta get over stuff, right?
You really do.
dave rubin
Wait, do you have a bathroom in your office?
Or do you have to share a bathroom with these people too?
dan crenshaw
No, we have a bathroom, but no shower.
dave rubin
There's not just one in the hallway.
dan crenshaw
Yeah, every member office has a bathroom.
No shower, but a bathroom.
dave rubin
Okay, all right, so you're not gonna share a bathroom with AOC.
I assume they would be genderless bathrooms.
dan crenshaw
Yeah, they would definitely be genderless, that's true.
dave rubin
What do you make of the general sense that, and I definitely feel this as, you know, I left Cali and I'm in Florida now, that the red states and blue states, the divide right now is so wide that it can only get wider, at least temporarily.
Do you think that's a fair assessment?
And are you okay with it, if it's a fair assessment?
dan crenshaw
No, I'm not okay with it.
It's bad for the country.
We need honest balance in the country and you need a healthy liberal side and a healthy conservative side.
Liberals have their place, right?
They point out problems with the hierarchies and the institutions that are set up.
You know, I think their solutions are almost always wrong.
That's where you need conservatives.
unidentified
Right.
dan crenshaw
I think conservative governing philosophy is by far the best one and the healthiest one.
But you've got to take cues from people, and that's where the liberals play a role.
That balance is actually really important.
And that balance is way out of whack.
And we've got problems in the Republican Party, for sure.
I think populism is bad, mostly because it so closely resembles liberalism, in my opinion.
dave rubin
Meaning that they'll use government to get whatever it is that they want.
dan crenshaw
Yeah, untethered from principle.
It's generally telling people what they want to hear.
That's how I define populism and that's certainly how I observe it in practice.
dave rubin
So this would be like where you and Tucker definitely see that differently.
dan crenshaw
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not really sure what he's for in many cases.
I mean, you know, he hates me because I think we should defend America and stand up to Russia.
Like that, that's why, that's why he doesn't like me.
I'm not sure what else we disagree on.
He's probably is more willing to use the powers of government in a very non-conservative way on certain things.
I don't want to put words in his mouth.
We'd have to go really specific on the issue.
But just in general, when you look at populism, here's an example.
I mean, I remember, was it the 2020 election?
We were talking about free paychecks, you know, $2,000 checks to everyone, universal paychecks.
And I remember the far right being like, you got to do this.
This is what needs to be done.
This is, you know, and it was, I was like, well, why not $3,000?
Why not $4,000?
The entire point of being a conservative is to have some kind of tethered principles, some anchoring there.
There has to be, it's called limiting principles.
And so that's populism, right?
Because I'm like, You know, is it going to be popular to give everyone a $2,000 check?
Yes.
Does that make it the right thing?
No.
So that's what I mean by that.
And liberalism just is the political mechanism for that kind of mentality, generally speaking.
dave rubin
Where are the liberals, though?
I mean, I see socialists mostly.
You probably saw that incredible moment on Realtime a couple weeks ago when Bill basically said to Bernie, what's the difference between equity and equality?
And he literally said he didn't know.
unidentified
I mean, that should have... That was interesting, because it's like he's never thought of it.
dan crenshaw
We have that conversation in our circles quite a bit.
We nitpick at their philosophy.
We really try to understand their psychology and philosophy.
They never try to understand conservatives.
They actually default to demonization.
It's actually appalling.
But also, it's a huge advantage for us.
Because I always know what they're going to say.
I always know how they're going to make their point.
And that was such a good example of, like, Bernie's never even really thought of that It's an important difference, you know?
And Bill eventually got him to kind of say what we would want him to say, you know?
It's like about outcome orientation.
dave rubin
But he was like, bleh!
Like, here, you fool!
dan crenshaw
He's just never thought of it, which was crazy.
So it's proof that they're driven by like, that the left is driven by populism, and kind of what feels good at the moment sort of mentality, right?
This kind of outsized, like pathological sense of compassion.
You can have too much compassion, right?
That will, I don't know, to kind of just screw up your entire framing of a problem and how you approach it.
dave rubin
You've read some Jordan Peterson.
dan crenshaw
Yeah, yeah.
Mutual friend.
dave rubin
You've done many things with him.
So, wait, I want to back up though to Russia for just a sec.
So, because I think we have a little bit of a difference of opinion here.
As a general rule, I believe in strength to stop your enemies and I believe in deterrence and all of those things.
There's something that feels different to me about this thing because we're so screwed up internally right now, like because of inflation and all of the craziness of the last couple of years that we're giving all of this money and that people are just like, yes, give them four more tanks and three more planes and pay for this.
And it's like, we know that's not gonna end it.
And he has nukes.
So it's not, so I think I probably agree with you on like the blue sky, like policy, what should foreign policy look like?
I just think we have a bunch of incompetent buffoons running this, and that changes my equation a little bit.
dan crenshaw
Maybe.
You can always find a reason to want to solve this problem instead of that problem, but they're not mutually exclusive.
Giving money to Ukraine for weapons has zero inflationary effect, for one.
I think you'd have a much higher inflationary effect if you looked at the counterfactual.
So if we're going to say we should never support Ukraine, you do have to operate with a counterfactual in mind.
And that counterfactual is this, we never, okay fine, we never gave them anything, they were never our ally, we don't care if Russia takes them over for all we care, you know, it doesn't concern us at all.
dave rubin
For the record, I'm not saying all that, but I get what your point is.
dan crenshaw
But we have to say that because that is the obvious counterfactual.
So that means Russia takes over.
That means we don't do anything.
We never gave them javelins.
We never gave them stingers.
We never gave them the weapons that helped them fend the Russians off in the Battle of Kiev.
And we never trained them for the last few years, right?
We never did any of that.
Russia would win, and also their military would be intact.
So you'd have an intact Russian military, with now an emboldened Putin, because now the population's way behind him.
They're not really behind him now, because he's not winning.
And they don't like being conscripted into his army.
But in the counterfactual, they're winning.
They haven't lost him so much.
And now they're on the borders of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, all NATO countries.
With an imperialistic mindset.
I mean, Putin's talked many times about, you know, freeing Russian, ethnic Russians throughout Europe.
Estonia has a lot of those.
Latvia has a lot of those.
NATO countries.
So, there's, I think we have to take Putin at his word, right?
We rarely do for some reason.
I mean, he says he's going to do things.
We should accept his word and acknowledge that he's going to do it.
He's always played war games that are offensive in nature.
They're never defensive.
This idea that he's been afraid of NATO and he has to create a buffer zone, that's complete nonsense.
They never practice defending Russia because they know they don't need to.
It's not a reasonable concern.
Also, NATO's just not designed that way.
And he knows that.
He's not a stupid man.
He's a very rational guy.
But he's rational within a Russian context.
Okay, so he's not... Westerners look at what's happening and they're like, this is completely irrational.
Yeah, by our standards, because we operate in this sort of rules-based order, we believe in sort of goodwill and partnerships.
That's not how he thinks.
He lives in like the 18th century.
He does see himself.
He's talked about this.
He sees himself as the sort of second coming of the czars.
So he sees himself as an imperialist.
And he believes in strength, like he respects you because you're strong.
And if you're not strong, he believes it's his right to take things from you, which is how he sees Ukraine.
He doesn't, he sees them as subhuman.
And so for less than 10% of our defense budget, which is, which is the money we're talking about.
We can just make that scenario not happen?
That's a pretty good deal.
It's a damn good investment.
So we just completely decimated the Russian military.
Now, is it purely competent?
Look, Biden's not actually doing every little bit of this, thank God, because he is incompetent.
And he was incompetent with Afghanistan in a massive way.
He didn't listen to his military.
In this case, he is listening to his military.
Now, he's still not, he's still making mistakes in the sense that, you know, he should have done more quicker and ended this.
You do have to escalate to deescalate and then call for a resolution.
That's, that's the strategy here.
That should be what the president should be saying, but he's not really saying much.
And that's the problem.
And I think that's why people like you were like, I don't think you're competent in this.
So I get that.
dave rubin
Right, because it's also that every week we play a clip of him or Blinken or one of these guys saying, well, they shouldn't negotiate and we should just continue.
And it's like, well, I just don't think, you know, right before the election, was it right before the election?
I think Mitch McConnell said that the Ukraine war is number one on Republican voters' minds.
And it was like, I played that clip on my show and literally, the amount of email I got of people being like, it's not in my top 20, not to say what you just said is not important, but people when they're like, I can't order a freaking couch because it now takes six months, they're like... It annoys people, I get that, and certainly that's not our most important thing in the world, but it is important.
dan crenshaw
I don't like being in the business of overstating it either, which is I think what you're referring to.
dave rubin
So what does the end look like, then?
Because to me, it's just like, we're just going to keep doing this.
Every couple of weeks, we'll be like, all right, there's more money, couple more tanks.
dan crenshaw
The only defense of those kind of comments is you've got to remember who's listening.
It's not just your voters, it's the Russians.
And so that's actually, that's part of strategic deterrence.
Make them think we'll just never stop.
That has to factor into his calculations as well.
Um, now what?
But I'm, since I'm not at the top levels of government, I'm a little bit more free to say what should happen.
And it's kind of what I just said.
I think it should escalate to deescalate.
Um, and you do have to force some kind of resolution that just stabilizes the situation.
It's not, it's not ultimately important to Americans that like a few miles of Ukrainian territory is impeded upon, um, at least to the voters, but you do have to set up permanent deterrence in this case.
Um, and you actually should think it's pretty important that Ukraine doesn't get taken over by Russia.
There's a lot of narrative on our own side that it's just this backwater country that doesn't matter.
That's, economically speaking, just totally false.
I'll give you some examples.
It is the breadbasket of the world for a reason.
They're still doing those exports, so there's a reason things haven't completely gone to hell yet.
I think it produces most of the world's neon, which is used for semiconductors.
So that's in every single thing, every little part of your life is based there.
Quite a bit of our steel, or at least pig iron ore, comes from Ukraine.
There's a lot of resources there that there's a reason Putin wants it.
Again, he's rational by Russian standards.
There's a reason he wants this particular area.
And for him to control that much is not in America's interest.
Now, is it worth us fighting a nuclear war over it?
No, it didn't say that either, but we're not.
And we're not even close to that.
We've not lost a single American.
We don't plan to lose a single American.
We've just written a check for less than 10% of our defense.
I mean, so just speaking of cost benefit, I think there's massive benefits here with very little cost.
You also have to look at how China looks at this.
dave rubin
So when you saw him with Xi last week, does that concern you that somehow now we've just sort of like forged this new alliance?
dan crenshaw
It was already forged.
I mean, remember, they were meeting right before Putin invaded.
I mean, they were planning this together.
Xi encourages this because he wants to see what the West's reaction is.
So Xi is doing his own kind of red cell observation.
You know what I mean by red cell?
Okay, so red cell is just like a military term when we do a kind of a Maybe right is not even the right term in this case.
Now I've overcomplicated the conversation.
She gets to observe a scenario, right, where there's an unjust invasion and he gets to observe what the West's reaction is.
Because he wants to invade Taiwan, obviously.
And he wants to know how long the West will stay together, how much we're willing to invest.
He wants to know these things.
And so, of course, he's going to encourage it.
It's in his interest that Putin is successful and that we quit because that, in effect, greenlights his invasion of Taiwan.
That's what he's looking for.
Now, you really don't want Taiwan to be taken over by the Chinese, right?
Just simply for the semiconductor problem.
You also don't want to go to war over it.
So the best method here is prevention.
That's a whole other conversation about what we could do better to prevent that.
dave rubin
I jumped completely from the red-blue thing into Ukraine.
What do we do to mitigate that if we want to save the United States and we're watching these states?
I mean, when I go back to Cali now, I'm like, man, this place has nothing to do with anything that I believe in or want to be part of.
It seems ridiculous to me.
dan crenshaw
Well, I don't know.
Maybe I'll go back to what I said earlier.
You got to be persuasive.
We've got to convince like moderate liberals and independents that conservatism is just simply a better way forward.
Um, you know, there's a tendency in American politics to look to the worst of the other side and they're like, you know, so they'll, they'll pick the person on the other side they hate the most and be like, this is why I can't be with you guys.
And because we could, because we, and it's because we so rarely talk about our principles.
Um, I think that's a problem.
That's why I tend to try to talk in philosophical terms to get people like, let's start from the foundation here.
Let me explain to you how I get to this policy that you think is just the devil.
Um, you know, when it's not and you know, let's go from there.
dave rubin
I mean, I like this situation.
Are your offices literally like you share a wall with AOC?
Is it that next door?
dan crenshaw
Yeah.
dave rubin
Literally you share a wall.
Yeah.
dan crenshaw
My office probably shares a wall with her staff, but yeah.
dave rubin
But in essence, yes.
I like that if anyone can do it, it's probably you.
Like bring her to something ballpark sane, maybe.
dan crenshaw
It's hard to say.
dave rubin
I don't know.
I know you'll try.
I know you'll try, at least.
I sense you'll try.
dan crenshaw
Yeah, well, like I said, I'll at least try on this one issue that I know she already agrees with.
But you're not gonna convince people who are that far left, just to be clear.
When I say I'm talking to Democrats about my cart... Maybe just define fascism.
dave rubin
You're pretty good about defining terms.
How about that?
One more for you, then.
Obviously, the big thing on the Republican side is the Trump-DeSantis thing that seems to be happening.
DeSantis has not announced, It all seems like it's going in that direction.
I voted for Trump.
I like Trump.
I love what's happening in Florida.
I'm trying to do it as honestly as possible.
And I think we need a shift in generations.
There's a whole series of things.
What do you make of this?
And how worried are you that this just implodes the whole thing and we get Joe Biden in another 30 years?
dan crenshaw
I'm very worried that it implodes and that there's massive division in the party.
I'm staying out of it.
I mean, I'm not going to comment one way or the other who I like better because...
Everybody's just a little angry and upset at each other, and there's really no benefit to doing so.
It's early.
It's early, too.
So, you know, DeSantis, will he announce?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he will.
But he hasn't.
There's only a handful that have, and so we'll let this play out.
But I'm absolutely worried for our party, and, you know, how these divisions manifest, and more importantly, what it means for our Potential for victory in 2024.
So we need to get it together.
dave rubin
Crenshaw, I can't let you leave on a worried comment because my policy around here is I got to get something positive to end on.
dan crenshaw
Let's talk about going to war with the cartels.
dave rubin
Fine.
unidentified
There we go.
dave rubin
Finish strong.
dan crenshaw
Yeah, that's something that'll bring us all together.
I think every, well, it brings Republicans together.
I'm trying to make it bring Democrats together.
So, You know, I recently was threatened by the President of Mexico.
dave rubin
Oh, right.
dan crenshaw
He's going to come campaign against me.
I thought that was mildly hilarious.
It actually shows how bad this situation really is.
So, you know, this is our number one tactical security threat.
We have strategic security threats.
Russia, China, those are strategic security threats.
long-term security threats as far as, you know, keeping chaos out of the world because that affects Americans.
But this, this is a near-term, tactical, major security threat right on our border.
These cartels are small armies.
They can battle the Mexican army.
They've bought off much of Mexican government.
You know, my reaction to AMLO saying what he said to me was, wow, tell me you're bought off by the cartels without
telling me you're bought off by the cartels.
I mean, because I never came after him.
He just, you know, I go after the cartels.
I don't go after Democrats on this either because I'm trying to get them on this bill.
That would simply give Biden the authorization for military force.
It doesn't mean you roll tanks in tomorrow.
It just means you have authorization.
Ideally, we do that with Mexico, just like we've done in many other operations around the world.
So I think this is my major focus, is the cartels in Mexico, the fentanyl they're producing and shipping across our border, poisoning, murdering Americans every single day.
dave rubin
I'll make you a deal.
I will focus on that a little more so you get a little juice behind you and you will walk over to AOC's office within the next couple weeks and tell her to respond to my email.
dan crenshaw
Okay, alright.
Will you please respond to Dave's email?
He's a very nice guy.
Thanks Dave.
dave rubin
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