July 27, 2023 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
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| So, any parent that is listening to this has probably heard about the Scholastic or Highlights book fairs, right? | ||
| This is supposedly, you know, oh, clean, non-political content that is brought into schools, right? | ||
| You see them in every private school and every public school. | ||
| Scholastic is as leftist as it gets. | ||
| If you're calling PragerU curriculum right-wing, then Scholastic and Highlights have fallen off the cliff of leftism. | ||
| Take a look at this one. | ||
| So this is a book that Scholastic has given an award to. | ||
| This book called Melissa is Supposedly for 5th and 6th grade literacy classes. | ||
| If you look at the actual text in there, you'll see that it's probably written for somebody who can read at the level of 3rd and 4th grade. | ||
| Melissa is a book about a boy that has transitioned into being a girl and, you know, it basically celebrates this gender fluidity concept that they're trying to push on our children. | ||
| You want to tell me that this is not laced with political propaganda? | ||
| To call PragerU curriculum... Find anything from PragerU, kids, and tell me that it's as extreme as this left-wing propaganda. | ||
| But, you know, what media outlets are highlighting that this type of product is Complete extreme left-wing. | ||
| So, you know, parents are upset, rightfully so, and we need our own representation in | ||
| our schools, and that is what PragerU is effectively doing. | ||
| I'm Dave Rubin, and joining me today is the CEO of PragerU, Marissa Streit. | ||
| Marissa, from California, Los Angeles. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| It's great to be here. | ||
| You see how I kind of stuck it to you? | ||
| Because we used to have a lot of dinners in Los Angeles and now I'm in the free state of Florida and I know you're there and there's no sense in overly drubbing you over the head with it and yet I still feel the need to do it. | ||
| And here I am delivering a gift for you and your kids for a better education in Florida. | ||
| So there you go. | ||
| You absolutely are. | ||
| So we covered it. | ||
| We covered it on my show this week. | ||
| So let's just dive right into it. | ||
| Well, why don't I let you lay it out? | ||
| Prager U is now going to be part of the Florida curriculum for young people. | ||
| Go from there. | ||
| So we we are now a Florida state approved vendor, which means that teachers can use Prager U turnkey lesson plans in the classrooms, which really should not be that controversial because our content is Wholesome and actually represents what parents hope to see in kids schools. | ||
| And, you know, this seems to be a trend where Florida seems to lead the way in doing what it is that Americans actually want and what's good for kids. | ||
| So, yeah, congratulations to all of those in Florida who now will start seeing PragerU content in their classrooms. | ||
| In case you needed one more thing for me to needle you on in moving to Florida yourself, now you literally are creating content for our children. | ||
|
unidentified
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There you go. | |
| There you go. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| How did this even come to pass? | ||
| I want to get into some of the specifics of what types of things will be being taught and some of the controversy around it, which is mostly nonsensical, of course. | ||
| But how did this even happen? | ||
| Yeah, it's actually an amazing story. | ||
| So a couple of years ago we launched PragerU Kids because we realized that America needs content for children that is actually educational, that actually teaches them about American history and civics and even financial literacy. | ||
| And so we had originally a direct-to-consumer market. | ||
| We had an OTT, we had our website, and parents would come onto our properties and download content and show it to their children. | ||
| Well, a couple of years ago, we realized that we can create another journey for our consumer, and that is actually through the schools. | ||
| And so, you know, we spoke to Manny Diaz, who is the Education State Commissioner. | ||
| We bumped into him one time, and he said, oh my gosh, my kids absolutely love PragerU Kids. | ||
| We show it at home all the time. | ||
| How do we bring this service to other Floridians? | ||
| And we, you know, we talked, we strategized, and we realized that PragerU can really fill in a vacuum in the market because, you know, teachers are not being given resources that represent what America wants. | ||
| They are given resources that are laced with leftism, they're laced with critical race theory, and while we're winning, we have a lot of victories, we're winning We're winning school boards. | ||
| We're winning governors and representatives that do represent the public, that do represent a patriotic America. | ||
| The problem is that there isn't enough turnkey lesson plans for teachers to actually use. | ||
| And so even if we have these great victories of folks sitting on boards or even finding normal teachers that are willing to teach what should be taught, they also need resources. | ||
| And so PragerU is stepping into this vacuum to produce the resources that the communities, whether it's the teachers or the parents, want. | ||
| And what's really great, I think, about the curriculum that we make, or the content that we make, is that the teachers can use the content, but they can also provide it to the parents to use at home. | ||
| We call it the flipped classroom. | ||
| And so if a child is watching a video at home, There is no secrecy. | ||
| They can watch that video in school and vice versa, right? | ||
| So the teacher can show the videos and they can say to the parents, if you want to have reinforcement, if you want to know what's happening in the classroom, you can go onto the website and see exactly what's being taught in school. | ||
| No more gaslighting. | ||
| Man, I mean, that is completely counter to what is going on, certainly in California and many other blue states. | ||
| But I like a phrase you just said there, laced with leftism, because when I heard about this, that you guys were gonna be working with the state of Florida, I think I saw a tweet from PragerU about it. | ||
| So then I did a little Google News search, and of course, all the usual hit pieces and nonsense come out. | ||
| The first one I saw was from Miami New Times, and this is what we referenced on the show a couple days ago. | ||
| I just thought I'd read one paragraph. | ||
| Just a couple sentences to you because it's just so perfect. | ||
| PragerU, a conservative nonprofit often criticized for downplaying systemic racism and promoting anti-immigrant theories, announced today that Florida is, quote, the first state to officially approve PragerU as an educational vendor. | ||
| Now, it's funny, because that doesn't sound that evil, except they are immediately often criticized for downplaying systemic racism, as if it exists just because they're saying it, and promoting anti-immigrant theories, which I've never heard on PragerU. | ||
| I've heard things about actually having a border that matters, but nothing about anti-immigrant. | ||
| But you're used to this sort of thing, I suspect. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, you say often criticized. | ||
| Often criticized by whom? | ||
| The teachers unions who don't care about our kids and don't, they actually don't even care about parents, right? | ||
| They only care about their own money and their own power. | ||
| And so, yeah, sure, the NEA and the AFD criticize us all the time. | ||
| Except, you know, they have had so much power and influence over America's education system that now they're criticizing us because, frankly, they're scared. | ||
| They know that we represent the majority of what Americans want, and they have too long had so much control over our education system. | ||
| They're calling our content political. | ||
| Our whole point is to actually bring Americanism And truth to classrooms while they are using curriculum. | ||
| I would give you a couple of examples of the type of stuff that they celebrate. | ||
| You're not going to show me one of these naked books that they've got. | ||
| I'm going to show you. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| So any parent that is listening to this has probably heard about the Scholastic or Highlights book fairs, right? | ||
| This is supposedly, you know, oh, clean, nonpolitical, content that is brought into schools. You see them in every | ||
| private school and every public school. Scholastic is as leftist as it gets. | ||
| If you're calling Prigger U curriculum right-wing, then Scholastic and | ||
| Highlights have fallen off the cliff of leftism. | ||
| Take a look at this one. | ||
| So this is a book that Scholastic has given an award to. | ||
| This book called Melissa is supposedly for 5th and 6th grade literacy classes. | ||
| If you look at the actual text in there, you'll see that it's probably written for somebody who can read at the level of 3rd and 4th grade. | ||
| Melissa is a book about a boy. | ||
| That has transitioned into being a girl and, you know, it basically celebrates this gender fluidity concept that they're trying to push on our children. | ||
| You want to tell me that this is not laced with political propaganda? | ||
| To call PragerU curriculum, find anything from PragerU kids and tell me that it's as extreme as this left-wing propaganda. | ||
| But, you know, what media outlets are highlighting that this type of product is Complete extreme left-wing. | ||
| So, you know, parents are upset, rightfully so, and we need our own representation in our schools, and that is what PragerU is effectively doing. | ||
| You want to show me one more of these lefty propaganda books? | ||
| I mean, here's another one. | ||
| I feel like you have a whole library there. | ||
| I mean, I have a library. | ||
| I mean, we can spend the whole day, because really there's, you know, there's, you know, Palestinian causes, right? | ||
| There's like, you gotta really try to figure out why America is teaching, you know, this kind of stuff. | ||
| But I have a whole list of it, and I'm sure any parent listening has their own list of this kind of stuff. | ||
| You know, the thing is that up until now, the education system of America has been represented by the teachers' unions, who have represented left-wing propaganda, and PragerU is representing the parents of America. | ||
| We are not paid by any sort of political group that is pushing this kind of, you know, political roping of our children. | ||
| And so, you know, yeah, sure, they're upset, and because of that, they're going to lie about us. | ||
| But at the end of the day, we're not misleading and problematic. | ||
| We're actually very transparent about what we stand for, unlike these other curriculum makers. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So first off, what ages are you guys going to be writing curriculum for or working on a curriculum for? | ||
| Yeah, so our partnership with Florida actually starts from kindergarten, and so we have content from kindergarten all the way through college with our five-minute videos. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| So, and this is all going to be new stuff, old stuff, blend of the things that we know of you guys? | ||
| Is a little Dave Rubin, why I left the left, going to make it in there? | ||
| Yeah, absolutely. | ||
| I mean, we're hoping that we'll be in there. | ||
| Look, we believe in education choice. | ||
| So, at the end of the day, it's up to the schools to choose what kind of content they want to use. | ||
| We're providing them with the tools so they can be more successful. | ||
| But at the end of the day, if they stumble upon Why I Left the Left with Dave Rubin and they realize that it's something worth bringing into the schools, at least we're protecting the teachers from being fired from using those videos, and we're providing them these turnkey lesson plans that they can use. | ||
| Ultimately, it's up to the communities to decide what it is that they want to use from our, you know, vast library of content. | ||
| And the next steps for us is not just to work with Florida. | ||
| We're working with Texas. | ||
| We're working with additional states around the country. | ||
| You know, Florida is taking the first step because they're brave for our people. | ||
| But yes, you will see a lot more content and much of it is gonna echo some of the state standards | ||
| that are already out there. | ||
| And so if Florida has state standards to teach certain things, we're reading through it | ||
| and we're developing some of this content together with the states. | ||
| Even though you guys have been in this for a while and you personally for a while | ||
| and you've dealt with the censorship and the big tech stuff and you guys have sued Google and all of that stuff, | ||
| are you shocked at the way that the schools have gone about so much of this? | ||
| Meaning, not just that they're pushing these books, but the way they hide it from parents specifically. | ||
| Like, there's almost an apparatus in place. | ||
| It's not just we're gonna let you read this stuff, we're also gonna let you read it, call you a different name, and not tell the parent. | ||
| That's a whole different level than just dealing with it at a curriculum level. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, every single day working in this field honestly shocks me. | ||
| You know, Randi Weingarten, who really is the union boss of the AFT, the American Federation of Teachers. | ||
| I don't know if you know this, but she doesn't even have kids. | ||
| I did not know that, but that might be why she thinks everyone else's kids are hers. | ||
| Becky Pringle, who's the union boss head of the largest teachers unions, the NEA, she doesn't have kids either. | ||
| Wow, that's wild actually. | ||
| You know, it's pretty well every day shocks me now. | ||
| Randy Weingarten is working with President Biden on some task force, an extension of the Department of Homeland Security. | ||
| And so those of us parents who are really upset that they put the FBI on us when we went to school boards and protested against the lockdowns. | ||
| Now we're even more concerned. | ||
| What is going on here? | ||
| You have the teachers' unions that effectively own the Department of Education, which you probably already know that this department needs to be dismantled, because here our taxpayer dollars are going into funding an organization that doesn't care about our children. | ||
| On top of that, now you have Randy involved with the Department of Homeland Security. | ||
| On top of that, they're working with NewsGuard, which I know already got you in trouble, per For people that don't remember, last time you were on the show, maybe like four months ago, you said something about NewsGuard on a Friday. | ||
| On the next Monday, I had an email from NewsGuard in my inbox saying, we are now looking into your show, which then I grew up publicly and apparently I scared them off, but God only knows what they're working on. | ||
| You know, I was afraid that you're, you know, Dave, I was afraid that you actually won't let me back because, you know, attacking the teachers, Attacking the teachers' unions is a scary thing. | ||
| Many, many people have said to me, are you sure, Marissa, that you're willing to take this on? | ||
| Because they are a very, very powerful group. | ||
| And so, look, look at my shirt. | ||
| I'm the mama bear, right? | ||
| That's what I care about. | ||
| At the end of the day, what am I going to do with my life and my time if not to protect America's kids? | ||
| But yes, every single day shocks me when I'm in this field because how do we have people that have so much power and so much influence over our children yet everybody is afraid to push against them, right? | ||
| Yet they are just amassing more and more power while they're not bringing any positive results for our kids. | ||
| It is pretty shocking. | ||
| But, you know, I also think that America, the timing for what we're doing right now could not be any better. | ||
| I think that there are many people like Governor DeSantis and Manny Diaz and other states, which, you know, we'll announce in the next few weeks, are realizing that the true representation of Americans is one that actually advocates for children and students and families and not union bosses. | ||
| So since I know you and Noah and your kids personally, and since you're wearing a shirt that says Mama Bear, does it say Mama Bear? | ||
| I didn't see bear. | ||
| There's bear on there? | ||
| Yeah, the bear is in my heart. | ||
| Oh, the bear is in your heart, okay. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm the bear. | |
| Gotcha. | ||
| Oh, that's the point. | ||
| Okay, got it, got it. | ||
| Can you talk a little bit about what it's like to live? | ||
| You live in LA, Blue Place. | ||
| I've heard you talk about what it's been like. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, here we go again and again. | |
| But I don't mean it about the crime and the homeless and the drugs and all that. | ||
| I mean literally about the kids stuff. | ||
| We'll stick with that. | ||
| Just trying to get your kids in a place where they will not be infected by this stuff. | ||
| Because it's great that you guys will hit up Florida and Texas and some of these other places. | ||
| But obviously a place like Cali and New York, they're not going to be open to these ideas. | ||
| And parents there just don't know what to do. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, I think it actually, for parents who live in states like California and New York, it's even more of a wake-up call. | ||
| But we're not the only ones who have to wake up to the issue that separating the education of our children From our households is a bad thing. | ||
| I mean, parents have been taught that our job is to bathe our kids, feed them, maybe take them to sports, make sure that they get a good night's sleep, and, you know, rinse and repeat. | ||
| We have been asked to not be involved in the education of our kids. | ||
| And if you live in a place like California, you realize even more so how important it is that you are involved in the education of your children. | ||
| If a teacher tells you that they're not sending homework home, or you don't need to be involved in what it is that they're learning, or if you feel like you're being gaslit, right? | ||
| Which is what many parents are experiencing. | ||
| By the way, not just in California. | ||
| This is happening also in Florida and in Nashville, right? | ||
| We are actually, we need to be both on alert And we need to take back the education of our kids. | ||
| And I'm not saying do not send your kids to school. | ||
| I understand that not every parent can homeschool. | ||
| Noah and I cannot homeschool. | ||
| We do send our kids to school, but we are very, very involved. | ||
| We ask a lot of questions. | ||
| We're involved in inoculating them and educating and talking to them. | ||
| This is why we've made these short sound bites, these short little vignettes, these videos that you can You know, sit around the dinner table and have these conversations with your children so that when they go to school or to the mall or they even watch Barbie, God forbid, right, you know how to have these conversations with your children. | ||
| And, you know, I think that our guard is up when you live in a state like the state that I'm living in, but we need to really set an example for other parents around the country that All of our guard needs to be up when it comes to our kids everywhere. | ||
| And so it's definitely difficult to raise kids in California, but I think that it reminds us of how important it is that we don't, you know, forfeit the education of our children. | ||
| I saw in some of the articles that were criticizing you, people were saying, but PragerU is not accredited. | ||
| They're not accredited, which to me, when I hear someone's not accredited, probably doing something decent. | ||
| Jordan Peterson Academy, the Peterson Academy, not accredited. | ||
| I'm pretty sure people are learning over there and learning with PragerU. | ||
| But can you talk a little bit about accreditation and why people should perhaps not be so obsessed by it? | ||
| Right. | ||
| If you think about it, actually, the word accredited should be synonymous with the word controlled, right? | ||
| And so that is what these accreditation institutions have become. | ||
| They have been able to really control information. | ||
| And so if you don't want to be controlled by, you know, big government or, you know, big advertisers, I mean, remember, there are a lot of advertisers in the world of education as well, not to mention, you know, Political agendas. | ||
| If you don't want the control, then you actually may want to look for institutions that are not accredited because then you can actually get truth and unfiltered and uncontrolled. | ||
| And that has really been our motive here at PragerU is not necessarily to be accredited. | ||
| But I'll let you in on a little secret. | ||
| There is a state that we are working with right now, and I can't name it yet because I don't want it to get messed up. | ||
| Where kids can get actual school credit for finishing certain modules with PragerU. | ||
| And so let's take the example of our financial literacy module, where you can actually acquire a lot of skills and education through finishing our financial literacy videos and completing the checking for understanding unit. | ||
| If you finish the unit and you submit that to your school, the state is actually going to give school credit, high school credit, To kids who do that. | ||
| Now, again, we're not an accredited institution, but people can get credit for watching PragerU videos in high school. | ||
| How do you make sure it doesn't get political? | ||
| Because I know you don't want to indoctrinate these kids. | ||
| You want them to know the truth, and that will certainly be connected to the stuff that you're giving them. | ||
| But at some point, it then leads to political thoughts, obviously. | ||
| So how do you make sure you don't just become the polar opposite of what the left is doing right now? | ||
| You know, I think that when it's the right time for kids to start talking about, you know, these kinds of political issues, then we encourage debate. | ||
| And essentially what we would say is that, you know, sixth or seventh grade, listen to both products, right? | ||
| We know that there's a product called CNN 10 in many schools across America. | ||
| This is news provided by CNN in virtually every classroom across the United States, right? | ||
| There is no debate in American schools right now You want real debate? | ||
| Then have both. | ||
| And I'm not saying take CNN 10 out of schools. | ||
| I'm just saying, well, if you're watching CNN 10, then also watch the Prager U products and allow the child to listen to both and foster critical thinking so that they can ultimately make their own decisions. | ||
| You see, we are not the ones who are calling to boycott Scholastic and CNN 10. | ||
| I'm not I'm not calling for that. | ||
| I'm calling to have an even playing field in the mind of American kids. | ||
| Watch both, have discussions at home, make sure that your parents are involved as well, and then ultimately make your own decisions. | ||
| But the fact that we are not allowed to enter America's schools because they have put a gate in front of our education system, that, in my opinion, is political indoctrination, and that is what we're advocating against. | ||
| Just allow us to show up as well so people can make their own decisions. | ||
| What do you think the indoctrination is doing to these kids beyond the obvious stuff that a lot of kids now are suddenly confused about their gender identity or something? | ||
| I mean, as you know, we have two baby boys here, and I think about it every day. | ||
| I'm like, man, their world is so open. | ||
| It is so my responsibility to fill them up with as much of the right stuff as possible so the bad stuff doesn't get in. | ||
| I can't imagine being a parent of a five-year-old Finding out that your kid suddenly is confused about all of this stuff, like, I mean, it's sort of more socially than educationally. | ||
| What do you think is happening with kids right now? | ||
| I mean, you're seeing depression rates at an all-time high. | ||
| I mean, you're talking about five-year-olds, and obviously with five-year-olds or seven-year-olds, it's very difficult when they're, you know, sexualized early and confused early. | ||
| But by the time they reach age 15, I mean, really, it's horrendous. | ||
| It's either depression, body dysphoria, body dysmorphia, You know, also kids who don't have something to stand on, actual real education to stand on, that vacuum is filled up in other ways. | ||
| You know, the anxiety is an all-time high. | ||
| Kids don't even know how to date anymore because there's all of that confusion. | ||
| And then if you look really downstream, employers, like we have 150 employees working for PragerU, and we are getting the cream of the crop here. | ||
| But talk to other CEOs. | ||
| What does America's workforce look like right now when we have kids who have been taught from, you know, kindergarten through 12th grade and oftentimes post-grad that, you know, there are victims, that, you know, the system is set up against them, That, you know, they should just do what feels good to them all the time. | ||
| This stuff is what's laced... This is the leftism that I think is dangerous, that is actually laced in school curriculum. | ||
| That is what scares me. | ||
| I don't want my child to be taught that they're a victim. | ||
| I don't want my child to be taught that America is a horrible place to grow up in. | ||
| I mean, that alone creates anxiety, right? | ||
| It's like, oh, you have no future. | ||
| You're living in a horrible country. | ||
| All of those kinds of ideologies that are in our... | ||
| You know, in our classrooms are, frankly, scary. | ||
| And we do need to find a way to inoculate our children against the culture, the media, the schools that are teaching our kids how to not be successful. | ||
| That, to me, is even more scary than the fact that they, you know, can't do math or can't read properly. | ||
| It's this, you know, brain mush that they're experiencing. | ||
| And then you take math, of course, and, you know, they're hearing that math is racist and, you know. | ||
| I mean, that really is terrible. | ||
| You think that Russia and China and the other countries that we're competing against are teaching this kind of garbage to their kids? | ||
|
unidentified
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No. | |
| TikTok in China is very different than TikTok in the United States. | ||
| I should note, since you mentioned your 150 employees, that two of my employees are former PragerU people, and they have done a bang-up job over here, which is obviously indicative of what you guys do over there, and you also gave it The blessing to allow them to come to me, which says a little something about you as a CEO. | ||
| We can send these people, the good people, to PragerU Kids if they want to see some of the stuff that kids in Florida will be learning. | ||
| Yeah, go to PragerU. | ||
| What I really recommend for all families is to download the PragerU app. | ||
| Either, you know, if your kids have an iPad, I'm sure many do, or you can download it onto your smart TV, onto your phone. | ||
| And instead of them watching YouTube, have them watch PragerU and, you know, you can Trust the content and know that it's wholesome and safe. | ||
| I know you're not doing toddler stuff, but you know about this Miss Rachel lady? | ||
| Half my day is watching Miss Rachel now. | ||
| Yeah, we'll get there. | ||
| We'll get there. | ||
| We'll do music and toddler stuff and we'll get there. | ||
| Uh-oh, watch out Miss Rachel. | ||
| Marissa, it has been a pleasure as always and we'll link to everything right down below. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about politics instead of mindless drivel, 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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