Sept. 17, 2023 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
20:26
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Here's the thing. | ||
| The day after the policy, death threats started rolling in, and when I say death threats, multiple death threats, I've been called every name in the book, but they messed with the wrong community. | ||
| Our community is strong, you know, and they messed with the wrong person, to be honest with you. | ||
| I'm a fighter by heart. | ||
| My mom called me worse names like that than I was little, so when they do it, it just rolls off. | ||
| It's like, okay, come on, bro, find a better word. | ||
| But, you know, and it's a daily reminder of who we're fighting. | ||
| And who wants control of our kids? | ||
| I'm Dave Rubin and joining me today is the Chino Valley Unified School District Board President in crazy California, Sonia Shaw. | ||
| Sonia, welcome to The Rubin Report. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| I appreciate you guys so much. | ||
| Sonia, I did not know who the school district board president was in Chino Valley until a couple days ago, believe it or not, when a video of you, or at least involving you, went viral. | ||
| I want to get his name right, even though nobody should know his name. | ||
| Your California State Superintendent, Tony Thurmond, showed up to a school board meeting You kicked him out. | ||
| Can you give us the backdrop on how this whole thing played out? | ||
| Or you know what? | ||
| You know what, let's throw to the clip and then we'll let you unpack it on the other side. | ||
| You'll not bully us here in Chino. | ||
| Please see. | ||
|
unidentified
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Point of order. | |
| In Chino. | ||
|
unidentified
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Point of order. | |
| We're gonna take a five minute break. | ||
| Chaos in Chino as the state superintendent of public instruction is escorted out | ||
| of the public meeting of the board of education. | ||
| But what I saw here tonight was just catering to a mob mentality that has disregard for the safety of many of our students who are vulnerable and at risk. | ||
| Emotions explode as the state superintendent ends his public comment period, bringing a heated exchange with the school board president. | ||
| As a point of order, as the board president... In order, this is not your meeting. | ||
| You may have a seat, because if I did that to you in Sacramento, you would not accept it. | ||
| Please sit. | ||
| Can I get a point of order? | ||
| You're not going to blackmail us! | ||
|
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All this as emotions run high with the Chino Valley Unified School District set to vote on a controversial proposal. | |
| It would require teachers and school staff to notify parents if a child identifies as transgender. | ||
| What happened here? | ||
| This seems like a whole bunch of controversy. | ||
| You know, Tony has a history with us here in Chino. | ||
| First of all, as a parent, prior to taking the seat, my first board meeting was this January. | ||
| We tried to reach out to Tony. | ||
| He had no desire to talk to parents that didn't align with any of his agendas or beliefs. | ||
| He decided to surprise us on that day and come to the meeting, but I found out through media and they let us know he was coming. | ||
| He ended up trying to do damage control and having a phone call with me, which I allowed. | ||
| You know, I called him back under the direction of our superintendent and his thing was, it was like 10 minutes before, he knew we were in closed session. | ||
| We come out, I get on the phone, I go out to where all the crowd is, And I said, what's up, Tony? | ||
| You know exactly where I'm at. | ||
| If you want to talk, come talk to me. | ||
| And he was like, no, no, no, Mrs. Shaw, you know, he's started to proceed. | ||
| We just, we can work together and let's just have you reconsider the policy. | ||
| And I'm like, Tony, I'm not playing your games. | ||
| I said, not, not going to happen. | ||
| I said, but look, I'm really glad that you want to work together. | ||
| So how about this? | ||
| After the meeting, you have my personal cell now. | ||
| It's on your phone. | ||
| Let's reach out and let's work on stuff for our kids. | ||
| And I said, but I have a meeting to run, so I'll see you in a few minutes. | ||
| And that was it. | ||
| Yeah, so wait, let's back up for a second. | ||
| So for the people that are missing the context of what led to this, what was the policy at the school? | ||
| And of course, as everyone can figure out, this is related to gender in the classroom and teachers talking to kids and gendering them differently and all of that stuff. | ||
| What was the actual policy that you were against that he and seemingly the entire apparatus of the state of California is for? | ||
| Yeah, well, you would seem that that's what they say, but I call them the political cartel is for that, but the parents aren't for that. | ||
| And, you know, the policy was simple. | ||
| It should have never reached coast to coast. | ||
| I'm actually shocked it's been in this position. | ||
| But look, the policy said something very simple. | ||
| It didn't prohibit any lifestyle changes. | ||
| didn't prohibit or, you know, kind of break up any, you know, the school | ||
| district's teacher and child relationship. What it said was if a child | ||
| wants to identify as a different gender and be called that by their peers and | ||
| their teacher, we're going to notify the parents. If the child wants to go | ||
| into the opposite genders restroom that they were born as, then we're going to | ||
| notify the parents and the same thing when it comes to if the child wanted to | ||
| play on the opposite sports gender that they were born as, we're going to | ||
| We think here in Chino, we see the confusion and the perversion being pushed from our Department of Ed and our unions and, you know, being a mother and just an advocate for parents, I said, we're going to change all this. | ||
| We're going to start putting safeguards in place. | ||
| And when AB 1314 came out, one of our assembly members tried to propose a bill. | ||
| He said, hey, my bill didn't go through the fair process. | ||
| But I'm telling you right now, you could develop a policy. | ||
| And I'm like, policy is our name. | ||
| That's what we do as school board members. | ||
| So we had a coalition work on a policy that was very mindful. | ||
| We worked alongside amazing attorneys. | ||
| And we dealt with the whole thing on this is going to be illegal. | ||
| And I kept pushing back with our superintendent. | ||
| And I said, show me the law. | ||
| Tell me the exact law. | ||
| Because to this day, Bonta can't even tell us the exact law we're breaking. | ||
| And the judge even said it himself. | ||
| That the state is trying to make him legislate law from the bench. | ||
| That was his own words. | ||
| So I'm like, show me the law. | ||
| Nobody could show me the law. | ||
| And I said, well, it's time to bring the policy forward. | ||
| I Believe in Transparency brought it for a first reading to allow people like Tony Thurman and everybody to know we're doing this. | ||
| And then four weeks later, we brought it in for the vote. | ||
| And that was the viral video that you saw. | ||
| So yeah, it's just to notify the parents. | ||
| It had a couple other things on there that, you know, as a parent advocate and a parent, we want to know. | ||
| And we know that, you know, schools were keeping secrets from. | ||
| I don't believe in keeping secrets from a parent. | ||
| We're not the parent. | ||
| And now as a school board member, we definitely should not have part into dividing the family unit. | ||
| And the policy was very near and dear to my heart. | ||
| It was three and a half years of fighting our state. | ||
| It only made sense. | ||
| It was a common sense policy. | ||
| Right, so to be clear, so you guys end up voting four to one on a transparency bill. | ||
| In some ways, it's very similar to what we've done here in Florida, that this is not about being bigoted or anything else towards anybody. | ||
| It's just letting the parents know what's actually happening in the classroom. | ||
| Then Tony shows up, and he basically called you guys a bunch of right-wing MAGA extremists. | ||
| I don't know a ton about Chino, but I know a bit about Callie. | ||
| I'm guessing you guys aren't hardcore extremists, are you? | ||
| No! | ||
| We're parents! | ||
| We just want to be involved, and the name-calling has gotten out of control. | ||
| But we are literally showing our kids, even though you're bullied and you're name-calling, you don't respond that way. | ||
| You respond and stand strong. | ||
| And, you know, nobody saw behind the scenes. | ||
| Tony Thurman threw out the meeting before You know, I had my words with him. | ||
| He was calling point of order during the middle of the meeting. | ||
| He was yelling out and I'm like, I gave him the eyeball. | ||
| Like, I'm a very fair board president because I know people are passionate when it comes to these things and I allow, you know, some but I don't allow craziness in the boardroom. | ||
| My job is to keep it going and do the board business. | ||
| He was interrupting multiple times. | ||
| I gave him, you know, very much amount of a grace because of who he is and I was trying to allot him his time. | ||
| And then when he got up to speak, I had enough. | ||
| I'm like, you know what? | ||
| I'm the parent's voice. | ||
| I'm going to tell you exactly how we feel. | ||
| And it was clear that the other parents, at least in the meeting, certainly agreed with you. | ||
| Do you have parents on the other side that disagree? | ||
| Do parents show up and say, no, we should not know what's going on in the classroom? | ||
| Or is it all just kind of state-funded people that show up that have no skin in the game because their kids aren't at these schools? | ||
| You know, what's really funny is here's the thing. | ||
| We have activists here that obviously are against us. | ||
| We unseated somebody that was really deeply involved in this whole agenda. | ||
| They're mad. | ||
| She developed a group and they have their people coming after us. | ||
| But my question always to them is, yeah, you don't like me. | ||
| You don't like what I'm about. | ||
| You want to call me all these names. | ||
| But do you want us as a school district to hide the secrets? | ||
| And I've never gotten the answer. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I'm cool with that. | ||
| So my point is, why are you fighting us on this? | ||
| It's common sense, right? | ||
| But, you know, people are going to be people and they're going to allow the division and I think it's sad. | ||
| But I will tell you this, the majority want us to stand strong in this and not allow the secrets and continue to put policies in place to fight back on, you know, our dictators here up in California. | ||
| Can you talk a little bit about what it's been like for you personally dealing with this? | ||
| I know you're getting a lot of threats and all that sort of stuff. | ||
| And I've, over the years of doing this show, I've interviewed a lot of people like you who were not public people, who were just trying to do the right thing, either related to their kids or their company or whatever it might be, and then just get thrown into the fire. | ||
| I kind of sense you're into the fire. | ||
| Well, you're in it whether you like it or not, but I kind of sense you're into it. | ||
| Hey, I'm not going anywhere. | ||
| You know, here's the thing. | ||
| The day after the policy, death threats started rolling. | ||
| And when I say death threats, multiple death threats, I've been called every name in the book, but they messed with the wrong community. | ||
| Our community is strong, you know, and they messed with the wrong person to be honest with you. | ||
| I'm a fighter by heart. | ||
| My mom called me worse names like that than I was little. | ||
| When they do it, it just rolls off. | ||
| It's like, okay, come on, bro, find a better word. | ||
| But, you know, and it's a daily reminder of who we're fighting and who wants control of our kids, right? | ||
| So when that stuff started to happen, I'm not going to lie, the very first day I freaked out. | ||
| But, you know, it's no secret. | ||
| I'm a believer. | ||
| I dropped on my knees to God and asked him, okay, are we going to be okay? | ||
| Like, this is a little wild. | ||
| And I had As much, you know, yes, yes, yes, you are. | ||
| And I was like, let's go. | ||
| Let's fight, you know, because we're in it for the good fight. | ||
| We're in it for the right reasons. | ||
| And, you know, Dave, they try to divide us. | ||
| They try to make this MAGA, red versus blue, Christian versus non-Christian, gay versus non-gay. | ||
| I mean, they try. | ||
| But when it comes to our kids, we can fight this together. | ||
| And I think that's the most beautiful thing to show our kids is Despite them trying to divide us and keep us on on two different sides or three different or four different We have who even knows what they're doing right now. | ||
| They're so embarrassing You know, we're showing our kids. | ||
| No, you're worth the fight. | ||
| We're gonna do this and And you know people have come to our families safety. | ||
| I mean our Chino Police Department is amazing We have extra patrol. | ||
| We have people wanting to stand guard in front of my house you know, so It's been wild, but I'm appreciative that I was given this opportunity to fight for our kids. | ||
| I never regret saying yes three and a half years ago when I joined this fight, and I don't regret today, and I don't regret all the craziness with it. | ||
| I actually am grateful. | ||
| I'm grateful because I see communities coming together, and that's beautiful. | ||
| So even though you guys kind of got the temporary win here in that the board voted the way you wanted, so transparency at school, now you've got the superintendent, the Cali State superintendent, basically going against you, this Tony Thurman guy. | ||
| You probably know how Gavin Newsom feels on this thing, and now you see other bills going through the state, like if you don't affirm your child's gender or what gender they perceive they are, they could potentially take your kid away. | ||
| I mean, do you see this as just the first fight of many that you're gonna have to That all of you guys are going to have to go through? | ||
| You know, Sacramento waged a war against parents and breaking the family unit. | ||
| It's very clear with the bills on the table. | ||
| But I will say this, Dave, people like me, three and a half years ago, never even watched a bill. | ||
| We didn't even know what hit us. | ||
| And then finally, when it came into our home, you have all these people all over California uniting. | ||
| You have moms and dads in Sacramento fighting the fight over there. | ||
| You have us over here locally in each of our communities. | ||
| It's a sad situation, but I think what it's doing is it's bringing awareness. | ||
| It's bringing people together. | ||
| 957 is horrific. | ||
| All these things that they're pushing through our educational system is horrific. | ||
| They're trying to make community schools, you know, and I see that as a gateway to take control of our children. | ||
| They're trying to package it as whole child and it's like, excuse me, I don't want you to take care of my whole child. | ||
| That's my job as a parent. | ||
| I think it's very weird, but you know, people are starting to come to the fight. | ||
| So I think their time is almost up. | ||
| And you could see them panicking. | ||
| They're panicking because they're passing reckless bills. | ||
| Their mouths are reckless. | ||
| So normal day-to-day people just trying to provide for their family are saying, Sonia, did he just say that on TV? | ||
| And I'm like, yes, he did. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was another gift because you just brought another parent to this fight, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
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So how old are your two children? | |
| I have a just 14 year old. | ||
| She's a freshman. | ||
| And I have a junior who is going to be 16 in like two weeks. | ||
| So as you may know, I have two boys who are about one right now. | ||
| And so obviously we're not into this fight yet. | ||
| And I also live in Florida where things are very different by design. | ||
| But can you talk a little bit about how this is like for your kids and their friends? | ||
| Just the atmosphere around all of this lunacy. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| So my kids get, is that your mom on the school board? | ||
| Is that your mom on the TV? | ||
| And now they just know. | ||
| And you know, what's really cute is they send messages to my kids from the parents. | ||
| Like the parents will say, Hey, tell Sonia's, you know, daughter that we said we got her back or whatever. | ||
| Even teachers. | ||
| I love it because we have, they try to pin unions against the parents and they drag the teachers in it. | ||
| But we have many amazing teachers actually fighting with us, right, and doing the right thing. | ||
| So you have teachers reaching out. | ||
| My kids are rock stars. | ||
| I am very grateful. | ||
| I have two amazing, strong daughters who I don't even know. | ||
| Sometimes I'm like, where did that come from, you know? | ||
| I would probably think one of my daughters is a MAGA. | ||
| She has a big old Trump sign and that was all by her in her room. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I'm grateful for two amazing kids. | ||
| It has been adjustment, because I am a hands-on, in-the-classroom mom, always there, and they've had to adjust. | ||
| But I think it's good, too, because, you know, growing up without involved parents, I was probably overly involved, and now it's allowing them to really just be who they are, and I see them just, you know, they have a great foundation, thank God. | ||
| And my kids, it's crazy. | ||
| They're not even afraid. | ||
| I mean, sometimes I'm like, okay, guys, we got to take these precautions. | ||
| This is real. | ||
| You know, someone wants to cut off our limbs. | ||
| We got to do this and that and look over our shoulders sometimes. | ||
| But they're good. | ||
| They have an amazing counselor, too, who has helped them every step of the way. | ||
| And she's, you know, made sure their classes are unchecked. | ||
| And as long as my kids are taken care of, Hey, you know, I could do this fight and luckily everything's in line, but I have great kids. | ||
| What do you make of the broader fight happening in Cali right now? | ||
| Because every day when I do my show, we could just do an hour of insanity about California every single day. | ||
| And sometimes we do, and then sometimes I'm just like, all right, if that's what the people of Cali want, let them have it. | ||
| I mean, do you think California can be turned around? | ||
| It's become a one-party state. | ||
| Obviously, Newsom seems to have his eye on a bigger prize. | ||
| It seems like the machine there is just very calcified against parents. | ||
| Even if you can get little wins, Yeah, but you know what? | ||
| Look at what these little wins did, Dave. | ||
| It brought people awareness. | ||
| So, I think we're just in the beginning, right? | ||
| But I see people coming to the fight ready to just give their all. | ||
| I don't think that we're going to win this overnight. | ||
| I think this is going to be a long marathon battle. | ||
| But I see a lot of commitment. | ||
| I see continuous incoming commitment. | ||
| I see teams being brought together. | ||
| I mean, you saw too, we just recently, you know, put on a Liberty Justice Center. | ||
| We have people uniting all over the United States to help us, and I think they know. | ||
| If we don't fix this in California, you're gonna have to fight it in your state eventually, you know? | ||
| Everything trickles down. | ||
| So I think that's the good thing, is we're all starting to come together. | ||
| I never imagined this. | ||
| I never imagined flying across, you know, the coast or the nation to go talk to other people about this. | ||
| This is wild! | ||
| But it's also encouraging. | ||
| Because I know, in my heart, if we all just stick together and we don't let them label us and divide us, I think we have a chance. | ||
| Imagine California showing the nation, you got this. | ||
| I mean, we were discredited a long time ago and us as parents are like, hold on, wait a second. | ||
| We're here. | ||
| What could we do? | ||
| How could we fight? | ||
| Dave, I could tell you stories about the things that we've done and held our, you know, local elective officials accountable. | ||
| And I see that starting to happen all over California. | ||
| So I say their time is limited. | ||
| It's almost up. | ||
| It's a matter before we have people who actually love their communities in those seats, listening to their communities and working alongside them, but it's going to take some work. | ||
| And I am absolutely hopeful that we're going to get those warriors in, in this battle. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Well, You also became a professional in being interviewed, because that's how you end an interview. | ||
| Oh my gosh! | ||
| I don't know that I can add anything else to that, unless there's anything else you want to add, because I think that that sort of hope is always what people need, even when a guy like me has fled a place like Cali. | ||
| No, and see, you fled, but you're still part of the battle, Dave. | ||
| You're still with us. | ||
| Come on, shoulder to shoulder. | ||
| I am, I am. | ||
| We played that video on my show a couple days ago, and I immediately, I think I said it on air, we gotta find her and get her on the show, and we got you within an hour, because people like you are the ones that are gonna turn this around. | ||
| It's not just all the talking heads. | ||
| Yeah, and we need to encourage people. | ||
| If a soccer mom, without going to college, could do this, guys, you could do this too. | ||
| I promise. | ||
| You just have to give your yes, and we're good. | ||
| We're in this. | ||
| I mean, we're all linked arms. | ||
| I see it all over. | ||
| I'm hopeful. | ||
| Dave, we appreciate you and all that you do. | ||
| Do not ever give in to the big old bullies. | ||
| The political cartel is done. | ||
| They're being dismantled. | ||
| They're embarrassing. | ||
| We got this. | ||
| Don't even worry about it. | ||
| There's a little inspiration for you. | ||
| If people wanna help out, where can we point them? | ||
| Okay, so a couple of things. | ||
| You can go to Liberty Justice Center. | ||
| I put a link on my social media. | ||
|
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My social media is at- We'll link to it down below as well. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Sonia Shaw, S-O-N-J-A, and then Shaw 2026. | ||
| I had to open up my 2026 account because the CTA is after Sonia Shaw, and we gotta make sure that people like me stay in the fight. | ||
| But Liberty Justice Center is an amazing thing. | ||
| I would say start with those two places. | ||
| We love the support. | ||
| We love the encouragement. | ||
| Dave, I want to say one thing. | ||
| I have a stack this big of postcards and cards, handwritten cards. | ||
| That's despite all the emails that people are sending all across, even the world now. | ||
| I get people in other, you know, places, other countries saying, we love you guys, don't give up. | ||
| And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is wild. | ||
| But yeah, we appreciate the support and love and encouragement. | ||
| Sonia, I wish you the best of luck in crazy Cali. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Thanks, Dave. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about politics, instead of nonstop screaming, 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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