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Dec. 13, 2023 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
43:07
Tucker Carlson's Jaw Drops as UFC's Dana White Defends Bud Light
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dave rubin
31:33
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dana white
02:13
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ron desantis
02:03
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dave portnoy
00:08
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joe biden
00:56
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mike johnson
00:45
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theo von
00:05
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
🎵 Music 🎵 Bud Light
Preferred beverage at sporting events, concerts, and tawdry burlesque shows.
For a man who places electrical tape over his nipples.
Perfect beer for blowing out the pipes.
Hello Internet, I'm Dave Rubin, this is the Daily Mail.
I'm Dave Rubin, this is the Daily Mail.
dave rubin
Hello, Internet. I'm Dave Rubin.
This is The Rubin Report.
It's December 13th, 2023.
We're live streaming on Rumble, Locals, and YouTube.
Share, subscribe, tap that notification bell if you haven't, and join us for our post-game show, where you can comment, you can question, you can poke me, whatever you want to do.
RubinReport.Locals.com.
Our merch store is all new and all fancy and ready for you for the holidays.
DaveRubin.Store if you want some hoodies, if you want some caps, if you want some mugs and all sorts of other stuff.
And let's just dive right into it today.
I think it is time to say no.
We have got to stand our ground.
Everyone knows there's a lot of craziness out there.
And today I've got to call some balls and strikes kinda on my own side.
And with some people that I know, with some people that I like.
As I always say on this show, all I can do is tell you what I think, and let the chips fall where they may, and sometimes people will like me for it, and sometimes they won't.
But I had friends before I got into this, and I'm pretty sure I'll have friends after, so I think we're gonna be okay.
But the point is that for those of you that are not woke, basically at this point, it's kind of everyone versus the woke, at least at the moment.
So for those of us who agree on a whole bunch of the issues, the 5%, let's say, that we disagree on, or even the 10% that we disagree on, whatever that is, That percentage right there could actually be the percentage that determines whether we beat these people or not.
Because when we get wins, whether we agree on every little thing related to taxes or abortion or really closely held things, whether we agree on all that or not, when we get wins, we really got to like hold those wins and look at the wins and examine the wins and go like, oh, we got a win.
Let's acknowledge the win.
Let's see how we can replicate that.
But what you don't wanna do is snatch victory away.
You don't wanna snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, right?
You don't wanna just be getting wins and then be like, oh, we got so close, let's reverse that.
And that seems to be what's happening with a bunch of people right now.
The reason we did that Bud Light cold open is that as you guys know, a couple of months back,
Dylan Mulvaney, this dude who puts on a dress and it's unclear if he or she had all the surgeries,
doesn't even matter, calls himself, well, Well, wait, he's Dylan Mulvaney.
He calls himself what?
What's the woman's name?
Dylan Mulvaney.
No, but what's the girl's name?
He's a girl now in his mind.
Wait, he switched over?
They never switched a name?
unidentified
Yeah, I think it's Dylan Mulvaney.
dave rubin
Geez.
Come on, gal.
Well, anyway, so Dylan Mulvaney, who I guess never even, I guess I never even put that together.
That's how stupid the whole thing is.
So Dylan Mulvaney was a dude who was an actor, decides to become, quote unquote, a woman, right?
Then he was in the Book of Mormon.
Like he was somewhat of a legit Broadway actor, I guess, at some level.
You know, the story becomes a woman, but also becomes like the worst sort of over-the-top
stereotype of a woman, and then gets this strange partnership,
this sponsorship deal with Bud Light.
A whole bunch of people wake up to it, and Bud Light subsequently gets a massive ground up,
right, grassroots boycott.
And people are just like, hey, there's a whole bunch of other beers out there.
We don't need to support a beer that is not in line with our values.
That's actually a beautiful thing, as opposed to sort of top-down cancel culture, where we find one random person who you never heard of before, who works at a company that you probably never bought a product from, and you're really pissed about something, and you try to destroy a whole bunch of people for that.
That's the bad kind.
The good kind is a bunch of people being like, all right, I've decided where I'm going to spend my dollars.
And in a capitalist society where there's a whole bunch of beers out there, pretty sure there's more than 10 beers when you go to the beer section.
It is a good thing when you use your dollars with companies that are in line with your values.
So I want to start first.
Well, the backdrop of all of this is that you may have heard about this over the last couple of days.
Tucker Carlson, who, of course, Left Fox News or Fox News left him.
There's a lawsuit related to all of that.
He started launching his show on X slash Twitter.
He has now announced that he is launching TCN, which sounds like a country channel, but it is the Tucker Carlson Network.
Apparently he's going to have a bunch of shows.
I don't know that they've laid out the full slate yet.
Maybe he'll bring in some other people.
We'll see about that.
But anyway, he had UFC president Dana White on.
And apparently Dana White and the UFC are now partnering with Bud Light.
And that might seem a little odd to you.
We've played a lot of clips of Dana White.
He hates the mainstream media.
He has, you know, said F you to sponsors that are not in line with his values and everything else.
Anyway, he sat down with Tucker and Tucker asked him about how he could be partnering with Bud Light.
dana white
Tell you what, if you consider yourself a patriot, right?
You're a patriot.
unidentified
You should be drinking gallons of Bud Light.
Believe me when I tell you.
Wait, wait, wait.
I should be boycotting Bud Light.
Gallons of Bud Light.
You should have Bud Light drums stacked up in your garage and drinking it right out of the keg.
dana white
They are way more aligned with you than most of these other beer companies are.
That I guarantee you.
Take it from somebody who's in the know, who does business with beer companies, you are way more aligned with Bud Light than you are with any other beer company.
unidentified
So I'm assuming, I mean, they didn't come into partnership with you by accident?
dana white
No.
unidentified
Obviously.
dana white
We had multiple bidders on the table.
unidentified
Did they seek you out?
dana white
We had multiple bidders on the table.
unidentified
They were one of them.
dana white
And as I, you know, history has shown me with relationships that I've had with other beer companies, I, who lean more this way.
unidentified
Yep.
dana white
I, who consider myself a patriot.
I don't go crazy over the whole patriot thing, but I consider myself a proud American.
I'm happy to be an American.
I love this country.
And you are way more aligned with Anheuser-Busch than you are with other beer companies.
dave rubin
Okay, so I just want to reiterate something.
On a whole, as a whole, I don't know Dana White personally.
I'd be happy to sit down with him.
I think there's something interesting going on in that whole UFC world.
It's not totally my thing.
But the reason I've played a whole bunch of clips from him is I find it cool when someone who is not really in politics or anything like that starts getting into this culture war and kind of doing the right things.
And we've played a clip.
You may remember a clip from about a month ago.
Where we played a clip of Dana White on Theo Von's podcast where Theo Von said that there was a sponsor that didn't want him to air an episode where Theo interviewed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And Dana White was like, well, who is the sponsor?
And Theo Von found out it was Peloton.
And then Dana White was like, all right, we're not going to work with Peloton anymore.
So there's an interesting thing here.
On one hand, he's kind of doing the right thing there.
What he's telling you is that everyone should be drinking gallons above light.
Now, look, Regardless of whether you're a patriot...
Super patriot, or a regular patriot, or a half patriot.
Nobody should be drinking gallons of Bud Light, right?
Like, you shouldn't drink a ton of beer in general.
Now, I happen to be a tequila guy, and people say, Dave, you've lost a little weight over the last couple months.
How do you do it?
Well, I cut back on drinking a bit.
I was never drinking a crazy amount, certainly during the week.
Drink a little more on the weekends.
But also, tequila, you could just sip a little bit.
By the way, Dave Rubin's coming out with his own tequila.
We'll have more on that in the new year.
But tequila, you could just sip a little bit, and you're gonna get less calories, you get a nice effect.
Blah, blah, blah.
No one should be drinking gallons of it, but... Putting that aside, it's just that he's being a little over the top there.
He keeps saying that Bud Light is more in line with your values, but he never lays out what that means.
How is Bud Light more in line with your values than these other companies?
I think what he's trying to say, and again I'm not trying to crush this guy or tell you he's evil or anything else, but in essence what he's saying is Bud Light gave us a shit ton of money.
They gave us an awful lot of money and here I am telling you to drink gallons of it and that they're in line with your values.
I'm not going to explain that or how other beer companies aren't in line with your values, but they did give me an awful lot of money.
Anyway, I want to steel man Dana White's argument and be fair to him.
I really do.
So here's a little more detailed reasoning that he laid out on why he went with Bud Light.
This is actually also from the Theo Vaughn podcast.
Take a look.
Is it hard for you guys to pick sponsors?
I know you guys have a new sponsorship.
You guys have a new sponsorship with Bud Light, right?
Yep.
theo von
But is it, do people like, do companies come and do like Shark Tank for you kind of to present the brands?
dana white
Yeah, kind of.
So, um, you know, UFC is at a point now where, you know, guys come to us and, and, and want to pitch their, their brands or whatever it is to, to, uh, advertise with us.
And, Recently, you know, I've become very involved in the, uh, on the sponsorship side.
So I'm at a point now where in my life, in my career, I want to be with people that I'm aligned with people that, you know, yeah, it's, it's not, it's not just about the money.
It's like this whole Bud Light deal.
You know, people are talking s*** now.
Sellout and all this s***.
They'll f***ing say, believe me, I'm the furthest f***ing thing from a sellout.
unidentified
Yeah.
dana white
Bud Light is the right move for me.
They're exactly who I want to be with right now.
And we are very aligned as far as core values go.
You know what I mean?
65,000 Americans they employ.
dave rubin
Yeah.
dana white
That right there should be enough.
65,000 Americans are employed there.
Why would you want to put a bullet in that brand?
Off of one f***ing thing.
How about you go back and look at all the good things they've done?
dave rubin
Yeah.
unidentified
Right?
dave rubin
That's a good point.
dana white
And where they really stand and what they really believe in.
They take care of veterans.
They take care of veterans' families and first responders' families who have fallen.
And the list just goes on and on.
Almost a billion dollars a year with U.S.
farmers.
dave rubin
Wow.
dana white
That alone is the reason you should be drinking **** Bud Light.
dave rubin
Yeah.
dana white
So, I look deeper than just ****.
dave rubin
Right.
dana white
You know, oh, they did this **** can with whoever.
I don't give a **** about that.
dave rubin
All right, hold on.
None of those are reasons you should be drinking Bud Light.
If you like beer and you like the taste of Bud Light, which, Connor, you're the beer guy here.
Like, where do you put Bud?
It's not, you're shaking your head no.
It's not in the top, yeah.
I suppose that's why you would drink Bud Light.
That's why you choose any coffee that you like, or any juice that you like, or club soda, or anything that you drink.
Any bottle of water, they all taste the same.
You choose one because you like the brand, or you like the bottle, or you like whatever.
Okay, fine.
You like the story behind it.
But there's a couple things there.
First off, he obviously took a ton of money from them.
Okay, fine.
That's just fine.
People do business.
I don't begrudge anyone operating within the capitalist system.
I also want to say real quick that there's a reason I'm doing all this.
I'm not trying to add fuel to the fire over the Bud Light controversy, but I'm trying to connect this to the much wider thing that I mentioned up top about the culture wars and how you get wins and then how the system and sort of take those wins away from you.
And that's what it seems like is happening right here as they're trying to like make it seem like you will be patriotic by drinking Bud Light.
Look, there's something about 60, all right, so they employ 65,000 people and you don't want those people to suffer.
Of course you don't.
Actually, when the Bud Light boycott happened, we played a video of a guy who was just like a local distributor in a store saying, hey, nobody's buying Bud Light anymore.
My job is in trouble.
Now, of course you have sympathy For those people, for sure, but there's tons of other beer companies that if Bud Light, if there's a boycott against Bud Light because people have had it with the woke garbage that they pushed in and literally had an executive saying, we don't really like the frat guys who are drinking our beer.
We want to be a beer for other people.
Well, then the people who would eventually lose their jobs through that boycott.
We'll get jobs at other beer companies.
Also, just the idea that you shouldn't boycott a company because they have a lot of employees.
The government has two million employees, right?
Like, so something is not good inherently because it has a lot of employees.
Again, the thing about veterans, like, that's all nice, but at the end of the day, this is really like...
You got a bunch of money and you're singing a different tune and that just kind of is.
Megyn Kelly had a nice tweet about this because I think it gets to the heart of it because there was a way that they could have maybe extricated themselves from this a little more cleanly.
She said Bud Light never apologized or even acknowledged how deeply it offended its customers.
Because it's still beholden to the vicious trans activists who threatened it and cares more about them than its customers.
Why would you give them your business?
Because one musician folded?
Hard no.
The funny thing is, I kid you not, I have not seen anyone drink Bud Light at one bar or restaurant or anywhere else Since this whole thing has happened.
So the point is, had they apologized, really apologized, really backtracked on something, really said, we're going to go into our corporate structure and try to make some sense of this and figure out what happened.
Because you guys know, I mean, look at the stories that we've told you the last couple of days about Harvard and Penn and what you see happening all over the world right now in terms of the wrong ideas getting into institutions and then what that does.
It's like, you don't owe Bud Light anything because they're a big beer company.
Like, I've been to Anheuser.
I was at Busch Gardens when I was a kid.
Saw the Clydesdales.
Great horses.
I don't want them to suffer, but that's not a reason to drink Bud Light, right?
It's just not.
Um, or I think perhaps maybe what Dana could have done is say, okay, you know what?
You guys are offering, like they must have offered him a crazy amount of money.
I have no men, no idea.
They, at one point it said they were going to triple their marketing budget.
Let's say they offered him 50 million bucks.
I don't know what the number is.
I'm completely making that out of thin air.
He could have said to them, all right, you want me to put my reputation on the line?
Uh, I'll take your cash.
That's pretty good, and I can do good things with that cash and build my brand and all that stuff and everything else, but you're going to have to apologize first.
You're going to have to have a forthright apology.
You're going to have to sit down on my show and explain yourselves, but they didn't do any of that, and that's what kind of gets us back into the muck and the mire, I would say, and sort of this unclear place of, oh, we got an organic win.
We actually did it.
We're always trying to figure out, how do you win in this culture war?
Bud Light started losing.
It sent a message to corporate America, and now corporate America, through cash, is taking that win away from us.
So, I will remind you in just a moment of what Bud Light actually did, and then we're gonna connect it to a bunch of wider stuff, because this is much bigger than just about crappy beer that I used to drink upside down from a keg when I was in college, because I was a pretty cool dude.
But before we get to that, let's talk about gravity defier shoes.
You ever do that?
Have them lift you up in college?
What do they call that?
A keg stand.
I used to do that.
Jesus, it's a miracle I'm still here.
Anyway, let's talk about gravity defier shoes for a minute.
I want to talk to you about something that's been making my days a whole lot easier, and I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with trans activism.
That's right, I'm talking about Gravity Defier shoes.
These shoes are something else, guys.
I mean, I'm a fan of comfortable footwear.
Everybody knows that.
But these shoes take it to a whole new level.
More than just shoes, they're basically clouds for your feet.
I'm not kidding.
In a double-blind study by Olive View UCLA Medical Center and published in the Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association, participants experienced 85% less knee pain.
It's the most powerful shock absorption system put into a shoe.
Gravity Defier has patented VersoShock technology.
It's like a mini trampoline in your shoes.
Whether you're strolling through the park, running errands, or even just lounging at home, these shoes have got your back, or I should say your feet.
Even better, they're stylish.
You get both comfort and style that look good and feel great.
So here's the deal, Gravity to Fire's offering limited exclusive holiday time deal.
Just head over to gdefy.com, gdefy.com.
Use promo code 30, you're gonna get an extra 30% off your order.
That's an amazing 30% off for being here today.
It's a holiday thank you gift from Gravity to Fire.
Why not treat your feet to some well-deserved comfort?
gdefy.com, promo code 30 for 30% off your order.
And now back to me.
And I promise you, good people, if Gravity Defier tomorrow offers a sponsorship to Dylan Mulvaney, I will not work for them.
And if they came in here and then suddenly I was like, oh, I love Dylan Mulvaney.
Isn't he and or she wonderful in her Gravity Defier shoes?
and I was doing that, you might think, Dave, how much did they pay you to say that?
So I think you get the point.
Anyway, what led to all of this?
Well, you might remember this Bud Light VP of Marketing, Alyssa Heinerscheid, explaining her decision to go Oak.
unidentified
I'm a business woman.
I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light.
And it was, this brand is in decline.
It's been in decline for a really long time.
And if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light.
So I had this super clear mandate.
It's like, we need to evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand.
And my, what I brought to that was a belief in Okay, what does evolve and elevate mean?
It means inclusivity.
It means shifting the tone.
It means having a campaign that's truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different and appeals to women and to men.
And representation is at sort of the heart of evolution.
You've got to see people who reflect you in the work.
And we had this hangover.
I mean, Bud Light had been kind of a brand of Fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach.
dave rubin
It's so funny.
Bud Light has been a brand of fratty, out-of-touch humor.
It also then became the biggest beer brand in America, certainly the biggest light beer brand in America, and nobody had a problem with it, and they were making boatloads of money, and frat guys drink beer.
You know who doesn't really generally drink beer?
Trans women.
And also...
As a general rule, trans women, whatever that is even, is such a tiny, a ridiculously tiny percentage of the population that to market to them would be insane.
unidentified
But also, I'm going to go to Connor on this one too, or I'll go to any of you guys.
dave rubin
When you're out on a date, if a girl, you're sitting down at the restaurant, right?
Or you go to the bar, you're sitting at the bar.
You order something and then the girl, I mean before this whole Bud Light thing, if the girl had said, I'll have a Bud Light, what would you have thought of that girl?
Red flag, right?
What do you want a girl to drink?
Gin and tonic would be nice for a chick.
What would you want a girl to drink?
Red wine would be nice, maybe a Cosmo or something.
But it's not for girls.
It's not that a girl can't drink Bud Light.
Anyway, you get it, but you see how I'm connecting this to everything else.
Once woke gets into the system, whether it is Harvard, and next thing you know, they're calling for genocide of Jews, whether it's Bud Light, and they're instead of marketing to frat guys, they're trying to get chicks to drink their shitty beer, it destroys absolutely everything.
So what was the genesis of all of this?
Well, here is a portion of the Bud Light ad featuring Dylan Mulvaney, who I still can't believe never changed his or her name.
There was just no name change on this thing?
Take a look.
unidentified
Hi!
Impressive carrying skills, right?
I got some Bud Lights for us.
So, I kept hearing about this thing called March Madness, and I thought we were all just having a hectic month, but it turns out it has something to do with sports.
And I'm not sure exactly which sport, but either way, it's a cause to celebrate.
This month I celebrated my Day 365 of womanhood and Bud Light sent me possibly the best gift ever, a can with my face on it.
Check out my Instagram story to see how you can enjoy March Madness with Bud Light and maybe win some money too.
Love ya!
Cheers!
Go team!
Whatever team you love, I love too.
Okay.
Love ya.
dave rubin
Okay, fine.
And you subsequently remember everything that happened since.
And again, there were some wins.
There were some actual wins.
You might remember this.
This is Kid Rock responding to Bud Light after that whole ad, whatever you want to call that.
unidentified
Grandpa's feeling a little frisky today.
Let me uh say something to all you and be as clear and concise as possible.
F*** Bud Light and F*** Anheuser-Busch.
Have a terrific day.
dave rubin
Okay, again, I know this might seem like a little inside baseball in the world of beer and the emotions that it can cause all of us to have, but there's something interesting going on here.
As Brock just mentioned, just what was it, two weeks ago when Trump walked out at a UFC event with Dana White and Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock was with him too.
So there's this strange thing where these people are sort of taking every side of everything instead of just taking the win when you can get it.
It's how the system operates.
A lot of cash.
I don't know what the cash situation was.
I don't know.
And I guess maybe I could get a call today and Bud Light could be like, Dave, we'd like you to help clean up the Bud Light thing.
Could you put on a dress for a hundred million bucks?
Guys, we'd really have to talk about it.
Anyway, the boycott then happened, and again, it was a ground-up boycott, right?
And it was not aimed at any of the employees of the company.
It was just saying, hey, we've had it with this, and there are literally, there must be literally thousands of beer brands in the United States of America, and you have other choices.
So here's a little bit of info on the numbers, actually, that the boycott In the week ending April 8th, 2023, Bud Light had reportedly experienced an 11% drop in sales and a 21% drop in the week ending April 15th, 2023.
As of May 1st, 2023, Bud Light off-premise sales had dropped 26% since the start of the boycott.
At a shareholder meeting on May 4th, Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Michael Dukras Distance the company from Mulvaney saying this was one can one influencer one post and not a campaign Ducaris also said that the drop in sales would represent about 1% of our overall global volumes for that period Ducaris said the company would increase support to wholesalers and triple Bud Light's advertising budget in attempt in an attempt to recover
Lost sales.
The point is, guys, and again, I'm not a beer drinker, so fine, everyone can make those choices for themselves, but we started getting some wins and they seem like maybe they're being pulled back a little bit.
Now, I want to connect this to something else that's happening oddly in the political space and the culture wars and everything.
You might have heard about this little controversy coming out of Iowa over the last couple days.
There was a satanic altar placed in the Iowa State Capitol.
Let's show you the image here.
The image is from Jack Posobiec.
That is a satanic altar.
Okay, and that is the State Capitol.
And what Jack wrote there, and I've had Jack on the show several times, but this is going to be a sort of similar theme to what we just discussed with Dana White.
Jack wrote, this is what Kim Reynolds has allowed to be installed in the Iowa State Capitol.
It is a satanic altar and idol.
Now it is a satanic altar and idol, but It has nothing to do with Kim Reynolds, and there's a reason that Posobiec is going after Kim Reynolds.
I'll explain that in a second.
It was community-noted, which is the fact-checking apparatus of Twitter, as you guys know.
The Iowa Capitol is controlled by the Iowa legislature, not Governor Reynolds.
The Department of Administrative Services manages access for displays at the Capitol, which are open to anyone through an application process, and do not discriminate on the basis of religion or ideology.
Now, there is an absolute conversation to be had about These types of satanic things being put on public property, right?
And I'm actually more on the side of that they should not be there.
Let's just put that aside for just a second, okay?
It had nothing to do with Kim Reynolds, as the fact-checking pointed out, but Posobiec, who is in Trump land, wants to hit Kim Reynolds because Kim Reynolds is backing DeSantis, right?
So it has nothing to do with Kim Reynolds, But again, this was really going after DeSantis and actually, you know, who kind of did the thing that caused it so that the Satanists could have their things in the... Yeah, it was Trump.
Here's DeSantis last night.
He did a town hall on CNN with Jake Tapper.
ron desantis
So it's interesting.
I heard this and then I was like, well, how did it get there?
Is that even a religion?
And lo and behold, the Trump administration gave them approval to be under the IRS as a religion.
So that gave them the legal ability to potentially do it.
So I don't know what the legislature, how they analyzed it, but it very well may be because of that ruling under Donald Trump.
That they may have had a legal leg to stand on.
My view would be that's not a religion that the Founding Fathers were trying to create.
But I do think that IRS ruling, I was really surprised to see that they did that.
dave rubin
Okay, so there's a sort of similar theme here to the opening of the show.
I'm not just trying to attack people willy-nilly, but sometimes we get some wins on things.
And when we get wins on things, we have to take those wins, but we also have to not make everything so political that when a satanic Monument shows up in the Iowa State Capitol.
You're like, oh, I can get Kim Reynolds over that because the guy I really want to get is DeSantis.
And then, of course, it turns out that it was the Trump IRS that made them, you know, a quote unquote religious organization to get that tax exemption.
And that's why they are allowed there.
So you have to call balls and strikes, even when they're roughly on your same side, because that, again, is what will help us beat the real enemy.
So the 10% differences, or whatever you want to think those differences are, those things, that's the space that we got to operate in.
We got to kind of put those aside and go for the real enemy, but also acknowledge, let's not burn each other down at the exact same time.
So the big fight, of course, in the country politically, I would say at the moment, At least on the more conservative side, is what's going to happen with this Trump-DeSantis situation.
And, you know, people keep saying that there's Nikki Haley momentum.
I don't really see it.
It's just one of the things that the media just keeps saying.
Sort of like polls.
Here are polls.
You better believe the polls.
Or here's Nikki Haley momentum.
You better believe that.
Anyway, I want to show you one more video of DeSantis last night with Jake Tapper on CNN, because he's clearly the only guy actually trying to say, I'm the alternative to Trump, if you think that we need to get over that thing.
unidentified
Welcome, Governor.
And first of all, thank you for your service as a veteran.
It's important to recognize your service as an American.
So thank you very much.
ron desantis
Thank you.
unidentified
Why should my employees trust you to return us to the prosperity that they enjoyed under President Trump?
ron desantis
Well, Tim, thanks for the question.
I hope your business is doing well.
I know things are tough right now with a lot of things.
I think you trust me for a couple reasons.
One, if you look at what we've done in Florida, our economy is ranked number one of all 50 states.
We've boomed like we've never have, even in the face of all the inflation and the interest rates, which we have to obviously struggle with too, but our unemployment rate is 60% lower than states like California, which are peer states.
I'd also say this.
I think the first three years of the Trump administration, the economy's better than it has been.
But that last year with COVID, I think was mishandled dramatically.
Shutting down the country was a huge mistake.
Printing trillions and trillions of dollars was a huge mistake.
That set the foundation for the inflation that we see.
Granted, Biden came in and poured gas on the fire.
It was reckless that he did trillions.
But if you look, you have trillions and trillions of dollars Of course you're paying more for that.
You're gonna have inflation when that happens.
dave rubin
Look, it's just true.
Again, and this is where I cannot be captured by my audience, and I see comments, and I see people being pissed at me, and I also, you know, like, I can see all that.
I can see all that, but all I can do is tell you what is true.
And the beauty of backing DeSantis, I would say, is that it doesn't tie me into a pretzel.
That is true.
Like it was a mistake to shut down the country.
And even as Trump was leaving office, he was still trying to get DeSantis to shut down Florida.
Everyone with their head on straight knows that Florida is now the model for whatever America can be if it, if America is going to succeed.
Right.
And we know that our unemployment is low and that we have law and order on the streets and that people are still moving here.
And he's also acknowledging that, yeah, we've got some problems like interest rates are high.
I can't deal only with that, right?
We're not an island in and of ourselves just yet.
The point is, there is a better way.
I think there is a way that gets us out of the drama, that gets us out of the grifting and the selling out and everything else.
Again, we will choose which way to go.
And if it doesn't go the way I want, I'll be here the next day and I'll be talking about that.
And that's that too.
I want to show you one other clip of DeSantis because here he is on a bit, this is a different thing.
This is from PBS just a day or two ago, explaining how he will operate
and not necessarily do things exactly how Trump did them.
ron desantis
As a Republican, I want everybody to do well.
It's not just about who endorses me or who doesn't.
There's people in this race that haven't endorsed me.
I'm not going to go out and trash good Republicans just because they haven't endorsed me.
So I think the way that Donald Trump has handled that, that is not going to work for this party to say that unless you kiss his ring, then somehow you're not So aren't we all kind of over it?
dave rubin
Aren't we all kind of over all of the infighting and constantly trying to destroy each other?
And this one who worked for me is a moron, and that one who worked for me is an idiot, and he's a sellout.
Like, aren't we over it?
Don't we all want something a little bit better?
Don't we want something a little bit younger?
I mean, Bill Burr, who I think is still basically a lefty, I played the clip of him yesterday being like, shouldn't it be a guy who's in his 40s with a little skin in the game?
Because he's going to have to live through all of the policies.
So we will, Decide if we want that as a country, and first we have to get through the primary, so first it's up to more, let's say, Republican or conservative-leaning people.
But again, you have to call those balls and strikes.
It's all you can do.
It's the only way I would be able to live with myself and do this show.
But I think there's something else, because intrinsically, telling the truth is the right thing to do, right?
We all know that.
Telling the truth is the right thing to do.
But then there's another reason, and it's instrumentally.
If you tell the truth, you can actually win.
I don't think By lying you can win over time.
You might get some wins here and there.
You will not win over time.
But if you tell the truth and you do it earnestly you will get Long-term wins.
And now I want to connect Bud Light to some of the other things going on in the world, because there still is this Ukraine thing, and we have not been talking about it too much lately.
Obviously, everything going on between Israel and Gaza has kind of sidelined us on the foreign affairs part of that.
But Zelensky showed up in D.C.
yesterday, and he wants some cash.
And here he is at a press conference with Joe Biden.
And listen to Joe Biden's little Freudian slip here.
This one's a doozy.
joe biden
They understand, as I do, that Ukraine's success and its ability to deter aggression in the future are vital to security for the world at large.
And I have repeatedly made clear from our first day in office, we also need Ukraine to make changes to fix the broken immigration system here.
We also need Congress to make the changes to fix the broken immigration system here at home.
My team is working with Senate Democrats and Republicans to try to find a bipartisan compromise, both in terms of changes in policy and provide the resources we need to secure the border.
Compromise is how democracy works, and I'm ready and offered compromise already.
Holding Ukraine funding hostage in an attempt to force through an extreme Republican partisan agenda on the border is not how it works.
We need real solutions.
dave rubin
It may not be how it works, Joe, but it is how it should work.
What does Ukraine funding?
We can all have our feelings about that.
What does Ukraine funding have to do with defending our border?
If we cannot defend our border, why should we be giving money to Ukraine when, on top of everything else, it is very unclear what the mission is, it is very unclear what a win would be, and a whole bunch of other things, right?
But this is how the government operates.
Biden then did announce that he was, through the stroke of a pen, giving another $200 million to Ukraine, but he doesn't have unlimited power through stroke of the pen.
So Mike Johnson, who of course is the new House leader, at least for now, because that Republican majority is getting slimmer and slimmer and we know now that Kevin McCarthy is going to step down.
And I think there's a guy in Ohio, a Republican, who's about to go work at a college instead, so the Republicans will, in essence, have a one-seat lead when you know somebody's gonna fall down the stairs, and then we get Hakeem Jeffries, and the Democrats run the show, but let's hold that for now.
But here's Mike Johnson, after meeting with Zelensky, saying that Ukraine funding has to be tied to border security, meaning if we're gonna give you some freakin' money, how about we can actually do a little something for the citizens of America?
How novel.
mike johnson
We need a clear articulation of the strategy to allow Ukraine to win.
And thus far, their responses have been insufficient.
They have not provided us the clarity and the detail that we requested over and over since literally 24 hours after I was handed the gavel as Speaker of the House.
And so what the Biden administration seems to be asking for is billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight, no clear strategy to win, and none of the answers that I think the American people are owed.
I have also made very clear from day one that our first condition on any national security supplemental spending package is about our own national security first.
The border is an absolute catastrophe, and this is because of the policies of this White House and this administration.
dave rubin
You really need to think about this.
And it does, maybe you're watching this and I'm a little more isolationist on Ukraine.
And again, I just think that from the beginning, you've seen what I've said about this.
There was mission creep.
We don't know who the good guys or bad guys are.
As I've talked about many times, I had Rand Paul and we don't know where the money's going.
Like there's just like.
Putin's got nukes, like, there's a whole bunch of series of problems there.
By the way, I would say that's starkly different than what's going on with Israel and Gaza, because there's a very clear win there, which is the toppling of Hamas and then actually setting a border and helping an ally who helps us with technology and all sorts of stuff.
But that's a complete aside.
But he's basically making two clear points.
Could you tell us what the plan is if we're going to give them billions of dollars?
That's number one.
And how about we do a little something at home first?
How many of those videos do we play each week where we just have people pouring through our border?
No one that could even approximately consider themselves pro-America could think that that's okay.
The Democrat Party thinks it's okay, and the people of CNN and MSNBC think it's okay, because I don't think they're very pro-America.
That's kind of where we're at at the moment.
I want to show you one other clip on this.
Senator J.D.
Vance from Ohio was on Fox talking to Laura Ingraham about a pause in Ukraine funding and how, I don't know, maybe we could do a little something in America for Americans?
unidentified
We learned this weekend that we are funding one third of Ukraine's government.
That includes teacher salaries, janitor salaries, everybody, not just the military.
Everybody's salaries are funded by the U.S.
taxpayers as the people in our country are deciding between food or medicine.
Right now, people in Ohio can't afford food.
Young people can't afford to buy homes.
We're paying for their government.
You're exactly right.
We've got to focus on our own problems.
And Laura, the thing that is in our best interest is to get the killing to stop.
That's what we should be doing with American leadership, not writing more blank checks to endless war.
Why doesn't he go lecture Europe?
Put his hand out to Europe.
dave rubin
Again, it's not the most riveting clip.
It's just true.
It's just true.
How about we deal with some of our problems here as lawyers laying out?
How about we deal with problems related to prices of food and things of that nature, but bite inflation has caused, you know, you print money, money becomes worth less food, and everybody wants more of the money because it's worth less.
That's how it cascades throughout the system.
And of course, JD is right on that.
We don't, we just don't know what the high hell is going on there.
The point of all this, which will get us to the end of the show, is that positive results will actually arise when you begin to say no to the things that you know to be wrong.
Right?
Ukraine, whatever is going on there, and this desire for the machine to connect it to our border, it's wrong.
Bud Light suddenly making a comeback because they've got enough cash to buy out people, it's kind of wrong.
Blaming.
Kim Reynolds, because you really want to get DeSantis over something when you know it's actually Trump who did the original thing with the IRS.
It's wrong.
And we've got to get through this fog of lies.
And if you get through the fog of lies, Then you will find that other good people will stand up and you will build better things.
One of the guys who's built better things is Dave Portnoy over at Barstool Sports.
Dave, is he a graduate of Harvard or he's from Boston area?
He went to, right, he went to Michigan, but he is, you know, he's largely in the Boston area now.
Big sports guy.
He created Barstool Sports, right?
So I'm guessing Dave Portner probably was growing up, wanted to be part of ESPN.
ESPN goes woke.
He creates his own thing.
It is absolutely massive.
And he's had it with Harvard too.
Here he is on Fox Business explaining his hiring policies going forward.
unidentified
You will not hire anyone from Harvard until the school's dean stepped down?
I think a lot of leaders have to do it.
It was disgusting what those deans and presidents did under oath.
Makes no sense to me.
dave portnoy
I don't know how, if you can't condemn genocide, I don't care whether we're talking Jews, Muslims, any group of people, then you don't deserve to be, you know, in a position of power.
unidentified
You gotta get out.
What about free speech?
Does that come into this?
Yeah, listen, um...
Is Hitler allowed to say, I want to kill the Jews, I want to kill the Jews, I want to kill the Jews, right up until he kills the Jews?
I would say no.
And when you're endangering people and causing harm, I think you've got to put a stop to it.
It's called common sense.
dave rubin
Isn't it interesting, again, I like these videos of people that really never would have
thought they would be in these fights, whether it is Dana White, when I'm praising him, or
whether it's Portnoy right now.
These people who suddenly can make more, as he just said, common sense than the people
who were supposed to be our sense makers.
Brock just pointed out to me, actually, that barstool sports was part of ESPN, and ESPN got rid of it because they were kind of too edgy.
They weren't going along the woke lines.
I didn't even realize that.
That proves my point even further, and now he's built something that is growing exponentially, and ESPN is having all sorts of problems.
So the point, ladies and gentlemen of today's show, if you don't back down, if you do the right thing for the right thing's sake, you might actually force change for good?
How do I know it?
Well, Liz McGill from UPenn has resigned.
Yes, that's right.
I don't need to read the whole thing to you.
But after that absolutely horrific congressional hearing where she could not condemn calling for genocide of Jews, and again, as Portnoy points out, it wouldn't matter if you were calling for genocide of Muslims.
If you're calling for genocide of white people, that would be just as bad.
Now she is gone, and she did it while smiling the entire time, which was really particularly disgusting.
We will find out more about Claudine Gay over at Harvard.
Harvard's backing her right now, but now it's coming out that she, we covered this yesterday, she plagiarized on her dissertation, and you can just sense that thing is just gonna keep burning over there.
But I said it yesterday, and I mean it again, Portnoy's saying he's not gonna hire a Harvard grad.
I'm just not hiring college grads anymore.
If you do not go to college, If you have virtually no education, we want you here at the Rubin Report.
Okay?
If you have no idea what you're doing, if you've never been to a school, you don't know the difference between a pencil and a pen, we want you on the team.
Resume at RubinReport.com.
Guys, Bud Light's days are probably numbered.
But only if enough people are like, oh, we just, we'll take the W, right?
Sometimes they tell you to take the L. How about we take the W for a change?
Wouldn't that be something?
I think it would be.
I feel very satisfied with today's show.
People of the Internet is live at 1pm.
We have a new Twitter account, as we've mentioned before, RubinReportShow on the Twitter slash the X. If you have not subscribed, please do on Rumble.com slash RubinReportPostGameShow coming up right now, RubinReport.Locals.com.
And we leave you with one of the members of the Hamas caucus with uttering complete nonsense, as always.
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