Michael Rubin talks Knicks championship, Jada’s “White Party” invitation & Meek Mill frendship

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0:38And now that McChicken is just$2 with McValue. Limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher for delivery. Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode, I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Daniel Cormier from The Daniel Cormier Show.

1:18This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of UFC. Power doesn't wait in the octagon or outside of it. You either make the move or you miss the moment. That's why you need a network that's just as powerful as you are. With Total Wireless, you get unlimited 5G data keeping you in the action. From the walkouts to the knockouts. Now that's a Total Power move. Make your Total Power move today. Visit TotalWireless.com or stop by your neighborhood Total Wireless store. Additional terms apply. See TotalWireless.com for details. Mike, I use no drugs. I feel like I'm smoking crack every day.

1:56I mean, the guy is unbelievable. We got Skinny Joe with the Knicks winning, living his best fucking life. He's killing it. I closed the ass piece yesterday. I don't even know what's going on, man.

2:23Yeah, yeah, what's up, y 'all? This is Joe Crack, the dumb billionaire. You know who it is, your boy Jada. This is the Joe and Joan. The Joe and Jada. The Joe and Jada show. Every show legendary, every show iconic. And we continue to crush y 'all. And we're going to proceed to crush y 'all. When you think of today's guest, you think of everything you think of a man responsible for many incredible things I think of a loan like I need a loan think of a loan the biggest white party in the universe or the biggest the largest trading car show sports memorabilia he has some of the greatest friends on earth he saved me when they did a wheelie and they tried to do him crazy he really did it came to the rescue we can be here for hours give him in his flowers but ladies and gentlemen make some noise for Mr.

3:33Michael Rubin I just want to say that could be the best all time intro of anyone if I need a hype man let me tell you something if it wasn't so loud he's a really roll I know I mean that was a hell of an intro I appreciate that he rolled it out yeah roll it down I mean you could but can we just I got a little I got a little gripe I gotta settle with you right now last night I was going to bed about midnight as I always do I'm just going through social media see what's going on in this world saw this little clip come up from the two of you and you know it said you talking a little shit said ah white party thing is not for me I don't want to be there Joe said it's the only party per year my wife wants to go there.

4:18So you really... No, no, he really wants to be there. He said he wants to get you. That was his way. That was his way. I didn't really know this guy before that. We were just spending time for the first time. That was his way of getting you invited. Is he invited you to wife? I mean, we got to see. Hold on a second. I just want to say one thing. First of all, as you know, the white party takes a lot. He's in. He's in. But I just want to say one thing, though. It takes, as you know, a little bit of training, 12-hour party. You got to be in good shape. It's like the way you guys, I think you trained to get in the shape you're in now for the white party.

4:55It's the greatest party on earth. And now you're invited. You deserve it. Top five. Dead or a lot. Bucking list. This is Bucking list. Let's go, baby. Bucking list. See that? Family coming together right away. We're at Fanatics Fest. the biggest thing moving is these trading cards. How did you know to jump on it early and you created, you know, this big event behind it? Yeah, well, the amazing thing about Fanatics Fest, there's only the third year we're doing this, which is kind of insane when you think about it. It's really become a sports week in New York. The ESPYs moved from LA to New York to go the night before Fanatics Fest.

5:33Dodgers playing the Yankees this weekend by design. And you've got WWE at MSG Saturday night, World Cup, a small thing called the World Cup, this Sunday, World Cup final, Argentina, Spain, insane. Oh my God, it's insane. Time 100, build themselves around this. There's like so many great events coming together, but we're honored. You got 200 ,000 of the most, not just sports fans, super fans here at Javits for this over the next four days. And the thing that's so humbling to me is you got 400, of the biggest stars in the world coming together to celebrate these fans and to create so many great moments.

6:11And, you know, for me, you know, we love being a connector. We love being in the center of everything. And, you know, it's just amazing to see the giant smiles on all these fans' faces. And, Bob, I love you guys being able to come here and get so many different interesting things and the people you guys come in touch with. So we like doing that. That's what Finac's all about, bringing people together. And, you know, we wake up and go to bed obsessing with how do we do great things for sports fans. as well as trading cards and collectibles. I'll tell you, in a lot of ways, I'd say we got into this market in the middle of COVID.

6:42People thought we were nuts. It's a cyclical business. It did great during COVID. It's going to all fall apart. And we just thought the companies that were in it before, they weren't marketing, they weren't innovating the product. The athletes didn't care about it. So we got in and we just really like, entrepreneurs said, let's innovate the product. Let's market it for the first time. Let's build products that athletes really care about. Now, five years later, there's so much enthusiasm, excitement domestically in the U.S. because of the actions we've taken. But we're going to globalize this business down too.

7:13So I think we're still, we're the first thing in this baseball game here. How important is the Knicks winning the chip? How much fluidity does that bring to this year's fanatic fence? I think if we were trying to script it, we couldn't script it any better. I mean, having the Knicks ever won in 53 years. I mean, do you know how much happier Joe is? Like, I mean, this guy's, let me ask you a question. How much happier is your life this year than last year? I mean, this guy's, he's like, Mike, I use no drugs. I feel like I'm smoking crack every day. I mean, the guy, we got skinny Joe with the Knicks winning.

7:49Living his best fucking life. He's killing it. I closed the ESPYs yesterday. I don't even, I don't even know what's going on, man. It's like, then I get to take a picture. If I ever was a groupie, and then you could throw a flag on that. No, no, no. It's of the New York Knicks. And they actually closed the ESPYs. And they, come on, Joe, let's take a picture together. The team and you. It's sick. Listen, by the way, you don't get memories like that very often in life. And that's when you look back and say, one of the best memories of my life. that is definitely one of the best memories of my life and you know what happens is we go to Madison Square Garden and we see 30 ,000 people and we think those are the Knicks fans and so when we do the parade we have 30 million Mr.

8:42Dolan gave me my own float in the parade so I bring hip hop I just seen 30 blocks in a row of human beings and everything like it was It's just, I said, holy, I said, why? I didn't even know we had that many Knicks. You know, it was, you know, having built Fanatics, you know, as my full-time, only thing I'm really focused on since 2011, watching the way the Knicks fans showed up was like no other fan bases ever showed up. It was the biggest single hot market for our merchandise business since we started. It shattered the records. Bigger than when the Cubs won after 100-plus years. Wow. Bigger than when the Dodgers won, bigger than when the Lakers won.

9:24It shattered the records. You already know when it's a real moment, you need a real bottle. That's why we rock with 1800 Tequila. Y 'all heard me? These people been making tequila for 11 generations. That's right, 11. That's a legacy. That's OG status. OG. They were the first to introduce Inejo, set the standard before most of these brands even existed. And you can taste the difference for real. The 1800 Cristalino and Reposado is what we've been on lately. Smooth, clean, elevated. No burn, no rough edges. Just a premium pour that speaks for itself. You know when it's something that's just built right?

10:07That's what this is. Real talk, that's just what it is. It's always around for the best nights, the wins, the celebrations, the remember that night story. Whether you're keeping it low-key with the crew or you're pulling up to a big event, 1 ,800 fits every setting. It ain't trying too hard. It's just that. 1 ,800 tequila, real legacy, real smooth. That's the move. True, true, true. One, if you've never been to Fanatics Fest, the recreation of the 4040, it's crazy. It couldn't have been... This is insane. Look at... It's crazy, though. You know, I remember when we started Finax Fest three years ago, Jay and Des hit me and said, hey, you know, I love 4040.

10:52It's such an important, iconic brand. Why don't we pop it up for guys like you, the most important, you know, artists, celebrities, athletes that support Finax Fest to give them a private place to hang out for the most important people at the festival. So this place holds three, four hundred people. I remember looking up last year, I saw LeBron James, Draymond, Tom Brady, Kevin Hart. He was a little hard to see, if I'm being honest, but I did see Kevin up there. Kevin Hart, Khaled, Micah Parsons, CJ Strahd, all standing together. I'm like, man, this is the middle of a sports track. All these guys are together.

11:26No, Travis DJing, actually. This one is for the OGs. Let's keep it 1800. I would say your entry into hip hop was Meek Mill. Yeah, look, I didn't design to have, I mean, let's keep this real. Fanatics has 150 million customers today. You know, there's 2 billion kind of avid sports fans of the world. Everybody is a customer of Fanatics. And so, you know, our sports fan just follows the population of the world. Let me tell you what my fans care about, right? Is the hip hop show something I've always respected you for because you don't know. I'm privy to being behind the scenes. Yeah, of course. So you become cool with Meek Mill.

12:07He gets locked up and you fund his lawyers to get him out of jail. I'm telling you what they want to know. Like, why do you feel like I want to help Meek Mill? Why do you come out your pocket and support him in that way? So I remember meeting Meek for the first time. I think it was 2014. He was at that time together with Nikki. I was with my daughter, Kylie, who was, she must've been six, I can not do the math right, six, seven, eight years old. Meek was like, it was really interesting because I barely met in a high school. You know, I went to college for six weeks. The way I learned is by asking questions.

12:46Okay. I'm always asking people questions. I'm always studying my surroundings. So as my daughter was like, at this point, you know, super, you know, asking Nikki a bunch of things and being like a typical six or eight year old who's meeting somebody that she likes. Meek has asked me all kinds of questions about business. And I'm like, I saw in him that same, like just curiosity and, and passion to learn that I have. And we became really friendly. What people don't understand is by the time all the shit went down with me in 2017, that was like one of my closest friends. And he remains say one of my closest friends.

13:19Like I love me. People say, I hear some dumb shit. Oh, I don't see you guys. And pictures is like, that's my fucking brother. Meek is my friend. Meek is my, but I have friends. I won't see in a year that I love to death. Of course, if I don't talk to Meek for three months because I'm working 18 hours a day, that is my brother. So anyway, what happened was, it's a crazy story. So Meek had a probation hearing in Philadelphia and he kept telling me about this crazy judge he had who kept like trying to control his life. So he calls me on a Friday afternoon. I remember this like it was yesterday. My memory sucks at this point if it's not really important.

13:56He says, Rube, what do you do on Monday? I said like I'm fucking working what do you think I'm doing He says like can you come to my Probation hearing I'm like you want me to come to your probation He's like yeah why don't you see what happens to a black Person when they go for a probation hearing So I'm like At this point like I don't like I'm dumb I don't know anything like is it really important He's like it would mean a lot to me I said I got you I called my office like yo Clear out like he's got a Probation hearing in Philly it was one o 'clock I said Clear out 30 minutes for the probation hearing so I gotta leave the office by 12 15 I'll be back by two o 'clock or 2 15 so I live like a half an hour from there I get there and Meek's like really nervous like yo this judge gonna lock me up like for what you popped a wheelie on a motorcycle you got a you got a ticket the ticket got dismissed you are not going to jail for popping a wheelie on a motorcycle anyway the judge starts and I watch the probation officer get up and they say they basically say Meek's real name we recommend no sentence.

14:58He's a model probationer. I asked my boy, a model probationer. The DA gets up, and the DA is never friendly like this. They say, we recommend no sentencing. She sits down. The judge starts screaming at the probation officer and the district attorney. I was like, what the fuck is this? Now I'm like, maybe he's getting as crazy as I think he is. So she's going off. So next thing, we're two hours into this thing i'm like cancel my day there's like an intermission in the middle of this probationary there's judges in our glory genie sprinkley one of the worst human beings on this planet okay shout out to her horrible human being okay loved controlling his life love locking people up didn't want to do the fair thing just wanted to lock people up so that's crazy we go we're like it's like two hours into it we just walked the bathroom everyone had to take a leak and he says like they're gonna lock us to me you are not getting locked up i walk back in like a bunch more cops come in and they're like, um, meek's counsel was like, Hey, can you speak on his behalf?

16:00And I get up and I tell the story about, Hey, we've known each other three, four years. This guy's been with my mom a bunch of times, my daughter, like he's around, he's around all these people. You're thinking you only going for half and now it turns into you. There's two and a half hours into this four hour bullshit. And I give like this impassioned, like I'm a pretty passionate guy. I talk about how much I love him. Like, I know he's not perfect, but like, who is perfect? He's creating jobs. He's a great guy. You know, is he perfect? No, but does he deserve to be locked up? Hell no. Like, let this guy go, you know, create jobs for people.

16:34Let him go build his community. The woman never looked at me once. An hour and a half later, 5 p.m. Of course, then it was time for her to go home for the day. So four hours into this thing, she sends him to two to four years in state prison. For Papa New Willy. For Papa New Willy. You couldn't believe that. Hold on. He had tears. You know, Meek wants to, he's a rapper, wants to be tough. his eyes are watering up I'm like crying like a little bitch okay and like I watched him taking his watch off and giving his wallet giving his shit to his mom he's like I wore two pair of underwear this is what happens when you go to jail so I'm like fuck no so I didn't know Desiree Perez at all when this happened like I met her for the first time in the court that day I'm like hey like I said to his mom I'm getting him out of prison I won't stop until he gets out of prison no idea what I'm doing so I was just hey I'm Desiree Perez I run Roc Nation.

17:23You know, I'm going to get him out of prison. It's great. Let's work together. And Jay-Z and Dez stepped up in the biggest of ways. At the end of the day, there's nobody better than Dez. And, you know, we just, you know, we kind of did it together. She did more of it, but we did it together. And we didn't stop until five and a half months later, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ordered this release, and ultimately all the charges got dropped. So it just shows you. Now, this led to not only a business and a major friendship with Dez and Jay-Z, but it also led to the reform where you got involved with freeing people that were all...

18:00Tell us about the reform. Look, I'm an entrepreneur, so at the end of the day, when you see shit that's not right, it's kind of like your instincts to kind of deal with it. So I remember Josh Shapiro is now the governor of Pennsylvania. He kept saying to me during this thing, I know you just want to get meek out of prison, but there's so many other people able to impact it by this. You guys got, when he gets out, you guys got to do something about this. As soon as he got out of prison, myself, me, Jay, Robert Graff, Dez talked and said like, we got to fix the underlying problem. So we right away knew we were going to create the Reform Alliance.

18:37We've now created a pathway. So there's four and a half million people that were on probation for all the time in 2018, when he got out, we've now, I mean, we've created a pathway for more than 1.1 million people to get off of probation for all by changing the underlying broken laws. And I gotta say something, we're humbled to do it. It was a problem that needed addressing. We've made a lot of progress during different political environments too. Republicans, Democrats all working together. Is this, is something that needs to be done? And you know, we built a great organization. The organization, by the way, it's well-funded.

19:07It's got a great team led by Jessica Jackson. And, um, you know, we're going to keep fighting tirelessly for kind of the voiceless. And, you know, I'm proud that we started. And at the end of the day, it was inspired by Meek. It was started by, you know, Meek and Jay and Robert, Des, myself, but you know, it's, it's off to the races and we're proud of it. Bye. That's awesome.

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21:05Seein' through BS they thought was gon' slide. Download TexNow cause it cuts out clownery. You can literally activate it from your couch. Nationwide 5G with the same towers the other companies use. Pay what you want or not at all. You're in control. Show these ridiculous carriers we ain't payin' for stupid. Because we're way too smart to pay dumb. Free app-based talk and text via the TexNow app requires Wi-Fi or data connection. Data plans sold separately. 5G where available. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn, host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Divergent author Veronica Roth to talk about her sprawling new novel, Seek the Traitor's Son.

21:46It's a sci-fi fantasy epic about two protagonists on opposite sides of a war and a prophecy neither of them wanted. My first book was Divergent. And when that came out, like, because it was so popular, I think it attracted, like, mostly positivity. but the negativity I sucked in like a sponge. And I think it was like critiques of things I liked when I was like, you know, I was 23 and I wrote this book and it had all my like dorky little cheesy or maybe unrealistic loves in it. And I started to feel a lot of shame about those things. And so for the rest of my career, I steered away from those little things that like make you feel pleasure when you read.

22:28But I also was like saying no to these parts of myself that I then was like, screw it. So that's this book. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Reese Witherspoon here, checking into my favorite hotel in Paris. Bonjour. Bonjour. I'm traveling with my Wells Fargo autographed journey card, so I earn rewards wherever I book travel. Five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Phew, that was a lot. I need to lie down. Is the room ready?

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23:18I gotta commend you for that. And one of your superpowers is you're a very humble guy. and no matter what you hear how much money Michael Rubin got like when I walk so say I go to the white party who is this security? like is this like the secret you got a different kind of security yo I just walked to the bathroom now I seen I said there goes these guys again what is this like$20 ,000 an hour security this is a different security well look we have no I'm telling you One of the things with me, we love having people of all backgrounds coming together. And you have, you know, all right. I have friends with Democrats, Republicans, every variation in between.

24:02Like, I don't, I'm not into politics at all. Like, I think politics divides us. And I hate, like, I'm all about bringing people together. I'm not a political person. But by the way, there were a lot of FBI and Secret Service. Josh Shapiro's coming here today. Kathy Hochul's coming here today. Kai Trump's coming here today. Like, we're friends with that. Like, look, the way I build. United Nations. I like that I don't think It's nice to break the ice Everybody party with each other Everybody People try to divide us It's such bullshit The single biggest thing I don't like about this world right now It's never been more divided That's bullshit We should all be working together to help each other To push each other up I won't be where I am Without so many people that have helped me I won't be shit without so many people that have been behind me I want to help Anytime I can help somebody that works, whether it's whatever they need.

24:53I'm always trying to do that. It's just my personality, and I'm honored to do that, and people have been honored to do it for me. I'm just all about bringing people together. That's what the White Party was created for, about bringing the most diverse group of people together that we all learn from each other, we grow together. By the way, we're allowed to have fun, too. Fuck not having fun. Who says in 2026 we can't have fun? Fuck that. Oh, man, that's fucking crazy. You're right. And I believe, right? I tell them all the time, they don't believe me, but I'm telling you the truth. When I wake up and I see a light bulb in my bathroom, I can't believe I own the light bulb.

25:30Right. Like I grew up with shit. So I'm so fucking happy. But have you ever woke up at like five in the morning and heard the birds singing? The birds singing all around. That's how I feel every morning when I get up. I'm like, I feel like the bird just, I'm like, wow. Like this is fucking awesome. Here's the truth. If we didn't all have an appreciation about how fortunate we are, there's something a matter with us. Okay. We're all super aware of how fortunate we are. We're not all aware of how fortunate we are. We're broken. Okay. You're lucky. We're all lucky as shit. Okay. Think of the adventures you've had, the life you've led.