Stephen A. Smith Challenges Dave Rubin on Trump Policies, Conservatives the Future of MAGA

24:35I found myself looking at them and saying, you're not black. Why even bring that up? Why even talk about it? I said, don't give a damn what trade you learned or whatever. It was so iniquitous, so insidious. You know, the issue of slavery, why even touch that? That was my attitude. And the same with the curriculums, with the books and everything like that, with President Trump and what he endorsed with executive orders and stuff like this, addressing DEI. My attitude was this. and I said this to Officer Tatum on his podcast, come to me and tell me that you would tell the Jewish community they ain't going to have, you know, they're going to have, they're going to have their access limited to books and other education material about their history and watch what happens.

25:22In other words, if you're going to do something like that, if you did it to everybody, then I get where you're coming from. But when it seemed isolated towards the black community, It was a huge turnoff for me. And that's a second. That's actually a question I will ask Byron Donald, too, who will also be a guest on the show in the future. I'm glad to hear that. I don't know that there was limited access to the black community to certain books, but I would say this. If you said, if somebody wrote a book and said, and I'm sure books have actually been written about this, that the Holocaust actually taught the Jewish people a certain lesson and that look at how many Holocaust survivors became unbelievably successful business people and all sorts of things in various countries.

26:11that would be true and it would be worth noting because the Holocaust was horrible and slavery was horrible. We don't have to play the game of which is worse or anything else. Terrible things have happened to all sorts of people. But out of terrible things, good things do happen. So I think an apples-to-apples equation would be, is it possible that some slaves learned trades that ultimately were positive? I think the answer to that is yes, and I don't think that makes slavery good. And is it possible that survivors of the Holocaust who had their families annihilated learned something about survival and everything else that they were able to then apply to business and the world and family afterwards?

26:49The obvious answer to that is yes. And that doesn't make the Holocaust good. But again, I think it would be worth unpacking that with them a little bit. And I'm sure, you know, a few of the people, a few of the scholars who put that curriculum together, by the way, were black. So I get it. I get you. You are going to have a certain sensitivity to something that might be different than mine. And this is where, what a great place to try to whittle all of that down, right? Imagine if we whittled all of that stuff down to, hey, we're just from slightly different places. We just look slightly different.

27:21We want the same things, and we've whittled it down to this much. I'll do that all day long. So would I. Dave Rubin right here with Stephen A., straight shooter with Stephen A. Getting back to Ron DeSantis, what's one issue where you genuinely disagree with him? Because every time you speak about him, you seem incredibly supportive. And I'm not knocking you for it. I'm just wondering, if there's something that you disagreed with him about, what would it be?

27:48In terms of policy, I don't think I have anything. I think he has left this state so freaking strong. You know, he's working on getting rid of property taxes right now, which we likely will do. It's already passed the House. He's got to get it to referendum. But he's done everything right. I'll tell you an amazing story about DeSantis. The day I was at his re-election a couple of years ago at the re-election party, and I was broadcasting from the evening that night. And a guy came up to me right before we went live and said, Dave, I got to tell you something. I'm an electrical engineer down in southwest Florida in Fort Myers.

28:23And he said when DeSantis and when Hurricane Ian hit, which was the Category 5 that just decimated Southwest Florida, it's the 100-year storm that we had about three years ago. He said DeSantis got all the engineers. He took us to the Sanibel Causeway, which is a three or four mile long bridge that got annihilated. And he said to all of us, what do you need me to do so you guys can fix this? And basically they gave him the list. And that bridge was functional in about a month. Everybody was saying it was going to be years. So the guy consistently does the right thing. If you just want me to really, really dig deep here, I would say he probably has to get a little better at this, just a little better at letting go of policy and just kind of shooting the bull with people.

29:12And, you know, that when he was running, he was a little too stiff, something like that. But even that, I'm really digging for that because, you know, I'm not looking for a friend to be president. I'm looking for a great executive to be president. But I know a lot of people want a friend. A lot of people want, you know, just some funny, jovial, whatever. So, yeah, I would say that he could probably get better at that. But policy, I don't know. I don't know. Do you have one? No, I don't. I got to think hard and long about it. But being in Florida and seeing what he's done there. Listen, I don't have to agree with everything.

29:42I know it's a hell of a lot better than New York. I know it's a hell of a lot better than California. I know that much. There ain't no question about that. And I got to give credit where credit is due in that regard. Other than that, I mean, you know, you do want to hear a heightened level of sensitivity towards minority groups in this country. You do want to see that because the desolate, the disenfranchised and beyond. Listen, when you're catering as a party and you're perceived rather as catering to the white establishment, that's more of the same. And that leaves a lot of people on the outside looking in.

30:13as chaotic as the world is right now, I know there's a lot of people that would prefer the quote-unquote good old days compared to some of the stuff that we're seeing right now, but there's still a lot of people in America that would say hell no to that because of the progressive steps that have taken place. Having said all of that, you are a transplant from California to Florida, like you said. I happen to know you were recently in California. your thoughts about the state of the state of California because Gavin Newsom is perceived as being he's some people are predicting he will be the Democratic nominee in 2028.

30:52Not everyone, but some people are saying that your thoughts about what you've seen when you were out here, because that's where I'm at. Yeah. You know, I'm a born and bred New Yorker. I was born in 76 in Brooklyn before it was, you know, hipster Brooklyn, when it was old school Brooklyn. I grew up in the suburbs in Long Island, But I lived I lived in New York City for about 20 years. And then I had I had eight years in Cali in Los Angeles and I had six great years there. And the day covid started, it all ended. I knew it that day. And and I fought very hard. I actually ended up with a beautiful ending to the story of Larry Elder.

31:22You know, he this is the guy that woke me up politically. And then I ended up campaigning with Larry Elder on stage with him to get rid of Newsom during the recall. Look, everything Newsom touches turns to crap except his bank account. This is a guy who was mayor of San Francisco, which was one of the most beautiful, flourishing cities in the United States, maybe the most, especially when you think of its proximity to Silicon Valley, the amount of money coming through, the beautiful mountains, the water, the Golden Gate Bridge, all this stuff. And he turned it into an absolute nightmare. I once went when Elon took over Twitter.

31:55I was invited to go there. And I go up to Elon's office. And he's got a corner office there. And I'm trying to talk business with him or what the hell's going on with shadow banning on Twitter and the rest. And he goes, watch this, watch this. And he shows me he's pointing and basically does play by play as if he's watching a basketball game of where they get the drugs, where they do the drugs and where they wander to. And we just watch them. It was like watching a video game. So I'm upstairs with the world's richest man watching, watching him show me what an absolute disaster it is just feet below him.

32:25Everyone knows how bad San Francisco has got. And then, of course, what happens in Cali politics? you then become governor and you push that across the state. When I was in Los Angeles this week, I mean, the homeless situation, homelessness is one thing. It's the drug situation that they just allow this everywhere, everywhere. My guy, Joey, who works for me, who you've met, he came with me. He hadn't been to L.A. as an adult. I mean, we saw people smoking crack and cooking drugs or whatever it is right on the corner of the street in broad daylight at 8 a.m. And then, you know, people have to wander by.

33:01But the thing is, not a lot of people wander by because the street, the stores are closed. We kept saying to each other, where are all the people? Where are all the people? So I don't know what the plan in Los Angeles is. It's like, OK, we could all just the rich people will just live in the hills and then it'll be just sort of a Mad Max wasteland on the bottom. But Cali has huge problems. And unless L.A. look, L.A.'s got to go Spencer Pratt. But the numbers just are really tough. You know, the idea of a Republican running that city. And, you know, is there any chance for Steve Hilton to win governor?

33:32It's a super majority Democrat state. I really hope I'm wrong, but I just see very little chance for a return. What about Gavin Newsom and his supporters making the argument that whether it's economic stability, maintaining a massive economy that serves as the world's fourth largest and balanced the state's updated budget without a structural deficit heading into 2028. They'll point to social safety nets. They'll point to health care expansion. They'll say these are good things. We just care about the people. The right does not. What do you what do you say to an argument that Gavin Newsom and supporters of Gavin Newsom would say to that?

34:07Of course they will say that. Gavin will say he cares about you as he ruins the city that you live in, right? Like Gavin Newsom, there's a very famous video of Gavin Newsom about 15 years ago when he was mayor of San Francisco talking about his five to 10 year plan to end homelessness. And he got all the money to do it and then it exploded in San Francisco and again has now moved that to all of California. That's what they do, right? As long as you give them power, as long as you say, okay, we will take from those people for our programs, they will pretend that they love you. But you just need to look at the fruits of those things.

34:44I mean, let's try it this way. Can you think of one big blue city that is thriving right now? No. I cannot. And that's the answer. I can't say it's L.A. I can't say it's New York. I can't say that. I can't say that at all. Chicago, which has basically the strictest gun laws in the United States, has more shootings every weekend than virtually any other place. So you could do that version of it. We just did the homeless and drug version that you're seeing in L.A. and San Francisco. You could do the New York City version of it where all of the people with means are leaving. Eventually, people say, boy, I'm getting taxed 38 % by the feds.

35:22You can't escape that. That is what it is. Now I'm in New York City, and I'm a top earner. Well, OK, now that I'm going to be hit another 13%, if I live in New York City, there's another tax on top of that. Plus, I paid payroll tax and everything else. At some point, you go, boy, I'm making$1 million a year. That's pretty good. But I'm only walking with, I don't know,$300 ,000,$400 ,000, something like that, which, of course, is nice. $300 ,000,$400 ,000 is nice. But you are not rich in New York City with that amount of money. So then I come down to Florida, and I'm suddenly going, wait a minute.

35:52We've got better roads. We've got cleaner streets. We've got a more flourishing economy. And there's no state income tax. And they're trying to get rid of property taxes. Because the thing that the Democrats seem to never realize is it's not a revenue issue. It's a spending issue. That's why Mamdami, he can't come up with a number. If you said to me, Dave, you know, I talked to Mamdami. And if we give this guy$20 billion, we give this guy a trillion dollars. He asked for 21. He asked for 21 billion. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. He asked for 21 billion. It's like what they do with minimum wage. It's like one person comes in, Bernie says, I want$15 minimum wage.

36:31And then Rashida Tlaib comes in and says, why not 25? Because it's all made up. You have to run a business to understand how much to pay people like you do. I am sure you have to look at your books at the end of the day and go, I made this much revenue. I've got a producer. And so they're just playing an intellectual game. So whether it's the shootings in Chicago or the drugs in LA and San Francisco or the people fleeing New York because of taxes, everywhere that the progressive ideology takes root. It's not good for anybody, particularly the poor people that they're pretending to care of. But Dave Rubin, we also, we can flip it and we can talk about the president, Donald Trump, right now.

37:10Approval rating is plummeting, as you well know. About 37 % of voters approve of Trump's job performance, according to the New York Times-Siena poll released today. Down 3 % from the last poll conducted in January. 69 % of independents, a core voting bloc to GOP, will have to capture to maintain control of the House in November. You notice disapprove of Trump up from 62 % in January. You're engaging in a war that you said wasn't a war, that you said would never be a war because you bombed Iran in January, last June, but then you come back and you do it again. You've got people thinking that Benjamin Netanyahu was the one that coaxed him into doing this instead of him doing it himself, and he did it against the wishes of his own security team.

37:50You've got all of this stuff going on, inflation is an issue the economy is an issue the border is not an issue uh you know anymore and give him credit for that no doubt but still in all 50 percent of americans somewhat or strongly approved of his handling of the economy when he first came into office and now that has plummeted so we can look at the democrats and we can say what we're saying about them what do you say about the job that president donald trump has done over these last few months in your estimation Overall, I think his job, if the guy had done nothing else beyond close the border, we were being invaded.

38:26Fact. You know, we had probably 16 to 20 million people come in in four years. That's on top of about 12 million people who were already here illegally. You know, you end up somewhere around 30 million illegals in a country of 350 million people. That's almost 10 percent. At some point, it is a full on invasion. So the fact that he closed the border to me, if he did almost nothing else, I would still give him a pretty solid grade. But let me address a number you just said there, because there is a key number, and you're totally right. We can't just talk crap about the left. That doesn't solve anything.

38:58I think you said 69 % of independents now seem to be turning against him. So the independents, this is where he needs to make inroads. When you look at what Trump created, the MAGA coalition, think about what he did in this last go around. He brings in Bobby Kennedy, the standard bearer name of the Democrat Party. He brings in a Kennedy, right? So who's, you know, running as a Democrat only two years ago, right? You bring in Tulsi Gabbard. You get pot smoking, MMA fighting, mushroom eating Joe Rogan to endorse you. You get a guy like me who was not a Trump supporter. I voted for him the last election, the middle one that he lost, but I didn't vote for him the first time.

39:40You've now got a guy like Bill Maher. They're kind of dancing around. There's something there. So what I think Trump has to do is he has to figure out, OK, how in the next six months do I keep expanding this coalition? You've got your base because the numbers right now, he's got about 97 percent of the MAGA base, but that's not enough. So what do you have to do? Well, most things seem to come down to the economy. Now, there's a limited amount of stuff that the president can do. We are getting some tax rebates from the big, beautiful bill. Obviously, whether you're for or against tariffs, we do have more equitable deals with countries, including China, almost every country in the world right now.

40:16So we need to see some of that shake out. The phrases that I want to keep hearing from Trump are common sense, sensibility, like just the Iran war won't last forever. So even though gas is a little bit higher right now, you know, it was much higher than it dropped. Now it's a little bit higher. My hope is that this whatever stalemate we're in right now with the Strait of Hormuz and the blockade, hopefully that ends. I also think and I really don't think this can be underestimated. The 4th of July and our 250th anniversary, there's going to be a burst of patriotism in this country. There's just going to be a baked in burst.

40:49And I think he's got to run with that. So it's not to say that he's doing everything perfectly. Look, I think a lot of people in his base want to see more deportations even faster. So maybe he needs to move on that. But that scares off a certain amount of the libs who are moving his way. So that's what makes politics kind of fun, you know. But they're talking to people like yourself and a lot of other folks, whether they lean and independent or they lean to the right or whatever. You run across a lot of decent people, more than people realize or willing to admit, who care. But obviously they pay attention to the economy.

41:22They pay attention to safety in the street. They pay attention to national security, other things like this. But I'm quite sure, knowing the kind of guy that you are, you know, when I say what I'm about to say, it's going to hit you. It's going to hit you in a certain way because you care. what nearly$1 trillion has been cut from federal health and welfare programs, primarily Medicaid, to help offset the cost of tax cuts under the Trump administration. What do you say to folks that look at Trump supporters and say, do y 'all care? Do y 'all not realize that this is the kind of stuff that's been happening to where the wealthy gets wealthier, but the poor and the desolate seem stuck and they're not thriving nearly as much as President Trump swore they would?

42:07Yeah, so I think, yeah, maybe this is one where we actually do have a sort of more of a bigger point of disagreement. I mean, this is where I would say, well, first off, we're uncovering crazy amounts of fraud, right? Great, this is what JD has been tasked with right now. We are finding out, do you know that a third, this is nuts, Dr. Oz, who's in charge of Medicare right now, a third of the hospices in the entire country are in Los Angeles and they are being funneled insane amounts of money. So the idea that when, okay, you cut this from this, well, doesn't mean the money was working. I think one of the things that the Democrats are really good at is they'll go, okay, education's not good, throw more money at it.

42:46But that's not really what the issue is. You want to make better education. You want to have better health care and everything else. So this is where I don't think people are getting richer just because a certain amount of money is being cut from this program or that program. What I would want, and by the way, I think we're on the precipice of something really incredible with AI. I want as much transparency in the system and to see where the dollars are actually going. We're going through basically a post-World War II world. with now we're finding out all this stuff about the NGOs. And, you know, you saw that Southern Poverty Law Center story where they're quite literally funding the KKK.

43:25There's been such an endless money laundering thing that to me, if you say I'm cutting from this, I'm cutting from that. I don't have a problem with it because so much of it has been fraudulent. And also I would say how much of it has worked. If the idea of giving to a certain amount of people or having government programs that are supposed to help people, which are always temporary until they're permanent. If they worked, then we wouldn't have so many people stuck in those things. And that has nothing to do with skin color or anything else. If you say to a bunch of people, hey, you're gonna get subsidized housing, you're gonna get food stamps, et cetera, et cetera, and you don't have to work for it, well, then you might just not work.

44:04And that's how you get perpetual poverty and everything else. So I want as low taxes, Stephen, you're doing okay. And I want you to keep all or as much of your money as possible. And by the way, I want the guy who's making 50 grand busting his ass at Pep Boys to keep as much of his money as possible. So I think that's just a fundamental place where generally people on the right and left, people on the right generally see it as a keep more of what's yours. And people on the left see it as more of, oh, the government must help you. But I think fundamentally, based on what you're saying, for the purposes of you and I having this discussion, I don't think we're far apart in terms of how we think.

44:41I think the word trust comes into play because you're willing to apparently trust that administration along with, you know, President Trump, Vice President, you know, J.D. I get that. My issue is I look at it and I say, these are the same people that couldn't come up for fighting for a month, obviously a negotiating ploy, but was fighting for a month and wasn't paying, couldn't come up with two billion dollars to pay TSA workers. but you're spending two billion a day on a war you know in other words somehow somehow you could figure out in other words when you want to do something we got the money when when you don't really want to do something or when you're playing games at the negotiating table or whatever the american people are suffering along the way which is what happened under this administration as well so i think about those kind of things and that hits me the war thing is a separate thing there's always money for war that's just how it is when all these people are like if we didn't go to war yesterday, we would have put all this money into education.

45:38It's just not how it works. I don't know what to tell you. But as far as the TSA people being paid, that's fully on the Dems, because what they were doing was holding up. The Dems did the government shutdown because they wanted to stop ICE. But ICE, as I'm sure you know, was already funded. ICE is funded right now through 2029. That was a big, beautiful bill. So the Dems wanted people to think, oh, if we do this government shutdown and people are, you know, you got a real pain in the ass at the airport and everything else. They think, and they're probably right to some extent, people don't really pay attention to things.

46:11They don't really realize that we're the ones who did it. It was not the Republicans in the Trump administration that did this shutdown so that those people didn't get paid. It was the Democrats, but the Democrats did it in the most cynical way because they basically said, we know it's us, but the American people aren't that bright. And when they get to the airport and they're in a big ass line, they're going to blame Trump because he's in charge. So they've done perhaps what you could say is a very, you know, powerful, cynical, political ploy, but I think it's been, it's been kind of nasty. I want those people to be paid, of course, of course.

46:42A few questions before I let you get on out of here, and thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it. First of all, you criticized, you criticized legacy media for years, but conservative media and media ecosystems are now massive. Is the right becoming the new establishment media in your mind? And if so, do they deserve to be on that pedestal? Yeah, well, I don't I don't know if it's that the right has, you know, the fact that the right grew online faster than the left is purely because the left controlled most of the mainstream media. You know, if you think about the New York Times and ABC and CNN and MSNBC, they obviously all lean left at the very least.

47:20So when when YouTube and Spotify and podcasts began, the reason the hardcore political people were on the right was just because that was where the market was. There was a reaction to it. And then suddenly all these people that were like, boy, you know, CNN is lying to me. New York Times is basically propaganda. They finally had a home. What I would say is one thing that's been really disappointing to me in the last year, particularly, and I'm kind of an OG in this thing, like I'm an old veteran at this point, is that when I got in on this, you know, it was the Wild West. And I've always, you know, I think you know me well enough, like I'm going to get some things wrong for sure, but I do my damnedest to tell people what I think and tell them the truth.

47:58And if I make a mistake, I try to address it. I think what's happened over the last couple of years, particularly in the last year or so, is that the whole ecosystem really has been poisoned somehow. You know, the pressures of fame and clicks, and if I do this, I get more views and the way things are monetized, I think it's broken a lot of brains. So I don't know that the right online is the new mainstream, really, you know, mainstream for all their flaws, they're still hanging on, right? Like they still are there. They're not, CBS is not closing its doors tomorrow and neither is the New York Times.

48:30But I would say the online ecosystem, which a few years ago looked like, wow, we're really building something that could kind of map us to a great future. It's become pretty poisoned. And, you know, I was or am friends with a lot of people that I now see as kind of bad actors in that. In our conversations, you and I have been very, very big on civil discourse. We've talked about it on several occasions. We obviously think it's incredibly important. Do you really think in America in the year 2026 and beyond, you know, that we're capable of returning to persuasion over tribal warfare? I love that question.

49:11I don't know. I have no idea. Maybe just the nature of the internet and that they will keep pushing us all away from each other. We'll all cater news to ourselves. Again, then the algorithms will do God knows what to us. And we will all live in very fundamentally different realities. that quite literally you and your neighbor will, you know, something will happen. You know, a war will start. There will be an economic collapse. There will be a natural disaster somewhere, whatever story you want to pick. And you and your neighbor, because you ingest different news, will think completely opposite things about how it happened or why it happened or who's involved.

49:50We definitely could be heading towards that. I would say, you know, a white pill on that would be that as AI, as I referenced before cleaning up some of the fraud, But AI, hopefully, if we can trust these models, and that's obviously a big if, and some people think Grok is great. Obviously, you and I are kind of Elon guys, so I tend to use Grok more. But certain people don't trust him, and they use ChatGPT more. And if you put the same prompt in both of those things, you're going to get very different answers. But there might be some way that cleans up some of that. But it might just be that at some level, humanity kind of is what it is.

50:26And as long as we're not killing each other, and I really mean this, it sounds kind of glib, but in a country like America, where literally every person on earth would be jealous to be in, right? Again, it's why nobody ever leaves. Everyone comes here. It might just be that we will live in very different worlds and the purpose of the government will just, hey, don't kill each other, but here we are. In your perfect world, who is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States for 2028? And who is the Democratic nominee they're going up against? That means Stephen A is not running?

51:07Is that what you're telling me? Yeah, I ain't giving up my money. I ain't giving up my money. If they find a way for me not to have to give up my money, I'll go for it. But go ahead. So on the Republican side, I mean, Rubio is the all-star. I think that's very obvious. It doesn't even we don't even have to dive into the politics. If you just look at the track record of this guy, you know, I've interviewed him a bunch of times. I know him pretty well from the Florida ecosystem. He is a decent family man and he is a great spokesman for American values. I'm sure you saw that thing when he did. He stepped in at the White House press press briefing the other day and he just gave that unbelievable soliloquy on what makes America great.

51:43I think he picks up all of the right pieces. And actually, Stephen, he does exactly what you're asking for, because basically what you're saying is you like a lot of the Trump stuff, but there's some stuff you're not too thrilled with and you don't like some of the rhetoric. Rubio fills in a lot of those gaps, I think. Look, J.D. obviously is a skilled politician. I like him. I've interviewed him many times. I think he's a decent human being. I think there's a little bit of weirdness there kind of with the Tucker world. But OK, that would be fine. I think they will have one way if DeSantis gets involved.

52:14I mean, you could see competent people getting in on it. And by the way, I think Trump is going to want a brokered convention. Mark my words. I don't think this thing's being handed to J.D. I think Trump goes out and he kind of does like it. I don't think it should be. Yeah. Oh, no. You don't think it should be handed to him? I think, J.D., I think the problem, I think to a lesser degree, DeSantis, a significantly lesser degree, DeSantis had the same problem when he was running that I think J.D. has now. I think he tries to be too Trump-ish. Marco Rubio, I find him to be his own man. I find him to be an adult in the room.

52:48He has to deal with the stuff he has to deal with because of the position that he's in, and Trump's the boss. But he's nothing like that, and he has no desire to be that. And I appreciate that, whereas with J.D., J.D. strikes me as somebody who tries to come across as a younger version of Trump. Can I tell you a story? I don't think I've ever told this story on camera. I don't think Rubio will mind. But a couple of years ago when Rubio was running for re-election down here in Florida for Senate and there was tons of senators that were up for re-election nationwide, I went to a pretty well-known tech guy fundraiser and there were about eight senators there all giving their pitch with big money people there.

53:26And seven of the eight were there and Rubio wasn't there, but his name was on the list. He was supposed to be there. And all these guys come in and they give their full on political pitches, you know, very rehearsed and practiced and all that stuff. And Rubio comes in real late and he goes, Hey guys, uh, listen, I'm sorry. I was late. I got to tell you, um, my son's playing football in high school tonight. And I, I just really wanted to go to the game. And, uh, and he almost, he, his voice was almost cracking. He was like, I really wanted to go to the game and I really wanted to see it. And I wanted to be there for He goes, you know, I think most of you know my track record.

53:59And, you know, if you want to donate money to me, that's fine. And if you don't, I apologize for being late. And that's fine, too. And I thought, man, that's that's it right there. That's it right there. He probably could have walked out of there with millions of bucks. I don't know. And I don't know. Maybe he wouldn't want me or the guy that ran it wouldn't want me to say that story. But I'm telling you, that's the truth. And I think that gets to the heart of what you're what you're talking about. On the Democrat side, I mean, I really think it's just going to be a clown car of ridiculousness.

54:29They don't know what to do. So you have the real radical side of it. So let's say AOC probably represents that right now, like the real hardcore progressive, whatever that is. You'll get two or three others. You know, Bernie's done. Elizabeth Warren's done. Those guys have run out. The guy that I think is the dark horse who, if I had to guess, will be the nominee is Pete Buttigieg. And the reason I'm saying that is, have you noticed that he sounds exactly like Barack Obama? I mean, literally the way he speaks, the tone. No, I have not noticed that. Oh, I'm telling you, I'm going to text you a video where they've done a side-by-side of the pauses and the hand motions.

55:09I really think they are training him. And it seems to me, yeah. It's important that I ask you, of all people, this question, based on what you just said about Pete Buttigieg. Do you think America would ever vote for a gay individual to be the presidency of the United States? I don't know. You know, I know people want me to say, I suppose, that I think there's all this homophobia out there, which I just don't like these phobia terms. Right. I don't know. I think in America, people judge you on your beliefs and your behavior. And if they believe that his beliefs and his behavior are decent, then they will vote for him.

55:51But I think what will happen with the Dems, the reason I think I'm kind of leaning towards it being him, is he's young, kind of looks the part. He's modeling Obama. And I think the way they will sell him to the public is the same way they sold Joe Biden, believe it or not. Because Joe Biden was sold to us as I'm not a radical lunatic lefty. But then he governed like one. And I think that's exactly what would happen with Buttigieg. It would be their way of saying, see, to the Democrats, we're not crazy. We're not going with AOC. We're not going with the mom-dommy types. We're going with Pete. But then Pete would end up governing as if he was one of them.

56:28I don't know the answer. What do you think on that? Do you think America would when it comes to sexuality? Yeah, I think that's fair. That might be right. That might be right. Right. I'm not saying that they should or shouldn't, but I don't believe they would. You know, you might be right on that. And frankly, I don't care as long as gay people have equal rights as everybody else. You know, if America has a gay president, I couldn't care less. And I also couldn't care less about the president's skin color or gender. Right. Right. Last question. I had a black individual, a black man that is a liberal that sent me something about the GOP.

57:06and I wanted to share it with you just so you can hear where a lot of black liberals are coming from when they speak about this administration, this party, at this particular moment in time, or even for the last several decades. This is what he wrote. I'm not going to say who it is because I don't have his permission to do so because I don't know if he wanted me to say this publicly. He said, bruh, GOP can't get black votes unless they appeal to black voters. they will never do that because their entire agenda is to appeal to white voters knowing as many black individuals that you speak to in the world of politics and outside of politics that you talk to about social issues political issues etc etc Dave Rubin when you hear that that's the thinking of a lot of folks who are black that are not on the right what's a reaction to that, knowing what you know about the modern day conservative GOP.

58:08Yeah. Well, it makes me very sad to hear that, actually, because I know plenty of black conservatives who are treated the exact same way white conservatives or Jewish conservatives or whatever it else might be. You know, I always think back to when Donald Trump in his first go around when he was given that State of the Union speech and he talked about lowest all time black and Latino unemployment. Do you remember that? And then the camera flashed to the Congressional Black Caucus, and they all sat there like this. And I thought, man, you know, if nothing else, okay, you hate this guy. You don't like the way he tweets, all of the stuff.

58:43But he just said that Black unemployment is at an all-time low. Could you not give him credit for that? So when I hear someone say, well, he doesn't care about us, or he cares more about white people, what I think Donald Trump cares about is American success. And he's trying to do the things that will create success for everybody. Yeah. But hold on. He didn't say Donald Trump specifically. He said the GOP. Pointed out 1865 to 1964. He talked about black folks did vote for Republicans. Why? Because they had a black agenda. When the GOP cast black folks aside, black folks left. So in other words, what he's saying, he wasn't even talking about Trump.

59:22He was talking about since 1964 before they cast black folks site white Southern strategy and all of this other stuff. And because they cast black issues and black voters aside, that's when black voters left. And that's what he's talking about. That's how the party is still viewed today. That's what he was saying. So, so I, so there, it seems to be more of an optics issue than maybe a reality issue. I don't know. To me, black people are just like white people and everybody else. So the best thing you can do is get the government off their back, make sure they have more of their own money in their pocket to make the decisions they have.

59:55If they happen to live, let's say, in urban areas that have crime or drugs, you'd want to have more policing, not defund the police. So I would say to that person, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the Republicans have done everything right. Of course they have not. And by the way, the parties flip over time, right? In many ways, Donald Trump is a Democrat of 25 years ago. But what I would say is, if you look at the last, let's say, four or five decades, what did the Democrats do for the black community? The black community basically has voted around 90 plus percent for the Democrats and show me the fruits of that.

1:00:28So if you keep voting for people who keep making your life worse, whether that is true or just the perceived reality, you might want to put some pressure on them and say, hey, I'm going to go over there and see what happens. So that's just a little bit of real politic, right? If a group of people in power know that you're going to vote for them no matter what, they're not going to give you much. You saw me. I just said that last week. I said, listen, I've been I said I wanted folks to vote Republican for one election. People act like I just said that I've been saying it for over 20 years. I said just one election.

1:01:04Black folks vote Republican. Why? So the Democrats know they can't take your vote for granted. The Republicans know they have a chance to get your vote. And as a result, you're not disenfranchised because both sides are volleying for your vote. That's what you should be doing. That's what I said. And real quick, let me just say one other of thing because you know how much I admire you. I love you as a broadcaster and I was a fan before we got to know each other. And the cool thing is that you, I love people that sort of get dragged into politics. I don't love like the purely political people. I really don't because politics is not everything.

1:01:35And in many ways you do for a living what I really wanted to do. I wanted to be an ESPN broadcaster when I was a kid. I was watching, before Olbermann went nuts, I was watching him and Kilbourne when I was in college going, man, that is what I want to do. And you I could get to do that for a living, I could probably ease up on the political thing pretty quickly. When I was in New York City, I saw Buck Williams, who I loved from those early 90s Blazers. And I was like, I love you, man. And that that to me was the best part of the whole trip. It had nothing to do with being on TV or anything else.

1:02:04So. Right. But I did. They rubbed twice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it was twice. I know if it was twice. You know, it's rigged. It's your own backyard. You're familiar with the ribs. Appreciate you, my man. Thanks so much for the conversation, man. Look forward to talking to you again. You take it easy. We'll catch up soon all right good to see you my friend all right buddy the one and only dave rubin right here with steven a straight shooter with yours truly steven a got a tremendous podcast the rubin report does a great great job all the time uh i've been a guest on this show on a couple of occasions and obviously he was a guest on my show right now for the first time really enjoyed that conversation a light a lot of stuff to be enlightened about make no mistake about it's all about perspectives everybody it's all about perspectives and you can't learn about them unless you actually hear them, meaning willing to listen and hear.

1:02:48That's what it's all about. That's what we just had, a conversation today. Both of us thoroughly enjoyed it, I'm sure. That's it for this edition of Straight Shooter. Catch you Wednesday night on my show, Straight Shooter with Stephen A., Sirius XM, POTUS Radio, Channel 124, Wednesday nights, every Wednesday night from 6 to 8 p.m. See you then. Until then, peace and love, everybody. Stephen A., signing off.