Why I'm Taking a Break

25:24The smell of weed, the scent of urine, the zombie apocalypse, the blood, the goo, the gunk, the disgusting state of it all. It's all here. Dreams can come true for you in Los Angeles. It's a dump. It's a dump. It's a dying city. It is what it is. and, you know, I don't live here anymore. So good luck with all that. Yeah, and remember that was before the election and you guys all know Spencer, night of the election, thought he was number two. Nithya Raman crying concession speech. She's now in and he's out. So yes, good luck with all of that. Los Angeles, June, very obvious what the highlight was.

26:12We did our big Florida man show with Ron DeSantis at the Fillmore here in Miami Beach. And we just had a great night. And about a thousand of you, I think a little bit more showed up and it was a wonderful night. And I got the gov. He's not a tequila guy. I tried. He's a whiskey guy. So we got him some McLaren, what is it, McAllen, whatever it is. And we just had a great night. We did a live Rubin Report, which again, we wrote that day. Some of the greatest hits, but then stuff that was going on that day. And then I brought the gov out. Then we did the Q &A with Carolla and with Jillian Michaels.

26:48And it was just, and we had a fun after party. And I, you know, I always love meeting you guys. And people came in from literally all over the country. Like I'm pretty sure I met somebody from every state and people came from Canada and someone came, someone literally came from Finland. Like it was just a great night. The other thing that was great in June was a couple of days, what was this? A few days after that, actually, my buddy Bill Maher was honored at the Kennedy Center in DC. for the Mark Twain Prize in American humor. There's me and Bill together. And again, Dr. Drew made a lot of, Drew and Stephen A.

27:24Smith loomed large this year, but it was a wonderful night. And the special, they shot a special for Netflix, which I think will be up sometime in August on Netflix of the whole evening. And I have to say, look, I love Bill. And sometimes I poke him here and whether he ever ends up voting the way I do or not, whatever, it doesn't matter. This is someone I've admired for literally 30 plus years, who I've become a friend and a contemporary with. And to see my friend honored, I just, it was truly, it was a great night. And he said two things in his acceptance speech real quick that I think are really important.

28:00You know, a lot of the comics, they were kind of roasting him before because he's a lifelong atheist and he never got married and he doesn't have kids. And he got up there at the end and he said, you know, the relationship of my life has been with my audience. And I thought that that was kind of beautiful. Like it was kind of beautiful. He wanted to be kind of a playboy and whatever and he didn't get married. I don't know if he has any regrets about any of those things. It's not even my business in some sense, even though I'm his friend. But I thought that was just a beautiful thing. And the other thing that he said that I thought was really great, and I've really taken this to heart lately, maybe it has something to do with turning 50, is that the thing he's most proud of in his career is that he's still doing it.

28:42And I thought that was pretty great. He's 70, but he's like, I knew so many great comics who had one HBO special and then disappeared or had three episodes of a TV show and then it got canceled, or these were the most talented guys and it never happened for them. And I know guys like that. I know guys that were insanely talented and it never happened. I know guys that were marginally talented and work hard and something happened. I could do every version of that. But I think as I look back on everything I've done now, what I'm most proud of is that I'm still doing it and enjoying it and people are tuning in.

29:15And hopefully when I'm 70, I'll still be operating at that high level that he is. Let's get us to July. In July, well, just what, a week ago, I sat down with internet sensation, Calvicular. And I got it. This is the looks-maxing kid who, you know, he's 20 years old and, you know, he's known for the thing that he said he doesn't wanna be known for, which is whacking his jaw with a hammer, which helps create the thing here. I have to say, first off, my team was ridiculously excited. Like it was like, except for Connor. No, Connor was not happy about it. Everybody else was very excited. You all wore fancy clothes that day, put gel in your hair.

29:54Like everybody was, your lifts in your shoes, all the stuff. But I really enjoyed talking to him because I was like, what? You know, he's become an internet sensation, whether you like it or not, whether it's egomaniacal, whether it's narcissistic, whether it's all the worst things of what the internet could be focused on optics instead of, you know, spirit or whatever. You can do all that. But I found there was something kind of very honest and thoughtful about him. And I really enjoyed the conversation. Later that night, he was out in Miami and got into a massive brawl and I think was arrested.

30:31But, you know, what are you going to do? Guys, let's talk about Relief Factor for a second, because this is a show and I have somebody hand me my relief factor on it because somebody's got to pay the bills, but they do some great work. And you know, guys, I banged up the shoulder. Yes, I did the stem cells. I've done the exosomes. I'm doing the PT, but I do take my relief factor every day. And it really does deal with aches and pains and all of that stuff. And wait, let me open this thing here. There we go. I even take it on the show because I'm a pro.

31:05You guys know it's 100 % drug free and it's research based formula has ingredients like omega-3, turmeric, resveratrol, icarin and black pepper, which all support your body's healthy response to inflammation and help reduce everyday discomfort. It really is fantastic guys. And as America celebrates her big 250th, Relief Factor wants to help you declare your independence from everyday aches and pains for a limited time. You can get there a three week quick start for just$17.76. That's$17.76, three week quick start. It's ready for you. Visit relieffactor.com or call 1-800-4-RELIEF. All right, we're gonna throw in a couple locals, community Q &A or questions.

31:45And then yes, you can take them. There you go. Look at you crawling over here to take the Relief Factor away. We'll get to a couple of questions and then we have a few other things that we wanna hit before I give you the long and heartfelt goodbye. What's the name on this question? in Phoenix, go back. Olaf says, what was your favorite class in college? You know, that is, it's interesting. I had an interesting thing happen to me in college. I really did not like class, particularly the first year, but really the first two years. I went to SUNY Binghamton in New York State School. It's a great school, but I did not like lectures.

32:20I could not pay attention. I didn't like being one of like two or something, I guess probably 300 in a giant class. I just, I could not do it. I just was, I would zone out, I'd be doodling. It was before like, I don't know, it was literally before anyone had laptops in a class. I don't know what I was doing. I was drawing nonsense most of the time, probably concentric circles over and over again, like Kamala Harris, I don't know. But so my grades actually were not great freshman year, got a little better sophomore year because classes got a little smaller. Then junior year when they really started getting smaller, then my grades got better.

32:56And then senior year, my grades were fantastic because it was smaller classes like 12 or 15 kids. And then I felt like I knew the professor. Like, I guess that probably fully makes sense in my line of work. But the class that I enjoyed the most, I took, it was my last semester of senior year, I took a class called Policy Issues Beyond 2000. Surprise, surprise, I graduated in 1998 and it was all about all of the things that are gonna be coming in the future. and I remember I had the last thing that I had to do was give a big speech about, well I had to do a paper and then give a speech and what I chose to talk about was, it's so funny because it's not even an issue anymore, but at the time they were all talking about a huge massive drought that was gonna happen in the Middle East.

33:44So I wrote a huge paper on desalinization and how to make the desert bloom and all of this stuff and drip irrigation and I remember thinking this is one of the best things I've ever done and I gave a really great speech and I added in some, obviously some funny silly stuff as I always do and I just love that class and policy issues beyond 2000, which now it's 2026 and all of those issues either have been solved or were screwed, I'm not really sure. Michelle says, what are you gonna do when the boys start going to school in August, just take off July? You know, we've talked a lot about that because we're basically doing homeschooling right now or we are doing homeschooling right now.

34:21So it gives us a lot of flexibility. And eventually they'll either be in school or they'll be in camp. And we're gonna have to figure out all of those things. I don't know that I have an answer on that yet. What we're mostly focused on is it's Justin's birthday next week and we are doing a crazy Transformers birthday party. I don't think Justin watches the show, so I can probably tell you guys, I will be dressed up as Starscream. We got a serious Starscream. and we got some awesome toys and balloons and all that good stuff. But yeah, we'll figure out all that stuff. You look here in Florida, we're very, very blessed because we have good public schools, we've got good private schools, we've got good charter schools.

35:03There are even in our community here, there are so many good parents, great parents that are doing homeschooling that are willing to help that we meet at the park all the time, pod classes, all that stuff. So we'll figure that stuff out and how it will affect our August, we shall see. Glenn says, when you were a kid, did you think someday you would be as famous as you are today? What were your aspirations when you were 10? Gosh, when I was 10? I mean, I mentioned on the show yesterday that in my senior yearbook, everybody wrote, Dave, you're gonna host The Tonight Show one day. Like there are so many comments about that over and over and over again.

35:36And while I'm not hosting The Tonight Show, I think I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. And I guess you could say I aimed and I got, you know, it wasn't The Tonight Show bullseye, which I would never wanna do for a plethora of reasons. But I aimed, I got somewhere on the board, right? When I was 10, I mean, when I was 10, what would I wanna do? Honestly, it was probably, I probably wanted to be a Transformer. I probably wanted to be a Jedi or 10. So wait, how old are you? 10, you're what? You're in like, what's that? Fourth grade? Yeah, I mean, that was like peak toys. I was probably still playing with He-Man, which by the way, I just watched the Masters of the Universe movie two days ago.

36:15It's spectacular. If you care about any of that stuff at all and you just want fun for two hours and it's a little cheesy and whatever, but they did such a great job with Skeletor. Jared Leto, who I know the guy gets a lot of crap because his movies all lose hundreds of millions of dollars and this one did very poorly in the box office. It was just great. But yeah, and then as far as being famous, it's a very weird thing. Well, I certainly didn't think about it when I was 10. I suppose when I was doing stand-up, You know, I guess I could say it this way. I've known a lot of people in this business that they really want fame, right?

36:48Like what they want is really to be known and you can judge that however you see fit. That really was never my goal. Like I really wanted to do something that I thought was valuable and then obviously fame comes with that. And then there's great things about fame. Like people are nice to me basically wherever I go and if I go to the airport, you know, people are always gonna say hi to me. People say hi to me at the, you know, they say nice things. Like the internet can be evil and toxic and everything, but real life usually isn't like that. And you know, like sometimes I go to a restaurant, they'll give me a better table, like weird things.

37:24And then it does also come with a cost because one of the reasons I do August is that I don't, it can become a lot like when your whole, when everything in your world is about you. So one of the reasons that I really love August is I completely escaped from that. and I'll wear a hat a lot of days and sunglasses and it just doesn't matter. Mary says, if July Dave could leave one message for September Dave, what would he say? So if July Dave, if me right now can leave a message for myself in a month from now, I mean, this is kind of obvious, I suppose, but like just get off the grid, let it go, purge the stuff that needs to be purged, be present, be with the kids.

38:08We're doing a bunch of family stuff, enjoy the family. Like it's all sort of obvious. But I think this year particularly, really because of the Charlie thing and then watching other people who I used to really like and respect like Meghan and Tucker and others go so insane. Like the year did, something about the year did great on me in a way that it never has before. Like talking about politics, yes. I talk about the communists and it's like, and the jihadists and it's like annoying and all of that stuff. But there was something like bizarrely personal about it this year that was kind of nasty.

38:45And I really wanna like fully purge myself of that. And when I do that, then a whole, what it does really is it just gives room for some other thoughts to come in. And I really do think that's why the show and what I do, I think I believe that I've gotten better at over the years because I give myself a little space to get off that hamster wheel, reset, come with fresh eyes and go from there. All right, we're gonna do a couple of Rubin Report awards. And well, Phoenix picked these awards. I did not pick the awards. It would be odd if I picked my own awards, but the direct message show of the year, this one was when Phoenix picked it.

39:22I was like, yes, this is obviously it. So on September 10th, when Charlie died, as I mentioned earlier, we had done a show that morning. Charlie was assassinated, I think maybe around one o 'clock, something like that. I was actually on air at about 1230. I had known he was shot already, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, I had known he was shot and then I did Fox Business. And while I was literally on air, I saw my phone out of the corner of my eye saying that Charlie Kirk was dead. And I was on air live and I remember thinking, I don't want to say it. Like I did not, I literally did not wanna say, I didn't, they hadn't said it yet on Fox Business.

40:00It was just coming across. I didn't know they had said it anywhere. I was just like, I don't wanna be the first one to say it. So anyway, we finished that Fox hit and then we went live. So I have not, I don't know what clip exactly Joseph has pulled right here, but this is from, we went live, this is just a few moments after I found out that Charlie was killed. But what I can tell you about Charlie, maybe that's a better way to do it. What I can tell you about Charlie is that Charlie and I met when I was kind of leaving the left and then our world started colliding. Charlie was this conservative influencer, Returning Point USA, and I was kind of leaving the left.

40:36And then suddenly we were at events together. We would say hi a couple of times. We definitely had big political differences because I was still a lefty in a lot of senses, you know, and he was a conservative. But there was an immediate mutual respect there. And we did a lot of events together. And we've debated death penalty. I mean, we've debated serious stuff. We've debated death penalty multiple times on opposite sides. We've debated abortion. We've talked about gay marriage. We've done all of the stuff, and we've done it publicly, and we've done it privately. We've sat next to each other at weddings.

41:11Coffee in my house about a year ago came by for coffee. What I know about Charlie, I'm trying to think of the last time I saw him, was probably, I saw him, I think, about four or five months ago. We texted a couple weeks ago. I saw him about four or five months ago, actually, at Mar-a-Lago for a PragerU event. And Charlie, you know, look, he liked being in the fight. Likes being in the fight, I should say. He likes arguing. He likes making the point. He likes pointing out the hypocrisy. He likes doing all that. And sometimes he does it with a little bit of a flamethrower. Not as much as many in the media portray him as.

41:47But he likes fighting for America. He likes fighting for what he believes in, his values, and all of those things. And he did it honestly. And that's why I always liked him. I'm doing this wrong. That's why I've always liked him. Because we would always put our differences aside. Yeah, that's hard to watch. You know, I was still talking about him in the present tense there. You probably noticed that. I'll just mention one other thing. I've told this once or twice before, but when I saw him that last time at Mar-a-Lago for that PragerU event, It was already an emotional day, that event, because Dennis had already taken his spill.

42:27So Dennis was not there and he obviously always highlighted and spoke at these PragerU things. And Trump walked by, he eventually did come down and talk to everybody and said some beautiful things about Dennis and everything else, but we're in the courtyard at Mar-a-Lago. I wish I had a picture of this. And Trump walks by on like the third level, the balcony. and he just walks by and he's waving to people. And I can so vividly picture this in my mind. It is so etched in my mind. I was standing next to Charlie. Charlie was really tall. He was probably 6 '3", maybe 6 '4". He was really, really tall.

43:04And I'm looking at Trump and everyone's waving and screaming and whatever. And I'm looking and I can see Charlie, like right in front of me as I'm looking at Trump. And I said to Charlie, well, that could be you one day. And I will never, he goes, he goes, God help us all. That's what he said. Man, I just got chills. Like that, that's what he said. He, he was humble. He was good. Um, man, that's, that's hard to watch. All right, let's get a little sillier for a moment. So that was our DM of the year, which was, you know, right when we, uh, right beginning of September, our round table of the year.

43:36This is from like two or three weeks ago. This was just an absolutely ridiculously hilarious moment, sort of unintended. I was trying to be funny, but something else happened. Uh, I, a couple of weeks ago had Link Lauren and Ben Ferguson on the show. And we were talking about that gay cruise that couldn't dock in Turkey and Egypt. Why? Why would that have happened? When the ship tried docking in Turkey, the government unexpectedly denied the ship entry because of what they call moral standards. All right. Now, I know one of our panelists here is gay. So I want to give you a chance first. Ben, talk to me about this.

44:12Yeah. Let me just say Google. It's a really awesome thing. You can Google. Did you get the joke there? Did you get the joke? You just ran right through it. Come on, man. Sorry, sorry. Unless I just outed you. Did I just out Ben Ferguson? Yeah, yeah. No, no. I was so excited to tell you to use Google. I get your joke. You want to redo that, or are you just going to live in this moment, Dave? You're going to live in this moment. That's it. We don't edit. Yeah, yeah. We don't edit. No. I will defer to Link right now, and then I will come back strong with the heterosexual viewpoint on this. Please, please.

44:41Most of the 2 ,000 guys on that boat, they are not going to come back with some come-to-Jesus-mea-culpa moment and be like, boy, maybe we've been thinking about things wrong, are they? No, they will not. I will answer my own question. We were going to play a little bit more of that, but we're running tight on time. But as far as I know, Ben Ferguson's still heterosexual. But that would have been pretty great if he had been like, you know what, I've actually had something that I've wanted to say. Okay, my favorite sit down of the year, and I'm very excited because I'm gonna tell you at the end of the show, some of the interviews that we've taped for August and we have this guy on again, actually, it'll be the first interview that we're gonna put up in August while I'm off, was the first interview that we did of 2026.

45:23Arthur Brooks, who is just, I think he's like, you know, if you put Jordan Peterson here and he's sort of at the pinnacle of what a public person can be and trying to bring truth and order and sanity to things. Arthur Brooks is like right beneath that. He's just fantastic. Here's a bit of the trailer of our sit down.

45:43Arthur Brooks:Fear, anger. This is what will actually get the attention. The attention economy actually is trying to hijack the way that our brains work. And that's the reason you see such a disconnect between the ordinary life, which doesn't get your attention. That's the point. And the fact that people are moving to more and more and more online is one of the explanations for why happiness is in decline. Everybody hates what they're looking at on their phones, but they can't stop. You know, you never met somebody who's a drug addict. He's like, you know the secret of my happiness, Dave? Meth. Nobody's ever said that.

46:11Arthur Brooks:They do the thing even though they hate the thing. We've rewired the way that our brains work to the extent that we do all kinds of interesting things and never find meaning. But then what do we do is we actually have to, what used to be ordinary is now extraordinary. And that's what we have to pursue. We could lose a whole generation, which is actually happening now. For people who are 10 years younger than you and who are not falling in love, not falling in love. I mean, like, what else is there to do in your 20s? That's the point of your 20s, isn't it? I mean, so at the next dinner party, no phones.

46:41Arthur Brooks:And here's the first question. Dave, what are you most afraid of? And watch what happens. Oh. Right? I mean, you can see why I thought that was the best sit-down of the year. And we did basically a follow-up. So tune into that. that'll be up next week. And he literally teaches happiness. He teaches a course on happiness and studies happiness through a scientific lens at Harvard. So Harvard, although it is quite rotten, is not completely rotten because of guys like him. I think my pro, you know, I did a million every week. I probably, you know, I do the show, obviously. We do the interviews, we do all those things.

47:17And then I do media hits all the time. And I'm on Fox all the time and Newsmax and all the, and I do a gajillion podcasts and we've shown you some of them. I think my hit of the year was when I did an hour with Stephen A. Smith on his show, because he's very much in that Bill Maher, I'm still a Democrat thing, and I'm trying to pull him over. Again, I don't know if it'll happen, and it will not affect our friendship. It really will not. But here I am on his show trying to shine some light. Can you think of one big blue city that is thriving right now? No, I cannot. I can't say it's Chicago, I can't say it's LA, I can't say it's New York, I can't say that.

47:56Chicago, which has basically the strictest gun laws in the United States, has more shootings every weekend than virtually any other place. 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.

48:29But Dave Rubin, we also, we can flip it and we can talk about the president, Donald Trump, right now. You notice disapproval 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. You got all of this stuff going on. inflation is an issue. The economy is an issue. The border is not an issue anymore. And give him credit for that, no doubt. But still in all, 50 % of Americans somewhat or strongly approved of his handling of the economy when he first came into office. And now that has plummeted.

49:03And we get into all of that as well. So if you haven't seen that full interview, I think we posted the entire thing on our channel, but you can always check out his channel. And we have some disagreements on things. And you can see I'm trying to drag him in a way and he's trying to drag me in a way and it's done out of absolute mutual respect and we will continue that as the years go by. The tweet of the year, this was rather easy. The craziest thing that happened on X. I know exactly when it happened. I was leaving Los Angeles, that trip that we talked about earlier, and I'm literally on the jetway.

49:35I'm walking to the plane and I see this tweet pop up and it says, Dave Rubin gave him the job, I'm gonna curse, fuck you Rubin, you fucking douchebag, give Rubin a loud boo next time you see him. And I am not kidding, we'll show you the follow up in just a second, I had like an out of body experience, like I was like, is this actually happening, what did I say? But it was also Rubin gave him a job, so I'm quickly in my mind going, which one of these idiots did some insane thing? I was like, what the high hell happened? And then I quickly responded, I looked at the tweet, He was talking, so I wrote, LOL, I almost had a heart attack as I scrolled past this and then realized he was talking about another Dave Rubin.

50:16He was talking about the former head of Academy Motion Pictures, and he's the guy, that Dave Rubin is the guy that basically instituted all the woke things, like you have to have this many black actors and you have to have a trans gaffer and whatever, and then Elon, do we have the follow up on Elon? Then Elon tweeted out, in case it's not already obvious, Dave Rubin of Rubin Report is cool as he cares about the truth. the other Dave Rubin of the Academy Awards needs to fix the mess he made. The best part of all of this, so obviously that all went, you know, that went crazy viral and whatever, the usual stuff.

50:49But the best part of all that is I was about to get on a red eye and we were coming back to New York or we were going to New York after that. And I don't even think the plane had wifi or on a red eye. I wouldn't even want to, cause I want to sleep. So it would have been very, had I not seen that right before I got on the plane, all hell would have broke loose for 10 hours. I wouldn't have defended myself. So Elon would likely have not even known. I saw a few people say something to him, but who knows if he would have seen it. So anyway, I actually have that. One of my birthday gifts this year was David framed it, the tweet and the response, and it's now hanging in my office.

51:23All right, a couple more questions for you before we wrap. Christine says, what is everyone most looking forward to when you all go off the grid? Well, I can't speak for everybody. You know, I think I've illustrated it's just a little relaxation. I don't wanna mention where everybody's going, but the guys are doing, a lot of them are doing some, some pretty great traveling stuff and going home and seeing family and I assume working very hard every day. You'll mostly be thinking about the Rubin Report sitting in a dark room just like thinking about me. Well, I don't know why it has to be in a dark room.

51:53All right, fine, you can turn the lights on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would just imagine you just sitting in a dark room going, I miss Dave, he's so great. No, but you know, one of the things that's beautiful about this is that when we started this off the grid thing 10 years ago, I only had one employee, Amira, who helped us start the show many, many years ago. And she couldn't believe it. She was like, what do you mean I can take a month off and blah, blah, blah, blah. And at that time, we didn't even understand about the algorithm. So I don't even think we put anything up for a month. And then it really punished us because then for September and October, if you're not putting stuff up for a month, your channel just gets crushed.

52:26So we've learned lessons over the years. But subsequently, you know, like you guys know, I say it all the time. I love the team that I work with and I love the fact that I can do this for them for a month. And I don't know that anyone in any space does anything like this. And I hope that it's, not I hope, I know it is paid back in the good work that they do the other 11 months of the year. BackupNever says, Dave, what if the socialist commies take over Florida after DeSantis leaves an office? If Hilton wins because the DOJ indicts Becerra for missing kids, I know I'm reaching, but a girl's gotta have a dream.

53:00Would you go back to Cali? Where else is there? Well, first of all, I'm never going back to California. I'm not going back to California. Like I am ride or die with Florida. As I've said, when I'm gone, they can just feed me to the gators in the Everglades. That'll be just fine. And people can go, Dave, well, the gators ate Dave here and let's keep going on the fan boat. That'll be fine. Listen, Florida right now is set up so well for so many reasons that I talk about ad nauseum on the show. You know, likely Byron Donalds is gonna be the next governor. He's Trump endorsed. DeSantis actually has not endorsed anyone.

53:32The two great candidates we have on the Republican side, and they're both great, they really are. Byron Donalds and Jay Collins, who's our Lieutenant Governor, I think we're gonna be just fine here. We've set things up properly. We have good police officers. Our systems are strong. Our institutions are strong. You know, the chasm between, what does DeSantis always say, when he became governor, there were, I think, 400 ,000 more Democrats than Republicans in the state, and now it's something like 1.3 million more Republicans the Democrats, so the numbers favor us, education favors us, we're armed.

54:04But of course, as you know, good times create soft men and soft men create bad times. So I will never look a gift horse in the mouth. I'll always fight for what I think is right here. And here I think we're gonna be okay for a while. And I think that's gonna be a sort of bellwether for where the country's at, that there will be certain states that do things right for the most part, certain things that really do things wrong. And the chasm will just kind of divide. Nimbus, we love Nimbus. Nimbus says, what part of your personality returns in August that gets crowded out during the other 11 months?

54:43There's a certain calmness, I suppose. Like there is a certain, I say this all the time, but I am world weary. Like I'm an optimist, but I am world weary. I genuinely worry about the state of America and the state of Western civilization. And I worry about big stuff constantly. I never worry about little details, little things, business things like that. I worry about massive things a lot, too much. And so what I try to do during this month is genuinely just purge, as I said before. I go through the files in my brain and I just try to throw away some stuff. And I hope, one of the things that's been very helpful to me is that the first couple of years that I did off the grid, it was like, oh, is everyone gonna forget about me?

55:29Is the world gonna so drastically change, I won't be with it anymore or whatever? And it's like, no, some things happen. I miss the Afghanistan withdrawal one year. I miss John McCain dying one year. I miss Kamala being announced as VP one year. Like, things happen. I miss that Cardi B song about her wet ass pussy and the bucket, I miss that thing. So there are big things, I'm not saying there aren't. But the world goes on. I'll be back. And, and, and you know what? Ask me that question. Nimbus asked me that question again in September and let's see what the answer is. Uh, let's see. Uh, John says not to throw anyone under the bus, but who in your orbit do you think would least, uh, would last the least amount of time going off the grid?

56:13Oh man. Like what, what type of person that does what I do would, would last the least amount of time. Who's just plugged in like ad nauseum and like, oh, I mean, like Piers Morgan would crumble without all of it. Like he's just, you know, like he's everything that I, it's just a damn shame. It didn't have to be in that direction and I tried with him and everything else, but he would crumble without the clicks. He needs the clicks to survive. Okay, let's talk a little bit about what's gonna happen here in August and then I'll just share some final thoughts and one or two surprises real quick. So tomorrow's show, should I give him a hint?

56:50You want me to tell him what it is or you wanna wait? Your decision. It's really good. Tune in tomorrow at 11 a.m. I assure you it's something we've never done before and really, really wonderful. And then as I mentioned, we have Arthur Brooks interview and we did some fun stuff with Sage Steele and a whole bunch of other people. We're doing a video. I did a whole bunch of my favorite cocktail recipes that we shot here in the kitchen. We're doing some reaction stuff where I'm gonna react to some of my old videos, that crazy moment, obviously, with Larry Elder. We're gonna do me and Ben, our first, here's the quick schedule.

57:20You don't have to read all that right now, but we're doing, you can leave it up for just a second. If you, maybe they want to read it while I'm talking, Connor, come on. I interviewed Paul Saladino, all about food and health and everything else. Just some of my, you know, when I did that thing at UNC probably, or UNH, University of New Hampshire about 10 years ago, I was actually supposed to be speaking with Candace and Charlie there. They canceled because it was the day that Kanye said something about Candace and I got left to the wolves with these crazy protesters. We're going to show you that video again.

57:49But my first interview with Ben Shapiro from 2016, like we look like children. We look like children. But I'm very happy to say we're still here and Ben still qualifies as on that short list of sane people. So, and then a whole bunch of other stuff. We're doing some of the South Park reaction stuff. You'll dig it. It's a whole bunch of stuff. And genuinely, I mean this, I want you guys to ease up on stuff too, to whatever extent you can in August, but hopefully click around, see some of the good stuff that we're putting out there and help just genuinely help us stay in the algorithm. than we did a video on some of my reflections of turning 50 and a whole bunch more.

58:26Oh, and then the news blooper stuff, which I absolutely, absolutely love. Okay, so where are we? 57 minutes in, and I have a few other things to wrap up before I say goodbye to the guys. So now it is my time to say goodbye to you guys. We're not gonna do a post-game show today, so this is my big goodbye to everybody for the month.

58:48I think it is fairly obvious that I love doing this. I love doing this. I wake up every day that we're doing this and I'm happy to be doing it. I love getting that first email from Phoenix in the morning where throughout the day before, usually I've sent him a million stories and then he reorders things and helps to create that narrative and Joseph helps with that. And then we get in here and we grind through all the stories and on the fly, usually five minutes before the show, I make four crazy changes to the show and poor Connor back there has to, I don't know what he's doing, but he's always punching buttons and I hear things exploding and we always pull off something that I think is professional and worthy of your time.

59:31And I know, like, because I see it in the comments and I see what you guys say to me that we've created something here that is different than all of the other shows. I am not here to outrage you. I am not here to convince you of anything. I'm here to tell you what I think and have fun. And hopefully you're along the ride with us. And I think that somehow that, which seems fairly obvious to me, it's just the show that I wanted to watch. That's what it is. If someone else had created the show that I wanted to watch about all of this stuff, then I probably wouldn't have done it. And I could have been an NBA player, but here we are, here we are.

1:00:05So I'm just so thankful for all of you that tune in every day and send us all the comments and reach out to us and communicate with us and buy tickets to the things and that you guys have made Copala. Copala is basically, first off, we've won every award we've gone for. We just won another award this year, this week. I think we've applied for six different awards. We've won all of them. And that I suddenly have a successful tequila company that our biggest problem right now is figuring out how to scale fast enough. And we're making more tequila right now down in Jalisco. And if you have not tried it, it's, I don't need to do promo today, it's okay.

1:00:45It's a wonderful, wonderful tequila. And that we started that and that we've also started, we'll have a bit more in this, on what we're showing you tomorrow at 11 a.m. But I also started a network this year that's really been under the hood that we have not promoted publicly, but we are working with tons of people in this space, building them businesses like ours. And it's some of your favorite people. And we'll debut that a little bit more come the fall, but we have huge plans with that. and it's going unbelievably well. There's another company that I started that I'm working through and we're just doing stuff.

1:01:17We're just doing stuff. And I do a lot of stuff and then I set things up properly so that once a year for the past 10 years, I can disappear for one month and get off the hamster wheel and put this thing in a freaking safe. And yes, I do have an old phone that is virtually no apps on it that just has, so I can turn on the freaking lights in my house and like the air conditioner because that's all controlled by this. Like we've become so addicted that even off the grid, unless I was in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, you still end up on the grid one way or another. And we'll get some downtime.

1:01:52And as I said, we're gonna do some family stuff and a little relaxation and everything else. So I think that's it, guys. I think that is it. Thank you for watching. I am humbled and honored that you let me do this crazy thing for a living. And thank you to everybody that's in this room right now and our team that's not in this room, Chris, who's amazing, and Andrew, who just joined us, everybody. I should mention everybody's names. And Connor, of course, and Phoenix, and Joseph, and Joey, and Christy, and everybody's just great. Did I forget anybody? I think that's everybody. Oh, and Alexa, of course, our intern Alexa, who's amazing.

1:02:35Just everybody's been, and all the people who used to work for me who've gone on to great things too, probably not as fun things, but they're doing okay. Some of them work at the White House, actually. That's not bad. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. I will see you in September.