Dave Rubin is an American political commentator who hosts The Rubin Report, a show with 3.2 million subscribers on YouTube. Mr Rubin was a distinguished guest of an event held by the Danube Institute and also one of the featured speakers at CPAC Hungary 2026 last week. During his third time in Budapest, Hungary, he also kindly gave an exclusive interview to our site.
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I am going to throw out a couple of names that you probably haven’t heard in a long time. And I think you and I may be the only two people in the country who know who these people are.
Okay.
It’ll take you back to a different time. Names like Anita Sarkeesian, Francesca Ramsey of MTV News, and Laci Green.
Oh, wow.
What memories do these names bring back?
Oh man, you’re going back really over a decade. I mean, you’re going back to probably around 2013, 2014, 2015, when the internet was a very, very different place. And so many of the culture wars that we now really see raging just started. You know, primarily, America is the home to these things, and then they get extrapolated across the world. But they were just sort of the beginning. So, several of those names—I think I’ve only ever communicated with one of them directly, I had Laci on my show once. But several of those girls were all involved in sort of the strange place that progressives found themselves with feminists about a decade ago, where the left seemed to be relentlessly throwing women’s rights under the bus. This was deeply connected to the whole Gamergate thing, which we could probably spend hours upon. But really, I think what you’re asking me is: when did so much of our culture wars go so sideways?
More like, how did it feel to you personally? Because I think you rose to a different level of prominence in that era.
Well, you have to remember that at the time, those things were really breaking, Gamergate was breaking, and there was suddenly this bizarre move where the feminists were no longer for women, this strange fetishisation of Islam emerged, which now we really see across the world. At first, this was when I was really on the left, I was a progressive, I was at The Young Turks network, I was part of that thing. You know, when I look back on it, in some sense, I’m very appreciative that I was there, even though I think I was wrong about some of the ideas and everything, because I was kind of in the belly of the beast. I was around so many of these people, and I saw so much of the hysteria. And I don’t think I would have woken up to the extent that I did and really fought for classically liberal values, which I still believe in, and which mostly at this point are now really only defended by conservatives—which is, I suppose, a little bizarre.
But being so much in that belly of the beast, being around these people, made me realize that progressives actually were never defending anything that was truly progressive. To me, if you are a progressive, you want to progress towards equality. What they decided to do, really around a decade ago, maybe a little bit more, was to progress towards equity. And what that was gonna ultimately do was chop down anyone who was successful. So if there were a woman who didn’t think like the feminists wanted, they would take down that woman. If there were a gay person who didn’t think as the radical left wanted, they would take down that gay person. And really, ultimately, that is an assault on individuality. And individuality is the root of what Western civilization is built upon. So that’s why the progressives of 2026 are so at odds with quite literally the founding of America. We’re rolling into our 250th anniversary this year, and the progressives, you would think, by the nature of the word progressive, would be the most open-minded, most for everybody. Well, once you’re for everybody, you’re actually for nobody. And of course, who gets thrown under the bus first? Well, it’s the individual.
Did you catch that Anita Sarkeesian actually was back in the news for a brief period last year? When DOGE came in, some sources reported that they found out that USAID was still giving Feminist Frequency hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and they were getting a couple of thousand views per video on YouTube.
Well, I didn’t know about that specifically, but that doesn’t surprise me. First off, the amount of fraud that Elon Musk and DOGE uncovered was extraordinary, and it’s really just a drop in the bucket of what we’re finding. But the fact is that they would still be funding these radical lefty organizations all over the world. We kept making a joke on my show that we were funding a trans comic book in Panama. None of that surprises me at this point.
And it also shows that you would think that, regardless of political ideology, if anyone saw that the government was basically just spending money on insane things, you would think everyone could get on board and say: ‘Let’s just eliminate fraud.’ But interestingly, the left was all about the fraud because it usually funds their pet causes. So, whether it’s Anita Sarkeesian getting no views but getting a lot of money, or they’re funding this gender nonsense across the world, they need that stuff to be funded because otherwise people realize it’s all nonsense.
Do you agree with me that if this whole anti-SJW era of the internet doesn’t happen, then Donald Trump most likely never becomes President?
Oh, for sure. Trump was a complete reaction to the hysteria.
Because my experience is that a lot of the mainstream pundits miss that. They just say: ‘Oh, look at what Donald Trump is saying, isn’t it outrageous?’ And ‘How could he have become such a prominent figure?’ But they just ignore, even people like Bill Maher, who were against the SJW movement, they just refuse to connect that Trump is the direct result of that nonsense.
It’s interesting because I’ve become quite good friends with Bill, and Bill is still a defender of true liberalism. I think, unfortunately, Trump, who was a reaction to the SJW woke nonsense, was such a hot figure. He just brought up so many emotions in people that I think it overrode most people’s brains. So someone like Bill Maher doesn’t have Trump derangement syndrome—as a matter of fact, he often defends Trump on his show—I don’t know that he’ll say he’s a Trump supporter per se. I don’t think he says he’s part of MAGA. I think he still has some blind spots with what the Democrats have really become. But Trump would not have existed had they not gone so crazy.
What I’ve even said to Bill is, you know, you just have to kind of get over whatever it is that you think that Trump is with the language, or he says this or that, or he’s not politically correct, you just have to get over it. You don’t get the hero you want, you get the hero you deserve. There was no one who could have done what Donald Trump did besides Donald Trump. And the ultimate irony of Trump is—and I think we will find this out if his presidency doesn’t go well—is that Trump has been defending both conservatism and liberalism. What I mean by that is it’s obvious how he defends conservatism in that he is defending our borders, he’s for gun rights, and he’s pro-life, things of that nature, that’s obvious. But what I mean by he’s defending liberalism is that he is the first incoming first-time president ever who was for marriage equality, for example. No Republican was for that before him, and as a matter of fact, Barack Obama, when he came in the first time, wasn’t for that either. So Trump doesn’t really care about the social issues. He wants American success. And I think that’s the most unifying thing possible. When America succeeds, it’s good for everybody. So he’s defended both conservatism and liberalism. And I suspect if the Democrats win the midterms and the Trump thing ends poorly, which I certainly hope doesn’t happen, we will see what a real authoritarian on the right looks like after him.
Here in Hungary, we were kind of just observing this SJW, progressive, Neo-Marxist thing. It never really got any foothold here, partially because we were never a colonial power. So a lot of these sorts of neo-Marxist ideas are sold on the idea that ‘Hey, you were enslaving people, you were colonizing people, that’s why I have to repent’. That is why we were sort of immune. There were a couple of vague attempts, but we were basically just looking on, and it wasn’t even very much in the public consciousness. So, probably that is something that you envy about Hungary, isn’t it?
Oh, I definitely envy it. Look, there’s a Catch-22 with being America, which is that we’re the cultural centre of the world, right? Which is great. Everyone watches American movies, loves American culture, loves American TV shows and all the things that we create, and we export more of that than anyone else. So we’re the centre of the world in that sense.
But that also means that we’re also the thing that can be destroyed the easiest. You know what I mean? Everything moves fast in America. We forget how good we have it. It’s sort of what I was just referencing on my show, talking about Hungary. You guys have now had it so good because you’ve had a leader who’s kept your nation safe and secure, that you could potentially be on the verge of giving that up, only because you don’t realize that the rest of Europe has done it a different way. Because people only see what they see right in front of them, unfortunately. So America, as the cultural centre, I think, has been a great force for the world. We’ve exported so much wonderful creativity, content, and all of those things. But we also sometimes export some of that SJW stuff, which I’m glad to see doesn’t affect everybody all the time.
I just heard you talk about the Iran war. You seem to be in favour of Operation Epic Fury.
Yeah.
What about the effect it had on the commodities markets, on crude oil prices? We had an energy crisis under President Biden in 2022, which actually didn’t affect his party that much, as they overperformed in the midterms that year. However, as a Trump supporter, I’m quite anxious because I never thought something like that could happen under President Trump. I actually check the national average gas price in the US daily. It went under $3 a gallon in early December. Now, [as of 20 March, the day of the recording of the interview], it is $3.884.
So as we’re talking right now, the gas average as of yesterday, I think, is $3.850, which is about 35 cents higher than it was right before Epic Fury. So it is up a little bit for sure. And I think that’s just a natural extension of war—if the Middle East is involved, gas is going to go up. We also have access now—because of what we did with Maduro in Venezuela—to Venezuelan gas, which is good. We are also drilling again in America, so we have reserves.
I think, for a short period of time, Americans can deal with that. I think for Americans, there is something deeply obvious about how bad this Iranian regime was, not only for what it was doing to its own people, but also because of the long history of killing Americans abroad, and all of the things they have done. I mean, they have been the head of the terrorist network of the world. The Ayatollah’s gone right now, the Iranian leadership is gone right now. You take these guys out, and the funding really dries up—all of the funding for Hezbollah, for Hamas, for the terrorist networks that are not just in the Middle East, but they are also in South America. We know that they’re in Europe, by the way. We know that they are in the United States. The funding will disappear, and the world will be a safer place.
Look, I’m wary of ‘Forever Wars’. That was one of the main things when Trump came in. We’re 20 days into this war. It’s been a remarkable success so far. Now, the question about the war really is: will the Iranian people be able to take their country back? My suspicion is that there is a plan. I think that America and Israel have had a plan. They negotiated as far as they could; they went this route, and there has to be a plan on the other side. The military part of this will be a success; there is no doubt about that. But I would also say that the other part that is a success is that all of the Arab Muslim nations that have now been attacked by Iran, they’re suddenly realizing that Israel is not their enemy. Iran is attacking Israel mostly, but it’s also attacking Bahrain, it’s also attacking the UAE, it’s also attacking Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, and the list goes on. So they’re suddenly realizing: ‘Boy, if this regime goes, you actually could have peace in the Middle East.’ That doesn’t mean everybody is going to be all lovey-dovey, or something like that, but you could have a redrawing of the rhetorical map in the Middle East.
President Trump still has the option to just end it whenever he wants to. Call it a victory, say we’ve killed their leader, and stop bombardment. It would probably be like after Midnight Hammer, Iran would retaliate in a subdued, diminished way. So it could be over whenever Trump thinks it should be over, am I correct on that?
Yeah, we could basically end it right now. As of the last couple of days, it sounds like their ballistic missile programme and their navy are completely gone. Their air force is completely gone, as is the military leadership. There is obviously some infrastructure still. But the thing is, you don’t want to blow up all of their infrastructure, because whoever—whether it’s Pahlavi that’s coming back, or anyone else—is taking over, you need them to have something to do with their country after.
So, my hope is that when the hardcore military portion of this wraps up, which seems inevitable at this point, and doesn’t seem like it’ll take much longer, there is some cohesive plan to bring in people who can rebuild the institutions. But yes, could Trump just today say: ‘You know what, we now realized their rockets are down 90 per cent from the start of the war, they don’t have much left, we’ve set back their nuclear programme, we’ve set back their ballistic missiles programme. We’re just cutting and running.’ Could he do that? Yeah. Do I think he’s going to do that? No. I think there is a next step in the plan.
And how are you enjoying your time here in Hungary?
I love this country. As I mentioned on my show, this is my third time being here in three years. I’ve travelled to a lot of European nations, and I’ve had the privilege of travelling all over the world. So I can see where things work and where they don’t. Every time I come to Hungary, I see, particularly in Budapest, a city that’s working, that is safe and clean. And there’s such pride amongst the people here, in that they have taken care of their country. There has been proper stewardship of their very small nation of only 13 million people, which has done it right. You know, you don’t feel that way when you go to the UK. I talk to people there, and they’re depressed. There is a depression about the future of their nation. They feel like they have given it away, and they don’t know how to get it back. You don’t have that here, and that’s why I think this next election is so important for you guys. Because, again, if you get lazy on ‘Oh, it’s pretty good, it’ll always remain good,’ then it probably won’t.
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