🔵 The Rubin Recap, Issue 5 | 6.13.25

I SAID DON’T BURN THIS WORLD AND THEY WENT AHEAD AND STARTED BURNING L.A.

Welcome back to The Rubin Recap! It's Friday the 13th, and you know what they say about Friday the 13th: It's the day when all the black cats stay home because there are too many superstitious humans walking around out there who might cross their paths. Now, that may be what they say, but what I say about Friday the 13th is: It's the day that comes immediately after Thursday the 12th. OK, OK -- it's also Father's Day weekend, so I thought I'd uncork a few dad jokes before we take a look back at the week that was because it was a busy one — we started the week with L.A. burning (these clowns clearly didn’t read my book, Don’t Burn This Country) and the week ended with the Middle East burning. Let's dive in ...

MONDAY: L.A. RIOTS REMINISCENT OF THE RODNEY KING RIOTS IN '92

I wasn't even back in the U.S. five minutes from the first leg of my Don't Burn This World Tour and what do you know? Rioters were burning L.A. in protest of ICE arresting illegal immigrants for deportation from the U.S., as President Donald Trump promised he would do. I am proud to say that I had the wisdom and the foresight to recognize the civilizational rot that was being allowed to fester in California, and left the communist state more than three years ago. And I have absolutely no regrets.

All hell broke loose there this week before President Trump decided to send in members of the National Guard and the Marine Corps to quell the violence. But that's not what California Gov. Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass or the mainstream media would have you believe. They pivoted right back to their "mostly peaceful protest" narrative that you certainly remember from almost exactly five years ago. We took a look at a compilation of CNN telling you not to see what you can see with your own eyes.

And I'll have a lot more to say further down in this newsletter about Gavin Newsom, because this story only intensified all week. But one thing that struck me about the L.A. riots, with the videos on social media of Waymo cars being lit on fire and burned and masked protesters jumping on top of burning cars and waving Mexican flags, is how similar the violence now is to the violence that descended upon the city in 1992 during the Rodney King riots. If you're old enough to remember those riots, you might recall images of what came to be known as the Rooftop Koreans. The Rooftop Koreans were proud Korean-Americans who owned small businesses and stores in L.A., and who climbed onto the roofs of those buildings armed with rifles to defend their places of business when the police were unable to do so. It's one of the most searing images I can recall of the riots, because I was paying close attention to the NBA playoffs at the time. Due to the riots, the NBA moved the Game 4 first-round playoff series between the Portland Trailblazers and the Lakers from the Forum in L.A. to UNLV. Portland knocked the Lakers out of the playoff series in that game, and I remember Jerome Kersey threw an awesome alley-oop to Clyde Drexler, my all-time favorite NBA player. Wow -- what a play. Watched it live on TV when I was 16.

My point about all of this, though, is that the L.A. riots today aren't quite as widespread as the Rodney King riots were in 1992, and that’s because Trump took swift action to ensure they wouldn’t get as bad as they did in '92. And anyone telling you differently just isn't being honest, as you obviously know.

TUESDAY: NEWSOM DESTROYS NEARLY EVERYTHING HE TOUCHES

The warning signs have been flashing for years in California, and all you had to do was pay attention to them to realize something like the riots taking place there now would be an eventual outcome. I've been screaming about it since I left L.A. -- and even before I left, and all of the state's problems can be traced back to one person.

Gavin Newsom.

The man has destroyed everything he has touched except his bank account and the winery he owns. San Francisco was once one of the most beautiful cities in the country. And look at it now, years after his two terms as mayor. It's riddled with homeless people, zombified drug users staggering down the streets. How many major retailers have packed up and left San Francisco because of the conditions? And when he was done with San Francisco, he began to destroy the whole state on a much bigger scale allowing things to be overrun by wokeism and lawlessness. There were the oppressive measures he put in place during COVID -- and then obnoxiously flouted. And look how many major corporations have left the state. Elon Musk has moved X, SpaceX and Tesla out of California to Texas. Chevron, the oil giant, after maintaining its headquarters in California for 145 years, fled the state in 2024 — also for Texas. And there he was earlier this week, trying to be a tough guy, telling Trump to come and arrest him.

Now, contrast all of the above with what you're about to hear from this guy -- a Mexican-American man who had some choice words for all of the rioters, pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of the violence in the streets that state and local leaders are permitting. Newson and Karen Bass would be wise to pay attention to what he has to say:

WEDNESDAY: A CHALLENGE FOR TRUMP, AND A TICKING TIME BOMB FROM ACROSS THE POND

President Trump has been doing a remarkable job so far in the less than six months he's been in office since beginning his second term. And I've been about as pro-Trump as you can be since long before the election. But if the developments of the last week have shown us anything, it's that we need Trump to fulfill the mandate he was given by the American voters. Therefore, I issued a challenge to Trump this week: Be the best version of yourself that you can be right now. The president is performing at a high level, but now is the time to level up even more. He's got the right people in place around him -- scroll down for more on that -- but he, Donald John Trump, needs to be the best Donald John Trump he's capable of being. Now is not the time to go soft on the rioters like he did back in 2020, when he posted this video on Twitter. I'm counting on you not to be distracted, President Trump, and so is the rest of the country.

Now, I want to connect everything going on in the country to what's happening overseas. It's important to pay attention to those things because the outcomes there can be predictive of what could happen here. When I was at CPAC Hungary two weeks ago, Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a commentator from Holland who's been on this show, spoke about how unchecked immigration has had a devastating effect on the culture in her country as well as many nations throughout Europe. In this clip, she talks about the challenge facing Holland Prime Minister Geert Wilders, as he tries to figure out how to address immigration, and the warning that the immigration problem there holds for other countries. Watch:

THURSDAY: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION POWER RANKINGS UNVEILED, AND TRUMP V. ELON

I've been talking for weeks now about how Trump has assembled a better cabinet and a much stronger overall team around him than he did in his first term, and we've been toying with the idea of a Trump administration power rankings. Well, on Thursday's show, we unveiled the first edition of the "Top 10 Trump Peeps." The occasion to unveil the power rankings was prompted by yet another banger of a response from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in the briefing room a day earlier. Leavitt's answer, of course, came in response to a volley of stupid questions from Jasmine Wright, of a news outlet called NOTUS, and Kaitlin Collins of CNN. It will go down as one of the true great moments in White Press Briefing Room history. Leavitt actually finished her response by saying, "What a stupid question," to Wright. Watch it here.

And in acknowledgment of that fine performance, Karoline Leavitt climbed up to No. 2 on the inaugural edition of the “Top 10 Trump Peeps” list. Check out the full rankings here, and stay tuned -- the power rankings will be adjusted periodically based on the performance of Trump's team as time goes on.

The news cycle's been on overdrive, so I hadn't had much of a chance to address the big Trump-Elon blowout that erupted as I was on my way back from Israel last week. I like both of these people, I've spent some time with each of them. And I didn't want to see their alliance go up in flames the way it did. But I'm glad to see it seems like after the blowup got heated late last week, the two of them are smoothing things over -- and that's good because next Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago was going to be lit if these two didn't work things out. Joking aside, we need all the right power players -- Trump and Musk are the two biggest masters of the universe -- and all the good people on the same page right now, because we are going up against a bunch of crazy lunatics. Glad to see Musk apologize for some tweets that he said "went too far," and then Trump, who's not one known for de-escalating personal feuds, dialed back the rhetoric in an interview with Miranda Devine of The New York Post. Watch:

And lastly, I'm on the lookout for two people somewhere out there in America who went viral this week. The first is this New York City woman who was just trying to get to work and was blocked by protesters who lectured her about why they were shutting down the streets in NYC because of ICE raids taking place 3,000 miles away. Video of her pleading with these lunatics went viral. I'd genuinely like to pay for her and her family to go out for dinner since she was forced to endure that experience. The second is the man seen in a viral video who looked like an NFL linebacker tackling a rioter who assaulted law enforcement officials. What a hit he put on that rioter! Again, if anyone knows who that guy is, I'd be happy to buy him dinner for doling out a dose of sidewalk justice.

FRIDAY: OPERATION RISING LION

Israel, after months of planning, pulled off a devastating military strike inside Iran late Thursday. The attack, known as Operation Rising Lion, targeted Iran's nuclear facilities and resulted in the deaths of a who's-who of top officials in various parts of Iran's military apparatus. And, while some people are screaming that the sky is falling and trying to spread hysteria about this attack, I believe this military strike will be remembered for beginning to shape a whole new Middle East and, subsequently, a whole new world. It won't lead to World War III as some pundits are fear-mongering.

Right about now, you might be thinking: Well, Dave, why do you not believe this attack could lead to further instability in the region and then to World War III? My answer to you is that there are several reasons, but a critical reason is the stance of Saudi Arabia, a key player in the Middle East. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi Crown Prince, went on 60 Minutes in recent years and spoke very candidly about why he views Iran's Ayatollah as "the new Hitler of the Middle East."

"He wants to expand, he wants to create his own project in the Middle East, very much like Hitler wanted to expand at the time. Many countries around the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous Hitler was until what happened ... happened," bin Salman said in the interview. So that's the view of one power player in the Middle East.

Another more important reaction comes from the biggest power player in the world -- President Trump. "Two months ago I gave Iran a 60 day ultimatum to 'make a deal.' They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!" the president posted on Truth Social. That, folks, is what strong foreign police looks like. Sometimes the way to stop a war is by speaking softly and carrying a big stick, and that's exactly what Trump did in this case.

With Operation Rising Lion, Israel has kneecapped Iran, and not only will this not start World War III, this will likely avoid it, because if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons, it would prompt Saudi Arabia to develop nuclear weapons, too — and then we'd basically have the equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis going on in an already volatile part of the world. Also, let's not forget that Iran sponsors terrorism throughout the Middle East. The Houthis? Funded by Iran. Hezbollah? Iran-backed, also. Hamas? Yes, Iran's been financing that terror group, too. Operation Rising Lion was the necessary action.

Now, because so much was going on, we canceled our usual Friday panel show and hit on a bunch of other topics, including Stephen A. Smith calling out Newsom for not calling in the National Guard himself, Democrats' melting down about Senator Alex Padilla being thrown out after interrupting Kristi Noem's ICE press conference, Tim Walz having his own words turned against him, and Donald Trump getting a big laugh out of the press for his response to the planned No Kings protest -- and much more. Watch the full episode here.

CONGRATULATIONS TO GAVIN NEWSOM FOR WINNING D-BAG OF THE WEEK! (AND A VERY SPECIAL RETARD OF THE YEAR AWARD!)

This is one time in life when Gavin Newsom is not a loser. For his abysmal handling of the L.A. riots — along with his unprecedented record of destroying almost everything he touches — California Gov. Gavin Newsom wins the Rubin Report’s “Douchebag of the Week” award. Congrats, Gavin! No one deserves it more than you — except maybe one person. Scroll down some for more.

A mere “Douchebag of the Week” award simply wouldn’t suffice for Iran’s Ayatollah, so we created a very special “Retard of the Year” award just for him. Congrats, Ayatollah!

TWEET OF THE WEEK

WHAT TO KNOW

• T-minus 13 days until my new tequila is released. The tequila goes on sale later this month, on my 49th birthday. The wait is almost over, people. More details soon.

• A new episode of Actual Friends came out at 3 p.m. on Friday — subscribe here and tap that notification bell so you don’t miss any episodes.

• It’s Father’s Day on Sunday, and if you’re looking to do something nice for dad this weekend, you might want to grill him a delicious tomahawk steak. I’ve got all the tips you need to do it — and do it right — in this video. Happy Father’s Day to all the great American dads out there!

• Have a question that you want featured in a Community Q&A? Get in touch here.

• Don’t forget — the Don’t Burn This World Tour continues later this year. Get all the details here.

• Get all your Rubin Report merch at our online store here.

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Until next week … — Dave