🔵 The Rubin Recap, Issue 8 | 7.3.25

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🇺🇸 HAPPY 249th BIRTHDAY, AMERICA! 🇺🇸 

Welcome back to The Rubin Recap. The United States of America, the No. 1 country in the history of the world, is turning 249 years old on Friday, a cool 200 years older than your humble host and newsletter writer. And many of you will be celebrating with fireworks on the 4th. But if this week’s news cycle showed us anything, it’s that the fireworks got started a tad early — particularly with Elon and Trump taking aim at one another again. Let’s dive in …

ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ TOUR BRINGS HEAVYWEIGHT POLITICAL TAG-TEAM BACK TOGETHER

President Trump this week left the swamp known as Washington, D.C., to visit a whole different type of swamp down here in Florida when he attended the opening of Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades. Not only was the visit classic Trump, it also brought together two of the Republican Party's heaviest hitters -- the president and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Two men who love the country and are working together to act in the country's best interests.

But before Trump even arrived in Southwest Florida, he'd already put his stamp on the visit by joking with reporters at the White House about teaching illegals who try to escape from Alligator Alcatraz how to run away from an alligator. "Don't run in a straight line," Trump quipped. "And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%." (See here for more on how to outrun an alligator.) That is just Trump at his best, having a little fun with a serious topic as his administration takes demonstrable steps to address illegal immigration, one of the big problems the country is facing, and one of the key issues that animated his voters. It's also Trump showing how the federal government and a state government can partner to tackle problems in an efficient way, as a peek inside the facility revealed. And then there's the Alligator Alcatraz branding -- nobody does branding that captures where the culture is like Donald Trump.

But I want to focus on the second point above, and zoom in on the relationship between Trump and DeSantis. It was refreshing and reassuring to see Trump and DeSantis together again. After everything that went down during the Republican primary, the harsh words the two exchanged -- all of that was in the rearview mirror as the two collaborated on Alligator Alcatraz. They even took a moment to advise California Gov. Gavin Newsom to learn a thing or two from the quick and efficient building of Alligator Alcatraz. Demonstrating the efficiency his administration has operated with, Trump revealed Alligator Alcatraz is being funded with FEMA money that the Biden administration had allocated to pay for luxury hotel rooms in New York City that illegal immigrants were living in for free. On the taxpayers' dime. It's poetic justice.

And by the way, if you’re planning a trip to Alligator Alcatraz to visit the detainees, you’ll want to check out the offer from our sponsor in this newsletter — great way to get some help if you need to learn to speak one of the many different languages being spoken inside the facility there.

When a reporter asked Trump to describe his relationship with DeSantis, the president responded, saying, "I think it's a 10. Maybe a 9.9 because there might be a couple of little wounds." DeSantis went on to talk about how, after he dropped out of the 2024 race, he promptly endorsed Trump. When two political heavyweights like Trump and DeSantis are aligned, they're capable of accomplishing great things. The détente also serves as an example to others who have done battle in the political arena, showing that they can get past those rivalries and come together again. It's like what was happening in late-'80s pro wrestling when Hulk Hogan and Randy "Macho Man" Savage, who were sworn enemies, teamed up to take on Million-Dollar Man and Andre the Giant.

"You are my friend and you'll always be my friend," Trump said to DeSantis. "And we may have some skirmishes even in the future. I doubt it, but I will always come back because we just seem to ... have blood that seems to match pretty well. We have a relationship that's been a very strong one for a long period of time, and I appreciate it very much."

Just two years ago, the words Trump was saying about Ron DeSantis were light years from where they are today. Remember Ron "DeSanctimonius"? Watch this video to see how far things have swung in two short years.

It goes to show that no matter how heated this political stuff gets, all of the differences can be put in the past. And speaking of getting heated, on to the next topic — but first ...

FIREWORKS BETWEEN TRUMP AND MUSK AS FEUD FLARES UP AGAIN AHEAD OF JULY 4th

Whoa, boy. Just when I thought Thanksgiving dinner at Mar-a-Lago this year was going to be uneventful, the feud between Elon Musk and Trump -- the 2.0 version of this fight -- is back.

This Musk-Trump beef is peak 2025, isn’t it? Elon’s like, “Your bill’s gonna bankrupt America!” And Trump fires back, “I’ll bankrupt you first, pal! And then I might deport you.” Meanwhile, every Fourth of July fireworks display in America this year is like how do I put on a show like these two did this week.

Frankly, at this point, I'm just hoping Elon is invited to Mar-a-Lago this year for Thanksgiving instead of ending up in Alligator Alcatraz, because, let's face it -- who is Barron Trump going to chat with about life on Mars at Thanksgiving dinner this year if Elon's not there? It's just going to be a boring Thanksgiving for Barron with no Elon around.

Honestly, the only way I know how to deal with this feud is with comic relief and cracking a few jokes about it. The two men both have their positions on the "big beautiful bill." Musk vehemently opposes the additional spending included in the bill, and he posted an image on X questioning when Congress would flatten the nation's debt curve, which was a stark visual reminder of what federal spending has done to the national deficit. Trump then fired back with threats of DOGE pulling government subsidies to Tesla and SpaceX.

My message: I would like everyone to calm down. And by everyone, I mean Elon and Trump.

To some extent, it's good to see independent thinking and disagreement out in the open on the Right. That pales in comparison to how Democrats have conducted themselves for years now (hello, autopen!). But we don't want the public disagreement to escalate to a nuclear level. 

Calmer heads prevailed this first time this feud flared up, and I'm hoping that's the result this time. You, reader, and most Americans, myself included, want to keep more of their hard-earned money. And most Americans also can recognize that the work Musk is doing is good for America and humanity at large. Even worse, the slimiest of Democrats are trying to use this feud between Trump and Musk to drive a wedge between the two of them, which threatens the wide tent movement I've talked so much about over the last year or more. Just look at what Pocohontas had to say when asked about it this week:

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK CITY

To my readers and viewers in New York City, I am urging you to flee the city before it's too late. It brings me no pleasure to have to say this -- I spent my formative years from 1999-2013 as a stand-up comedian in New York City, living in a modest apartment on the Upper West Side in the heart of Seinfeld territory. But with Zorhan Mamdani's victory in the Democrat mayoral primary, I have no choice but to sound the alarm. Not only is Mamdani a radical communist, he's also just a straight-up racist.

Fox News this week picked up on my warning to New Yorkers, and I can't help but echo my own words. Why? Mamdani has refused to condemn the phrase "Globalize the intifada," which is an open call to kill Jews around the world. He's made radical statements -- on video, watch it here -- discussing his "end goal of seizing the means of production." What was the name of that guy with the long beard who talked about seizing the means up production, again? That's right, it was Karl Marx.

If that's not radical enough for you, though, Mamdani went on Meet The Press and explained why he wants to raise taxes on white New Yorkers. That's not just radical, it's batshit crazy. And it's racist. He also said, "I don't think that we should have billionaires."

The more Mamdani speaks and the more we learn about what he's said in the past, the more it makes current Mayor Eric Adams look like the competent choice in the November election. And Adams is the one who made New York a sanctuary city in the first place, though he has tried to reverse course more recently as illegal immigrants continued wreaking havoc in the city.

But if my words aren't enough to convince you about what a threat he poses New York City and really the entire nation -- and Mamdani's own words aren't enough to convince you, maybe the words of Stephen A. Smith will be enough. Here he talks about what Democrats risk by going all-in on Mamdani. Although, I do have one question for Stephen A. about his analysis. Watch: 

VOTE FOR THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION POWER RANKINGS

Marco Rubio once again claimed the top spot in The Rubin Report’s "Top 10 Trump Peeps" power rankings, narrowly outpacing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by two votes. Obviously, Rubio and Hegseth played key roles in the Trump administration’s successful Operation Midnight Hammer attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, and that was reflected in this week’s rankings.

Coming in third, in what I would say is somewhat of a surprise, was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant. Clearly, people are recognizing the positive impact Trump’s tariffs are having — they’ve fueled more than $100 billion in revenue to the U.S. since Trump took office — and Bessant is the architect of those tariffs and their execution. Plus, the U.S. stock markets, which experts repeatedly said would crash due to the tariffs, have been soaring.

Want to have a say in next week’s rankings? Make your voice heard and vote below in the poll to determine next week’s edition of the power rankings. Choose the member of Team Trump who you think is crushing it the most right now.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA BANS MEN FROM COMPETING IN WOMEN’S SPORTS

I talked about what a roll Trump was on in last week’s edition of the newsletter. Then, on Monday, Scott Jennings was on CNN saying a lot of the same things about the current stretch being the best two weeks of the president’s second term. Win after win after win. And that was all before we got a look at Alligator Alcatraz and then another big win the administration put up on Tuesday.

The Trump administration brought one of the top Ivy League schools in this country to its knees this week. The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that the University of Pennsylvania — where Trump went to the Wharton School of Business, interestingly — has agreed to a resolution with President Donald Trump's administration to keep biological male trans athletes out of women's sports.

The short story: It was a bad day for chicks with dicks.

To bring a little more nuance to the development, this was the culmination of a major cultural shift, one that could be brought about by only the Trump administration. The agreement not only prohibits male athletes from competing in women’s sports, but it will also strip all of the swimming titles and records from Lia Thomas, who previously swam for Penn’s men’s swimming team before identifying as a woman, and restore them to the women who rightfully earned them — and then issue a public apology to the women who were affected by allowing Thomas to compete on the women’s team. There’s a theory as to how Lia Thomas was really winning all these women’s swim races my director, Connor, has often cited.

This outcome is good, it is right, it is just if you actually care about women in sports. It’s also a vindication of the athletes who bravely spoke out about this injustice as it was happening, which was highly politically incorrect and risky at the time. Just ask Riley Gaines, who has been on The Rubin Report and was one of the leading voices on this perversion of what Title IX was supposed to be. Gaines appeared on Fox News alongside Education Secretary Linda McMahon to give her reaction to the agreement with Penn. “I feel like pigs are flying,” Gaines said, adding that she’s pregnant and expecting a girl and that is outcome is something that will protect her child in the future.

This was also vindication for politicians and other officials who knew it was wrong when it was happening and were punished for speaking out. Former Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler ran an ad in 2022 in which she said, “Women’s sports are for women, not for men pretending to be women.” She was promptly suspended by pre-Elon Musk Twitter for posting the ad and accused of violating the platform’s “hateful conduct” rule. For more on Riley Gaines’ reaction to the news, watch:

TWEET OF THE WEEK

WHAT TO KNOW

• Copal is sold out but we’ve heard from many of you who want to pick up a bottle, and my distillery in Mexico is hard at work on a second batch of the tequila. It should be ready by August when we’re planning to open up ordering again. You can also follow Copal on Instagram here to stay up to date, and newsletter readers will be notified first when ordering reopens.

• During this week’s Community Q&A, Rob asked, “Would you ever consider running for state or federal public office?” It’s a great question and one I’ve been asked several times before. During the pandemic lockdown craziness in L.A., people approached me about getting more politically involved. And in the few years I’ve been in Florida, I’ve been approached about running for public office, but my answer is that, at this time, I just don’t think it’s something I’ll pursue. That could change, but right now I love what I’m doing and I think I’m actually affecting things with what I’m doing now. But never say never. We had a bunch of great questions on this week’s Community Q&A — click here to check out the full segment.

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

• Be sure to check YouTube, Rumble and Spotify on Saturday for a new interview with Glenn Beck. I sat down with the founder of Blaze Media for a conversation on all things America. Catch it this weekend and keep your eyes out for highlights next week.

• I just turned 49 last week, and this week America is celebrating its 249th birthday. For a country that looks so good for its age, we’re celebrating at the Rubin Report online merch store here with a new line of Independence Day-themed gear and swag. Check it out and show some national pride with our exclusive selection of 1776 hats, T-shirts and other fun stuff. Click here to pick something out from our special July 4th collection.

• Don’t forget about Babbel, this week’s sponsor, which has a great July 4th offer for readers of this newsletter. You can get 60% off Babbel’s expert language lessons, so if you’ve always wanted to learn a new language, now is a great time to take that plunge.

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Until next week … — Dave