💬 The Rubin Recap: The Sunday return to normalcy

Guilty verdict at teen murder trial draws shocking and abnormal reactions

I’ve said several times that the road back to normalcy is a bumpy one. This week, we had a great example of that with the Karmelo Anthony — not the former NBA player — trial in Texas. I rarely do a lot of trial coverage on the show, but I led Wednesday’s show with this story because the reactions to it from certain people were flat-out mind-boggling.

Jurors in Texas convicted Anthony of first-degree murder for fatally stabbing Austin Metcalf, who died in his twin brother’s arms, at a high school track meet last year. Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in prison, although he could’ve been put away for up to 99 years.

The normal part of this story is the verdict the jury returned. A few years ago, at the height of the BLM fever in this country, I’m not sure a jury would’ve convicted a black teenager who fatally stabbed a white teenager. In 2021 or 2022, Karmelo Anthony probably walks.

But here’s the part of the story where the road back to normalcy starts getting bumpy. Anthony had throngs of supporters, many of whom showed up outside the courthouse. One of his most prominent supporters is a member of Congress. And they all believe Anthony should’ve been acquitted, essentially, because of his skin color.

If you didn’t see how some of these people were behaving outside the courthouse after verdict came down watch below. Does this look like normal behavior to you?

It’s emblematic of a couple of broader problems that have been simmering in our culture. One is a depraved and increasingly common acceptance of vigilante violence. Once people start saying, “Oh, I don't like what the United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was doing. I can understand why Luigi and Mangione might just murder him in Times Square. Oh, I don't like Donald Trump. I can understand why people keep trying to assassinate him,” it’s a very slippery slope from there.

While the country at large is trending toward normal, there’s still a strain in this nation that is embracing a lawless, killer mentality.

And it’s not just the regular people on the street, who got themselves all fired up about the verdict and looked actually insane. Even in the halls of the United States Congress, there is at least one person justifying Karmelo Anthony’s killing of Austin Metcalf — and actually suggesting that the jury was racist for convicting Anthony.

That member of Congress is none other than Lady Eyelashes herself, Jasmine Crockett. She has basically agreed with Karmelo Anthony killing Austin Metcalf, and suggested she might’ve done the same thing.

It’s the accusation that the jury — which many have falsely said was all white — was racist that illustrates the other broader problem that is particularly rampant on the left. This outlook is the result of constantly viewing everything through a racial lens. The skin color of the murderer or the victim or the jurors shouldn’t actually matter.

That is why Lady Justice, the very symbol of moral fairness, wears a blindfold. Lady Eyelashes … she just wears fake eyelashes — and you see the kind of horrible takes on things she comes up with.

If there’s a moral to any of these, I guess it’s: be more like Lady Justice and less like Lady Eyelashes. Our return to normalcy depends on it. And everything you read and watched above is an apt lead-in for the discussion in my sit-down interview of the week with Gad Saad.

The great Gad Saad on the dangers of ‘Suicidal Empathy’

It’s possible that nobody out there today has a more complete explanation for why we are where are in 2026 than my good friend Gad Saad. And I’m not just talking about here in the U.S. — I’m talking about pretty much everywhere in the Western world. You’ve probably heard me mention his new book, Suicidal Empathy, in which he gets to the bottom of how empathy, when detached from reason and critical thinking, can be manipulated to advance destructive agendas. The U.K. is at stage five of suicidal empathy — we saw evidence of that this week with the migrant trying to behead a man in Belfast. Gad says the U.S. is at stage two of suicidal empathy, but warns that it looks like it’s racing to catch up with the U.K. Gad explains the origin of the phrase suicidal empathy, which is being invoked frequently not only by me but many others as well as newly-minted trillionaire Elon Musk.

We got into a whole bunch of other topics as well, including how Joe Rogan is being influenced by certain voices in the podcast sphere, the psychology of persuasion, evolutionary biology, political tribalism, and how it feels being at the top of The New York Times bestseller list. 🔥