💬 The Rubin Recap: The Sunday return to normalcy

Fake normal exposed this week as Southern Poverty Law Center is indicted

A week ago at this time, we were all digesting the news that Trump had survived another assassination attempt. It’s surreal to think that it’s becoming normal for an assassination attempt to happen and many of us simply aren’t surprised.

It’s also strange how many on the left reacted — or didn’t react. Not sure if you noticed, but Kamala Harris, Trump’s opponent in the 2024 election, did not even put out a statement about the third assassination attempt in two years against Trump. The left used to have this cute little saying: “Silence is violence.” I wonder if that applies in this situation. Kamala did, however, manage to put someone to sleep with one of her word salads this week.

Hakeem Jeffries refused to back down from his call for “maximum warfare” against Trump — even after last Saturday’s attempt on Trump’s life.

I’ve spent a lot of time in this Sunday edition of the newsletter focusing on the many ways Trump is restoring normalcy in the U.S. But I’m not sure he can do anything about this one.

And I say that because of the rhetoric that is coming from the left. If you watch the show, you’ve heard me liken it to the way the velociraptors in Jurassic Park behaved — testing and learning until they figured out how to open a door.

That’s exactly what’s happening with the most extreme people on the left right now. Hasan Piker keeps offering up increasingly extreme rhetoric to see if he’ll get any pushback from anyone on his side.

There he was on a New York Times podcast just a few days before the assassination attempt against Trump advocating for the robbery of Whole Foods and condoning Luigi Mangione’s assassination of a healthcare CEO. Neither the host nor the other guest pushed back. Quite the opposite, in fact — they giggled along with him.

Then just a couple of days after the most recent attempt on Trump’s life, the radio host Lenny delivered a tacit approval of the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner: “The Trump administration has caused so much pain.” Watch it here:

Sure, some of us on the right have called out this incrementally increasing approval of political violence we see from Piker, Lenny, Jeffries and others showing up in, say for instance, the manifesto written by the would-be assassin. But the policing of these excesses needs to come from the good-faith people on the left (if there are any remaining) — because as this recent YouGov poll demonstrated, it’s younger Americans on the political left who actually say that they are all good with political violence.

Right now, there simply is no pushback happening on the left. The government officials aren’t doing it. Congressman Ro Khanna is actually cozying up to Hasan Piker instead of rejecting him. Kamala Harris’ silence on the latest Trump assassination attempt isn’t surprising. But I was surprised that John Fetterman had nothing to say about it — even though he was in the room that night.

You heard Kimmel and Lenny say that this is all Trump’s fault and he needs to dial back the rhetoric. But that overlooks the fact that the people on the right act civilly. The attempts on Trump’s life are coming from the left. Trump can create the conditions for a return to normalcy, but unless some people on the left are able to act with integrity and condemn the violent rhetoric, this new normal is here to stay, unfortunately. And it will be the velociraptors who end controlling the island.

Judge Roy Altman on how A.I. is going to change modern warfare

Drone wars. Battle plans drawn up by artificial intelligence. Yeah, sounds a lot like science fiction, but it’s going to be fact soon enough. And Roy Altman is one of the chief experts on how A.I. is going to radically change modern warfare. In fact, some of these changes are already happening, and he points out why Israel is such a critical ally for the U.S. as drones and A.I. become the primary methods of battle.

Judge Altman also has remarkable personal story and talked about how his family escaped the Holocaust and ended up in Venezuela. He recounted one of the last conversations he had with his dying grandfather before he passed away in Venezuela, and how that conversation gave his life new direction. Plus, he’s got a new book, Israel on Trial and The Future of War, so we spent time discussing that as well. Eye-opening conversation.