WATCH: Dave Rubin's Conversion From Progressive to Classical Liberal

Toss away the labels and groupthink, and you've got a solid chance of helping a progressive believer see the light --- as long as they let reason, not emotion rule their thinking.

That's exactly what happened to Dave Rubin, host of The Rubin Report and former progressive who now calls himself a classical liberal. Rubin, who recently filmed a video with Prager U about his conversion, joined The Glenn Beck Program on Tuesday.

"I think something happened to 'progressive' in the last couple of years where it went from at least some healthy dose of true liberalism, classical liberalism and it's become just an authoritarian mess," Rubin said.

"So maybe I was a little late to the party on some of that stuff. Maybe I have just a high tolerance for some old-fashioned BS. Really, if you look back at my show for the last two years, I've spent the last two years of my life trying to get some of the good liberals to realize what's happening, and I think I succeeded at some of that. But clearly the progressives are going off the deep end."

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Dave Rubin. A talk show about big ideas and free speech. He does the RubinReport.com. I was out in Los Angeles, I don't know, a few weeks ago. Stopped by his beautiful studios in Los Angeles and did about an hour with him. I found him to be extraordinarily engaging and not the guy I thought, had you known that he used to work at, what Was it? Young Turks Network, which is run by a crazy guy, in my opinion.

But Dave is with us now. Hi, Dave, how are you?

DAVE: Glenn, it's good to be with you. I should tell you before we start that I am actually on vacation right now on an undisclosed island. I've been off the grid for about five days. So I have no idea what's happening in the world. I still have five days in front of me here. So this is the only on-the-grid thing I'm doing. So whatever we do here, let's just not ruin my vacation.

GLENN: Okay. So that we shouldn't tell you what happened over the weekend. We'll leave it -- we won't ask you any of those questions.

DAVE: Yeah. Well, we should probably stay away from that.

I did -- you know, I opened my phone once, just to check what time it was. And I glanced at my Twitter feed for a second. I can see a lot of crazy things are happening.

GLENN: Yeah, crazy things are happening.

DAVE: I don't have to tell you, Glenn, you know, when you do what we do, the amount of information you can be slammed with, coming from every angle, constantly, it actually does take a toll on the brain.

GLENN: No, it does.

DAVE: And I desperately needed a little break. So I'm in the midst of that break right now, but I'm looking --

GLENN: Well, jeez, I'm sorry that we scheduled this on your vacation.

DAVE: No, I thought I could do one thing to stay -- otherwise, I could really end up being one of these full-time vacation people. And then it's over.

GLENN: Those are crazy.

So, David, you said you used to be a progressive.

DAVE: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: And you've just done something with Prager University, where you say how progressives have now taken to banning words, et cetera, et cetera. But that is who the progressives were at the beginning. They've never really changed. They have -- they have tried to make themselves appear as though they are classic liberals, but they're not.

What gave you the -- what woke you to this?

DAVE: Well, more than anything else, I've always considered myself liberal first. So I remember literally 1988 when I was in a seventh grade social studies class, and Michael Dukakis was running against George H.W. Bush, and I remembered, you know, in the media they kept calling Dukakis liberal, liberal. And I remember at some point during that, we were doing a mock election in the class. And Dukakis had to run away from the word "liberal." And that just made no sense to me.

I thought, liberals care about minorities. Liberals care about social issues. Liberals seem to be nicer people. You know, this is me in seventh grade.

And over the -- I think 20 years or so since then, I still have remained true to my liberal principles. And we can go through all of those things: I'm for gay marriage. I'm pro-choice. I'm against the death penalty. I'm for reforming the prison system. Et cetera. Et cetera. I'm for strong education. All those things.

And I think something happened to progressive in the last couple of years where it went from at least some healthy dose of true liberalism, classical liberalism, and it's become just an authoritarian mess. And, you know, I've had plenty of people on my show, you included and guys like Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro and a few others, who have said, you know, at their core, even though they're conservatives, they're really conservatives now because there are classical liberals.

And so maybe I was a little late to the part on some of that stuff. Maybe I have just a high tolerance for some old-fashioned BS. Really, if you look back at my show for the last two years, I've spent the last two years of my life trying to get some of the good liberals to realize what's happening. And I think I succeeded at some of that. But clearly the progressives are going off the deep end.

GLENN: Okay. So tell me -- when you say you're trying to get liberals to understand, what do you mean by that? And where are you seeing progress?

DAVE: Well, look, liberalism at its core is live and let live. People don't understand that anymore because it's been so conflated with progressivism and leftism. But at its core, liberalism means you're liberal in that you're for liberty, for human dignity and liberty, and you have your life to do as you see fit and pursue happiness as you see fit for yourself and your family and the people around you and all those things.

Now, that, of course, sounds a lot like Libertarianism. And I talked a bit on my show about it. And we talked about it a couple weeks ago, about a little bit of a difference between classical liberalism and Libertarianism, where a classical liberal, generally, you see a little more utility for the government, where Libertarian is kind of hard to pin them down exactly. You know, some of them don't want driver's licenses. Like, it's sort of all over the map.

So where I've seen success is that I've seen a lot of former progressives -- I mean, my email blows up every day, and my Twitter and all that, of former progressives saying, "Wow, this isn't what I signed up for. Maybe I didn't realize it." It's a lot of young people, which is interesting.

So for someone like you, that's saying progressivism was always this. I think for younger people, because of the social stuff -- so something like gay marriage, where progressives were leading the charge on that, it made it seem like progressives were the good guys.

But already that's a couple years ago. It's the law of the land now. And I don't see really people on the right fighting it. And even when I sat down with you, you said maybe it's not -- I think -- I don't want to totally paraphrase you, but you basically said, maybe it's not what I would have wanted. But it is the law now. And kind of live and let live.

And I think that attitude is really what can build bridges. So for me, the idea that right now I feel that I can build a bridge with Glenn Beck much more easily than I can with people on the left is a huge political shift for me. But, you know, that's what life is all about, that you change and people change. And you have to try to find places where you agree instead of just screaming that everybody else is a bigot and a racist and the rest of that nonsense.

PAT: Dave, usually people don't take kindly to somebody on their side saying things like this. And, you know, having any kind of change of heart. Are you getting a lot of -- are you getting a lot of pushback? Are you getting a lot of virulent tweets and response from what you've been saying lately?

DAVE: Yeah. I mean, look, you know, the way we interact these days, because we're all doing it behind a computer, because so many people are doing it anonymously and, you know, create all these fake accounts, it's hard to pilfer any truth out of what really matters or whatnot. Yeah, I get a couple bad articles --

PAT: Yeah, you can't be very popular at the Young Turks Network anymore, right?

DAVE: Well, look -- yeah, well, none of those guys will talk to me. And really, there was a direct line through -- over the course of the last two years, and particularly the free speech stuff, when Charlie Hebdo happened and when that whole blowup happened on realtime between Sam Harris and Bill Maher versus Ben Affleck, where they were trying to explain really complex issues related to the difference between the nominal average Muslim person and what an Islamist is and what a jihadist is and all of this stuff. Really complex stuff. And just the knee-jerk response to yell bigot and racist. And that if anybody didn't immediately say they were for gay marriage, the second you were for gay marriage, then they're a homophobe.

And if they immediately aren't okay with the bathroom designation that you want, the second you want it, they're a transphobe. Or all of these things.

This isn't -- it's not a mature enlightened way of thinking. It's actually completely the reverse of that.

And I'm a firm believer -- Glenn, you know this. I'm married. I'm gay married. Okay. So, you know, I think that I can show people that you don't have to bark and shame people into liking you. No one likes that. What you can do is be a responsible human being and show people that that's okay.

And so these guys -- look, the progressives have used all these words to the point that they're meaningless. And what I hear now, and I've done a couple videos on this recently, is that when you've pinned everybody else to be Hitler basically -- because this is what they're doing: Everyone else is a bigot and a racist and Hitler, blah, blah, your only other out then is violence. And I think we're already seeing the underpinnings of that. And I suspect we're going to see more of it unfortunately.

GLENN: I will tell you, Dave, I sat with you -- and, first of all, let me correct you on one thing.

DAVE: Yeah.

GLENN: I was -- I'm -- my stance on gay marriage has been the same since the late 1990s. And that is, while my faith says that's not right, my stance on that is, that's not my decision. That's between you and your God and you and whoever. And the government has nothing to do with it.

DAVE: Yeah.

GLENN: So I was pro-gay marriage years before Obama and Hillary Clinton were.

DAVE: Sure.

GLENN: And yet I was the bigot. I just don't believe the government has any place -- you work out your marriage, I'll work out my marriage. I don't have a right to tell you what to believe, and you don't have a right to tell me what I should believe.

DAVE: By the way, Glenn, think what a beautiful thing that is. So first off, I apologize for misrepresenting your position.

GLENN: No, no, that's fine.

DAVE: But think about what a beautiful thing that is, that you as a Libertarian are saying, I don't care about this contract that you want to enter. Maybe my religion says something else. But I respect your ability to live as a -- as a human being on this planet, and I don't want the government in on that. And then a liberal from the same position -- a classical liberal could say, I believe that two people should be allowed to do the same thing that straight people are allowed to do.

So you can come to the same conclusion through different political lenses. And that's I think why this bridge is now being built between true liberals and Libertarians and some conservatives.

GLENN: Yeah, I would consider myself more of a classic liberal than a Libertarian. But people don't understand what a classic liberal is anymore.

DAVE: Yeah. I'm working on it. I'm working on it.

GLENN: So, David, where do we go from here? Because I keep asking this of people in the press and people on both sides, you have people that want to burn it down, literally. Steve Bannon calls himself a Leninist, wants to burn the whole system down. Then you have the people on the left that want to burn things down, and they are actually active in the streets. And nobody is willing to talk to each other. Donald Trump calls the press names. The press keeps calling him, you know, a liar.

We're not getting anywhere. What -- what's coming?

DAVE: Well, you're right that we have a toxic mess on our hands right now. Because when you have the left -- you know, we know they're okay with violence. And we know that these words -- as I said, they've pinned themselves in a corner. And now they have the perfect bogeyman in Trump. So, you know, they pin themselves -- imagine if Trump started to do some good things. Let's say the economy really took off. He lowered taxes. Trade deals worked out. He didn't care that much about the social stuff which I don't think he really does care about.

Well, they've talked about him as Hitler for so long, that they can't give him any credit, so they have to keep trying to undermine him. This is a huge problem. So I think for guys like us, the important thing is that we can show people that you are allowed to agree to disagree. You don't have to disagree with anyone on anything. I don't even know that I agree with myself on any given day of everything that I thought the day before. And that -- that's called being a human. That's just having a little humility. And understanding -- you know, it's so funny. I try not to get too caught in the Twitter thing. Because it's a world of its own.

But everybody has to have an opinion about everything. You know, so like we'll do -- Obama did the thing with Cuba. And suddenly people who I had never heard say a word about Cuba before. People who know nothing about politics. Everyone suddenly is an expert on our relations with Cuba. And everyone is an expert on the Iran nuclear deal, et cetera, et cetera. And I think what we have to try to do is be a little old-school in our thinking and be okay with sitting across from people and, you know, it's a big country. And, you know, we're going to disagree on some stuff. And the battle of ideas is the important thing.

And just because someone doesn't change the second that you change, it doesn't mean that they're a bad person. And I think that -- we can get some of this stuff across. But, of course, our job is harder. Because it would be a lot easier if we just started a coalition of people that happened to scream at people all the time. That's how you get clicks. That's how you get the numbers and all of that. But, you know, I'm not on this planet for that. I don't think you are either. And we got our work cut out for us.

GLENN: Dave Rubin from the RubinReport.com. Always good to talk to you, Dave.

Hope to talk to you again in the future. In the meantime, go back to the beach or whatever it is you're doing and forget about the rest of the world for a while.

DAVE: That -- that is where I'm headed right now. Thank you, Glenn.

JEFFY: Good luck.

GLENN: Thank you. Buh-bye. Dave Rubin. Good guy. Did a really interesting interview with me. I didn't know what to expect. Didn't know about this big change in him.

STU: I don't even take your calls on vacation. I can't believe he did.

GLENN: I know. That was crazy. Why would you do that?

STU: I have a tough time taking them during the workweek.

GLENN: I know. Yesterday I had the day off. And the phone rang and rang and rang. And I didn't answer it once. And that wasn't because it was a holiday. I just don't ever do that anymore. So if you were trying to call, and that was you, Stu, sorry.

STU: It wasn't, I promise.

Recent attacks on Trump prove how DESPERATE the Left really is

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Just in the last few weeks, Donald Trump's campaign has hit new heights. As the election draws near, the Trump campaign has had back-to-back successes and the energy is palpable.

Just to add fuel to the Democrats' fire, the polls are leaning in Trump's favor. Naturally, the Democrats are frantically playing damage control in an attempt to slow Trump's momentum, but they are scraping the bottom of the barrel of insults to throw at him. If you weren't convinced by the mainstream media's talking heads calling Trump a racist for the past eight years, it seems unlikely that you will suddenly become convinced now. The Left's final volley of insults against Trump and his supporters reveals just how bleak Kamala Harris's situation really is.

Calling Trump Hitler

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The mainstream media has been calling Donald Trump "Hitler" for nearly a decade now, and the American people are over it. Yet, just last week, Harris compared Trump to Hitler during her speech from the vice presidential mansion. She also called Trump a fascist outright during her ill-fated CNN town hall, but like the rest of the event, the insult fell flat. This is the same old, tired rhetoric, and it simply doesn't carry any weight anymore. If Trump was going to be a dictator, wouldn't he have done it during his first term?

MSNBC's Propaganda

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If the Vice President spewing dangerous rhetoric against a former president who has already had multiple assassination attempts made against him wasn't enough, MSNBC had to have a go. On Sunday, October 27th, Trump held a momentous rally in the famous Madison Square Garden in New York City, and the venue was overflowing with support for the former president. Instead of actually covering the event, MSNBC, in a shameful act of fear-mongering, compared the Trump rally to a pro-Nazi rally that was held in the same venue back in 1939. MSNBC played footage of the Trump rally alongside footage of the Nazi rally from 85 years ago, which many critics have called "inciting," given the history of political violence already present in this election.

Calling Trump Racist

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The very same Madison Square Garden rally caused another media outrage when famous "roast" comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made a scathing joke about Puerto Rico. While the joke was certainly offensive (as Glenn explained, that's the whole point of a "roast") and perhaps it was not the best of all choices to feature a joke that targeted a potentially crucial voter demographic, at the end of the day it was simply a joke. But the Left has long since abandoned the concepts of "fun" and "humor," and began the tired old cry of "Trump is a racist!" anew. However, calling Trump a racist has the same effect of calling him Hitler: no one but the bluest of the Democrats buys into that rhetoric.

Top FIVE takeaways from Trump's LEGENDARY Joe Rogan podcast

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President Donald Trump sat down for a three-hour podcast with famous podcaster Joe Rogan for what was likely the longest interview of a presidential nominee in American political history.

The interview, which first aired Friday, October 25th, has amassed over 38 million views at the time of writing, making it one of the top-performing podcasts Rogan has ever done. Naturally, the mainstream media tried desperately to spin this interview against Trump by "fact-checking" claims he made about the 2020 election, cherry-picking individual sentences from the three-hour-long interview just to repeat them out of context. They've even gone so far as to tell people not to watch the podcast.

This is all just a coping strategy, as anyone who has seen the interview would tell you, Trump absolutely crushed it! He was sharp, witty, funny, intelligent, strong, positive, and perhaps most importantly, he had actual policy solutions to America's problems. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, here are the top five takeaways from the must-watch podcast:

Tariffs and Federal Income Tax

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Trump repeated a statement he had made at a rally earlier in the week, suggesting that he's considering repealing the Federal Income Tax. He suggested an alternate means of deriving income for our government tariffs. Trump praised the late 19th century, President William McKinley, for his use of tariffs to increase the wealth of the United States before income tax was introduced. Trump said that he wants to use tariffs to tax other countries for stealing American jobs, which would simultaneously protect American industry and lighten the burden of American taxpayers; two birds, one stone.

RFK Jr. and MAHA

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Joe Rogan discussed RFK Jr. and his mission to Make America Healthy Again. He mentioned a startling statistic he had heard from RFK Jr.: that over 70 percent of young American men are not physically fit enough to serve in the military. Trump corroborated this claim with a graph he had brought that revealed the U.S. spends significantly more than most other countries on health care per capita yet has significantly lower life expectancy. This discrepancy is perpetuated by Big Pharma, which profits off our illness. Trump even claimed that he was warned against partnering with RFK Jr. lest he would anger people within the industry. President Trump assured Rogan that he is completely committed to working with RFK Jr. to make America healthy again.

The JFK Files

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In an especially thrilling moment of the interview, Trump claimed to have read a portion of the JFK files and decided to re-seal it after seeing what he read and consulting with trusted advisors. He claimed that well-intentioned, good people asked him not to open the files just yet, and after reading about half the files, he understood why. While he was reluctant to go into more detail, he claimed that there were people who were involved with the JFK assassination and the following investigation who are still alive, and whose names and addresses were in the files. But according to Trump, enough time had passed, and he was adamant that he would unseal the JFK files soon after taking office.

The Biggest Mistake in His First Term

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President Trump discussed what he saw as the biggest mistake he made during his first term. He admited that he was still very new at politics when he was elected into the White House and relied on the advice of the swamp creatures he swore to destroy when building his cabinet. Trump admitted that he made several bad picks, which caused him problems throughout his first term, but he said he is determined to learn from his mistakes, and he's working on assembling a dream team for 2025.

Doubling Down on 2020 Election Fraud

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Despite efforts by the mainstream media to "debunk" election fraud claims, Trump continued to assert that there was interference in the 2020 election. Trump pointed out the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was actively suppressed and denied by the media leading up to the election, despite being true. On top of this, Trump and Rogan discussed the opportunity for cheating and interference offered by Covid with the vast increase in the use of mail-in ballots. Considering how small of a margin Biden won by, Trump argued that between Covid and the fake news media, the notion that the scales were tipped in Biden's favor is not that far-fetched.

Kamala Harris dropped the ball at CNN's town hall

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Vice President Kamala Harris held a town hall on CNN Wednesday night, asking voters questions about the swing state of Pennslyvania. It was a train wreck.

Harris could not give a single straight answer to any question, and would instead lapse into long, word-salad answers. At times even Anderson Cooper, who was hosting the event, seemed fed up with her answers and tried to steer her back on track. There were even a few times that felt like Cooper was practically spoon-feeding the answer to Harris, who still managed to drop the ball.

This town hall was a flop at a time when the polls revealed Harris really couldn't afford it.

She talked more about Trump than herself.

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Throughout her campaign and the CNN town hall, Harris repeatedly promised that her administration would break away from the "hate" and "divisiveness" that supposedly characterize President Trump and his campaign. But despite these promises, it seemed like Harris's answer to every question was to bash Trump. From questions about how she would support or not support Israel to questions about potential Supreme Court reforms, the answer was the same: Orange Man Bad.

Even the CNN after-show panel complained that she spent far too much time talking about Trump. Her performance lacked substance and proved that her campaign isnot about anything she has to offer the American people, it's solely about hating Donald Trump.

She missed the opportunity to further define herself.

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Harris spent so much time Trump-bashing that she never got into any detail about her policies. This was an event designed to give her the chance to lay out her platform and define who she is as a candidate and she utterly failed to do so. As mentioned before, all she really spoke about was Trump, a candidate who almost every voter is highly familiar with. This was a critical failure on Harris's part, she missed possibly one of, if not the last chance to make an impression on voters before the election and according to recent polls, this was a chance she could not afford to miss.

She gave several radical and dangerous remarks.

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The few times Harris managed to reveal some of her policy ideas it became clear why she was being so coy: they are blatantly dangerous. In between her anti-Trump tirades where she makes Trump out to be the biggest threat to the Constitution the country has ever seen, Harris let slip that she is open to Supreme Court reforms, including adding more Justices to the bench. This is known as court-packing and is most certainly unconstitutional, as well as one of the hallmarks of an authoritarian takeover, as Glenn has pointed out.

Harris also spent the first several minutes of the event making dangerous accusations against Trump, calling him a fascist and comparing him to Adolf Hitler. She would echo this sentiment the following day in a surprise address. Glenn explained on his radio show just how dangerous and inciteful this kind of language is and the kind of damage it can do. This looks like a desperate, last-ditch attempt to sway people away from Trump during this critical time of the election cycle.

Meet Trump's dream team who will make America healthy again

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Americans are sick of being sick. In a recent TV special, Glenn revealed one in three Americans suffer from a chronic disease, and it's only getting worse.

But there is hope! President Trump has taken notice of our dysfunctional and corrupt system and has assembled a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) dream team who plan on making big changes once Trump gets back into office. This team plans on fighting back against federal regulatory agencies such as the FDA, which are bought out by Big Pharma and Big Food and allow toxic ingredients that most other countries have banned into our food.

So who is this dream team? Below, we've compiled a list of the most prominent figures who are working with Trump to make America healthy again:

RFK Jr.

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Former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made the declining health of Americans a focal point in his campaign. After dropping out of the race, he combined forces with President Trump, promising to assist Trump in reinventing federal health agencies, such as the FDA and CDC, to purge them of corruption, and to reduce the dominance of ultra-processed foods full of toxic additives. RFK Jr. has adopted the slogan Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) in reference to Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) slogan.

Casey and Calley Means

Over this last month, Dr. Casey Means and her entrepreneur brother Calley have taken the Conservative sphere by storm after testifying in front of the U.S. Senate. The siblings have been making the circuit, speaking alongside Jorden Peterson, appearing on Joe Rogan's podcast, getting a shoutout by RFK Jr., and even joining Glenn on his most recent TV special. Casey and Calley are trying to expose the corruption in the upper levels of industry and federal agencies and fight back against what Dr. Casey describes as a "genocidal health collapse."

Dr. Robert Redfield

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Former CDC Director Dr. Redfield has recently rejoined Trump's Make America Healthy Again team. His experience as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control means he is familiar with the corruption that rots our federal agencies and has good reason to believe that the Trump administration can turn things around. Dr. Redfield has shown concern for the alarming rate of chronic disease that plagues Americans. He expressed special concern for children, given that over 40 percentof American children suffer from at least one chronic condition.