Thread by @timbahontoast

One defence I’m seeing from Rubin Report fans is that the controversial guests who journalists bring up in critiques are from 2+ years ago. However, the guests aren’t the problem, and never were. Its Dave’s deceptive approach to interviewing.

The reason critics talk about the Robinson, Cernovich and Molyneux interviews in particular is because they are particularly good examples that show how Dave’s softball questions and platitudes have the effect of depriving his audience of context and selling them false narratives

The criticism will remain valid up until the point where Dave strengthens his rigour in interviews. Over the 4 years that Dave has been interviewing, he has always found time to summon twitter followers to attack critics, but he has never strengthened his approach to interviewing

Here’s an example from just last month. Rubin had Avi Yemini on the show. Avi (a right-winger) had been featured in a Jim Jefferies piece on Comedy Central (I.e. liberal media) where deceptive video editing had been used to paint Avi as a batshit crazy extremist.

Dave was keen to use the interview with Avi to discuss the dishonesty of the leftist liberal media and their underhanded deceptive video editing tricks. This, alas, is what the Rubin Report audience have come to expect from leftist ideological smear merchants

Then, not even 1 month later, Dave broadcasts an interview with James O’Keefe from Project Veritas, a conservative political activist who runs undercover camera operations

One glance at the first part of James O’Keefe’s Wikipedia page would tell you that he is well-known for an operation involving the black-rights advocacy group ACORN (as well as being arrested in 2010)

3 separate investigations found that James O Keefe had “severely edited” videos of his conversations with low-level ACORN employees to smear the organisation. O’Keefe had to pay $100,000 as a settlement to one of the people who he had deliberately mischaracterised in his videos

In Dave’s hour long interview with James O’Keefe, the Rubin Report audience is told nothing about the investigation by the Attorney General that condemned O’Keefe’s deceptive video editing or the settlement O’Keefe had to pay to the victim of his smear operation

In fact, it’s not Dave, but O’Keefe, who at one point in the interview brings up that he is often accused of editing videos unfairly. O’Keefe says the accusations against him are unfounded. Dave nods along, and then pivots back to questions about the bias of the liberal MSM

O’Keefe is lauded by Dave during the interview as a hero, doing great work on the front lines and being an invaluable asset against the dishonest leftists in all corrupt spheres of our society.

So, here’s what you end up with.

In the Avi Yemini interview, where the conservative guest can be seen as having the moral high ground, Dave hammers on the principle - selectively editing videos is bad. Dishonesty is bad. The leftist media are deceivers and liars.

In the O’Keefe interview, where the conservative guest is in the wrong, and guilty of doing the EXACT SAME video editing thing, Dave avoids the topic. Instead, it’s - your videos are exposing the leftists. Let’s not get caught up in your past actions, let’s discuss the MSM

These are not one-off slip ups. A close look at Dave’s interviews shows a consistent pattern of obscuring nefarious aspects of his guest’s actions or ideas and carefully sculpting conversations in order to sell his audience the narrative that right-wingers can do no wrong