How My Interview with Dave Rubin Fell Through

From the outset, I want to make a few quick statements as to a) why I'm writing this piece and b) what my emotional response is to the whole mess.

1) I bear no ill will to either Dave Rubin, the publishers, or Dave's assistant Helen (who was a pleasure to have an interchange with) for how everything went down. The only issue I have is the thunderous silence that characterized the "responses" to my subsequent emails and how the situation was handled.

2) This article isn't an attempt to make anyone look bad necessarily, it's primarily my own attempt at ventilating my own angst and irritation. My thoughts and opinions are my own and no one else's.

3) I also wanted to write this article as an answer to everyone that has inquired as to how this interview fell through.

4) In spite of it all, I do still admire Dave, Peterson, Harris and the rest of the IDW crew. It would be a pleasure to interview any one of them.

With those pro visos in place, enjoy -

Of all the questions I get regarding my podcast, the most I get seem to revolve around my scheduled interview with the very well-known political commentator, Dave Rubin. It won't come as a surprise to many of you that when the prospect of interviewing Mr. Rubin became a real possibility, my response was marked by my signature meekness and humility. Sound-offs on all my social media and anyone within earshot was my daily routine. After the interview date came and went with nothing published, many people came up to me either in person or via email to ask me what happened. First, some background...

 I had first reached out to Dave directly after tracking down his email address on Twitter back in 2017. I can get quite obsessive when appropriately motivated and this was one such occasion. I found a tweet that he had sent several years ago with his email and enthusiastically reached out.

 Dave kindly responded within an hour thanking me for the email and said that he was on tour with Jordan Peterson. This would have been during their world tour and CC'd his assistant Helen as my point of contact. Helen had said that Dave's schedule was full but to reach out every couple of months to check in, which I did about once per quarter. If demand is high enough after this piece is published, I'm not unwilling to publish that email exchange. 

Fast forward a couple of years, Dave Rubin was just finishing up a book which has since been published, called "Burn This Book", and Helen very graciously agreed to mark me as part of Dave's promotional tour. Among the repertory of interviewers were such luminaries as Douglas Murray, Lauren Chen, Ben Shapiro, Glenn Beck and many others. I suspect most of these names will be known to you, so I was ecstatic to be in such company. Now, in addition to my blog, I also write for Laura Loomer, whom I have interviewed previously, as well as a couple online magazines, which had agreed to publish the interview. Helen had put me in touch with Rubin's publishing house, Penguin Random House. The publisher kindly sent me a free advanced copy of the book to me in preparation for our interview, which I read all the way through in about three days. For what it's worth to either Helen, Dave, or the publisher, I enjoyed the read. 

The interview was several months out, so as the date approached I wanted to check in with Helen to confirm. This would have been two days before the scheduled interview.  Helen happily confirmed an hour or so later.  All was well at this point. The day before the interview I get a very sudden and abrupt email from the publishers: "Hi Josh. Apologies for the last second notice, but we have to cancel tomorrow's interview". You can imagine the cocktail of emotions swirling within me after reading this. I think one part anger, two parts confusion and one part depression. I mean this really was a golden interview to me. Granted I have had some very high profile guests which include best-selling authors and musicians, Pulitzer prize winning journalists and several people that have had major motion pictures made about them. But, it meant so much to have a chance to speak with him as I had been following him for some time, and I thought if nothing else, we could at least bond over our mutual fondness for the late, great Christopher Hitchens.

Following this emotional bodyblow (trust me, it hurt), I reached back out to the publisher and Helen, both separately and together, in an attempt to reschedule. All in, there must have been about 5 emails sent by me. There was no response.

Now, I didn't know and still don't know why they abruptly canceled the interview. Especially after sending me an advanced copy of the book, after setting the interview date in stone, and the assistant confirming the interview two days prior. So the question has to be asked (and I have no legitimate answer), "what could have occurred between Helen confirming and the publisher canceling?".

I want to be very clear that I am as much a slave to speculation at this point as any of you are. I do have a working theory which could be way off the mark, but it's truly my best shot, given the startling lack of information at my disposal. 

The day prior to the interview, Dave was on FOX news as part of his promotional tour. If memory serves, I believe he was being interviewed by Tucker Carlson. The conversation turned to Tech censorship and shadowbanning. There was a public message that got sent out by Laura Loomer denouncing Rubin. I can't recall her exact phrasing (so take this with a grain of salt), but the crux was that Dave wasn't in a position to comment about censorship as he had never been canceled/censored. Now, I will not comment on Laura's feelings or on Dave's feelings. That's not for me to do and if either decide to make a statement about the other, they can do so on their own volition. I have no conversation for you on this point, other than to say I consider Laura a friend and hold absolutely no ill will there either; we've talked many times since.

However, my belief (again this is only speculation) was that word of that message (it was publicly made) got back to the publishers and the publishers, having already known I was a writer for Laura got scared and were expecting some kind of an ambush, and canceled the interview on the back of that presumption.

I want to reiterate one of my pro visos and say that I don't necessarily hold ill will to the publisher for doing this. If I was in their position and I have someone on a book tour and someone who I do not know other than their association with someone who denounced my client wanted an interview, I would probably cancel it also. At a minimum, I would set ground rules (which I believe we had done, by the way, in previous correspondence). My gripe comes from their non-existent responses. There is a marked lack of courtesy and general professionalism accompanying the "ghosting" of a journalist. It's the giant question mark that hangs in the air, and is thus accompanied by the miasma of my angst. As we all know misery loves company, so I figured I would share this experience with all of you.

What are your thoughts? Am I overly sensitive? Should I reach back out again? Any points anyone wants me to clarify? Should the emails be published? I would love to hear from you all.