Dave Rubin has claimed on several occasions that he is simply following the Larry King model of letting his guest speak, and listening rather than talking or debating. At face value this may seem palatable since Larry King generally did allow his guest to speak and wasn’t constantly arguing. By comparison, we had people like Bill O’Reilly who, while cordial to people on the right, would make it virtually impossible for anyone from the left to get a sentence in.
Bill O’Reilly Yelling at Barney Frank
The Difference between Larry King and Dave Rubin
Here are the crucial differences
1- Larry King did give some push back. However, his polite push back seemed like pacifism compared to what you’d see from the aggression from people like O’Reilly and Hannity.
2-Larry king wasn’t interviewing right wing crazies. I could not find an instance where Larry King interviewed any of the “Steven Crowders” of his day; O’Reilly, Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or any of these other right wing/conservative/Republican contemporaries (so, while in general he was giving little push back, it was with guests who weren’t there with a political bent). The closest I found was an interview with Dinesh D’Souza, and as you can see, King DID give some push back and did challenge D’Souza on some points. Had Larry King’s style been the same as Rubin’s, he would have not only not been challenging Dinesh D’Souza on these points, he would have been chiming in and agreeing as to how bad the left is.
Larry King Interviews Dinesh D’Souza
Now, back to Rush Limbaugh. Here is an interview where Larry King comments on Rush Limbaugh and people like him. He calls them soap box screaming idiots, and says that NPR is good radio. Below that, you can see Larry King getting into a slightly heated exchange with Michelle Bachman. Can you imagine Dave Rubin ever calling his contemporaries (Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro, Mike Cernovich) soapbox screaming idiots (which they certainly are) and saying that NPR is good radio? So no, Dave Rubin is not like Larry king.
Larry King didn’t inject his own options
The video below makes another excellent point: Larry King considered his own opinion irrelevant. Not only does Dave Rubin jump at every chance to agree as to how bad the left is, he begins his shows with a virtue signal-heavy monologue regarding PC culture, safe spaces, etc and otherwise up-playing the “good ideas” being discussed on his show (as if constantly claiming that government is bad and that the free market can solve everything is some novel new idea). Larry King didn’t do this.
